It’s a widely held belief that most comedians want to be rock musicians and most rock musicians want to be comedians. Matt Stanton has both covered. He started out playing music, and today plays in a band called the Wothmores. “It’s Pop-Punk Ramones-style,” he says. Stand-up comedy though, has become his passion. Having grown-up watching Saturday Night Live, making people laugh seemed like a great way to make a living. But music seemed a more viable way to entertain people. After watching a Brain Regan comedy special though, Stanton revisited his comic aspirations. “That made me want to do stand-up again,” he says. To concentrate more on comedy he moved to Chicago, only to find the Windy City to be more of an improv town, and less of a hotbed for stand-up comedy. Returning to Cincinnati, he continued to pursue stand-up, but was also able to work with his old music buddies. While he enjoys both, he doesn’t think he’ll ever be a guitar-playing comic. “I will never do that,” he insists. “It’s two different vibes for me. I’m not a big fan of it either unless it’s done right.” His musical endeavors have occasionally caused confusion with his stand-up career. “I did a gig a few months ago,” he recalls, “and the [comedy] club grabbed a picture from my MySpace page of me playing guitar, even though I’d sent them a headshot. Afterwards everyone was like, 'Why didn’t you play any songs?’”
For the full audio of this interview and to hear a song by the Worthmores, listen to PF’s Tape Recorder Episode 24 at pfradio.podbean.com. Matt Stanton features for Tyrone Hawkins (John Bunyan MCs) at Go Bananas Thursday-Sunday.
