cares not for your problems, your distractions, your pink eye-ridden housecats and mice. He came here to shred your brain into perfectly rectangular strips of mind comedy, and you’re going to let him.
The 36-year-old, Montana-bred comedian, now living and working in L.A., can do manic and considered, self- effacing and cocky, but his gloriously scattered sets fall somewhere between those extremes, hitting upon a number of voices, vaguely disturbing food references and, yes, the occasional dance move.
Credit his eclectic background: He went to school for art but got mixed up in improv comedy shortly thereafter, eventually jumping into the stand-up pool in 1999 and honing his chops in the Austin, Texas, scene before moving to the city where the “Under the Bridge” video was filmed.
Since then, the skateboarding and snowboarding-loving Fairbanks has shown up in a number of TV shows (MTV’s “The ’70s House,” Fuel’s TV’s “The Daily Habit”), high-profile stand-up spots (“Premium Blend,” “Jimmy Kimmel Live,” “Last Comic Standing”) and last year released his first album on Rooftop Comedy Records.
We caught up with Fairbanks via phone before his headlining set at Englewood’s on Thursday, Nov. 10, with local luminaries , , and Mara Wiles.
The first time I saw you perform was at the in Portland (Ore.) in April, and you absolutely killed the crowd at the Bagdad Theater. How was that experience for you?
Well, I drove on the train tracks with some kid and his tire blew as a train was coming. We were all high and I don’t smoke a lot of weed, so we ran to the after-party a few blocks away and grabbed about 25 comics and said, “There’s a guy on the train tracks and we have to get him off!” We managed to get the front of the car swiveled about 90 degrees before the cops came, and probably the only reason they didn’t have their guns drawn was because there were all these people standing around this car. So that was fun.
What was it like recording your first album (“Fairbanks!”) and how did that come about?
A little over a year ago I was approached by about it, so I tried to record it in a number of clubs where they’re already set up. One was on a night where it was motorcycle weekend, so there were a lot of mustaches and missing sleeves and hats that referenced farting, and that audience was not my group. Then I tried it at Go Bananas (in Cincinnati) where Rooftop was set up, but finally went to San Francisco where Rooftop is based, and they set up mics in the Punchline. I was really happy with that CD and it did well, even though I’m sitting on a stack of hard copies. It’s in the top ten comedy albums on Amazon, although that could just be some random guy’s personal list.
What was your first time on stage like?
I recall having luck the first couple times on stage, just kind of riffing and thinking, “I have a couple premises so I’ll just go up there and be funny.” I quickly realized like the third and fourth time when I went up and just did horribly that maybe it was a fluke that I had done well the first couple times. So I actually had a good experience the first time on stage. It was the dozen times that followed when I realized, “Oh, I need to write and be prepared.” And sometimes I do still feel that way. I kind of made an act out of things appearing to be improvised, recreating moments that were maybe organic the first time. And doing that gave me the freedom to actually improvise for real.
Do you have a joke you used to love to tell but now can’t stand?
Pretty much my entire “Premium Blend” set, which is, “Hi, I’m from Montana and here’s what it’s like to move to Texas.” It involved some yodeling, I danced around like a monkey at one point, and my closer was this long infomercial bit making fun of reenactments of people hurting their backs or trying to deal with an obsolete flashlight. Things like that.
What makes you laugh the most?
I’m afraid that a lot the times itap when I see someone get hurt, and I know that thatap awful and you’re not supposed to like things like “America’s Funniest Home Videos.” On the (Fuel TV) show we look at a lot of viral videos, sort of like “Tosh .0,” and nothing makes me laugh harder than dumb people doing bodily harm to their bodies. The last time I laughed that hard was a guy who did a front flip off a sand dune and directly onto a tree stump. All these gnarled branches hit him right in the crotch and there had to be permanent damage. But I also got some hearty laughs from “Bridesmaids.” I still enjoy the art of comedy, but also really bad slapstick stuff.
I guess that plays into my next question, which is: What’s the worst thing you’ve ever felt bad laughing at?
Family Circus cartoons. But I have a laundry list of me not enjoying things. Those are the moments I remember. What is fleeting is me laughing, or even having a good set on stage. I think I focus more on the sad moments. If your question was, “When’s the last time you cried?” that would be a 20-minute answer.
OK: When’s the last time you laughed so hard you cried?
There’s a girl on Twitter and I should know her name (later identified her as Denver’s ) and her tweet was a reference to someone giving her a cunnilingus with the enthusiasm Winnie the Pooh attacking a bucket of honey. Just the visual of Winnie the Pooh, torso-deep into a tree, made me laugh so hard.
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John Wenzel is an executive editor of and an A&E reporter for The Denver Post. He is the author of (Speck Press/Fulcrum) and maintains a of random song titles and band names.
