I've got about 27 gigs right now. I've got radio, I've got television, I've got The Washington Post.
At the end of the day, a playback singer has to depend on live shows as their source of income.
Stand up comedy can be a tough world to break into. It can take years of painful soul searching, disappointing performances, and pounding the pavement day in and day out with very little reward.
I tried to play anything people would hire me to play, because I was a musician.
Way before we got a record deal, we were playing clubs seven nights a week, three one-hour sets a night. Then we got the record deal, and we took off on the road and stayed out.
When I play in Atlantic City, I perform Tuesdays through Sundays for two weeks, and I have 91-percent attendance. No one else plays six days a week, two shows per night, and does that kind of business.
I'm just thankful for gigs.
When I was a kid, everyone wanted to be in a band - that was the path to girls, adulation, money.
When I was about 12, I had my first paying gig - 8 dollars to play rhythm guitar in a polka band. Pretty soon, I ended up playing in all the bars within driving distance of Abbott, Texas.
Nothing is worse than going home and having not played a gig.
When I started I'd fly across the country to do a gig for a hundred bucks.
Both my uncles were in bands, my grandpa was a comedian who wore clown makeup on stage.
I love to play gigs.
It's hard to say exactly when it all started or what show it was, but I started touring when I was 11. I played all over Dallas and Fort Worth, and eventually I was touring the whole state.
It is tough, every time. The ensemble is great. I would always ask Andrew, "Is this how Hollywood is? Is this how every TV show and movie is?" And he was like, "No, dude. This is not. Do not get used to this. Be thankful that this is how your first gig is."
I started off playing my own songs, just because I saw it as a means to an end almost of, 'Right, if you want to play gigs, you have to write your own songs.' I mean, they were absolutely terrible.
I had a big troupe, a big army and it was a lot of fun. And, after 10 years of that, I just decided that I wanted to travel and do special dates. I go to Las Vegas these days.
Luce blushed. "Then what kind of angel are you?" "I'm sort of in between gigs right now," Daniel said.
We got our first significant pieces of press in the 'New York Rocker' from early gigs at CBGB.
There's a lot of variety in our gigs, our records, our mixtapes, and our videos.
I tried the religion scam in Miami, so I know how hard that gig is. But, if you can get it to work, starting your own religion is a license to print money.
Obviously I still gig on my own, but I've always heard my music with a band.
People don't recognize me from gig to gig. They have no idea. But, that's really what I strive to do. I strive to stip myself down completely and build another human and become them.
No matter what the role, you're trying to do the impossible - make a living in show business.
As a stand-up comic, you have to do the road.
