Watts so funny?

Reggie Watts is a different sort of comedian. He's a soul singer. A beatboxer. With a little loop pedal assistance, often he's both simultaneously. In between, he proffers stream-of-consciousness lines designed to bemuse and entrance. He can also do a decent take-off of the kind of earnest Irish choral music peddled by Anuna. Which is pretty eclectic coming from a Brooklyn-based comic sporting a thundercloud afro.

He mightn't be doing that particular bit when he hits Dublin for the Comedy Carnival in July, however. "I have an Irish accent but I'm not confident enough to actually do it in front of Irish people!" he laughs. It's been two years since Watts, who counts David O'Doherty and Maeve Higgins as friends, has been over here.
"Irish crowds are great. I was a little worried at first, Irish comedians are known as some of the best comedians in the world so it was a little daunting. But everybody was really cool."
So what can you expect from a Watts show? There'll be a mix of comedy and music, improv and vocal sampling. Aside from that, even Watts isn't certain. "It's improvised, so hopefully there'll be a few new things. It's all pretty basic for me, all environmental. I never know until I get there. I'm not really a news guy, I just try to take a survey of what's happening and mix it in."
It sounds like he's walking a tightrope every night without much of a net to catch him.
"There's definitely gigs where I feel more connected than others," he agrees, "I have things I can fall back on while I'm trying to find my groove again. Some gigs are better than others, as Morrissey would say."
Having a good crowd to play off is key. "Audience food" he calls it. "It's essentially a form of energy. When I'm on stage I'm listening to that. An audience is weirdly like an ocean. Like surfing – the rolls of laughter are very similar to that. You're surfing around, making sure you're taking care of them and yourself. And then everything should be okay. Should be!"
Watts grew up in Great Falls, Montana and, though he came from a "music-appreciating" family, he points out that "no one in my family really plays any instruments, which is odd".
He left town for Seattle, aged 18, to study jazz. Music seemed the clear path for him, were his family surprised when he slipped into comedy? "I was always silly, saying really stupid things trying to make people laugh. So they were probably not that surprised that that's what I was doing." He always loved comedy but a move to New York in 2004 found him reinspired as a stand-up. There were pragmatic reasons, too. "It was the climate of the music industry. The ship was going down and I didn't know how I was going to make any money as a musician, aside from touring my ass off." Watts is also a member of Washington-based music group Maktub, now on hiatus. "I guess we'd say we're spiritually still together. I plan on doing music again when the momentum of what I'm doing comedically starts to even out a little bit. Right now there's just so much stuff coming at me from that side of things."
Would he have liked a more strait-laced musical career, does the humour he injects undermine his talent as a musician?
"I actually don't mind that. The whole idea behind the music for me is that it's a little bit of a throwaway. I like that suddenly there's fairly proficient music happening on stage – instantaneously there's some soul song, but about something really stupid. Then it's gone and I'm just doing stand-up again. It's kind of jarring – oh, you were in another reality for a second and now we're back here, what just happened?! Oh well, what's happening now!"
This curiosity and pushing of audience buttons has led him to do some experimental theatre. He was approached to create a multi-media experience in 2007 along with friend and playwright Tommy Smith. Watts and Smith had once performed sketches together back in Seattle –"really bad, shitty sketch comedy but sketch comedy nonetheless!"
"We started creating these pieces and I was very influenced by some of the basic tenets of the Situationist movement – the precursor to punk rock. If I had to choose between that and just doing stand-up comedy I'd probably choose theatre. It is kinda what I do on stage anyway but with really large projection screens and other actors to mix up to. That's exciting to me. Hopefully, when I start touring on my own name and doing theatres, I'll be able to mix some of those elements into it."
His name is rising. This year he has been the opening act on Conan O'Brien's Legally Prohibited from Being Funny on Television Tour across the States.
"It's the most well-run, best produced tour I've ever been a part of and it's probably only ever going to happen once. It's like touring with a major rock band. It's really kinda surreal and it's going to be sad when it comes to an end."
He has nothing but compliments for O'Brien, who departed as host of US chat-institution The Tonight Show this year following bizarre schedule shuffling with Jay Leno.
"He's a huge, huge music fan – his favourite music is rockabilly music and old school rock n' roll. I never put that together with, y'know, his haircut – kind of a pompadour. I just thought that it was him rocking his hair strangely! He's a really cool cat and he loves the music."
He reckons O'Brien came out the clear winner in that late night television fiasco. "Probably not from his perspective – he wanted to keep doing The Tonight Show so that was a little sad for him but he left with a great severance package and the ability to do whatever he wants to do."
Watts' influences are as hard to pin down as his act itself. "Monty Python was one, for sure." he says. "The Carol Burnett Show had a lot of musical elements in it. And slapstick. I loved The Three Stooges, Charlie Chaplin, Little Rascals... Father Ted… Nah, I'm just kidding!"
Irish comedy seems to have left its mark on him, however.
"When I was in Edinburgh some of my favourite comedians were always Irish comedians. The Irish perspective is very lyrical. There's a lot of getting the crowd involved and on your side. That's why I think that many of the Irish comedians, at least in English-speaking parts of the world, do really well. You immediately like them. So that was an influence in just getting in with the audience right away."
He even signs the conversation off with a warm "Sin é!" Can we keep him?