Reese Waters: Motivated by His Fears, Validated by His Success

Comedian Reese Waters released his album The Content of My Character in November of 2011. He has appeared on various late night talk shows, standing shoulder to shoulder with the great David Letterman as well as Craig Ferguson. In 2009 New York magazine named him one of the “Ten Comedians to Watch” out for. Previously he had a job co-hosting a sports comedy show on Versus called The Daily Line where he’ll forever be remembered for a hilarious improvisational sit-down with former boxing champ Mike Tyson.

Waters spoke with AmericasComedy.Com about his journey in comedy, the highs of his career, and what drives him to keep getting better.

What were those first couple years like in S.F.? You were trying to find your voice as a comedian?

Once I got there, I was like, you know, I’m in S.F., I’m in California, I’ve always wanted to be here. I’ve finally finished school. I can finally chill out a little bit…I can actually just enjoy myself’…and that’s all I did. I never went back to work. I basically decided I was going to have fun, I was going to party. And two years later, I’m climbing out of an 18 month hangover.

Wow. So you weren’t doing a lot of stand-up?

Well there was. There was. I lived in Berkeley for six months…I was able to perform every week. There was this place called the Brainwash. There was this place in Emeryville. I definitely got around and did shows. But I just wasn’t very focused. Which was kind of the idea of going out there – was kind of being focused and finding which way to go. That part didn’t work. I think the sense of humor in the bay is a lot more experimental. It’s a lot goofier, and therefore a lot more forgiving. It was definitely good for me to experience. I think New York is not a place I would advise people to start out doing comedy. It’s not easy to move up…I feel like New York comedy has this veneer of cool. This veneer of harshness to it. Kind of like a bunch of Dave Attell clones floating around. That’s just not my persona.

That’s interesting that you brought that up. After listening to your album I was trying to figure out ‘What’s this guys persona?’ More to the goofy side you think?

You know what, my personality is goofy. Just when I’m hanging out, I’m pretty goofy and silly. But I really subscribe to this theory (from) Richard Pryor, there was a quote attributed to him where he said, ‘Most of what I say is to get the audience comfortable and feeling good so I can say the one or two things I want to say and they can accept it.’ So I talk about some serious things in my comedy, but they’re all within the guise of…they’re all dressed up really nicely so they can be consumed. Which I think is a good thing, because you want to say things in order for them to be received. If you want to make any progress.

You explain it really well. Because a lot of stuff about comedy, is people using humor to make a point, whether it’s about relationships, or society or whatever.

Yeah.

So there’s also that stereotype out there about comedians wanting people to like them. If that’s how you are I couldn’t tell from the album. Do you fit that stereotype?

Yeah…I do. I definitely do. I wish I could say no…I remember when I was very early into comedy, I was doing this open mic and I was very nervous, as I always was. And there was this guy doing an open mic and I don’t know who he was but he had some success, he did a couple TV spots or whatever. And he just had this fearlessness about him. And I remember thinking, ‘I can’t wait until I get any level of success. Because then I can lean upon that. And I don’t have to be so concerned about how each individual set goes. And I’ll be that much better.’ And that was my thought. And I didn’t realize that you find new fears. It’s like at each point I’m finding something that makes me horrified to go on stage. It’s like any (good) thing that happens, I have something to prove. Now that I’ve done Ferguson and Letterman, now I have something to prove. I want to validate those things.

Would you say that some of those fears were conquered when you won those comedy competitions?

It did. But the flip side is I find new things that I’m fearful of. It’s just like I need to show that I’m talented, and then after the competition I need to show that I deserved to win that competition.

So you sort of feel like the work you put in to win wasn’t enough to validate you? Now you have even more to prove?

Yeah. I don’t feel like doing anything and doing your job, for me, never validates having done it. Now I’m not saying that’s the way it should be. It’s very much not the way someone should live there lives, but that’s just the way I am…It’s not necessarily humility. I think it goes beyond that…some kind of deeper need for validation. I don’t know, when good things happen, I always feel I need to show that I deserved that to happen. And it’s very motivating…I can’t think of anything that will happen to me where I’ll be satisfied and will not work hard. Because at each point in time I’ve found something new to get me off my ass, and it’s mostly fear, but it is what it is.

That seems tough to be motivated by fear though, if that’s what motivates you. It seems like a tough thing to carry with you. Wouldn’t you want to be motivated by something other than fear? 

I would love to be motivated by something different. I think that’s why we read self-help books. Haha. Um, yeah, you’re totally right about that. You’re totally right.

Yeah I wasn’t necessarily trying to make a point, but comedians are very interesting and I appreciate how thoughtful you are…figuring yourself out and what drives you. 

Yeah, it comes with a lot of failure. Haha. It’s like how do I not wind up back in this ditch?

It’s interesting for you to say that it comes with a lot of failure. I mean, you got into Columbia, you’ve been on Letterman, you put out your album. But you still bring up your failures?

Yeah I’m like a football coach. As a football coach you win the game and your happy for like the night, and you get ready for the next game. But you lose a game  it just sticks with you for five or six days, until the next time you get to win. The failures always go much farther than the successes. Which is really kind of how I was raised, was to really focus on what you can do better and never be satisfied…because you’re always looking for the next thing. (That’s) what drove me to get to Columbia and graduate. And then in my mid 20′s, by the time I was in S.F. I realized that leaves no room for happiness. So I can’t actually enjoy anything. So that’s no good…I kind of had to step back from that a little bit. From time to time I look back on my career… if I never did any more standup, I could walk away and look at the stuff that I did, and say you know what – I think I can conclude I was pretty good. I think it was a good choice that I made to do standup. Which is validating, you know? They can never take away Letterman, they can never take away Ferguson or The Daily Line or “Tea with Tyson” or any of that stuff. And I’m proud of all that…I feel like I’ve done well.

Well I’m glad you brought up Tea with Tyson because I wanted to ask you, what’s the hardest part about interviewing Mike Tyson? Or what’s the scariest part? Because I’m always worried that the person interviewing Tyson is going to get punched in the face for saying the wrong thing. Haha.

To me the best comedy – and you can get away with being in your head in standup to a certain extent – but definitely with sketch or imrpov, it mostly works when your’re really present. But in order to be in the moment you can’t have any fears. you can’t be afraid of the guy you are working with and how he might react…so I’m sitting there interviewing him and I’m terrified ‘casue I dont want to piss him off and, you know, I’m trying to do comedy on top of that so it’s not like it can just be a straight interview…like I’m trying to have jokes. So I’m sitting there trying to make jokes and not piss him off..I finally at some point was just like ‘Ok, you’re just going to have to be really dry and try to do comedy without him knowing you’re doing comedy.’ And that’s how it came off.

Yeah, that’s brilliant. That’s exactly how it came off. 

I was actually with him for two and a half hours. We did – I interviewed him for about ninety minutes. And they cut it up into four and a half minutes. And I asked about getting the footage…I’m sure there’s more stuff we could do (with it).

Another cool moment you had was on the Dave Letterman show. And the thing I noticed about that was he made a joke about how you were going to be performing in Brunswick, New Jersey. And he had the crowd rolling about that. Did it throw you off right before you came out or did you just sort of go with it?

No I was not even remotely paying attention. I just wanted to get up and get my first joke in. I was so nervous – I mean I’m always nervous. A friend of mine runs a show at a cafe in Silver Lake and there’s eight people, ten people in the crowd and I’m nervous. I’m always nervous. It’s a different kind of nervous…At some point you just got to play the game. You can obsess about what might happen…At some point it just becomes useless and can almost be harmful if you’re just going to think and think and think about it. You just go to play the game. So, the waiting is definitely the hardest part.

How has the reception been from your album, and are you working on another one?

Yeah, it’s actually been very, very good. The interesting thing about recording an album is when you record it, you want to include all the best stuff you’ve been working on at the time. And the catch 22 is that jokes get better. You know? So I already have extended jokes that I have on the album and made them into a whole other beast…And I’ve been traveling around a lot basically since we recorded the album back in August. I’ve been on the road. And I’ve actually got a lot of material just writing and being in different places. So I’ve got this idea about a travel album. That’d be pretty cool.

That would be. And I read on your website that you were in Salt Lake City. I bet you could definitely draw some humor out of being there.

Oh yeah, oh yeah. Salt Lake City was hilarious. I think the place I actually wrote most about was Seattle. I got a lot of stuff out of Seattle…Canada, going to Winnipeg and Vancouver. But then South Africa, I was there for two weeks in Novemeber and I probably wrote a half hour about being there.

What was it about South Africa that got you going?

It was just very funny. Like I wasn’t prepared for how many white people that were there. And I wasn’t prepared for how many Indian people that were there. There was really neat people in District Nine…I was there for a comedy festival so they had us stay at this five-star hotel and casino and the entire staff was black Africans and everyone staying there were white English businessmen. And then you have these Americans with jeans and a t-shirt…People asking me why am I not in uniform….I talk about a lot of racial stuff just in general and to go to a place that has a lot of baggage with that, and write about that, and have people to tell me that I got it right, it’s a very big fulfilling thing to have happen.

Yeah definitely. Well I’d love to interview you again sometime…I really appreciate you taking time to do this. 

Cool same here man.

To read more about Reese Waters check out his personal website reesewaters.com. You can follow him on Twitter @ReeseWaters. His album The Content of My Character is on sale at RooftopComedy.Com.

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