Your Fringe show sold out the last two years but can we expect a change in your material now that you’re no longer a teenager?
Yeah I mean that was the whole sort of big thing about turning 20. I was always sort of labeled as the teenage comedian and I did sort of play on that obviously, comedy’s about do what you know and I was 17/18 so I was obviously doing jokes about being 17/18. My comedy now that I’m growing up is more sort of about, well, at no point do I sort of want to send a message its always what I find funny and sometimes that might be things that piss me off, sometimes funny things that have happened with my family so I wouldn’t necessarily expect too much of a change. You know, although I have done jokes about being young in the past, never has an entire show been based on being young. It’s always based around me and my life.
Do you find it challenging writing material that appeals to different age groups?
That’s the thing, I never really write my jokes for certain age groups. I mean, I never expected 11 year olds to find me funny because obviously I do jokes about wanking, I use the word cunt a lot and all other swear words which are things that a 16/17 year old would get but you never expect the 11 year old to get and it’s that kind of naivety we have about the younger generation, about how much they actually know. On the other side, the complete other side of the spectrum, I never expected, you know, grown-ups or the occasional 60 year old to find what I say funny. It’s the weirdest thing.It never goes the way you expect it to. The material just kind of works its own way, and I guess when you’re on stage and you’re trying the jokes out for the first time and I’m doing it in a comedy club environment and that is with anyone between the ages of 18 to 35 on average so it’s that middle audience and it’s tailored to them but the fact that it spreads down to the 11 year olds and up to the 60 year olds is something I never expected. But it’s not something I want to tailor myself to do. I don’t want to be a family comedian. I’m not saying I want to push the boundaries but I like to think that I say what I want to say as opposed to what I think people want me to say.
You’ve had a lot of tv coverage lately, do you find it intimidating working around older and more established comedians like Michael McIntyre and Jimmy Carr?
Yeah, I mean it’s like meeting you heroes. You’re like fucking hell you’re so much better at this than me and you’re so much more established. But since I started comedy, I’ve never used the phrase ‘nicest man in the world’ more often just because everyone’s so lovely. There were all these sort of scary moments, like when I met Michael, doing the audition for the road show he was just the most supportive man in the world. When I got in there, and he’s been doing this for about 7 days in a row so he wasn’t going to remember everyone’s name and you would never expect him to but once you spoke to him, he was always like “oh wow, you were really good” and he was so so supportive. It was the same with Jimmy Carr, I met him briefly during the festival and that was before the 8 out of 10 cats and he actually recognised me. He was like “You’re Daniel Sloss” and I was just like “What the fucks going on? This is the complete opposite way round it’s meant to be” and he was just so friendly, him and Jason made my 8 out of 10 cats experience lovely. They were the ones that fully pushed me towards the audience and made sure the audience knew I was funny because beforehand they were just kind of like “Who the fuck are you?” and it was really really awkward but Jimmy and Jason made it bearable.
Did you find it daunting with some of the other celebrities that you were on with?
Well yeah, I mean with Vanessa Felts, I mean I spoke to her backstage and she knows what that public perceive her as and she doesn’t play on it, she’s not one of these dumb people who play on it, shes not like “aw i’m so stupid” because noone would say that Vanessa Felts was stupid, she is educated but she just plays on this annoying, well no, she doesn’t even play on it she just is who she is and the people who like her love her and rolls with it thinking “some people are gonna hate me some people are gonna love me” whereas myself I’m like “Everyone has to love otherwise I’m going to have to kill myself”.
Do you ever get in trouble with your parents or girlfriend for some off the jokes that you write?
My parents love it and the only thing my mum gets on at me about is when I’m a bit too rude or swear too much. My girlfriend doesn’t mind when a joke about her is completely made up but when there’s a tiny bit of truth in it she gets wound up. Like I have this set about her being a Jedi and her mind tricks and she’s just like “I don’t do that”.
You’ll be really happy that your career has really taken off but is it difficult being away from home so much while you’re touring?
The whole first thing is ‘aw you must miss your family, you must miss your girlfriend’ and I do. Whenever I’m in these other countries I really miss having my parents or my girlfriend there because those are the people that I talk about comedy so closely with. When I come off stage because one of these people are always there to sort of go ‘Ah well you didn’t do this’ or ‘That was brilliant, we need to remember this’ and we sort of talk about comedy in a way that’s not like work anymore and I miss that but it pushes me. Since I’m doing these gigs in other countries, when I come back I cram as much time with my family and my girlfriend as possible and it has this horrible push affect because I can’t see my friends as much I used to and theres these horrible periods where I won’t see my bestfriends for like a month and a half at a time. It’s horrible because in that time I’ll come back and see my family and my girlfriend, which is amazing to keep our brilliant relationship going, and I’ll see my dog and you always miss those little things about being home. I’ll be in these other countries like ‘yeah I’m drunk right now’ and later on when I’m in bed, I’ll want my girlfriend to be there, but while I’m drinking I just wish my friends were there so bad.
Have you ever been discouraged while doing stand up?
I did one of the worst gigs of my life with a bunch of really old people and they just weren’t getting me at all so eventually I was told to just start talking to them. I was talking with this woman doing the whole “So what did you used to do?” and that kind of thing and the woman next to her just leaned forward, really close to me and said “Have you ever considered a career change?”. I’ve been heckled before but just so closely was horrible.
Have you ever had any overwhelming attention from fans?
That was the thing, I never expected to get any attention like that because my first four years of high school I was completely girlfriendless so it’s a little bit like “Where was this attention 5 years ago”. I remember checking facebook after Michael McIntyre’s road show and I was looking forward to comments like “You were so funny” but there were things like “so fit” and my mum was just like “Have you seen some of these comments?” and I totally hadn’t expected it.
If you weren’t doing comedy just now, what do you reckon you would be doing?
I’d like to think that I would have stuck with the History course but I don’t think I would have been smart enough for it. I’m mostly in to the whole classical myth side of things, I love reading books about it when I’m travelling about on trains and stuff.
Where do you see yourself in 10 years?
I’d like to think I’d still be doing comedy but I’m not going to consider it as selling out if I do a bit more acting or something like that because filming the sitcom was so much fun, just the banter with everyone involved was amazing and I enjoy acting so much. It’s not really selling out as long as I’m always doing something I enjoy.
Sections of this interview were printed in The Student http://www.studentnewspaper.org