RALEIGH, N.C. — His soothing voice, delightful laugh and positive energy are reasons enough to be a Ron Funches fan.
If that somehow doesn’t impress you, perhaps you’ll be swayed by the fact that Funches is also a talented, hardworking, hilarious stand-up comedian as well as an in-demand actor and voice-over specialist.
Still not convinced you should join Team Funches? Consider this: He credits his mother for his sense of humor and loves it when she comes to his shows. Funches, who headlines Goodnights Comedy Club in Raleigh this week, even enjoys having mom get in on the act sometimes.
That happened when I saw Funches perform at Goodnights in 2017, and as Funches and I discussed during a Wednesday afternoon phone interview, it made an already great show even better.
In addition to describing his mom’s comedic abilities, Funches and I talked about his process for producing new material, finding positives in potentially negative situations and much more.
Tony Castleberry: When I saw you at Goodnights in 2017, your mom was in the audience. Was that the first time she saw you do stand-up?
Ron Funches: No, no. My mom, she didn’t go to open mics or anything but when I have shows in Chicago or Atlanta or in North Carolina -- she was living in Greensboro at the time -- she would just always make a trip out. She’s a big ham. She has her own fan base.
TC: [laughs] A friend of mine, her parents came to see her do stand-up for the first time recently. I asked her if she was nervous about it and she said she wasn’t. Were you nervous the first time your mom saw you?
RF: There’s nerves anytime I perform for any audience. I always wanna do well, do my best. I find that when my mom’s in the audience, you think it would make you wanna be cleaner or not curse as much but it kind of makes me wanna do the opposite. I end up going harder and cursing more and it usually ends up going better.
TC: After you got your mom involved (at Goodnights), it felt like it took the show to another level.
RF: Always, she always helps me out, whenever she’s in the crowd, whenever she comes to a show. She’s where I get my humor from. I love working with her.
TC: What are your thoughts on new material? Some comics, I think, feel almost obligated to do a new hour every year. Is that your goal or do you just let it come naturally?
RF: It’s kind of in the middle. You want to be constantly working toward something and writing. I just like to always put myself on stage, like I consider that the gym, where you have to put in your hours. You have to go a certain amount of days a week so that you maintain your skills but as far as cranking out a new hour every year, I think that’s kind of a trap the industry has put forth to make you lower your value. It might be good in the short term and it can probably help people pop off (more quickly) but I think in a lot of ways, it makes you cannibalize your material. There’s no way that you have your life changed that much in that amount of time to generate that much (material) unless you’re a much better joke writer than I, and there definitely are some.
I’ve got a lot of inspirations outside of comedy, like video games and wrestling. I always kind of looked at myself more like a company like Rockstar or Blizzard. They don’t make a game like Madden every year. There are these small updates and these little changes. When a new Grand Theft Auto comes out or a new Red Dead Redemption comes out, it’s noteworthy because it kind of changes the game or it’s a big improvement from what it was before. That’s how I like to do it. I like my material to come out when it’s ready. Because I act and do voice-overs and try to do a lot of different things, it gives me the financial freedom to do that where a lot of (stand-ups), they’re financially dependent on getting new hour special money.
TC: Yeah, and sometimes you can tell in a special that a joke wasn’t ready or a chunk of material wasn’t ready so don’t rush it, right?
RF: Absolutely. Sometimes the deals are made before the hour’s ready. A lot of times that shows. I’m a firm believer of it’ll be out when it’s ready, when I know it’s excellent. I might be the old comedy nerd in that regard but a special, to me, is supposed to be special. I understand there are a lot more of them now and that can’t always be the case but I loved when I was a kid looking forward to a new Dave Chappelle special or a new Kathleen Madigan special or Sommore or anybody. It’s because I knew when I got it, these were gonna be...they might be different styles but they’re gonna be well crafted.
TC: The positivity you spread through the
“Gettin’ Better” podcast and even on social media is inspiring. It’s easier to be that way when good things are happening but what about turning potential negatives into positives? Do you encounter those situations often?
RF: Yeah, of course. If you look at the style of comedy that I do, that’s what I like to do. I look at the positive of negative situations. I like to look at the upside of what people might consider stressful events. I’ve been talking a lot about dealing with eating addictions, working on my health and weight loss. My son, who I’ve talked about for years, and his having autism as a toddler and a child. Now, he’s almost an adult, 16 years old, and having to deal with teenage things that come up in a unique twist. These are things that some people might consider dark subjects or things they don’t wanna talk about but that’s what I like digging into.
As far as in my regular life and in my career, that’s my whole career. [interviewer laughs] I’ve made a joke about going, 'hey, I never usually get the thing I want. I get something that I need, which is better.' I was joking about it with my manager last weekend. I was like, “Oh, it’s been a great year. I got to do all these things” and this and that. Then I thought about it and I go, “Oh, I didn’t book a single audition.” Everything I got was off word of mouth or bombing an audition and getting a different role. Not necessarily bombing but not getting that part and getting a smaller part or just hustling and getting cameos. The “6 Underground” Michael Bay thing that I was in that a lot of people talked about, a lot of people saw was me running from one thing to another and they were like, “Hey, do you have time to do this one-day thing?” I just did that, forgot about it and now it’s one of my bigger credits. All of that is trying, hustling, failing and getting something else.
Here it is, The Best Tweet I Can Find in Five Minutes:
