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Ramin Nazer rockets to fame with Voltron-based humor
Kristin Hillery photo
If you’ve been paying attention to Austin comedy, it won’t come as a surprise that Ramin Nazer is poised to become our next breakout standup.
After appearing in a showcase of unsigned comics in the Montreal Just for Laughs festival earlier this year, Nazer is set to tape an appearance on “The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson.”
As I said, Nazer’s success isn’t out of the blue. For the last two years, he’s been among the top three finalists in the Funniest Person In Austin Contest. Onstage, his slightly meta humor is sharp and getting sharper.
Nazer is performing at my Velveeta Room showcase at 9:30 p.m. Friday, and the rest of the weekend at the club with local favorite Jonathan Pace. I chatted with Nazer via email about Montreal and his upcoming TV appearance.
What was the Montreal festival like? Any big news to tell us?
Montreal is a really awesome city on its own. The Just for Laughs festival would be amazing by itself, too, even in a vacuum. So the combination of both the Just for Laughs festival AND Montreal is this Voltron of awesome (If Voltron were only comprised of two parts: one part city, one part stand-up comedy festival. Please print all of the above verbatim. Thank you.)
The shows were a ton of fun and I got to meet and talk to a lot of my comedy heroes. They say you should never meet your heroes cause you’ll be disappointed, but I don’t think that applies to comics, since who they are on stage is often just an exaggeration of themselves. Also, most people don’t really have standup comedy heroes. I met Craig Ferguson in an elevator. I’m going to tape for his show next month, so that’s really big news for me.
That’s awesome, how did that come about?
Bart Coleman, the booker for “The Late Late Show,” has known me for a couple of years, and a few months before I went to Montreal he asked me to submit a tape. I put something together and sent it but I didn’t get a date scheduled or anything immediately. Normally there’s a lot a lot of people scheduled to do it already and you don’t know if all your material is approved for TV, so there’s never a guarantee you get anything. I know people who’ve done Conan or Letterman and some were on the queue for years before they got on.
In Montreal, right before Craig left the elevator I told him I was talking with Bart and that I hoped to one day be on his show and he turned to his manager/assistant/guy-standing-next-to-him and said “PUT HIM ON THE SHOW!” Not so much in an angry tone, but more of a triumphant one. Like Arthur Fortune: “Dollars for Everyone!” And the manager stayed behind and took down my info and I got an email from him a couple of days later.
I actually went up to Bart right afterwards and told him the story, thinking that Craig was just being nice, and Bart goes “Nope, he’s probably serious. He’s kinda like that.” Of all the producer/manager/agency/industry people I’ve met, Bart’s really been the most helpful in a ton of ways. Very lucky to know him.
I don’t know all the details of the booking process though, I don’t know if talking to Craig sped up getting the spot on the show, I just like to think that you can get “big breaks” from just meeting someone for a couple of minutes. Let that be a lesson to you, kids. Go up to people you’ve never met before and be your annoying, awful self.
You’re on a real roll right now, comedy-wise, was there a turning point - either internally or something that was your big “break?”
I’ve gotten to do a lot of cool comedy stuff but I don’t think I’ve had any “big” breaks yet. I think you need to be in a film of some sort before it’s really considered a “big break,” and i don’t really know that much about films. What’s the opposite of buff? I’m a film weak.
Ultimately, I just want to make really good/interesting things. Being a successful famous person would be really awesome too, I would love that, but who knows how all that works. The goal is to just make stuff you like and hopefully other people will like it too. We all loved show-and-tell growing up, didn’t we? That was the best part of the school day. As you get older you’re told more and more to not like the things you like so much and just focus on success and I think that’s a trap. Just do the things you like. Some day you’ll be dead, I promise.
Thoughts on where the Austin scene is right now? I’ve noticed a big turnover since the contest - lot of new faces, especially recently.
I love seeing new faces. I think Austin has become a very welcoming town for new stand-ups. The Velveeta Room used to be this clubhouse where, if you were a new guy, you got heckled and everyone was mean to you until you earned your wings or whatever, but that’s just silliness. You’re going to be “mean” to another fully-grown human because they don’t know how to do stand-up comedy yet? College kids aren’t mean to first graders. If you’re mean to a first grader, you’re probably a first grader yourself, or maybe a second grader at most. Comics who are successful and have been doing it for a really long time are often really nice to newbies.
BUT on the other hand, picking on people can be fun and it builds their balls. Good-spirited meanness is acceptable. So basically, I have no point of view whatsoever.
How did your new podcast with Maggie Maye get started?
I’ve wanted to do one for a long time and Maggie’s a good friend who’s super laid back who can be really funny off-the-cuff. Most importantly, we just get along. I think it started just after we were ranting about something or someone while eating gummis on Kat Ramzinski(NAME DROP)’s couch and we decided to start doing a weekly podcast with no plan until figure out a good rhythm with it, like with anything else. We’ve been on a short hiatus but should have new ones up starting next week. We go on tangents and have some aimless discussions sometimes so I would advise against listening to it as the primary activity. Podcasts are generally something you have on in the background while exercising or doing other work where you need a distraction.
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