I don’t remember where I first saw Will Weldon, but I do remember meeting him for the first time and thinking how remarkable it was that such a sweet young man could be so absolutely brutal onstage. And not brutal in a typical macho chutzpah way, but in a genuine, punching-up, I’m-glad-he’s-one-of-ours way. I didn’t see him for a while after that, but then the next time I did, we spent a gleeful conversation comparing our Wellbutrin prescriptions. I’m glad he’s one of ours.

Will recently released a new album, Fuck This Guy, and you need to put it in your ears at once. Will was gracious enough to grant this interview via the electronic mails, and we talked comedy clubs, post-marriage life, and stupid album titles. Please to enjoy.

Photo(s) by Mandee Johnson

Serial Optimist: You recorded the album at the Chatterbox bar’s weekly show in scenic Covina, CA. Why this venue? What was the upshot over doing it at somewhere like a club or what have you?

Will Weldon: The first big plus is that the Chatterbox has a crowd, and the second big plus is that they would have ME, so that pretty much sealed the deal. I’ve also been doing the show for years, and Steve, Scott, Lisa, and Julia are all so great, so I figured if I couldn’t get a good recording in a small room with a good crowd that is run incredibly professionally, then I was probably fucked no matter where I did it.

SO: Have you talked much about your divorce in your act before? How much has doing jokes about it helped any negative feelings? Do you and your ex still get along okay?

Will: We still share our terrible dog, so we get along just fine. I talked about it A LOT both in my act and in my life (everyone I ever met during that time will attest to this), and I think I was both just trying to work through it out loud, and also desperately trying to get some material out of it, so that the situation wasn’t a total net loss for me. Honestly, I really like that bit, but I am intensely annoyed that I only managed to get two and a half minutes out of seven fucking years. Like, how unprolific must I be?

SO: Do you want to do more clubs? Or do you prefer not to? Or would you prefer a nice, healthy balance?

Will: Like a lot of “alt comics” (which just means “bar comic but at bars with lots of young people in a major city”), I used to have kind of a sneering “club differences are bad” attitude about it, but really I was just being defensive and snotty because I never got booked in them, and when I did, I bombed. It was the most transparent shit ever. But I was so messy on stage for years, and they just don’t have any patience for that in a club unless your thirty minutes deep into a set that going well, and now that I’m better at adjusting my energy to what it feels like a room needs (a.k.a. I’m just better at comedy, to be infinitely less of a precious dick about it), I like performing pretty much anywhere. It’s very fun and rewarding to win a crowd over when they initially cannot possibly comprehend where you are coming from, but there’s also a lot of joy in doing a show like Meltdown or Good Heroin, where the crowds were/are so good now that I genuinely think it would be impossible to bomb on either of them (now that Meltdown is gone, Hot Tub is for sure the best indy show in the city, but that crowd still expects you to work for it a little bit).

SO: After the recording, I asked you what you were thinking of calling the album, and I want to say you were considering something like plainly No. I do remember you said you didn’t want the title to be a direct reference to any of the bits. Unless I’m mistaken, why is that exactly? And how did you settle on Fuck This Guy?

Will: My wonderful, beleaguered (by me) girlfriend/INTIMATE PARTNER pointed out to me that while calling an album simply No. is very funny, to a certain type of person anyway, it is hell when it comes to the logistics of people trying to search for it online/any kind of streaming or digital sales service. She was working in marketing at the time, so I believed her. I originally pitched Fuck This Guy to people as a joke, but as I realized the album had no distributor, so it wouldn’t be in stores, and since I can’t seem to get a late night set on shows even when a close friend and business partner was the fucking booker for the show (I got vetoed by the head writer AND an EP, so that was good for my already maimed and bloody ego), I just figured I might as well call it something I liked and felt was memorable. And the title also immediately leant itself to an idea for the cover photo, which was also taken by my girlfriend/INTIMATE PARTNER.

As for just naming an album after a joke on the album, I find it at best lazy, and at worst corny. Like, you either didn’t take the time to think of a title that kind of sums up your act, or you named it after something you hoped would be your “signature bit,” which I get from a branding standpoint (ugh), but it’s still cheesy. A rare exception is Mitch Hedberg, who I believe named his second album after a joke on the first album. THAT’S funny. 

Also, as a sidebar, I’m incredibly up my own ass lately about titles. It feels like every other TV show is just called something as vague as possible, like Co-Workers, and the marketing is just three people in their twenties, photoshopped so they look like they’re standing next to each other while they all shrug and look either dismayed, or cock one eyebrow while kind of pushing their lips out. It’s like the comedy marketing equivalent of a journalist putting TKTK in an article and then forgetting to actually fill in that blank. I’m insanely fun at parties.

SO: Does your girlfriend/INTIMATE PARTNER often weigh in on creative decisions like that? That seems like that would be really nice, to not only have someone who is supportive but is also willing and able to give notes.

Will: MY SOUL WILL BE DRIFTING IN THE MEANINGLESS VOID THAT WE ALL END UP IN POST-LIFE BEFORE I TAKE ANOTHER NOTE FROM HER unless it’s about like, design or the visual arts or one of the other things she’s more qualified to make a decision about.

SO: What is next for Mr. Will Weldon? Acting? Touring? Another album? Weeping gently? A prodigious mix of all of the above?

Will: Jimmy, Jimmy, Jimmy, I have bad news: There’s nothing next for me. I wrote a pilot for Comedy Central that didn’t end up getting made, and about fifteen minutes after I got that phone call, I realized I had been counting on that source of money…too much. Way too much. And I was so fucking depressed that I essentially stopped doing anything else because I couldn’t remember what the point of any of it was, and now I am trapped in a terrible rut with zero prospects. But it could be worse: I could be the writer and star of Alex, Inc.

SO: Life is madness. I have a good feeling you’re going to be solid though. You are too damn talented and nice to not succeed. Thanks, Will!

*Buy Fuck This Guy here, and follow Will Weldon on Twitter here and Instagram here, and watch for Alex, Inc. reruns in syndication soon.

*Go back to 2012 and enjoy our first interview with Will Weldon here. 

*Jimmy Callaway is a writer and comedian living in Los Angeles, California. Follow him on Twitter here, Instagram here, and listen to his music podcast, The Worm Turns with Jimmy Callaway here.