Whether you call his band Thee Oh Sees, Oh Sees, or OCS, there's no denying John Dwyer's prolific musical output. From garage bands in Providence to noise rock in San Francisco to his current jam in Los Angeles, John has been doing it his own way, including the creation of his own music label, to churn out an abundance of albums. John talks with Marc about the music he makes, Ty Segall, Mitch Hedberg, Cuba, David Bowie, Iggy Pop, rock and roll drug casualties, and what it was like to play a conc...
Nov 08, 2017•1 hr 14 min
Jenna Fischer came to Los Angeles when she was 22 with no contacts, no guidance, and no idea of what it meant to sink or swim in show business. Now with a successful acting career and a long-running role as the beloved Pam on The Office, Jenna wants aspiring actors to get the advice she never got. As she tells Marc, that's the main reason she wrote her new book, in addition to detailing some of her own true Hollywood stories. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus m...
Nov 05, 2017•1 hr 19 min
John Hammond was kid from New York with a dad in the music industry, so it's no surprise he became a recording artist. But it was a bit unexpected that he became obsessed with the Blues at an early age. As one of the premiere Blues artists of the past six decades, John tells Marc about the connections he's made along the way, from Howlin' Wolf to Bob Dylan to The Band to Cheech and Chong. Plus, the always excitable Michael Rapaport returns to the garage to talk about his new book, This Book Has ...
Nov 01, 2017•1 hr 31 min
Joy Behar was already a successful comic when she became a co-host on The View. But before she was a comic, she had already been a teacher, raised a daughter, and worked on staff at Good Morning America. Joy talks with Marc about the many chapters of her life, her new book about surviving Donald Trump's presidency, and whether or not comedy can ever be inappropriate. Plus, Marc's buddy Adam Goldberg calls in to try and crowdfund his new movie, The Hebrew Hammer vs Hitler. Sign up here for WTF+ t...
Oct 29, 2017•1 hr 20 min
Marc completely missed the era of music that writer Lizzy Goodman chronicles in her book 'Meet Me in the Bathroom: Rebirth and Rock and Roll in New York City 2001-2011.' But as Lizzy explains to Marc, that era is just one chapter in the larger New York cultural story, a story that both Lizzy and Marc found themselves rushing to be a part of after growing up in New Mexico. Plus, comedian Dana Gould stops by to talk about his new album, his TV show Stan Against Evil, and Don Rickles. Sign up here ...
Oct 25, 2017•1 hr 34 min
Actor Willem Dafoe might have had a hard time standing out while he was growing up as the seventh of eight kids. But he found a way to express himself performing in community plays, which led to the pursuit of stage acting and an embrace of the avant-garde performance world. Willem talks to Marc about his early stage work as well as his many notable films like Platoon, To Live and Die in L.A., Auto Focus, and his latest movie The Florida Project. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archiv...
Oct 22, 2017•1 hr 20 min
Bassem Youssef was a surgeon in Egypt who started doing a YouTube show from his house and eventually became the most popular television personality in his country, doing what people called "The Egyptian Daily Show." Bassem talks with Marc about using comedy as a political weapon and what happens when the government pushes back in a life threatening way. Also, Marc's old friend and co-worker Sam Seder stops by to talk about doing political news every day in the current climate. Sign up here for W...
Oct 18, 2017•1 hr 32 min
On a list of the world's funniest people, Tracey Ullman ranks pretty high. But Tracey tells Marc she doesn't consider herself a comedian or a comic, but rather a character actor. The fact that she started performing as a way to cheer up her widowed mother means she's always trying to find sympathetic notes in the characters she's creating, with an ability to mock and humanize simultaneously. Tracey and Marc talk about her TV shows, her family, The Simpsons, and her brief pop music career that le...
Oct 15, 2017•1 hr 15 min
Despite being born Brian Warner, Marilyn Manson doesn't separate his stage persona from who he is as a person. That makes for an interesting chat with Marc in the garage. Marilyn talks about his early years getting kicked out of Christian school, being beaten up for playing the triangle in the school band, and starting up a poetry night for his first taste of performing. He also talks about becoming friends with Alice Cooper, patching things up with Trent Reznor, and getting a kick out of David ...
Oct 11, 2017•1 hr 24 min
It just so happens that Jeff Bridges and Beau Bridges are both in new movies at the same time (Only the Brave and The Mountain Between Us, respectively). So it's as good a time as any to have the two brothers in the garage for separate chats. First, Beau tells Marc about being the big brother, taking a First Amendment stand, and staying busy in fickle Hollywood. Then Jeff talks about the music he makes, the path to enlightenment, and the transcendence of The Dude. Sign up here for WTF+ to get th...
Oct 08, 2017•2 hr 1 min
Marc presents a special audio version of the first chapter of Waiting for the Punch: Words to Live by from the WTF Podcast. This chapter features thirty WTF guests talking with Marc about growing up. Hear from Conan O'Brien, Sir Ian McKellen, Kevin Hart, Mel Brooks, RuPaul Charles, Jim Gaffigan, John Oliver, Maria Bamford, Paul Scheer, Norm Macdonald, Molly Shannon, John Darnielle, Ahmed Ahmed, Dave Attell, Russell Peters, Joe Mande, Ron Funches, Allie Brosh, Gillian Jacobs, The Amazing Johnatha...
Oct 04, 2017•1 hr 40 min
Elliot Gould was at the vanguard of American New Wave Cinema in the 1970s, but he tells Marc there were two enemies always working to diminish his potential: ego and vanity. On the cusp of launching a new network sitcom, 9JKL, Elliott talks about his earliest memories, his marriage to Barbra Streisand, his collaborations with Robert Altman, and his difficulties working with others, including one specific comment that Elliott believes put the breaks on his career. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the...
Oct 01, 2017•1 hr 18 min
Top Chef's Tom Colicchio discovered a passion for cooking at a young age, thanks to a book his corrections officer father found in a prison library. Even now as a celebrity chef, with restaurants around the country, Tom still marvels at the simplicity of cooking. He talks with Marc about food trends, the respectful competitiveness he has with fellow chefs, and being politically engaged around food sustainability and hunger issues. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bo...
Sep 27, 2017•1 hr 14 min
Saturday Night Live's "Resident Young Person" Pete Davidson might be the only member of the SNL cast who knew about the show exclusively through YouTube clips. Pete tells Marc how he landed the show just shortly after graduating high school, how he survived a lonely upbringing on Staten Island watching Eddie Murphy's standup concerts, and how a life-changing traumatic event in his childhood pushed him toward comedy in the first place. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekl...
Sep 24, 2017•1 hr 11 min
Television comedy impresario George Schlatter created Laugh In at the peak of cultural upheaval in 20th Century America. He tells Marc why he linked the rebellious youth movement of the '60s to a buttoned-up style firmly rooted in the history of show business, which he learned all about as manager of the legendary Sunset Strip nightclub Ciro's. George talks about getting his education from luminaries like Groucho Marx, Red Skelton, Danny Thomas, and Milton Berle, and sparking the careers of brig...
Sep 20, 2017•1 hr 27 min
Lee Daniels got his start in show business by running a nursing agency. That may seem unusual but the road to success for the producer-writer-director behind Precious, The Butler and Empire has always been unorthodox. As Lee tells Marc, the sideways nature of his path to achievement matches up with his personal life, in which he found out by phone one day that he was going to have to put the breaks on his partying and become a father to his niece and nephew. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full...
Sep 17, 2017•1 hr 2 min
Kathy Bates hammered her way into movie and pop culture history with her Oscar-winning performance in Misery. Kathy tells Marc why acting never seemed like an option when she was younger, what she learned working with colleagues like Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Tandy, Mike Nichols, and James Caan, and why after decades of work on the stage and screen she decided now was the time to do a show like Disjointed, a three-camera sitcom with a live studio audience. Plus, comedian Graham Elwood stops by to ...
Sep 13, 2017•1 hr 31 min
Ken Burns and his frequent collaborator Lynn Novick have made indelible documentaries about American life, on subjects like jazz, baseball, the Civil War, and World War II. Their latest film is a ten-part examination of the Vietnam War, and Marc talks with them about the bold storytelling choices used in the film, the decade-long process that went into making an 18-hour documentary, and the lessons learned that show we are still living in an America defined by this specific war. Sign up here for...
Sep 10, 2017•1 hr 27 min
Not every global pop superstar would feel at home in Marc's garage, but Lorde isn't your average global pop superstar. The singer-songwriter takes some time before kicking off her worldwide Melodrama tour to talk with Marc about her life in New Zealand, her frequent collaborator Jack Antonoff, and the math of making pop music. They also go down a music rabbit hole as Lorde reveals herself to be a knowledgable student of classic rock, power pop, rhythm and blues, and Phil Collins. Sign up here fo...
Sep 06, 2017•1 hr 11 min
Warren Hutcherson and Marc were getting their starts in standup around the same time. Then, as Marc recalls it, Warren was suddenly a television writer and wasn't on the standup scene anymore. Warren explains how his college-age writing was responsible for his somewhat accidental entry into comedy, which led to him running the network television gauntlet, navigating the conventions and biases of Hollywood on his way to becoming a writer and showrunner on programs like The Bernie Mac Show. Sign u...
Sep 03, 2017•1 hr 32 min
Steve Jordan is considered one of the greatest rock and roll drummers of all time. He joins Marc in the garage to talk about his years playing in the house bands for David Letterman and Saturday Night Live, which included being part of The Blues Brothers' band. Steve also shares stories of his collaborations with Neil Young, Don Henley, Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry and The Rolling Stones, which led to a prolific partnership and friendship with Keith Richards. Sign up here for WTF+ to get...
Aug 30, 2017•1 hr 29 min
Actor Jay Baruchel takes the trip down from Canada to talk with Marc about life, acting and the Great White North. Jay explains what it was like being raised in a family that was righteously engaged in politics while also beset by criminal activity and alcoholism. He also tells Marc why it's important to him to see Canadian culture reflected in film, which is one of the reasons he wrote and directed the new movie Goon: Last of the Enforcers. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives an...
Aug 27, 2017•1 hr 17 min
Marc gets the full story of how Vincent Furnier became Alice Cooper and took rock & roll into dark and unexpected territory. Alice tells Marc about the early formation of his band, how his return to Christianity helped him confront his alcoholism, and how he's remained sober for nearly 40 years. Along the way, he inspired, and was inspired by, the likes of John Lennon, Iggy Pop, Lou Reed, Frank Sinatra, Groucho Marx, Glen Campbell, and many more. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archiv...
Aug 23, 2017•1 hr 33 min
First things first: Brent Weinbach and Marc need to have a good conversation about crying. Once that's out of the way, the two of them figure out how Brent's performance-based comedy, filled with multiple characters and flights of absurdity, is connected to his pursuit of becoming a jazz musician as a teenager. It also has something to do with why Brent thinks Chico is the best Marx Brother. Also, Ms. Pat returns to the garage now that she's turned her harrowing personal stories into a new memoi...
Aug 20, 2017•1 hr 44 min
To prepare for this conversation, Marc watched one of Jennifer Jason Leigh's earliest films, Fast Times at Ridgemont High, as well as her most recent, the crime thriller Good Time. The details of what happened in between help explain why Jennifer is one of our best actors, so much so that Marc even asks her for a few acting pointers, which Jennifer is happy to provide. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podc...
Aug 16, 2017•1 hr 8 min
Kareem Abdul-Jabbar is one of the greatest basketball players ever, but he's happy if you know him as a writer, a cultural critic, an activist, a chronicler of African-American history, an actor, an ambassador, and a coin collector. Kareem and Marc talk about all those things and how life in 2017 America is similar to life when Kareem was a young man. Plus, therapist Phil Stutz returns to the garage to talk about the follow up to his enormously successful and helpful book The Tools. Sign up here...
Aug 13, 2017•1 hr 30 min
Canadian comic Mike MacDonald survived four decades in comedy, drug abuse, Sam Kinison, chronic illness, psych wards, and a liver transplant to make it to the garage. Mike takes Marc through his early days doing comedy in Canadian punk rock clubs up to his return to the road after recovering from a major organ transplant. Also, writer Jon Ronson returns, this time to talk about porn, which he explores in his new audio series The Butterfly Effect. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archiv...
Aug 09, 2017•1 hr 38 min
Keith and Kenny Lucas are identical twins and Marc is freaking out at how similar they are. Well, freaking a little bit anyway, but only at first because once the three of them get talking it's hard not to be taken with the Lucas Brothers' story. They talk about their childhoods, their philosophy-based education, their attempt to go into law, culminating with a mere two-and-a-half years in which they were apart, and it almost ruined them. Thankfully, as they tell Marc, comedy came calling. Sign ...
Aug 06, 2017•1 hr 28 min
Rory Scovel is from the South, he was born into a legacy of postal workers, and one of his first jobs was in production at a local TV station. It's all great background material for a comedy career, which is probably why Rory and Marc have such a thorough conversation about doing the job of comedy, from the grind of working on the road to the art of being a warm-up comic to the craft of making an hour-long stand-up special. Also, Maz Jobrani is back to talk about being a comedian and immigrant i...
Aug 02, 2017•1 hr 38 min
Former Vice President Al Gore has been thinking about change his whole life, whether it was the way the changing media shaped our politics or the way a changing climate altered the way we live on this planet. He talks with Marc about our current political atmosphere, the Trump administration, his regrets about the 2000 election, the progress he sees on climate issues, and the continuing fight for the environment as depicted in the documentary An Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power. Sign up here ...
Jul 30, 2017•1 hr 17 min
