Fred Armisen Quotes

You turn road-gay on the road. After about 10 days, the fellas in your band start looking really good.

Comedy is like music, and the way to make the best music is to have skilled musicians in your band.

Being in a band is like a small family. You travel together, make music, and share time with each other.

I love Tim Minchin, Bill Bailey, and Hans Teeuwen, and I'm trying to synthesise elements of theatre into my show a little bit more.

I really loved touring with my band, but it felt like we would spend a lot of time playing in empty rooms - empty clubs. We had some good successes, but it's so physically hard to load up a van and drive all day.

I've always been a fan of comedy. I've always enjoyed it. It's something I'm very passionate about; it's like lifeblood to me. I had to pursue it. I thought I had a little bit of talent, and if I could make a living at it, I would do it. It's worked out so far.

I think a comedian has a more specific job. Whereas a musician can fall into different categories, you know, of making background music or doing a soundtrack or wanting to be in a band or writing the song, or writing your own songs. And then comedy is a very black and white thing. You want to make people happy.

You don't write songs, really, when you're on tour.

That's what comedy is like: You have to force yourself out in the world because you're always one experience away from new material.

I love storytellers. When I was growing up, my inspirations were watching Eddie Murphy, Dennis Wolfberg, and Louie Anderson. These guys were great at telling stories, and I made that my own style, talking about things that happened to me and trying to make them funny.

As a stand-up, as a storyteller, as an improviser, I've done thousands of shows. They allow me to work out new material that might turn into something later. They let me keep my muscles sharp for when the rent-paying gigs do come along. They keep me sane.

A lot of people think that comedy is sort of a cop out to not wrestling seriously, but I actually would argue that comedy is much more difficult than wrestling seriously because you have to be creative in almost everything that you do if you want the comedy to make sense within the realms of pro wrestling.

I've been spending quite a bit of time writing, acting, and making films. Because I'm doing all this extra writing, acting, and creating short comedy skits with my friends in improv shows, I feel like that's really filled out my confidence on the mic.

A mimicry artiste should be spontaneous and he should be able to crack jokes on the spot.

The great thing about stand up is you get to do other things. You get to do your stand up tours but you also get to do 'Have I Got News For You.' You get to do a sitcom, but you also get to do the 'Great British Bake Off: An Extra Slice.' I'm easily bored, so I like the variety.

What I've created comedically owes a lot to my ignorance of comedy and love of making theatre stuff.

I wish I could teleport and cut out the travelling in between gigs. I want the luxury of the shows without the painful bits stuck on a tour bus.

Part of being a comic is being flexible, being versatile.

Doing comedy was liberating in a way.

It's just about being an entertainer; it's about having all those tools over the years to do all sorts: films, musicals, playing a bit of piano, running a quiz show - it just becomes part of the job.

I'm more interested in - I was going to say putting on an interesting show, but then when I think about it, it's more like putting on several interesting shows. I think I'm more interested in doing funny things than calculating how I'll best be received.

I feel passionately that we need more space on TV for sketch shows for character actors to experiment.

I write songs, but the guys play on them, they have opinions on them, and we tour together and spend all our time together.

You have to be real sharp when you're touring. I'm dull normal at home. So when I come off the road, my kids have to put up with Mom making cracks every five minutes for a couple of days.

I feel like I'm absolutely insane, and I don't think I could probably do anything else. I just love entertaining, and I feel like pretending to be people... and having that as a job is crazy.