Stand-up comedian and actor Steve Byrne will perform at the Syracuse Funny Bone Comedy Club, beginning Thursday until Saturday. The Daily Orange sat down with Byrne to discuss his history and evolution as a comic.

The Daily Orange: How were you introduced to comedy?

Steve Byrne: I studied theater in college, but I was a horrible student. A bad, bad student. I went to the theater program, and I don’t think I was ever cast in one production. After college I thought, “I’ll go to New York, I’ll get some headshots taken and then I’ll just start auditioning for things.” I thought I was going to act at some point, and I have eventually, but stand-up was never in the cards for me.

I never had been to a comedy club, never intended to be a comedian. My first job out of college — my parents lived in New York City at the time — and I said, “Hey, can I crash on your couch to experience New York?” They said, “Of course.” So basically, I walked up and down Broadway my first day in New York City, and I ended up getting a job at Carolines Comedy Club, taking reservations and answering the phones.

Over the next four months, when I was working at the club, I thought, “Wow this looks like a blast, I’d like to try to see if I could do this.” So, four months later, I went up at Stand Up NY on the Upper West Side and tried it out for the first time.

The D.O.: How did you prepare for your first stand-up show?

S.B.: When you’re starting, you’re only responsible for five minutes on stage. Five minutes after having done this for 21 years seems like nothing, but when you’re starting off, it’s everything. I was wrecked. I was a nervous wreck rehearsing my sets in front of a mirror. As soon as it was over, I truly did cry because of all the stress I put upon myself to see if I could do a good job.

The D.O.: How did you first performance go?  

S.B.: Thank god my first time went really well … I know a lot of people who have said about stand-up, “I tried it once, I bombed it and never want to do it again.” Fortunately for me, mine went pretty decently, and I was hooked after that. I always say that my first time doing stand-up was like the first time I had sex: it was quick, I cried when it was over and I couldn’t wait to do it again.

The D.O.: How did the audience respond?

S.B.: They responded very well, so that’s a big part of why I had cried. I thought, “Oh my God, all that work really did pay off.”

The D.O.: How did you get into doing comedy more seriously?

S.B.: My second time on stage, there was a manager in the audience who happened to see me and gave me his card and said, “You’ve gotta call me.” So I called him, and then the next week I met up with him … I started work on the road pretty quickly within my first month or two of doing stand-up. Then I was already working on the road as an MC, just thrown into the deep end. So, I had no choice: It was sink or swim. Things happened pretty rapidly for me. Those things just don’t happen to everyone. It sounds like a fairytale, and it kind of was.  

The D.O.: How would you describe your sense of humor. How did it develop?

S.B.: I think everybody’s voice kind of changes from when you’re first starting to where I am presently. I remember somebody telling me that it takes ten years to discover your voice in comedy, and he was right — actually, I think it took me 12 years.

When I was first starting off, I was very observational, talking about things that anybody could have said. As I got older, I realized that my view on the world, being Korean and Irish, being a mixed bag of ethnicity, lent me a different perspective than most people in terms of looking at our country in general, but race in general, as well. So I think that that’s kind of shaped my voice into an almost cavelier, I just don’t give a shit if you’re offended or not kind of attitude. I think the PC pendulum has swung so far to one side that I think a lot of comedians, especially myself, are feeling like it’s our responsibility to swing it back to the other side.

The D.O.: How do you deal with the haters?

S.B.: Every comic, if you’re relevant, if you’re always working, then you should always be working on new material. The comedy club provides you almost like a safe haven to experiment. Sometimes you may push the boundaries a little too far, sometimes you try to test if you can go a little further … In terms of the relationship between a comic and an audience, most people are understanding of that. I’ve had blowback from telling certain jokes, but it’s part of the job. I know that not everybody’s going to love me, I know that there are going to be people who hate me. But I’ve been doing this long enough that I have an audience that will pay to come out and see me. So I’m fine.

The D.O.: What do you enjoy about doing stand-up?

S.B.: I’ve been on the road for the past 15 years straight. It’s a big part of my life and my career. It’s exciting: you get to go up to different cities and meet people from all over the country. And because I’m such a road comic, I really try to appease all sides of the fence because people work hard, and people want to come to a comedy club to laugh. I don’t have a real message I’m trying to drive home other than the fact that I’d like you to come out to my show and have a good time. And that’s really what my focus is in a comedy club.

The D.O.: What opportunities has doing stand-up presented to you?

S.B.: As you’re getting along with your career in comedy, other opportunities open up for you. Now, I’ve always intended to be a stand-up comedian, and maybe at some point you get a television show out of it. So I did have three years on TBS, a great bar sitcom called “Sullivan & Son,” and through that I learned about narrative and storytelling. And I directed my first documentary film about a comedian I grew up loving to watch named “The Amazing Johnathan,” and from that experience, I wrote and directed a feature film called “The Opening Act” that will be coming out sometime this spring. The film is about my early years in stand-up, about taking that first leap into pursuing that bliss and going after your dreams.

Published on November 7, 2018 at 9:32 pm