American comic Bill Burr is heading for the Sugar Club this Friday and the Letterman regular is definitely worth a look. We chatted to him as he boarded a flight from LA to New York about conquering Europe, his wonderfully swear-filled podcast, the perils of the middle seat on a budget airline and plenty more.

OMGEntertainment: Hey Bill, the Sugar Club date is part of a mini tour in the UK and Ireland, what prompted heading over here?
Bill Burr: Hey man, well I’m just starting out in Europe. Years ago I did the Kilkenny comedy festival and I haven’t been back since but it went really well. That was ’04 or ’05 but in the last year I’ve started making an effort to go back… it’s something I’ve always wanted to do but something that I haven’t had the opportunity to sort of open up. I did a gig in Stockholm that went great last year and now I have a nice quick tour doing London, Dublin and Glasgow so if everything goes well it’s something I’d like to do once a year…

It’s not something that US comics feel a pressure to do though, to head over to Europe, the US market is big enough surely?
Well, I think with the internet it’s kind of making it easier to do, guys just wouldn’t think of it before. But every time someone did actually go when they came back (from Europe) they’d just rave about all the stuff they get to see and do but it’s just that before the internet no one actually knew ho you were so in order to actually get over with people over there it’s a commitment.

I mean I don’t know how you did it back in the day but a buddy of mine did it in London and went for months at a time and that’s a hard thing to do if you’re single, have an apartment and bills to pay it’s not exactly easy to do that. YouTube has opened up a lot of doors…

Will it be nice to try and sell the act to a European audience for a chance?
As a comedian you have to travel… it depends on what you talk about on stage but you know, I try to sound somewhat intelligent when I’m on stage, often times it doesn’t work out but it’s very easy when you’re over here (in the US) and you’re reading the papers and you’re getting their version of how they’re looking at shows and then you go abroad and see how they’re looking at it and usually the truth is somewhere in the middle. But as far as being a comedian it’s priceless but I feel really lucky to able to go over there and make a little but of money and see Europe, that’s pretty cool. My goal is to go over there, kill and have word of mouth get out and have it be something that I do once a year to come to Ireland and Great Britain.

Your Monday Morning Podcast is gaining a lot of attention.
I actually love doing the podcasts, and to be honest I don’t really hype it up that much. It’s kind of my vacation from having to give a shit. It’s like y’know if I do a stand up comedy special I’ve got to make that it looks right and I’m saying what I want to be saying up there. If I’m auditioning for a part in a movie I gotta prepare and make sure everything is right but with that thing… I have the questions that people send in but the rest of it is off the cuff and I just have a good time with it. Some people like it, some people think it sucks but I don’t really care.

You’ve said in the past that it took you a long time to be truly comfortable onstage, is that the case with many comedians would you say?
Some people get it quicker that I did and I took ten years, some people it takes longer, some people never get it it’s just one of those things that you definitely have to work on. I used to move around a lot when I was on stage, it was nervous tension, and it wasn’t really connected to what I was saying. It was something I had to work on.

There’s always stuff to look at. I mean I just taped another special and I was watching myself back around three or four times and there’s was definitely stuff…. I mean the majority I was okay with but there was definitely stuff I wanted to work on and tighten up. But you can learn a lot by watching yourself on video but I have to admit it’s a bizarre experience and I hate doing it, you never know what the stuff in the back of your head looks like.

Do you often watch your act back on TV?
I never do it, I very rarely do it unless I’m working on new material and I want to remember how I did with certain jokes, if I’ve doing one of those five minuet slots… like I might be doing Letterman in May so I gotta put together a five minuet set and I’ll definitely watch that but this is more like… it’s weird, for me, I don’t really pay attention to what I’m doing unless it’s a special and I know that potentially a million people could see it then all of a sudden you almost get extra paranoid like ‘oh my god why did I put my hands on the mic stand right there, you can really torture yourself. But I try to keep the torture to a minimum though.

You’ve appeared on Letterman a few times but surely every new appearance has got to be a big deal? It’s a big deal but it’s also a huge potential for failure because I mean if you equate it to flying a plane it’s like flying you’re starting final approach and you don’t have a lot of altitude so you don’t have a lot of room to mess up and it’s very likely you could crash, if you screw up in a five minute set at best if you screw up right at the beginning you have four minutes and 50 seconds to try and right the shit. It’s eh… it’s definitely fun but usually you only get three weeks to put something together though this June is actually a special thing where I’ll be a bit longer, they’re actually having me spend 10 to 15 minutes on stage, to be honest with you I’m only gonna send them 10 minutes worth or material as whatever they ask for you always give them the least amount of time as it gives them less to play with and less for you to deal with.

Like if you’re doing a special and they say, ‘alright we need at least 26 minutes but do no more than 35’ you do 26 because you don’t want to give that editor an extra nine minutes to work with. There’ no telling what they’ll do to it…

(At this point Burr realised he had the middle seat in the last row of the plane). Christ. God damn it that sucks…

What’s next after the Ireland trip anyway?
(Fixes himself into his seat) Well, I wrote and shot a short film with two friends of mine Joe DeRosa and Robert Kelly, both comedians and we’re going to enter it in some short film festivals and I have a small part in a movie called Date Night with Steve Carrell and Tina Fey, don’t sneeze or you’ll miss me, I only have like eight lines. And I have a special coming out in the summer called ‘Let’s Go’ too.

Can you tell us anything more about the short movie?
Actually I can’t tell you what it’s about as it’s got a short ending. It’s basically about two guys trying to help a buddy of theirs do something underhanded.

Have a nice flight anyway
Thanks for plugging the gig man. Hopefully they have ESPN and a good movie on here.

Bill Burr plays the Sugar Club tonight (March 19), tickets available at the door.