When I told some friends I’d be talking to Bill Burr in advance of a run of shows at the Chicago Theatre, I always received the same response. “I love Bill Burr,” they’d say. “But he’s probably going to bust your balls.” At least three people offered some variation of this half-compliment/half-warning. It was as if I’d told them I was going on a solo hike in Alaska. “That’s some truly beautiful country up there, but you’re probably going to be eaten by a bear.”
If you’ve seen any of Burr’s specials or listened to his weekly podcast, Bill’s Monday Morning Podcast, this response doesn’t seem totally out of line. Like the majestic grizzly, Burr isn't one to suffer a fool or tolerate any bullshit. On stage, he has no problem poking a touchy subject with a stick and then laughing in its face as it tries to bite him. He is a comedian’s comedian, which really just means his peers envy that ability to stand on any stage, say just about anything and absolutely slaughter any audience. And yes, he’s busted a lot of balls along the way.
Lucky for me, the Bill Burr who answers the phone on a Friday afternoon doesn’t seem too interested in causing physical or metaphorical harm to any part of my body—balls or otherwise. He does almost immediately excuse himself to answer the door, and I can hear a good amount of clinging and clanging in the background. The commotion implies the life of a comedian in the midst of a nation-spanning tour who still has a list of chores waiting on the kitchen counter. “Sorry about that, man. My wife scheduled some shit here at the house,” he says.
We start by discussing his latest comedy special, I’m Sorry You Feel That Way, which was filmed in 2014 at the The Tabernacle in Atlanta. It’s also one of the first comedy specials to be shot completely in black and white. “I just think black and white looks beautiful. I’ve wanted to do it forever,” Burr said. “Stand-up and black and white complement each other really well, and it will be nice to look back at the end of my career, after 10 or 15 specials, and see one in black and white.”
Burr is one of those comedians, like Louis C.K. and and Tig Notaro, who completely turns over his act every year or so. The specials are a sort of retirement party for the old material, and Burr likes to find new ways to present a show that amounts to one guy standing on a stage talking. “You’re always looking for a way to draw someone in, but I kept seeing these new specials with crazy edits and swooping cameras. It looks like The Bourne Identity,” Burr said. “Then I watch old [Richard] Pryor specials and wonder, ‘Why do they seem so real?’”
Like Pryor, Burr likes to tear the clothes off of any subject—from the mundane to the controversial—just to show how ridiculous and silly it looks naked. There’s a moment late in I’m Sorry You Feel That Way when he confronts a very Southern audience about their love of big, loud guns. Over the course of the bit, you can feel the audience go through the four stages of listening to Bill Burr tell a story—the anger and the denial and the bargaining. But when he offers the hypothetical story of a late-night home invasion that ends with the homeowner firing a gun in the dark, blowing out his eardrums and being decapitated by a sickle-wielding lunatic, it’s a moment of pure comedic acceptance.
Burr admits he loves to create a little tension with the audience. “It’s a part of storytelling—that tension and release. Some comedians will have two guys walk into a bar and say, ‘Well, that’s tension!’ I like to push it a little further,” he said.
In addition to stand-up, Burr has also appeared in several films, including Black or White, The Heat, and Stand Up Guys. He also had a memorable recurring role as Kuby on Breaking Bad. This December Burr will stretch his talents even further with F Is for Family, an animated show set in the 1970s that follows a family not unlike Burr’s. “It’s about a lot of childhood things that happened to me.”
Burr developed the show for Netflix with former Simpsons writer Michael Price. He’s been astonished by the level of creative freedom they’ve had. “It’s the dream, really,” Burr said. “They keep telling us to push it further.”
For his three Chicago shows, Burr says the audience can expect to see the usual opinionated, enraged, self-deprecating comedian taking aim at a brand new set of targets. “I’ll be covering everything from the election to Nestle privatizing water to my own shortcomings.”
Before we hang up, I consider asking Burr if he could drop the nice-guy act for a second and give me a proper ball busting, but I decide against it. It just wouldn’t be professional. Plus, why would he want to shoot one guy when he can decapitate a whole audience?
Listen to Burr’s weekly podcast at billburr.com and catch him live at the Chicago Theatre on October 29, 30 and 31. You can get tickets here.