A version of this was originally posted on cpluscomedy.com in 2018.
What is it like performing for the troops overseas?
Jason Salmon: Performing has been great and it’s nice to be able to use comedy to entertain men and women who are serving. The most interesting part of doing a monthlong tour though, is that it ends up having more to do with stamina and your ability to adapt. We’ve had 2AM wake up calls, 18 hour travel days, and cramped car rides through unknown countries in pitch black darkness. We’ve had sickness, and injury and definitely gotten on each others nerves, because there is no routine or pattern when you’re in a different country that speaks a different language every other day.
Comedy has been the easiest part and the audiences have also been really appreciative (which is the reason we’re here) and that is by far the most relaxing part of this tour. The challenge is being as sharp on 2 hours of sleep as you are when you can get a full night.
Had that always been a goal once you entered comedy?
Salmon: I started out as an actor, and initially tried standup as a lark, so I don’t know that I had any real goals when I started beyond just making people laugh. But I’m sure world travel and doing something as fulfilling as performing for the troops, would’ve definitely been pretty high on my list.
You did a lot of theatre. Were you able to translate the skills you learned from there to comedy? What is it like for you to drift between standup and acting for TV and stage?
Salmon: Theatre and standup seem very similar on the surface (probably because they’re both types of live stage shows) but they are actually very different. Theatre is all about grounding fiction in reality by taking a created character and imbuing him with my humanity. Comedy is almost the opposite. It’s about digging as deeply into my humanity as possible and then making that interesting enough to entertain people. In theatre it’s predefined and your job is to ground it. In standup, it’s already grounded in you and your job is to define it in ways that make people giggle.
How long had you been working on Force of Nurture?
Salmon: Technically I’ve been working on it since I wrote my first joke (which is actually on the album) 9 years ago. But in reality, I’ve probably been planning it for about a year. I had a lot of material that I was rarely doing any more and felt like I should probably record it before I started resenting it.
“Mexican Food Expert” is a good showcase of your comedy. It’s approachable; gets to the point; and toes the line between inappropriate and absurd. How long did it take you until you found your voice on stage?
Salmon: Thanks. That’s sort of what I want my comedy to be - toeing the line. The hardest part of standup for me was finding my voice. I’m sure it’s partly due to coming from the acting world where my goal had always been to find my way through somebody else’s voice. I went through a few incarnations of how I wanted to present my material and I got some good advice from other comics. But it took about 4 years of me constantly being onstage before I felt like I was just being me.
The album is fairly substantial. Not many comics would include over an hour’s worth of material. But you seem confident enough to do so! Did you ever feel the need to cut anything?
Salmon: I did. I constantly feel the need to cut things. That’s what comics do. We write everything we can think of and then we cut things, then add new things and then cut some of those. As far as jokes, I cut about a half hour of potential material because I felt like it might fit better somewhere else.
Speaking of length, the album is mostly clean (meaning there aren’t as many explicit tracks). Was making the album accessible part of your goal or was it just a coincidence?
Salmon: It’s funny you say that. My album is listed as explicit on iTunes, but I guarantee it is the cleanest explicit album you’ll ever hear. I feel like the decision to label it explicit was made by an algorithm and not a human who understands comedy.
That said, I keep things pretty clean in general. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with dirty comedy, but, it’s not really who I am. I am a pretty happy dude so my comedic voice is a reflection of that. Also I want my mom to bring her church friends when I do shows back in my hometown.