Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast: Making Art Work
#301: Tony Deyo (Comedian) (pt. 1 of 2)
This week on the podcast is part one of our interview with NYC-based stand-up comedian, Tony Deyo. He made his late-night TV debut in 2013 on CONAN. Since then he’s had appearances on many others such as The Late Show with Craig Ferguson. His album, “Comedy Road Trip,” landed on Billboard Magazine’s comedy chart and debuted as the #1 selling stand-up album on iTunes. You won't want to miss Tony's story of persistence and the creative ways he's built his business and brand! https://www.tonydeyo.com/
Welcome to the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast. Making art work. We highlight how entrepreneurs align their artistry, passion and vision to create and pursue opportunities to capture value in the arts. The views expressed by guests on the Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily represent the views of the podcast or its hosts. The appearance of a guest on the podcast, the venture they represent or reference to any product or service does not imply an endorsement or recommendation by the podcast or its hosts. The content provided is for entertainment and informational purposes only and does not constitute business advice. Here are your hosts Andy Heise and Nick Petrella.
Andy Heise:Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and I'm Nick.
Nick Petrella:Petrella. Tony Deyo is with us today. He's a stand-up comedian who made his late-night TV debut in 2013 on Conan. Since then, he's had appearances on many other shows, such as the Late Show with Craig Ferguson. His album Comedy Road Trip landed on Billboard Magazine's comedy chart and debuted as the number one selling stand-up album on iTunes. Tony's website is in the show notes. You can read more about him, see his tour schedule and videos from his shows. Thanks for coming on the podcast, tony.
Tony Deyo:Thanks so much for having me.
Nick Petrella:This is a lot of fun. So in my research I learned that you have a varied background. That isn't in your bio. Why don't we start by having you go ahead?
Tony Deyo:It is very it's wild, the path I've taken through this life. Go ahead, yeah, go ahead. So I started my life as I was a drummer and I went to James Madison University and got a music ed degree and was just really into marching band at the time and I marched drum corps. I marched with cadets of Bergen County back in 93. Great. And then I went out to Las Vegas and got a master's degree in percussion. I went out to I was really into solo marimba and I decided I was going to go out and learn six mallet independent grip from Dean Gronemeyer. And I was there for about two weeks when I realized how unbelievably hard that was and that more than likely I was never going to master that skill. But I was like, well, I'm already here, so I guess I got to wrap up this master's degree. So I did a lot more studying of just solo marimba and all the other things you do getting a master's in percussion. And then I went down to Texas and started teaching band in Texas for a little while and I taught outside of Corpus Christi for a little while and then I moved to Austin and taught middle school there and somewhere along the way a little further back that I passed.
Tony Deyo:I started writing marching band shows, but the drill I wasn't a percussion guy.
Tony Deyo:I started writing drill and was spending a lot of my summer writing drill and in Austin I decided I wanted to try stand-up comedy and it was something I had loved since I was a kid and I kind of felt like I was at this point in life, if I didn't try it now, it's never going to happen.
Tony Deyo:You know, I call it checking off the suburban list where I was married and we had two cars and we had a dog and I was like, if I get too much further down this list, I can't take a hard right turn and decide to be a comedian. So I took a class at a comedy club and I always tell people I don't think you can learn to be a stand-up from a class, but the thing it did was at the end of the six weeks or eight weeks or whatever, you had to go up on stage and tell jokes in front of an audience. Weeks or whatever, you had to go up on stage and tell jokes in front of an audience. And that was probably going to be the hardest obstacle for me to overcome. It wasn't something I was even, you know, even though I was a musician and we're in front of audiences being a comedian, that was a real departure from my previous experience.
Announcer:It's a little different.
Tony Deyo:Yeah, that was never something I was going to just do on my own, so the class made me do that. I loved it. I started doing it a lot more and at some point I decided I could probably make my living writing drill in the summer and that would give me a bunch of months of the year to just try to be a stand-up. And that was the schedule I followed for probably 15 years before I started really making my living as a comedian. So you stopped teaching.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, at what point I stopped.
Tony Deyo:This would have been about 01 or 02. I stopped teaching and we moved back to the East Coast and about 17 years ago we moved to New York City.
Andy Heise:Yeah, that's what I was going to ask you about the move to New York City. Is that related to your pursuit of comedy?
Tony Deyo:Very much so Okay, Because I was told when I was a young comedian, your three choices in comedy are New York, LA or obscurity, and so only two of those sounded good to me. And you know I grew up on the East Coast, so New York felt better. Yeah, Gotcha.
Nick Petrella:So I would think being on stage as a musician isn't I mean, it's not too terribly different than being a comedian, but the material to me, I think, would be difficult Right.
Tony Deyo:Yes.
Nick Petrella:So how do you come up with that?
Tony Deyo:So I would say being a comedian is quite a bit different than being a musician at least the musician that we mostly are, which, especially as percussionists, we get to hide as much as anyone. You know, if you're not too tall and you're playing bass drum, no one even ever sees you. But as a solo musician maybe, so that there's some similarities there, yeah, some similarities there, yeah, but yeah, as being a comedian it's almost like being a solo composer, probably and playing only your own, only the things you've written yourself.
Tony Deyo:But yeah, the coming up with the material is probably the hardest part of it. But I do like I kind of subscribe to the Seinfeld philosophy in that I treat comedy like a job and every day I work at the writing part of it, so that you know I don't buy into the writer's block or anything. It's you sit down and you do it, and if I don't have a new idea I work on an old one, and there's always something to be improved.
Nick Petrella:And that's come up before. How many times, andy? Three or four times? Yeah, get up, do what you're doing, whether it's practice or composition or writing jokes. Yeah.
Tony Deyo:Yeah, you just get up and do the work.
Andy Heise:And along those same lines. It's easy to imagine, you know, a musician or an ensemble rehearsing a piece of music before a performance or whatever. It's easy to imagine like a visual artist painting in their studio as they're developing a new body of work. But how do you, as a comedian, how do you practice or prepare for performances, for performances.
Tony Deyo:When I was a very young comedian I would literally just pace in my room and say the joke, because I'm a fairly scripted comedian. When I go on stage I know exactly every word I want to say for an hour. I will get off track because it's a live show and sometimes someone wants to talk to you and things happen. But I go up with the intention of doing this thing that I have prepared. So when I was a young comic the most important thing for me was to get the words right, because it felt like if I wrote a good joke, it works when I tell it correctly. So I would practice that I have done it enough now that I don't have to be 100% perfect on the words. I know the idea in my head. I know how I get there, so it's not always word for word for word, but I still. I spend so much time writing the joke. It's kind of in my head already anyway when I go out yeah, so it's interesting.
Nick Petrella:So delivery is pretty important.
Tony Deyo:Yes, yeah, and I always. I credit my musical background to. I've been told over and over and over I have very good timing in comedy and I said well, that's because I was a musician and percussionist and it helps me sleep at night knowing that I have two college degrees that I absolutely do not use anymore.
Nick Petrella:Well, but I bet you are. You know, one of the things that I always tell students, especially on the percussion side, is a great performer can really sell a bad piece of work, yes, A bad composition, If you know who knows what bad is. But you get the point.
Tony Deyo:Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'd like to think I don't have any really bad jokes, right that way, you're actually very fun, and that's gonna come up later. Yeah, we know the truth of that.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, so what are the most difficult aspects of being a comedian?
Tony Deyo:For me now it's probably the travel, because there's a lot of that. The being on stage and performing for an hour is one of the greatest joys I'll ever have. I love doing it. But the getting there is, you know, and a lot of probably. I know comedians and even just performers in general will say that I don't get paid to do the thing. I get paid to go there, so I'm being paid to leave my family behind and go somewhere for a weekend or whatever, and it's. I have an 11-year-old boy now and it's those decisions get tough because I know he's only with me for a very limited amount of time. Comedy will be there forever. So often Comedy does not win that argument, sure Right.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, how do you and your family cope with being on the road so much?
Tony Deyo:Well, the first thing is, when my kid was born I dialed it way back and I've even kind of felt like I've almost been coasting a bit for about a decade. For about a decade Really just doing enough comedy that my name stays in the ethos, but not hustling nearly as much as I used to. Before my son was born, I had many, many stretches of time where I'd be on the road for, you know, eight weekends in a row and then I'd take one weekend off. And you know, we're not like rock bands where we have a show six nights a week or anything. It's still, you know, a Thursday, friday or Saturday, but you know eight of those in a row. It does start to build up. So when my son was born I did really crank it back quite a bit and now he's 11. I'm starting to kind of turn the dial just a little bit and trying to kind of re-enter the world just a little bit more, yeah, but you know, his baseball games on the weekends.
Announcer:I don't want to miss those.
Tony Deyo:So, yeah, they are tough choices.
Andy Heise:Well, and are there? So living in New York, are there opportunities through the week for you? I mean I. But again, when I think of like comedians in New York, you know, I think like the smaller comedy clubs and things like that, is that, is that part of what you do on a regular basis?
Tony Deyo:Yeah, yeah, and I don't. I don't do it nearly as much as a lot of comedians in New York. There's comedians that are out in the city every single night, but that becomes the same problem. If I've got a show at 8 o'clock, I probably should leave at about 6. I'm going to miss dinner with the kid, I'm going to not put him to bed, so it becomes the same issue in New York. But it is easier to go out and come back. So it's not quite as bad as traveling for a weekend. Right, yeah, yeah. But you do have to be careful that you don't kind of get sucked into that vacuum of doing so much in the city that you also still never see your kid, totally.
Nick Petrella:Well, I mean some of these bigger shows. I imagine they could come with you. You might be able to make a trip out of that. Have you done things like that? What do you mean by that? So if you're going someplace I don't know, a tourist destination oh, take the family with me. Exactly, yeah.
Tony Deyo:Yes, yes, we've done that a little bit when he was younger. That was easier. He didn't have so many life commitments and things. Yeah, so it was easier when he was younger. But yes, I do take him along and that's fun. I've done a few shows. I think my wife was traveling and he had to come with me and I did a big theater and he got to sit off in the wings and I could see him over there. So that was a lot of fun.
Andy Heise:Oh wow, that's cool. Yeah, many artists experience unpredictability when it comes to income, oh yeah. Bringing in money for your living expenses and things like that. How do you navigate the financial ups and downs that come with a career in comedy? Do you have any strategies that you use?
Tony Deyo:Well, I do feel like and I mentioned it a little bit I kind of cheated where a lot of comedians have to decide, all right, day job or comedy, because comedy doesn't work with a lot of other jobs, you know working late and needing, you know, maybe a Thursday, friday off. But writing Drill gave me that freedom. Being able to write Drill was the cheat code for me for comedy. I never had to make that choice between a day job and stability. Writing drill paid my bills for the whole year and what it also gave me was the freedom to do comedy. That I thought would make me a better comedian and that you know, when you're worried about paying the rent you'll go do a job for $50, even though you know it's going to be horrible and it's going to hurt your soul to do it.
Tony Deyo:I never had to do that. I'm like I know that's a terrible show. It's only going to make me depressed to go do it. I don't need the money, so I'm going to skip out on that one. So I do feel that always I've got a little bit of guilt over that. I know a lot of comedians had to suffer through those, but I didn't.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, it gives you flex time too, though, right?
Tony Deyo:Yes, Yep, Yep Gives me the flexibility and I don't do as much drill writing as I used to. Again, my son's only with me for so many more summers and I had one of those cats in the cradle moments a few years ago where my kid wanted to go play ball and I literally I'm like I got to finish writing this show. They need it. And as soon as that moment happened, I'm like I'm not writing much drill, so I write just enough that I can keep my skill set up and I love writing drill. I love marching band and music and geometry and putting shows drill. I love marching band and music and geometry and putting shows together. I still really love it, but it is a commit. Like, if you really want to do it, that's your summer, Like that's it. When you wake up in the morning, you pour coffee and you start writing drill and it's the last thing you're thinking of before you go to bed and I just I can't do that anymore, but I do love it.
Andy Heise:Yeah, who are the clients for that? Are they high schools, college bands?
Tony Deyo:Yes, mostly high schools. I still write for. Probably the client I've written for the longest is Moorhead State University, okay, and Brian Mason got me that job maybe 20 years ago. I knew Brian and Nick. You probably know Brian. I know Brian. Yeah, he and I were roommates at UNLV, oh, okay, and so I've known him a long, long time and we taught. He brought me out to Phantom Regiment and I taught there for a summer with him and some of my other buddies from UNLV and it was a phenomenal summer, yeah that's great.
Andy Heise:Yeah, well, in terms of like income, do you do any like writing or do you do? I know you've recorded some albums, yes, and of course that as a revenue stream has changed significantly over the years too. But do you do some of those related activities to comedy that that?
Tony Deyo:the comedy related activity that I do is I have a comedy record label, yeah, and so I record other comedians for albums or mostly specials. Now I'll record the audio and the. I'll tell you the story. We're on a podcast.
Andy Heise:That's right.
Announcer:That's why we're here.
Tony Deyo:I'll tell you how I got into that that album. You mentioned Comedy Road Trip. The idea I had was that comedians most of us don't just work like one type of. You have some famous comedians, they work theaters every weekend, but that's not most of us. Most of us work big rooms and small rooms and coffee shops, and and I wanted an album that showed kind of all the different things.
Tony Deyo:So I came up with this idea. It was called Comedy Road Trip 20 Jokes in 20 Cities, and I wanted every track to be from a different place, and I knew I could not afford to bring an audio engineer on the road with me. So I was like all right, I got to figure out how to do this myself. So I started listening to specials and albums and I found a Kevin Hart special that I thought sounded perfect. So I looked up the audio engineer on there and I found him online. I found his email address and I sent him an email. I was like, hey, I'm a comedian, this is the project I've got going on. Do you have any advice at all? And he was incredibly nice. He sent me this long email and he's like here are the things you need to learn how to do.
Tony Deyo:So I went down the YouTube rabbit hole of trying to learn recording and EQ and compression and all these things and I emailed him back. I'm like I learned all those things. I have 100 questions. Can I just pay you for an hour of your time? And he wouldn't take any money. But he's like this would be easier if you came over to my apartment. He lived in Brooklyn. I went there, he had a Grammy sitting on his desk for a comedy special that he had done and he spent hours with me teaching me how to do all of it, and so that was kind of how I fell backwards into learning how to record comedy and I started trying to help other comedians with it. I'm like this is, it's not really that hard, I can teach you how to do it. And one comedian was like look, I'm never going to learn this, it's not going to happen.
Tony Deyo:He's like why don't you start like a record label, so that you can just do it for other comics and then you can make some money off of it? And that's how I kind of fell backwards into being a comedy record label owner.
Andy Heise:So how many do you do the releases as well, or do you just focus on the recording side?
Tony Deyo:Okay, yeah, cool. Yeah, we've done a little over 40 albums now. We actually a buddy of mine, a comedian buddy of mine, I handle all the audio and he handles all the business stuff and we filed the LLC in March of 2020 and then immediately shut our doors for about a year. It was the worst time to start a business. But, yeah, about a year later we started recording and, yeah, we've done about 40 albums or specials. Now that's awesome.
Nick Petrella:How do you find clients? Do they just know who you are and they reach out? Yeah.
Tony Deyo:Yeah, yeah, once you know cause I've been in comedy for so long and people kind of knew that I did this for myself, I recorded and so, yeah, it's mostly just word of mouth now. Yeah.
Andy Heise:Yeah, I love that. It's it's. You had a problem. It's sort of a scratch your own itch approach to finding a new opportunity that you can apply a unique skill set to a unique clientele that you know very well. Right, you're the perfect person to help record a comedy album.
Tony Deyo:Yeah, I would never be able to justify this, but I do think I'm the second best comedy engineer. The guy that taught me is the best at it. I think I'm second best because I have the technical skillset to do it, but I'm also a comedian, so I know what laughs sound like, and so I think that's what puts me above hiring the guy that recorded Third Eye Blind and mixed their album. Sure, he doesn't know laughs.
Nick Petrella:He doesn't know what they're supposed to sound like, but I do and, just like you said, the pacing and the timing and what you're going to excerpt for marketing. Yeah, that's great.
Andy Heise:It's the same. Like you know, rarely is your Third Eye Blind example. The Third Eye Blind audio engineer probably isn't the right person to do the Chicago Symphony recording of Mahler or something right Exactly, yeah, there's different knowledge bases and skill sets that go with that.
Tony Deyo:And, to be fair, I don't know the producer from Third Eye Blind, not to throw him under the bus. It was the first name that came to my head A little obscure.
Andy Heise:Were you just jamming out to Third Eye Blind, or something?
Tony Deyo:You know what's weird. I have no idea why that popped into my head. I don't know the last time I heard of Third Eye Blind, that's what I was kind of thinking. That's good Well, why that popped into my head. I don't know the last time I heard a third eye blind too.
Nick Petrella:Right that's what I was kind of thinking.
Tony Deyo:That's good Well maybe you'll work that into a joke. Yeah, that's what comedians are good for is coming up with obscure references that people still understand.
Nick Petrella:You're not a linear thinker.
Andy Heise:No, yeah. So do you enjoy the audio engineering piece of it?
Tony Deyo:I know it can be tedious. I do the part that's tedious for me. Like I'll go out and record people too. Like I'll bring my gear and I'll record At a live set or something yeah.
Tony Deyo:We'll go to where someone's recording their special or their album and I'll set up and record. I don't love that part, especially we're recording two or three shows, the second or third show through it. I do enjoy kind of the engineering part of it, that's. You know, anytime you learn like a new skill or whatever. It's fun to do that for a little while. But you know, if I were completely honest with you, if I won the lottery tomorrow, I would give up the record label and just go be a comedian.
Tony Deyo:That's all I ever really wanted to do? Absolutely yeah. Buy a place where I could put a drum set. Yeah, drum and tell jokes. Do you still get to play? I have a drum pad here. I've got my neck patrelas right on the drum pad.
Nick Petrella:Not a paid endorsement.
Andy Heise:Not at all. I wondered how you found Tony. You know it was funny.
Tony Deyo:I had a friend who told me her kid had broke her Nick Petrella's and at the time I had some old Glenn Steele sticks sitting here, I'm like you know what I'm like?
Tony Deyo:I think I have some Nick Petrella. Let me go look, so I found them. I'm like you know what I'm like, I think I have some Nick Petrelli, let me go look, so I found them. I'm like oh, I love these sticks. I'm not giving them to her, but she had said she couldn't find them, and then I started looking and I couldn't find them, so I took a wild shot at it I emailed Nick.
Nick Petrella:I thought it was like a fishing thing.
Tony Deyo:Yeah, you know, yeah he thought I might be, yeah, some sort of scam. I'm like, no, I'm just a guy that likes your drumsticks. But when I moved to New York City I had to pack up my drum set, so I don't play that anymore, but I do keep thinking. I want to buy like a set of those Roland V-Drums and put them down here in my office. Yeah, yeah, I love those.
Andy Heise:Do you really call them Nick Petrella's?
Tony Deyo:Yeah, really, nick did you know that.
Announcer:I didn't know this I didn't know this about you.
Tony Deyo:His name is right there on it.
Andy Heise:No, I mean, I knew you had sticks, but I didn't know.
Nick Petrella:people referred to them as new matrellas, I guess Number fives, number fives or something, yeah.
Tony Deyo:Number fives. They're the greatest concert snare drum sticks ever made. Also not a paid endorsement.
Nick Petrella:I think we just found our quote for this episode.
Andy Heise:Oh yeah, that's a soundbite, oh man.
Nick Petrella:Yeah, thanks, tony.
Andy Heise:Wow, man, of course, this is great I learn something new every day.
Nick Petrella:Oh my gosh.
Andy Heise:Next question Are you blushing? I think he's blushing. No, yeah, maybe I am Next question.
Announcer:Okay, Thanks for listening. If you like this podcast, please subscribe. Visit artsentrepreneurshippodcastcom to learn more about our guest and how you can help support artists, the arts and this podcast.
