#302: Tony Deyo (Comedian) (pt. 2 of 2)

This week on the podcast is part two 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/ 

Transcript

Announcer 0:19

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 1:01

Hi Arts Entrepreneurship Podcast listeners. I'm Andy Heise and I'm Nick.

Nick Petrella 1:04

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.

Tony Deyo 1:34

Thanks, for coming on the podcast. Tony, Thanks so much for having me. This is a lot of fun.

Andy Heise 1:43

So you've performed on many stages all across the US internationally.

Tony Deyo 1:44

Have you done some international stuff? I did some shows for the military. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah. So I performed in Korea and Guam and, yeah, those were fun, but they don't technically feel like international shows. Sure, sure, sure, sure, because it's for US troops, right, yeah.

Nick Petrella 2:04

And.

Tony Deyo 2:05

I perform in Canada a few times, but that's kind of US adjacent so it doesn't feel Literally yeah.

Announcer 2:13

Yes literally.

Andy Heise 2:14

How does performing on TV differ from performing live? Is there a difference in delivery or material, or something like that?

Tony Deyo 2:23

Yeah, there are a few things that differ. We have time, right, I'll tell you.

Andy Heise 2:32

Oh yeah.

Tony Deyo 2:32

Yeah absolutely so. My first TV appearance was Conan, and at the time I was living here in New York. I honestly thought I was going to be a Letterman comedian. I just fit the stereotype. I was a guy that told those types of jokes. I wore a suit, it's just. I was meant to be on Letterman, but at the time the people that booked the stand-ups for Letterman didn't like me.

Tony Deyo 3:07

But at the time I was putting together TV sets and sending them everywhere and just out of being kind of a sort of decent businessman, I sent the clips to everybody. So I sent them to the Tonight Show and I sent it to Letterman and I sent it to Conan. Conan was as far from my mind as possible, because he used to have a lot of kind of alternative type comedians on there and they would do different things and I was like I don't really fit the mold. But I sent him, you know, like a nine minute YouTube clip anyway, and a couple of days later he's like hey, thanks for sending this, I love it. Can you go record these jokes in a row? And so I called in a favor.

Tony Deyo 3:52

I went down to Philly that weekend. There were two shows. They let me go up and record the set. The first one, I absolutely bombed terribly. And the second set. I got it and it was about maybe five minutes or there-ish. I got the recording, I sent it to him. He said I'll have you on by September and that was it. And it was such an easy process.

Tony Deyo 4:20

I thought I was being punked because my friends that did Letterman. It was such an invasive procedure, it was like surgery. They would go through your set, they would transcribe it all. They would say take out this word, take out that word. We want you to move this joke here. It was my friend ended up in the hospital from the anxiety of going on Letterman and for me, like I go do Conan, I sent two link YouTube links.

Tony Deyo 4:49

He's like, yeah, I'll have you on by September. I'm like that's not how this works. So I didn't tell anybody about it. My wife was the only one that knew, especially the friend, yeah, especially him recovering in the hospital. So I was like I'm not telling anybody until I see it on their website. So August rolls around, they booked me for a date but then they went on hiatus. So I theoretically had a date but it still wasn't on their website and they finally came back from hiatus in August and I was on the calendar and I was going to be on with Patton Oswalt and a guy named Robert Reich, who was?

Tony Deyo 5:34

the labor secretary under Bill Clinton and he was promoting a documentary about inequality in America. And so I talked to the stand-up producer because I knew Patton was going to be on first, and then this guy, and then I have to follow this. And so I told the stand-up producer I'm like, hey, man, I'm a little worried about following a little bit of a bummer of a documentary, because in comedy we do those types of shows where it will be like a charity for the Ronald McDonald House or something, and you got to go up after someone tells an awful story and they're like, and now laugh Like everyone thinks it's a good idea. You're like, I mean technically, yeah, but that's a real rough gig and I've had to do those. And this felt like it to me. I'm like, I feel like I'm going to go up and bomb after this guy depresses everybody.

Tony Deyo 6:30

So I fly out to LA, I go to the Warner Brothers set and the way the show was is they had, you know, the stage and everything, and then backstage we had all our dressing rooms and they were around a common area where all the writers sat and watched the show. And so Patton was super nice. He came into my dressing room to say hello and good luck and everything. It was so cool, I'd never met him before. And he said I can't stick around, I got to go to my daughter's thing, but I promise I'll watch tonight.

Tony Deyo 7:06

And so he left. And then he's on, and then Robert goes on the show and at that point I go into my dressing room, I put my tie on and I come out of my dressing room and that center area where everyone was sitting, where there used to be a normal amount of energy, it's dead silent. Just sucked it right out of the room and I walked out, the stand-up producer standing right next to me, who I told I was already worried about this. I didn't say a word and he goes don't worry, it's going to be fine. I was like oh, that's how I know, it's not going to be fine.

Andy Heise 7:43

It's just what you want to hear. Yeah, yeah.

Tony Deyo 7:45

So I start freaking out. I'm like I can't believe this is how it goes down. My first television appearance and I'm going to bomb because of this guy's bummer of a documentary. So when I get anxious, I start pounding water and they're like all right, we've got to bring you to your mark behind the curtain. So I keep taking water. The PA keeps taking it away from me and I keep taking it back. I'm pounding water.

Tony Deyo 8:13

So I'm standing behind the curtain on my mart and the stand-up producer had gone to talk to Conan. He's like hey, I think our comedians are a little worried about this. So Conan actually pops behind the curtain. He's like hey, man, don't worry about that, they're going to love you. I know you're funny, you're going to do a great job, I promise you. I know you're funny, you're going to do a great job, I promise you. And so he came and just gave me a pep talk, which at the time that's what I needed. I was like you know what it's going to be. What it's going to be. This train has left the station and next stop is where we end up. So they come back from the commercial. They had a band at the time, so the band plays out of the commercial.

Tony Deyo 9:01

I knew exactly what the intro was going to sound like, because they bring the cue cards to you and they show you like is this all right? I'm like that's all good. So I had already heard it in my brain a few times. And then I hear Conan read the intro. Curtain opens, I walk out. That's awesome, and I'm a little. I literally I can watch the video and I don't remember the first 40 seconds or so Because I had asked some friends of mine that had done the show.

Tony Deyo 9:31

I'm like what do I need to expect? I wanted to be as prepared as possible and a friend of mine named Nate Bargetzi, who's an enormous comedian right now, he said your first joke is not going to land the way you want it to. And he's like here's why, up until this point on the show, all of the focus has been on Conan, even when he had a guest Conan's sitting right next to him. When the comedian comes out, the audience has to shift their focus completely away from Conan and they're like who's this guy that we didn't come to see? So they're like it takes a minute for them to adjust.

Tony Deyo 10:11

So your first joke is not going to land the way you want it to, which at this point I already think every joke is going to go down in flames because everyone's already bummed out. So I walk out and I start telling my first joke and they start laughing just in the setup of the joke, like before I even got to any punchlines or anything. And what I realized very quickly in my head is they also did not come here today to be bummed out. They thought they were coming to a comedy show, so they were ready to laugh. They were like, oh, finally we can laugh again. So I ended up actually doing better than I think I should have because of my Robert Rice intro segment.

Nick Petrella 10:57

That's awesome. We'll make sure we link to that so people can see that.

Tony Deyo 11:01

Yeah, it was a long time ago now, so my comedy is actually not I feel like I've evolved as a comedian, but it was a good snapshot of who I was at the time.

Andy Heise 11:10

At the time, yeah, Well, and with this story, I think it's worth after you've heard this story, it'll be a lot more fun to watch actually if people watch it.

Tony Deyo 11:18

I will tell you one more quick story. When they wired me up with my lav mic for the show, I don't know why they didn't put it in my front pocket, they wired it around in my back pocket. And there's a moment where I go to put my hand in my pocket and I yank the lav, and luckily it didn't come off. And there's a moment where I go to put my hand in my pocket and I yank the lav, oh no, and luckily it didn't come off, because we would have had, to like, start the segment over or something.

Tony Deyo 11:44

Yeah right, but you can see my hand go into my pocket, immediately come back out and I was like well, I guess my hand doesn't go in my pocket.

Nick Petrella 11:51

For the rest of the show.

Tony Deyo 11:52

Exactly, so you can see that too. Yeah, yeah, you can see my eyes when I walk out. My eyes know I'm about to bomb, and then you can see Change your disposition. Yeah, you can see me go. Oh, this is actually going to go, okay. Maybe we'll have to link to the documentary with yeah, that shouldn't be hard to find it was. What year was it? 2013.? So, yeah, whatever Robert Reich did, no promises.

Nick Petrella 12:21

If we have time, it might be fun to put that on. You can relive the experience, get a little.

Tony Deyo 12:27

PTSD from it. Yeah, exactly what I want to do.

Nick Petrella 12:32

So you've been doing comedy for over 20 years. When you started social media, it was really in its infancy. How has that changed? How you market yourself.

Tony Deyo 12:43

It has changed a lot. I don't even know if social media existed when I started, but for sure it has changed the landscape of what we do and there have been very good things about that have come out. Like me, being able to get on television is because of YouTube, you know, because you no longer had to have the guy come watch you in a comedy club. I sent a YouTube link and that's how I got on television. So it has its good things.

Tony Deyo 13:19

Social media of the last maybe three or four years and I've talked to other comedians about this we feel like it's forcing us to put content out, maybe before it's ready, because just the churn of it. And what has happened is a lot of comics have started putting out what are called crowd work clips and it's just them talking to the audience. And that has overtaken social media to the point where there are people coming to comedy shows and if you're not asking them, hey, are you guys on a date? What do you do for a living? They're disappointed. Interesting.

Tony Deyo 14:01

It's somewhat warping the idea of what stand-up comedy is. So I've kind of refused to go down that path. I still I don't put out as much content as I probably should, but it's also because I won't put out crowd work and I don't want to put out content that's not ready. Yeah, because it takes a long time to get a joke. Perfect, sure. And you know, if I'm throwing out three jokes a week on Instagram, I'm not going to be as good of a comedian as I want to be.

Nick Petrella 14:36

No, totally yeah, Did I read? Where did I read? You post every Tuesday.

Tony Deyo 14:41

I do. Yeah, I throw up a clip every Tuesday and a lot of times. You know, even now I'm getting ready to record a new special in February. Right now I'm posting jokes that I put up two years ago. I'm kind of reposting things which I was very happy to find out. The algorithm does not punish you for that.

Andy Heise 15:04

Well, I just heard a story and I may wind up cutting this out because but I just heard a thing recently that like comedy is one of the top watched things on TikTok. Like people are going there and just watching comedy clips over and over.

Tony Deyo 15:21

Yeah.

Andy Heise 15:21

Like constantly just scrolling little and again. They're just little short clips like you're talking about.

Tony Deyo 15:29

Yeah, you have to keep them real short for everyone's attention span.

Andy Heise 15:32

Now Right, which is hard to adjust to as well, right, yeah, it totally changes the format of the types of jokes and things I would imagine. Yeah, if you let it, of course. Yeah, if you let it, yeah. So what does a day in the life look like for you these days, and how has that changed over time?

Tony Deyo 15:54

It's not changed a whole lot. Like I was talking about, I get up in the morning and I write first and I get that out of the way Great. I get up in the morning and I write first and I get that out of the way Great. And then try to work a little bit on booking. I don't have my own agent, so I still reach out to comedy clubs and try to talk them into letting me come tell jokes and after that work on some record label stuff and then go hang out with the little man.

Andy Heise 16:24

Yeah, that's great.

Tony Deyo 16:27

We all get into. Life feels like Groundhog Day, sometimes Sure, but as long as we've put together a good life, it's not that bad.

Nick Petrella 16:38

Exactly, exactly, and that expectation Do you test your Go ahead?

Andy Heise 16:41

Sorry, exactly, and that expectation. Do you test your?

Nick Petrella 16:43

go ahead. Sorry, go ahead, nick. No, I was just going to say the expectations that you're setting and it's you get into a pattern, that's all.

Tony Deyo 16:49

Yeah, yep.

Andy Heise 16:52

Do you test your material on your family?

Tony Deyo 16:54

My son loves comedy. Yeah, yeah, and he'll sit there, and luckily I'm a pretty clean comedian Right, so he'll sit there and go through my notes or whatever, and so he sometimes knows jokes before people have actually heard them. Oh, that's cool. Yeah yeah, he loves comedy. That's really cool.

Nick Petrella 17:12

You actually I was, so I really did look at a lot of your videos. You had a really funny story about how he asked you a question when something happened. What was it? Was it baseball or something? And then you said what day Was that a true story? Did he really do that?

Tony Deyo 17:31

Yeah, it's a true story. He was asking me trivia questions and he said the trivia question was when did Monday night football start? Right, and I never like my dad didn't watch sports when I was a kid, but I remembered in the back of my mind. I'm like I feel like I remember Hank Williams Jr had this song. All my Rowdy Friends Are Coming Out Tonight. That was Monday night football song and I remember it kind of from like late middle school. I was like I'm going to guess 1989. And he goes what month? And I'm like, oh, football seems to start late summer. I'm going to go August and he goes what day? And I said 27th and he goes, nope, september 21st, 1970. Man, I was two decades off. Why did you? Let me keep going? I like it when you're wrong, but that's very much a true story.

Nick Petrella 18:35

Well, I wondered that you know having kids. I could totally imagine that was true.

Tony Deyo 18:40

Yeah, he's become. And you know everyone tells you before you have have a kid, you're going to get a lot of material out of it and as comedians it makes you angry. You're like I don't need a kid to come up with material, I've been doing fine up until now, right. But the truth of it is they're right. I have gotten a lot of jokes from having a kid.

Nick Petrella 19:05

That makes it a little easier. You're doing your research at home. Yes, exactly, you also had a funny story in one of your videos about a YouTube heckler who gave you a bad review and you found out who it was and created 34 accounts to just heckle him back.

Tony Deyo 19:23

Yeah, that is also true, and that was my Conan set. I made the mistake of going and reading YouTube comments, which we all know better than that, but you still do it. And yeah, there was just one guy that I sort of remember what the Violin. Yes, he was a violin player, yeah, and I went to his YouTube page and he was a YouTuber too. I'm like, well, that's not very smart because, yeah, right, and I did. 37 is not exactly the number of youtube accounts I created, but, uh, I'll tell you this, it was more than one that I created. And what I also did is I told that story for years on the road and people would come up after the show. They're like, hey, what's that channel again?

Nick Petrella 20:19

and they would write it down it was a really, really funny story. I was actually and don't often don't laugh out loud I was laughing out loud.

Tony Deyo 20:26

Yeah, and it's funny. I had a comedian friend who is just a really nice guy and he asked me he's like, don't you feel bad having people trash this guy's YouTube page? I'm like it didn't even occur to me to feel bad he started it.

Nick Petrella 20:45

That's funny, yeah, Well, you know. So the follow-up question to that being serious, being on stage and reading reviews about your work is something every performing artist has to deal with. How do you deal with negative or even positive reviews? How do?

Tony Deyo 21:01

you deal with negative or even positive reviews. Well, for a comedian, the only review I really care about is the laugh on stage. If I'm getting laughs, I'm doing fine, and I don't really care that much about what someone writes about me after the fact. Yeah, yeah, that's good. Yeah, yeah, that's good yeah.

Andy Heise 21:29

The laugh is all we're going for. So you mentioned you do your own booking and all of those administrative things that are required to support a career in comedy. How did you learn the business side of the comedy world?

Tony Deyo 21:41

It's just kind of a necessary thing for you to pick up and you know you have a long time to do it, because when you start out as a comedian you're not good enough to get work, so you just keep. You know you're doing free shows and then you find out, oh, somebody's got a show and it pays 20 bucks to come to a spot. And then you learn a little bit that way and then as you get bigger and better, you mostly get a lot of your work in comedy from recommendations from other comedians. You know they'll tell the book or hey, this guy is good, and they'll watch you and they're like, oh yeah, he is good. That's kind of for it until you get famous. That's how it works. Yeah, and that's kind of for it Until you get famous. That's how it works.

Navigating the Comedy Industry Journey

Andy Heise 22:23

Yeah, so it's just like a necessary thing that you have to. Part of coming up in the industry is that you're learning the ins and outs of how it operates.

Tony Deyo 22:32

Yeah, exactly, and it's up to you, otherwise, most likely, nothing's going to happen.

Tony Deyo 22:36

Yeah, and you know, sometimes you'll get a manager or an agent who will kind of take you on and they'll handle a lot of that stuff. And, if I'm completely honest, I would love to have a manager or an agent who would take all of those things off my plate. I would happily give away the percentage, but I don't make enough money for that percentage to entice anyone, Unless, you know, if I was really young they'd be like ah, maybe he's famous in 10 years, but I'm almost I don't know, I don't like the word journeyman comedian. But you know, at this age and my fame level, that's probably starting to apply. Sure, yeah, but I don't want to say that in any way to sound like I don't still love what I do. I really do. I just finished up a week in Minneapolis and it was one of the greatest weeks I've ever had on the road. That's great.

Nick Petrella 23:31

Well, there are also many ways to negotiate. Maybe you can get something where you do have a manager and it's on a scale and the more you do yeah, and, as you said, when your son goes to college or wherever you're going to have more time and then it's different Kind of dive back in. Yeah, start the hustle, yeah yeah, tony, I think mentors are really important and I always tell my students to find a mentor. Did you have any mentors in the comedy space and do you mentor people who want to be comedians?

Tony Deyo 24:07

I did have a mentor. His name is Brett Leak. He was a comedian, maybe a generation or two older than me, but he was a guy that he would always help me out when I had questions. And you know he'd been on the Tonight Show and Johnny Carson was there and you know, for me that was my first introduction to stand-up was watching Johnny Carson. So anyone who was on that show to me was like, yeah, you guys did it, they did the thing I wanted but was too young to make happen. But yeah, he always helped me out. And I do agree, it's very important to have someone who will help you out, someone who's been through it before. And I don't know that I'm particularly a mentor to anyone, but I'm always, like, more than happy to ask questions, answer questions when comics ask me, and sometimes it's just by telling stories and things. You know that comedy has changed so much from when I started. You know things aren't exactly the same, but also some things never change Exactly Right change.

Andy Heise 25:22

Exactly, that's right. Yeah Well, tony, we've reached the point of the interview where we ask all of our interviewees the same three questions, and the first question is what advice would you give to others wanting to become an entrepreneur in comedy?

Tony Deyo 25:36

In comedy. Yeah, it's funny. The knee-jerk answer a lot of comedians will give is don't become a comedian.

Nick Petrella 25:44

And I won't say that.

Tony Deyo 25:46

I don't like that answer because I've had so much fun as a comedian, the the advice is that it's a long road and to look at it as a marathon and not a sprint and there's so many kind of ups and downs and especially when you're young, you're going to see other comedians get things you wanted and you don't get them. But we all, if you work, if you work really hard at it, we all get our chances. At some point the cream does rise to the top. You will get your opportunities and you getting that opportunity is someone else's oh man, I can't believe he got it, not me. So it's important to kind of what's the old phrase about you can't see the forest for the trees, or something like that Just to take a nice long look at the career and realize that it feels like a gut punch today. But if you work at it, your chance will come. I don't know if I answered that question at all. No, no, that's great.

Andy Heise 26:56

Okay.

Nick Petrella 26:59

What can we do to ensure the arts are more accessible and reaching the widest possible audience?

Tony Deyo 27:06

Oh, that's a good question. I guess we just keep doing good work, right? Yeah, If we do good work, and I mean reaching the widest audience, I guess that's what Instagram and TikTok are for now, and YouTube. But yeah, I think the important thing is just to keep doing what we do at the highest possible level we can, and that will ensure that people you know will want to do that too.

Andy Heise 27:40

Yeah, what's the best artistic or entrepreneurial business advice you've ever been given?

Tony Deyo 27:50

I think the best advice is that and I kind of learned this from my dad there's nothing that I don't think I can do. Like I've never run across anything that I thought, well, I just can't do that. That thought doesn't enter my head. The first thought is how do I do this? And it's how I taught myself to be an engineer. You know, I can do this. There's literally not a problem I've ever come across where my first thought wasn't how do I do this? And not I can't do this. And I learned that from my dad. He was great at it. He would, you know, he was a guy who fixed his own car or something and we can't really do that anymore, but he would find a solution to a problem and I hope I pass that along to my kid. And just that mindset takes you so much further in life.

Nick Petrella 28:54

Yeah Well, Tony, it's been great Love hearing your persistence and really your creative approach to building your business and your brand. Thanks for being with us.

Tony Deyo 29:05

Hey, thank you guys so much for having me. Thanks, Tony.

Announcer 29:10

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