Today’s post is an interview with Drew Landry, a stand-up comedian and writer from Maryland, currently based in Los Angeles. Drew is very unshut and honest well-nigh mental health in his work. In this interview, we talked well-nigh his tideway to comedy, mental health and his recent spectacle special. Thanks for speaking with me, Drew!

First off, I wanted to ask you well-nigh your work. How did you get into stand-up comedy?

When I was a little kid I wanted to be a comedian, I had an SNL “Best of Chris Farley” DVD I would watch all the time. In middle school I watched a lot of stand-up on TV, like a lot of Spectacle Central specials, and I wanted to try it, so when I was 13 I did stand-up at my middle school talent show. Obviously, I wasn’t good, but I immediately unprotected the bug and fell in love with doing it. So I started doing stand-up at this coffeehouse unshut mic near me every week. When I was 16 they started letting me perform in bars and spectacle clubs.

Comedy can be a good outlet for our mental health – why do you think that is?

It’s a HUGE, worrying cliche to say this, and I hate that I’m gonna say it but I think it’s true, I think a lot of comedians are just really fucked up people. Whether it’s mental illness or tendency issues. And you kind of write jokes well-nigh the things that are on your mind, so if you’re struggling with mental health you’re naturally going to write jokes well-nigh it considering it’s just a thing that you’re thinking well-nigh a lot. Obviously, it can go too far. You’ll see a lot of comics at unshut mics who just rant well-nigh their peepers and don’t have punchlines, it’s exhausting to sit through. So your spectacle can’t just be a therapy session, you still need to have jokes.

You have been unshut well-nigh living with bipolar disorder. How/Why do you incorporate that into your work?

I used to be really embarrassed well-nigh stuff bipolar, I kept it a secret. Then I realized how freeing it was to be unshut well-nigh it. It was a unconfined feeling to go from “I can’t overly let anyone know I’m bipolar” to telling jokes well-nigh stuff bipolar onstage. It helped me get rid of that shame and embarrassment well-nigh it.

Congratulations on your recent spectacle special, “All My Friends Are Dead.” This is a tightly personal set – how has making this impacted you, and what’s the response been like?

The responses have made me happy. I wanted it to be a tribute first and foremost, while still having unvarying punchlines and never feeling like a monologue or a one-man show, and I moreover really wanted it to be repletion supplies for anyone who’s going through grief. I can’t tell if I fully workaday that but based on the responses I’ve gotten it seems like I did.

What is your personal tideway to mental health? What do you do to maintain mental wellness?

Exercise is the biggest thing, plane if it’s just a tiny bit of exercise, just stuff physically active, I think it makes a huge difference, at least for me.

What is your favorite thing well-nigh stand-up comedy?

It might be a wearisome wordplay but honestly, it’s just so fun to do There’s nothing increasingly fun. The adrenaline rush, it’s just the best.

Drew Landry is a stand-up comedian and writer from Maryland, currently based in Los Angeles. He went on tour with Carlos Mencia two weeks without graduating upper school, and he has moreover toured with Dana Gould and Iliza Shlesinger.

Landry performed at the Just For Laughs festival in Vancouver in 2022, and he hosts the monthly show Salty AF at the Hollywood Improv. He created and wrote the humor section for the popular hip-hop site DJBooth and has moreover written satire wares for the higher website Total Sorority Move. His wares on Medium have received millions of views, including his 2017 piece “I Have a Theory That Donald Glover and Childish Gambino Are Secretly The Same Person” which went viral. He was recently named one of the top 50 Humor writers on Medium.