Comedy Podcast Pioneer Marc Maron Talks “WTF” Series and IFC’s “Maron” at Samsung SXSW 2013

URL copied to clipboard.
  • Comedy podcast pioneer Marc Maron stops by the Samsung Blogger Lounge at SXSW 2013 to talk about the process of making a WTF podcast, the upcoming Maron show on IFC, and comedians with podcasts!

    First thing’s first, is this an interview or a very public first date? It’s getting a bit flirtatious on the stage…

    Maron has truly made him mark as a pioneer of the comedy podcast world, though he approaches the subject with humility, saying, “Pioneering is a nice way to put it. I seemed to open a gate that everybody has now crammed into.”

    With the major success of his WTF podcast, Maron now has to shoo off copycats. “I’d prefer if some of them didn’t do my exact show,” he says, pointing a finger at Pete Holmes’ “You Made It Weird” podcast. “If you think about it, Pete Holmes was genius,” Maron adds, “because I don’t do a [expletive] interview where I don’t bring that guy up.”

    Some WTF episodes that have had the biggest impact on Maron contained conversations with SNL vet Norm Macdonald, Steven Wright, Mel Brooks and Louis CK, about whom Maron says, “We were able to patch up some problems in our friendship.”

    “The key is to not look at it as an interview and to look at it as a conversation and just to follow the conversation and not follow your expectations,” he says of creating authentic discussions with other comedians. “Most of the time when you’re talking to somebody with a public personality, you have a conception of who they are and if you honor that narrative, you’re not going to get much other than what they put out as a public personality. And usually you’re wrong about who they are.”

    And there’s more Maron coming in a different format, with his upcoming autobiographical IFC show, “Maron,” which premieres in May. He jokes, “Initially we thought, let’s just call it ‘Not Louis.'” Instead – and more appropriately – he slapped his own name on it.

    Subscribe to What’s Trending for the hottest interviews of SXSW 2013!

More headlines