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I think I was supposed to play jazz.

I came out to L.A. in '78 to be a musician. I didn't get into comedy until the mid-Eighties.

I was totally into jazz in my teens.

I cut myself off from the mainstream of jazz. It stood me in good stead later on, as a musician.

I had no musical or athletic ability, and I wasn't particularly good looking. Comedy was something I could do for attention.

When I first started doing my comedy act, I just desperately needed material. So I took literally everything I knew how to do on stage with me, which was juggling, magic and banjo and my little comedy routines. I always felt the audience sorta tolerated the serious musical parts while I was doing my comedy.

The radio was my big influence. Comedy came from the instinctual feel I had for language.

I sat there in awe that some guy overseas, trying to protect our interests, was using a silly comedy as a survival tool. My brain had an explosion. I was really moved by that.

Comedy was something I picked up trying to perfect my art through spoken word. I got on YouTube just to show off my poetry, and then people thought I was funny, so I ran with it.