John Mayer reflected Thursday on his short-lived stand-up comedy career 10 years ago, explaining that he stopped because, frankly, he was too famous.
Joining as the surprise guest at Jason Bateman, Will Arnett and Sean Hayes’ “Smartless Live” event in Los Angeles, Mayer said he learned he was not able to make the same jokes as other comics without it becoming a major headline, citing a UTI joke as an example. Still, he’s glad he had that exploratory period.
“I didn’t do it long enough to have a go-to joke. I wanted to be observational. I wasn’t,” Mayer said with a laugh. “The thing is, and I’m glad I did stand-up, because I’ll do shows with Dave Chappelle now, and I’m not the front and center, but I understand him.”
The “Smartless” podcast hosted a live-taping presented by SiriusXM at the Avalon in Hollywood on Thursday, and Hayes brought out the singer-songwriter as the episode’s surprise guest. Co-hosts Bateman and Arnett could not hide their shock when Hayes asked Mayer about his brief tenure as a stand-up comedian at venues like the Comedy Cellar in New York City, Laugh Factory in Los Angeles.
Mayer said that he fell in love with the art form after going to watch it every night in New York. He then joked that he luckily was born without the thing in your head that convinces a person they wouldn’t be good at something. The singer added that he “didn’t quite put the time in” that it would have taken to really reach the next level of stand-up, mainly because he didn’t want to watch his tapes.
“I mean, what you’re supposed to do if you really want to do it, get your tapes, watch your tapes,” Mayer said. “And I didn’t want to watch the tapes. I didn’t. I wanted to drink just enough to watch someone do stand-up and go, ‘I can do it.’”
Bateman, who has a long history as a comedic actor in shows like “Arrested Development” and movies like “Horrible Bosses,” said that he bet Mayer realized how hard it was to do once he got up on stage. Mayer agreed that while it was hard, he enjoyed the “uphill battle of it.” But his fame was the real problem that got in the way of his burgeoning stand-up career.
“The problem was poor, sweet, beautiful Estee, who books the Comedy Cellar in New York, would get calls from People magazine the next night saying, ‘Did he go up? I heard he said this and then that,’” Mayer said. “Here’s why I can’t do stand-up, because – one of the many reasons – if I got on stage and I said, ‘So my girlfriend has another UTI,’ that ceases to be a joke about a UTI, and everyone would go, ‘Who’s the girlfriend?’”
Mayer said that the setup didn’t work since people would “get stuck in who’s who and what’s going on,” but added that it taught him about stage time. “It taught me most of your jokes were about UTIs,” Arnett quipped in response.
While he didn’t do stand-up for long, Mayer said that he loved the thrill of it. “There’s really nothing like it,” he said. “And everyone has a friend that’s told them you should do stand-up or the other way around, and when you get up there, you realize the water is choppy.”
Mayer continued: “I immediately felt how difficult it was. And this is the real problem. I’m trying to put you in my shoes … if you were to do stand-up, you might absolutely suck, but all you want to do when you get off stage is do it again. And again. There’s something about it. It’s a little kind of ‘Million Dollar Baby’ where you’re all beat up and you’re going ‘see tomorrow morning.’”
The “Smartless” episode featuring Mayer will be released exclusively to subscribers on July 24, airing first on SiriusXM Stars and then available on demand in the SiriusXM app and to SiriusXM Podcasts+ subscribers in Apple Podcasts. It will be released wide on July 31 wherever podcasts are available. You can listen to other “Smartless” episodes here.
Watch a segment from Thursday’s event below:
