-Our first guest tonight is a
Grammy-nominated comedian and actor you know from
shows like "Breaking Bad"
and "The Mandalorian" and movies like "The Heat" and
"The King of Staten Island." The vinyl release of "Bill Burr
Live From Madison Square Garden" is available at amoeba.com
September 23rd. Please welcome back to
the show Bill Burr. Bill, how are you, my friend? -What's going on? I loved that dramatic pause
after "Grammy." I got excited like,
"Wait, did I win?" "This guy is a
Grammy...nominated..." Damn it! -I wanted you to go through
that whole moment, that whole
emotional journey again. -Oh, it was great. I was there. They had the thing
sitting in front of me like they were going to hand it off
to me like a running back. "And the winner is..."
someone else. And then the guy just turns
away, and five seconds later, you're standing in the
parking lot with your suit on, wondering what the hell
just happened. -But this is very --
This is really cool. This is kind of a throw-back
to what comedy albums used to look like
way back in the '70s, sort of a big double album. And it's sort of also
a historical document for when you played
Madison Square Garden. -Yeah, I wanted to --
When I play these places that I never thought
I would play -- I made one at Carnegie Hall -- I'm doing it for me and
then just, like, big-time comedy nerds. That's why I put it on vinyl,
because I did "Paper Tiger" like four months after this. So this is sort of where
my act was, and it's, you know, a half-hour
longer, I think, than -- There's a whole side of it that's not even on
"Paper Tiger," and it was this whole chunk
that I wanted to have in "Paper Tiger"
where I was making fun of the whole "support the troops,
firemen are heroes," all of that stuff. So all of that is on there. It's just -- You know,
it's sort of a weird -- What the hell happened? Oh, when I was in London,
there was some terrorist attack, so that just put
a weird sort of -- And, for some reason, they didn't tell me
that that happened. "We don't need it to be
in his head," so the information I needed to
make it work I didn't have. So, we took it out, but it
ended up being a great thing for the special because,
you know, I think people
just sitting down -- Like, on Netflix,
there's so much stuff to watch, you kind of want to
get in and get out. So -- But this is the long, you
know, if you're at home, you're on drugs, you know, you've got to cut up whatever
you're cutting up, I've got the vinyl album
there for you. Old school --
put on your headphones. -I love it. You -- I'm wondering,
after you play one of these historic spaces like
Madison Square Garden, does it make it harder
to go to smaller venues or is it exactly exciting
as that was before, too? -No, I like doing that
as, like, a -- I like going back into
the trenches. Like, I have never been
a person like, after you do the big thing,
you then have to go to the club in like the three S.U.V.s,
and then people have to make sure it's okay
for you to be -- You just make this big thing. You just make this big thing
so everybody is looking, and they say, "See? This is what happens.
I can't go anywhere." It's like, "Well,
if you would just walk in, no one would care." So, I am -- After I listen to
my own stupid voice for an hour or hour and a half,
I go the exact opposite. I like a dive bar. Back when I used to booze,
I would go to, like, a dive bar. I remember doing The Beacon and I didn't even really have
an after party. We just found
the nearest dive bar, and I remember some woman
there was going like, "This isn't what, like,
an after party should be. Like, you just played
that place. This should be,
like, nicer and everything." It's like, "Why?
What's wrong with this place?" I hate those places --
when I was drinking -- that it took forever
to get a drink. And if you're a guy,
they just didn't give a [bleep] I used to have to
send my wife up. I'm like, "You know,
you're good-looking. Go up. They'll talk to you. Maybe he thinks he's going to
bang you or something, and maybe I can get a beer. So, I like the --
I like those bars back -- Oh, man, I miss drinking. [ Laughter ] I used to love day drinking. -Should we change the
subject before you get too far down
this road of missing it? -No, no. I just remember
how hard it was to quit. I'm not going to go back. But I'll tell you,
every once in a while, I'll just see a bar
that I would have gone into. -Yeah. -And I used to love
going in during the day with the pro drinkers, you know? And you'd come
walking in, and they'd -- You know, they'd just give
you that glance. And then, when you
weren't loud and you sat down and you ordered a man's drink --
you know what I mean? -- and then you just -- then they
knew that you had your drink and you were just going to
stare down at the bar and think about your regrets
and not disturb anybody. It was like -- Like, day
drinking by yourself, you know, as much as they say,
"Don't do it," is one of the big thrills
I had as an adult. -Yeah, I love that,
like, soft wood where people could carve their
misery in for the next person, you know, just, like,
half a message of sadness that then you,
when you had your drink, could look down and
realize you're not alone. -Yeah, the creepy, like, playful
flirting the older drunks were doing with
the younger waitress, and watching her knowing
how to play it perfectly so she'd still get tips. I mean, yeah,
it was a lot of fun. -You're doing a signing of this
at Amoeba in L.A. Will this be a situation where
you will ask your fans to wear a mask when they come in and will you refuse
the unmasked? -I will definitely be
wearing a mask, but I'm at the point now,
I don't care anymore. -Mm-hmm.
-I don't care. I don't care if you think
the world's flat. I don't care what you think. Just do whatever the hell
you're going to do. I hope the virus gets deadlier and I want it to just
wipe out way more people. -Yeah.
-That's what I'm going for. Because, you know, we tried -- I think we all tried to pull
in the same direction. It's not going to happen.
-Right. -And we're all sort of broken up into these pods on the Internet where people just want to hear
what they want to hear. So, I mean, go ahead. You know, go take
alligator plaque medicine, whatever the hell you're into. I don't -- Maybe it works.
I don't know. I don't care. I'm just... -You know, you have always had
the position that we are -- we have a population issue
in this world. Like, you believe we have
too many people. So I guess every time
you see one of this, this is both --
this is an opportunity -- -People are blaming
red ties and blue ties for this whole thing,
and that's not -- You should blame God
and modern medicine, because God made people flawed, and modern medicine kept
them all alive. Defeated Mother Nature. That's why there's 8 billion mouth-breathing
morons on the planet, myself included. I should have died of an
appendicitis in 1980 under a stack of wool blankets
and people rubbing garlic on my forehead or whatever the
hell they used to do. But, instead,
they kept me alive, so now you have to
listen to my ignorance. It's a plague. There's a plague of people
like me. So, I think
it's great that people are going to go old school and
not listen to doctors and, you know,
go back to doing dances or whatever the hell
they're going to do. -We need more healthcare dances. We've lost that.
-Yeah. Let's go. Go back -- Whatever the hell
you want to do. I don't -- I cared right up
until when the vaccine came out, and people are still like,
"I'm not taking it." Then I was just like, "Alright, well,
then I don't care anymore." -Yeah.
-I'm not rooting for them. -I agree with you 100%. I was so excited to get it, and I couldn't believe that was
not shared by everybody. You go out --
-I get it. I mean, listen, you know, Big Pharmaceutical hasn't
exactly -- I mean, they also created,
like, you know, the opioid epidemic,
and people have lost their kids and they're not
held accountable at all. Are they, Seth Meyers?
-They are not. -They are not, but if you tell
the wrong joke in a strip mall, oh, my God,
you lose your career. It's so stupid. The stuff that people
are paying attention to -- I had a buddy of mine
last year freaked out because they made
Mr. Potato Head nonbinary. He's like, "You can't say
Mr. Potato Head anymore." It's like, "You can.
You just did." And they don't care about people
that want to transition. This is a marketing ploy,
alright? There's 24 hours of free porn. You can ride around on a Segway with the
virtual-reality glasses. These guys are selling
a plastic potato you stick things into. They're rebranding. "What should we do?
Should we make it gay?" Give it a rainbow ass[bleep] I don't -- just get him
out of here! That's what they were doing. The most offensive thing
about Mr. Potato Head should be that it's
still made out of plastic and it's going to be
floating in the ocean for a thousand years after you're dead
and done playing with it. That's not what it is. "Did you hear what he said about
gay plastic potatoes? Is this the America we
want to live in?" Meanwhile, there's synthetic
heroin killing people. Not important. -Hey, I have been a huge fan
of your stand-up forever, but I also feel like I was a
real early supporter of Bill Burr the actor. I think you're fantastic
in everything. You were just in
this great new show, "Reservation Dogs,"
where you're fantastic in that. And "F is for Family"
is back for another season. What is this going to be? Season 4 or 5? -This is 5.
This is the final one. -Mm-hmm. -I'm not allowed to say
when it comes out or else the Netflix Algorithm
Police come after me. They know exactly
when to announce it. So I can't tell you. But it's going to be
coming out hopefully soon. And then "Reservation Dogs"
was this amazing just -- I got the script for
the episode, and just beautiful writing,
the story, the whole thing, and what they
were talking about. And then I went down there,
and it was -- You know, they were just
really, really cool. I had a great, great, great
time working with everybody down there, and I'm excited
that the show is doing so well. I believe it got picked up for
a second season by the time, like, the second
episode came out, which is -- -And what a cool young cast,
man, of young actors. -Yeah, yeah. There's -- Who'd I --
Devery Jacobs. I did most of my scenes
with her, and then -- I get all the names -- Kirk Fox,
another stand-up comedian, plays the junkyard owner. Tazbah Chavez, Sterlin Harjo. I know I'm going to
forget a few other people, but, like, they just --
You know, I think Sterlin was -- He came on my podcast. He's from, like, the
independent-film world, so has a really, really
strong background in just sort of doing things
that you want to do, as opposed to things
that will make money. I just think, like,
this just felt like people were doing this because they
were really connected to it. And I've been
really lucky in my career. I don't know if you've noticed. I have paratrooped into some of
the best stuff out there. I never created it.
It wasn't my idea. I didn't write it. But I come in for like
half an episode, rub up against it, and people
think I know what I'm doing. But it's not me. It's been everybody -- all the Vince Gilligan-type
people out there. -Well, you have been a perfect
fit in every one of them, and it is always just
a delight to have you here. Thanks so much, Bill. -Alright, Seth.
Thank you, buddy. -Of course. The vinyl release of "Bill Burr Live From
Madison Square Garden" is available at amoeba.com
on September 23rd.
The goods start at 5:12…
Good ole Billy Red Nuts laying down the thoughts most of us have.
I like Bill Burr
Thanks for posting this. Bill is a national treasure.
Can’t get enough of this funny mofo funny🙏
I’m always worried that Bill Burr is just going to tip over to right wing stupidness, but he so far always surprises me.
I get to see him on the 30th! I’m so glad he’s on the side of sense.