It's hard to say exactly when it all started or what show it was, but I started touring when I was 11. I played all over Dallas and Fort Worth, and eventually I was touring the whole state.
I was a Ukrainian folk dancer in my teens, and I toured the country in 1991, shortly before the break-up of the Soviet Union.
My favorite venues are the 2,000 seat theaters, like the Warfield. If there was a Warfield in every city, I would play it. That's all I would do. I love venues like that.
Florida is a crazy place, and I have played some of the wildest shows of my life here.
In my career, all my most important breaks have come from Edinburgh. Winning awards, being reviewed, bagging my BBCR4 series and the chance to tour has all come from Edinburgh, which begs the question, why the hell have I left it so long to come back?
The tour is like our bread and butter. You don't really get to experience the band unless you see us live.
I always want to be touring.
We did like 12 shows, then we did the entire Ozzfest with the first half completely booked; then we did the second half with a couple days off here and there.
To play today in London, next week in Madrid and the week after that in Warsaw is a bit better than playing Newark and Baltimore and Philadelphia. I've been doing that for 20 years.
I could see myself being on a TV show, but I think touring is something I'll always do.
If I were to just focus on stand-up, I could actually, paradoxically enough, be home way more, because I would leave on a Friday, go do a couple theaters Friday, Saturday, maybe Sunday, come home.
The fact that I tour religiously in the spring, religiously in the fall, and do 125 shows - you can set your watch to that. And you could have set your watch to that in 2000 or 1999, and you can set your watch to it in 2012.
I don't consider myself at the kind of stature of somebody who can play five cities on a tour, and that's it. I go where I'm wanted, and I've always had the rural areas of the country. We've always gone there, since the Carolina Chocolate Drops. There's a fan base that's there, and if I can afford to do it, I do it.
I did about a 100 concerts this year. All over the United States. We're cutting back next year to about 40. We generate money for an organization called Mercy Corps.
There was a time I'd do 300 shows a year.
Flair and I would work with one another sometimes seven nights a week, and with four weeks in a month, we had to keep changing up the matches with fans following the circuit every night. It would always test me and Ric to do something different.
I'm quite grateful to the BBC. They helped me back onto the touring circuit.
