Daniel Sloss is never one to hold back – especially when the topic is near to his heart.
“Comedy should offend people,” the Scottish provocateur argues. “That’s what sets people apart from other art forms. It is the unique thing to cut and offend in the moment. Comedy is one person, one microphone, saying their fucking thing and holding up a mirror to society.”
Sloss, who will be crossing lines for one night with his show CAN’T on May 14 at 713 Music Hall, says this hour is built around two primarily subjects: cancel culture and modern parenting.
“I am asking about the current state of standup, and the ongoing discussion of cancel culture in the States,” he says, articulating the thesis of his current act. “I don’t really prescribe to the belief that you can’t say anything anymore, I think its mostly a lazy excuse by mostly untalented comedians to get away with not doing a really good job doing jokes about controversial subjects. Like, I’ve never heard Anthony Jeselnik complaining you can’t do anything anymore, and he’s doing quite fucking well.
“As somebody who has toured the world, and performed in countries where freedom of speech doesn’t exist, I do find it interesting when I come to America, the land of the free speech where you absolutely can say whatever you want onstage. Not without consequences, but that doesn’t exist anywhere else in the world.”
“Then, I’m also talking about fatherhood,” Sloss continues, slowing his cadence a bit. “I became a Dad two years ago. I’m a big boy piece of shit now!”
Sloss is open about the playful line of the type of hard-edge material that has made him a must-see act, and dipping his toes in the more mundane type of storytelling that a young punk might have once rebelled hard against performing.
“Yes, when I was younger, I absolutely criticized older comedians for just doing jokes about being a husband, being a parent, being a fucking mother or whatever it was. Where is your edge? Where is your ability to cut? Where’s the social commentary? Then you become a parent and it takes over your entire fucking life. Then you are like, I have nothing else to talk about. That’s why parents only ever talk to other parents, because you can’t just bore your real friends about the inane words your child just learned.”
At only 33, Sloss is far from becoming what he rallies against: the out of touch veteran comic. Never the less, he shows an aptitude about the demographics of his appeal. “It is the weird thing about my comedy, but it has always spoken to very different demographics. It’s because I started so young, that people started following me who were very young. But also, when I was a 19-year-old comedian, I had fans who were in the 30s or 40s, and sometimes even older. So those ones have grown up with me.”
He continues, giving a quick recap of his story so far. “Obviously your career changes every couple of years if something new happens. The first five years of my career, I was just doing British Daily, and then I started doing Conan and got a couple of Netflix specials and the HBO stuff, and that all pushes you out to a wider audience.
“Because the stuff I discuss is not really age related, I guess talking about relationships and divorce and trying to find your fucking soul mate are curtained related to younger people – but they also impact older people, and death affects everyone at every fucking age, so does rape and sexual assault. That has nothing to do with age.”
“I think I try to talk about topics where everyone can relate. Even when talking about something like parenthood, I don’t talk in the terms I know this or that. I’m explaining, like, there are things I didn’t know about childbirth or pregnancy that I wished I had known more. Things I wished the midwives had explained to me, or the books had explained to me. Or what I wished that podcasts had told me to expect, so I guess I’m doing my own version of that in a way.”
While audiences can certainly expect Sloss to make his points about modern fatherhood and the fallacy of mob mentality in the entertainment industry, there is a second secret objective for all of the comic’s shows. “Everything will be a story in the long run,” he grants. “I don’t mean to put messages in my fucking shows, but I am a bit of a narcissist and I love the fucking attention. I think I am wise. So whenever I write a new show, I tell myself I have to write three or four naughty gags.
“You’ve just got to write a few stupid jokes – anything that’s not important and is some old school stand up because I’m a purist. That’s the comedy I grew up watching, and that’s the kind I want to do. Its very important to have that in there because as much as my fans will come to see me talk about more controversial issues and delicately handle them at points and not so in other points. But I am still growing as a comedian, and growing in audience, so I want to make sure there is some great undeniable stand up in every special.”
Sloss reveals that this American leg of CAN’T is the tail end of this current hour – but he’s already gearing up for the next. “This tour ends in three weeks and I’m gonna take some time off, but I’ve already got some notions of what the next show is gonna be about. But before I write that, I’m gonna make sure I write four really stupid upsetting offensive jokes just to dust off the cobwebs.”
Through his two Netflix specials Dark and Jigsaw (AKA the Break-Up Show), his genre-breaking sexual assault themed hour X on HBO, and his self-release pre-pandemic special SOCIO (recorded at the Paramount in Austin, for the record), Sloss has honed a one-of-a-kind worldview that’s made him a voice to seek in uncertain times.
Sloss contends that is merely the role of the comic in our society. “That’s the thing,” he starts. “Your job is always to provoke. I think this is a thing that happens is you provoke neutral audiences because you’re not famous and no one know who you are. Then you become funny and you get your own audience, and they know your voice and know what you’re like, so they’ll laugh more easily than they would normally. This is why every famous comedian becomes shit. You get to a level of fame where you lose the ability to play to a neutral audience.”
Citing a recent (but perhaps unfounded) example, Sloss makes a peer into a legend. “I think its Chris Rock, and I don’t know if its true, but if it is true, it is baller as shit and its exactly the way it should be done – but Chris Rock apparently, when doing new material, will purposely eat shit for ten fucking minutes. Like he’ll go to The Improv or Comedy Store or Caroline’s or The Celler, and do 10-15 minutes of material he knows is not funny, but for the first five minutes, people are just laughing at the shit jokes because its Chris Rock.
“But then after that, they’ll be like: this is bad! Then people aren’t enjoying it and just fucking leave. But then after that is when he gets to do his actual fucking stand up. If that’s true, I think that’s so fucking rock and roll. I don’t think I’d have the courage to that. I don’t think I could purposely eat shit for ten minutes.”
Sloss continues, highlighting his efforts to resist being hacky. “My way of doing that is because of the material I’ve done in the past, I know that the demographic of my audience is mostly left leaning, mostly women, and mostly late 20s or early 30s. So my job is to provoke those people. My job is not to go on stage to a room and make fun of Republicans to a room that already hates Republicans. My job is to go on and challenge people in that fucking room. I will still make fun of the right wing, the Tories and the Republicans and all that. But I am going to make sure I am absolutely making fun of my own people first.
“Because I think the least amount of talent is the left wing comedian making left wing jokes in front of a left wing audience. Or a right wing comedians doing right wing jokes for a right wing audience. I think that takes next to no fucking skill. I think that’s button pushing, catch phrase saying, and people have the right to do that. If you’ve toured for 20 years and you’ve got your own fucking audience, and you just want to pull back, go out there and do some easy fucking comedy, that’s fine. But don’t complain about the state of the industry when you fucking suck.”
More than a few A-list headlining comedians may have been guilty of complaining publicly that ‘PC’ and ‘woke’ culture are causing comedians to lose their special status to say what they want to get a laugh.
Sloss pushes back on that notion hard, while also aiming to spotlight what he calls “true cancelations” in the small pond of comedy. “In the history of comedy, people have always said you can’t say anything anymore, that’s never changed. But comedy is constantly pushing the boundaries, and its always changing and the society decides where the line is. It’s all part of the process. Say something offensive, people get offended and a discussion around it happens. Then the people who were offended don’t come and see you again, and the people who were not, come and see you again.
“But you want to talk about real actual cancelations that have happened in the history of comedy? Shane Gillis was a real cancelation, I would say. That was a group of people deciding they were gonna go through oodles of podcast history … they successfully got a mob together and made him lose the SNL job. Now at this moment in time Shane is arguably the best comedian working right now in my opinion. I think Beautiful Dogs was easily the best special to come out last year. He’s massive right now and he deserves it. So that was a real cancelation but he’s back on fucking track. But he lost his job because of a fucking mob – that’s real.”
Sloss goes on, building steam on example after example. “Bill Cosby isn’t in fucking jail anymore – so that didn’t take! Jimmy Carr, a good friend of mine, has been cancelled 15 times in the 10 years I’ve known him, and he’s still rich and successful. Then if you want to talk about a real cancelation, Janeane Garafolo after the Iraq War came out and she got absolutely fucking canceled. But because she is left wing, that doesn’t count as a cancelation.”
“I know we live in a different time, but 20 years ago if somebody didn’t like your joke, the only thing that would, they might meet you on the way out or catch you at the stage door and they might yell at you, or tell you they didn’t like your joke, and then you know what happened? They went into the night and they fucked off! That was it. You then would drink about it, be angry and maybe say something snipey about it on the next show.
“Nowadays if somebody doesn’t like your joke, they can go into your phone, which you are looking at 95 percent of the day, and say they think you fucking suck. That’s monkeys! We have not developed the ability to deal with that type of criticism in our face directly yet. So I agree, maybe it feels like there is more outrage than there has ever been. But that’s only because there is more communication than there has ever been.”
In the end, as technology transforms the landscape for human interaction – Sloss praises the simplicity of the performing live on the stage. He encapsulates the point of his rant:
“Again, these conversations of people saying offensive things and people fighting back – that is comedy. Its like comedians rubbing sticks together and complaining that there is fire. That’s what we do, that’s what we’re always been doing. Some people like the heat of the fire, others don’t want to hang around with us. Fine. Comedy isn’t for everyone, and it should never be for everyone. We’re criticizing the audience directly a lot of the time. You know, a movie never attacks you directly. [It’s] meant to be provoking and in your face.”
Daniel Sloss’ performance is scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, May 14 at 713 Music Hall, 401 Franklin, Suite 1600. For more information, visit 713musichall.com. $30-170
This article appears in Jan 1 – Dec 31, 2024.
