We were lucky to catch up with Ray Roberts recently and have shared our conversation below.
Ray, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. If you could go back in time do you wish you had started your creative career sooner or later?
I think everyone has the feeling of wishing that they would have started stand up comedy sooner than they did. It seems like a great idea until you realize that if you weren’t ready to do an open mic at an earlier age, you’d definitely not be ready to handle the “business” side of things at an earlier point in their lives. I think I’m one of the weird people who is happy that I started when I did. If I had started earlier, I would have definitely flamed out by now if I hit this low level of success with my bad habits and views on life. But if I would have waited later I may never have done it at all. So like most things, I feel that comedy pulled me in when it was ready for me and vice versa.
Ray, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?
I am a stand up comic originally from a small town in Ohio called Perrysburg. I am one of the few that left northwest Ohio for college and didn’t come back after. I went to Kent State University where I discovered how much alcohol rules and also found a comedy scene filled with people I thought were rockstars and unapproachable to someone like me (which is still something I feel when I forget that I do the same thing.) I had always been secretly interested in trying comedy and thought that they were making it up on the spot for every show until I started going and watching comics work on their act. Instead of being encouraged by that, I was dissuaded from trying it myself because I was good at talking shit but did not have the patience or ability to write an act at that point. So with my secret dream crushed, to the delight of a small group of unsupportive people I let in on my secret, I started getting more into my studies and trying to become president. I fell in love with politics during the ’08 election and ended up interning on a campaign in 2012. Through that internship, I set the stage for becoming a campaign manager for a state representative in 2014 and through that job I met the guy who ran most of the open mics in Kent, Ohio. Once the campaign was over and I was without a job, I started going to hang out at open mics. Then one night I was brave enough to get hammered and try it myself. As soon as I got down from performing, I was instantly accepted by the other open mic comics and felt that I really had found my people for the first time ever. 9 years later and actually making money in this business, that feeling of the first mic pops into my memory often. Like every other vocation/hobby/activity there are down times when you want to quit but once every few months I get that nervous feeling of my first mic in my stomach and I remember why I keep doing this: after the nervousness comes performing and after performing comes feeling accepted. Sometime I’ll be able to give someone that feeling I had the first time I felt accepted and seen by someone else. Whether that’s someone on the show I’m on, someone in the crowd, or just a random person I’m nice to on the street after a show, I want to spread positive energy to as many people as possible, and how I do that is to tear down the things people think are monoliths and I do it with comedy.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?
I literally create a new world with the thoughts that I have. Whether it’s a simple sex joke or an intricate bit on the music of Creed being about the crucifixion, I get to shift how people think just by (hopefully) making them laugh. In this current world where people are so polarized, I get to play in the grey spaces that a lot of people either don’t or won’t let themselves into. And by doing that and opening eyes to different views, maybe it helps soften their stances and changes their world for the better.
Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.
The lack of money you get and how little it matters to me. Most of your creative endeavors will not end up being profitable for a long time, if ever. I try to remind myself that the basic fact of me making any sort of regular money from comedy puts me on a list of a select few in the history of comedy. When someone starts a non-creative business, the whole point is to be in business and make money. With a creative venture, you have to either be ridiculously talented right away or you’re going to toil away for YEARS before there’s even a chance of regular money let alone enough to pay your bills. I just don’t think that non-creatives understand just how much love we have to have to keep waking up every day and creating things most people will never see or appreciate. It’s a pull from somewhere I can’t explain that makes driving 13 hours for maybe $50 after travel costs worth it when some people feel that way about starting a family or making a million dollars. A good open mic set for zero dollars or the praise from another comic that I’ve respected for years is worth more than any dollar I’ve made in this industry.
Contact Info:
- Website: whoisrayroberts.com
- Instagram: @whoisrayroberts
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=831925018
- Twitter: @whoisrayroberts
- Youtube: @whoisrayroberts
Image Credits
Sarah Rose Photography took my personal picture