What Music Taught Me About Comedy

Timing is everything. In music, you learn this literally. You're playing with other people and you have to be perfectly in sync; being slightly behind or in front of the beat can make the whole thing fall apart. You probably knew this from watching Whiplash though. Comedy works the same way. A joke that lands is often just a joke with better timing than the one that doesn't. I spent years counting beats, and it turns out I was just training for the stage. One of the things about playing by yourself, or with yourself, is you also get to make your own rhythm.

You have to rehearse to be spontaneous. The best moments on stage—in both music and comedy—feel effortless. They aren't. They are the result of doing the same thing over and over until it becomes second nature. Even the notion of improv and spontaneity requires practice and training. It takes years of going up and saying I’m not going to tell one joke for a minute, or two minutes, or ten, and forcing yourself to rely on your instincts. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, but overall it builds the skill.

Bombing is just a bad show. Every musician has played a set that died. The crowd wasn't there, the energy was off, and nothing connected. You pack up your gear, go home, and come back next week. Comedy is no different. A bad set isn't a referendum on your worth as a human being—it's just Tuesday, it can be a poorly timed check drop, a heckler who really gets to you that night. The skill is learning to work with the obstruction, moving through it or around it, but even still sometimes you have to try new raw material. And sometimes the stuff that won’t make it to your act just bombs, and it has to, several times so you know to abandon it.   

The crowd tells you everything. In a band, you learn to feel a room—when they're with you, when you're losing them, or when you need to speed up, slow down, or just shut up and play the song they actually want to hear. That instinct is the most valuable thing I brought from music into comedy. You can't fake a room; you have to listen to it. It’s all energy, we feed off energy, we also provide the energy, so it’s about making the stage your own, cultivating your craft through your energy, and knowing how to dial it in.

These days, I'm a working stand-up comedian. I still love music, and I think about those years in bands more than I probably should. But every time I walk up to a mic, I'm carrying all of it with me: the late nights, the bad gigs, and those rare moments where something clicked and the room was suddenly, completely yours.

Turns out, I was always performing. I just had to find the right instrument. Plus, I still carry my guitar to all my gigs, so I get to play a little anyway.”

The Story

Part one : There's a version of my life where I'm still hauling a guitar into a van at midnight, arguing about setlists and splitting a $47 bar tab four ways. That version of me would be shocked to know I ended up doing stand-up comedy—and probably a little relieved, too.

The truth is, the stage was always the destination; I just took the scenic route to get there.

I started playing in bands when I was 15, mostly because I had aspirational dreams of being the next Slash or Jimmy Page. I thought it was cool, and I genuinely loved the music. We called ourselves Black Horse, which tells you everything you need to know about where our heads were at.

We played all over Chicagoland—bars, basements, and the occasional actual stage if we were lucky. The crowds ranged from "enthusiastic" to "three people and a bartender who was clearly annoyed." But here's the thing about playing to a room that doesn't care: you learn really fast how to make them care. Or, at least, how to survive when they don't. That was my first exposure to the mechanics of stand-up.

There's a specific kind of humility that comes from being in a band. You rehearse for weeks, you think you're ready, and then you get up there and something goes wrong. A string breaks, someone misses a cue, or the sound guy hates you for reasons you'll never fully understand. You have to just keep going. That skill? Turns out it's incredibly useful in both comedy and life.

After years of bouncing around bands, I found myself in a traditional Brazilian Bossa Nova group, traveling the country in a van with dancers, percussionists, and trumpet players.

I started noticing during the constant repetition that the parts of our shows I looked forward to most weren't the songs. It was the in-between stuff—the banter and the accidental moments. One time I said something off the cuff and the whole room laughed, and I thought, "Oh. That's the thing." After getting burned one too many times by unnecessarily big egos and band nonsense, I quit and decided to take a break. It would be two years before I truly discerned what comedy could be for me.

Comedy and music aren't as different as people think. Both are about timing. Both are about reading a room. Both require you to stand in front of strangers and ask them to feel something. The main difference is that in comedy, if a joke doesn't land, there's no guitar riff to hide behind.

What Moving to Nepal at 20 Actually Taught Me

I was 20 years old when I moved to Nepal. I had no plan, no itinerary, and barely any money. Armed only with a bag, a one-way ticket, and the kind of confidence that only exists for a 20-year-old with a minimally developed frontal lobe, I thought I could handle anything.

People always ask why, and honestly?

I was fascinated with developing nations. I had seen poverty in the U.S. and experienced so much happiness amidst it. My thought was that people in a third-world country must possess immense wisdom and an amazing outlook. I also simply wanted to see the extent of global hardship. I found answers to all my curiosities; as it turns out, I was right. I encountered immense wisdom, beautiful spirits, and heart-crushing poverty that should honestly have been called slavery.

Here’s what I actually came back with:

I developed a completely different relationship with patience. Nepal runs on its own clock; things happen when they happen. You either make peace with that or spend every day furious—and being furious is exhausting. The lack of schedules gave me an entirely different perspective on time, making life move both quickly and joyously. In happy moments, hours would pass like minutes, and the days began to blend together. Life became an adventure, with a 24-hour clock that reset every morning.

I gained a deep respect for personal struggles. You never know what someone deals with behind closed doors. The most joyous people I saw every day would often invite me back to their homes for tea, where I would witness heart-crushing circumstances.

One thing I’ll never forget came from the Sherpas. I’d ask if they ever found their jobs difficult—men ranging from 14 to 70 years old strapping over 200 kilos to a band around their foreheads, trekking alongside tourists who bragged about climbing Everest with oxygen tanks while the locals crushed the trail in flip-flops while smoking cigarettes. They’d say, "We don’t have a word for difficulty; it’s just our day."

I formed an extremely strong opinion about dal bhat. It’s a rice and lentil dish I ate twice a day, every single day, and I fully understand the hype. I still think about it. I enjoyed it best with chicken, goat, or gundruk (the Nepali national vegetable).

Then there was the guitar. Having plenty of time and zero distractions allowed me to truly sit with music instead of just playing it. Something shifted; I stopped just playing chords and started letting music flow through my emotions, focusing more on "vibes."

Finally, I learned enough Nepali to get a job, negotiate an apartment, and even delve into the Southeast Asian gambling scene (where I unfortunately lost a big toe in Kathmandu). When I returned home during the housing market crash, I couldn’t find work anywhere—I even spent six weeks as a day laborer at Home Depot until that dried up, too. However, I was able to walk into a local Nepali restaurant, tell the owner I’d lived in his country, and land a job making two dollars an hour plus free buffet leftovers. It was exactly what I needed. Ujwhal Adhikari delivered—thanks, man! It was the best job I ever had. Zero notes.

Would I recommend moving abroad at 20 with no plan? It depends on the person. If you learn by doing, sometimes the most useful move is throwing yourself somewhere completely unfamiliar to see what sticks.

Spring makes me want to go somewhere. Maybe not a one-way ticket this time though.

– ​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ Brad

A Definitive Ranking of Every Job I've Had Before This One

People always ask what comedians did before comedy. In my case, the answer is many things, none of them particularly well. Here is an honest ranking of every job I held that wasn't a "comedian, actor, filmmaker, or musician," from the ones I'd rather forget to the ones that I may have actually enjoyed.

7. Chipotle - My stint at Chipotle was brief. I was very poor and got fired for eating too many burritos and giving extras or waste burritos to my friends. Honestly, I considered myself more of a Robin Hood of Chipotle; loss prevention disagreed, hence my short stint.

6. Holiday Inn - I was a van driver at the Holiday Inn for years while living in Minneapolis and playing in bands. I loved it; I first learned here that I had the "gift of gab." I'd recommend restaurants and bars, tell jokes, and drive people around to make tips. I used to get tips for cracking people up—one of my very first comedy gigs.

5. Front Desk at Jewish Community Center - This was my high school job; I would sit at the front desk after school and on weekends. I'd answer the phone, help people find things, and deal with angry naked Russians when the steam room was broken.

4. Maharaja’s Head Shop - This was very brief. The owner was insane, and I lasted only three hours. He started fining employees for speaking to each other, so after an hour, he tried to tell me I owed him money. I left immediately.

3. Filmmaker - I still do this to this day. I love films, and I love creating things. I’ve created 11 short films—most of them mockumentaries, deriving a ton of inspiration from Fred Armisen and Bill Hader’s Documentary Now. I’ve been involved in over 47 film festivals, placed in 27, and have even attended prestigious festivals like Austin, LA International, and Cannes.

2. Day Laborer - When I was 19 and very broke during the recession, I could not get a job. A friend told me I could hang out in front of Home Depot and people would pay me daily for work. I did not fully know what he meant, but I went anyway. Apparently, me speaking English was huge; I was thrown into a pickup truck with a group of Hispanic laborers and told to translate job site initiatives to my colleagues. Spoiler alert: I don’t speak any Spanish. I was able to fake it for about six weeks since my colleagues were absolute pros and just got to work after my broken Spanish translations. I was eventually found out by a guy who spoke fluent Spanish, but hey, we hustled our way to buy food for a few weeks and made some good friends. I still talk to Miguel to this day.

1. Nepali Restaurant - At 20, I moved to Nepal. Upon my return, I could not get a job anywhere. Finally, as a last-ditch effort, I went into a Nepali restaurant and said, "I just got back from your country, I speak the language, I love the food, and I desperately need a job." My mentor for many years, Ujwal Adhikari, told me to show up Tuesday. I made $2 an hour but kept my tips and got to take home the buffet leftovers every day; to this day, it was the greatest job I ever had. Ujwal taught me so much about food, cooking, life, and spirituality. The lessons I learned there were invaluable; he would often tell me, "You come to me a rock; I’ll make you a diamond." I haven’t kept in touch like I should, but he truly was a great man.