Brad Williams: From Daddy Issues to Fatherhood

It’s a Fri­day after­noon in the thick of the Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val, and on this evening Brad Williams will head­line the State­side The­atre. Despite this fact, paired with our knowl­edge that he was up late the night before doing his best Eddie Ved­der at The God­damned Com­e­dy Jam, he has tak­en time out of his sched­ule to sit down with us and talk com­e­dy, life, and every­thing in between.

If you’re look­ing for the often-expect­ed tale of strug­gle, hard­ship, and emo­tion­al bag­gage that led some­one to com­e­dy, this ain’t your guy. Brad Williams describes his child­hood as great and speaks of his par­ents with warmth and rev­er­ence, but this should come as no sur­prise. Williams alludes to such an upbring­ing in his 2016 release Dad­dy Issues, and a father that pre­pared him ear­ly on for adver­si­ty. He may be our first guest to ever describe their past, not future, as ​“opti­mistic.”

Grow­ing up in South­ern Cal­i­for­nia, Williams was an active kid vot­ed Most Like­ly to Become Famous in school. He loved com­e­dy and watched a ton of stand up, but he nev­er viewed it as some­thing he could do stat­ing, ​“I was always fun­ny, but I nev­er thought I could make a liv­ing being fun­ny.” Williams adds, ​“It’s one of those jobs where you’re like, well no one actu­al­ly does that.” But some­times luck strikes when you least expect it and when Williams was picked out of a rather uncom­fort­able Car­los Men­cia crowd to come on stage fol­low­ing a slew of ​“midget jokes,” Williams answered his ques­tions hon­est­ly, but with such humor that the crowd laughed even hard­er. That feel­ing of those laughs hit Brad Williams and let him know stand up was for him. He told Men­cia that night he was going to become a come­di­an, and with that a once-thought unat­tain­able goal became a pas­sion­ate pur­suit. But it wasn’t just luck that would make this new dream pos­si­ble, and he knew it. Williams hit the open mic stages hard and a year and a half lat­er when Men­cia returned he remem­bered him and asked if had con­tin­ued the pur­suit. Pur­suit was an under­state­ment. Williams was so ded­i­cat­ed that he once stopped in the mid­dle of giv­ing a state­ment to police at a traf­fic acci­dent to run inside and do his open mic slot. 

The ded­i­ca­tion paid off because that night Men­cia gave Brad Williams his big shot, five min­utes open­ing the show, let­ting the audi­ence decide if that hard work had tru­ly paid off. You can guess the answer. But Williams nev­er seems to for­get for a sec­ond how grate­ful he is to have been giv­en those chances. He still seems in awe of his cho­sen career and how for­tu­nate he and his com­e­dy col­leagues are to do what they do. Talk­ing about the Moon­tow­er Com­e­dy Fes­ti­val he says, ​“You come to this fes­ti­val and you see so many tal­ent­ed men and women that we all kind of get to look around and be like, ​‘Can you believe we’re actu­al­ly doing this shit?’ Like we’re actu­al­ly doing this and mak­ing mon­ey and sup­port­ing fam­i­lies with jokes.” 

Now that his com­e­dy tenure is old enough to vote, that’s right…he’s into his eigh­teenth year of com­e­dy as of the post of this arti­cle, Williams remem­bers those men­tors, like Car­los Men­cia, who gave him his big break, and makes sure he pays it for­ward. That feel­ing of pay-it-for­ward and men­tor­ship has also helped pre­pare Williams for the biggest men­tor role of his life. In Jan­u­ary of 2020, Williams and his wife wel­comed a baby girl into the world. In the midst of pater­ni­ty leave, the pan­dem­ic hit and in true opti­mist nature, Williams tried to look at the sit­u­a­tion as a rare oppor­tu­ni­ty to spend unprece­dent­ed time with his new­born daugh­ter. One big thing that father­hood has revealed Williams states, “…you become more in tune with your emo­tions because when you have kids you tru­ly care about some­thing more than your­self.” Williams seems to ful­ly embrace all the emo­tions being a new father brings to the table.

Before I wind this arti­cle down and let you get to the audio, I must tell you about some­thing of a real-life fact check the uni­verse deliv­ered to us dur­ing this inter­view. Lat­er in the record­ing you will a voice say, ​“I know him.” Many times, fans will stop to say hi dur­ing an inter­view, it’s espe­cial­ly com­mon in the beau­ti­ful­ly relaxed envi­ron­ment of Moon­tow­er. This was not the case. The voice you’re hear­ing was actu­al­ly that of Jeff Hass. He and his father Jer­ry Haas coached Brad Williams (pic­tured below) along with Jeff’s broth­er, Evan, on the North Orange Coun­ty YMCA Bas­ket­ball Super­stars in 1993. What are the odds? Hass also con­firmed Williams’ state­ment that he had an amaz­ing child­hood and added he was a real­ly good point guard. If you’re won­der­ing we did make sure the two got in touch with one anoth­er fol­low­ing our interview. 

I’m not sure the exact Brad Williams we would have met in Moontower’s past, but the one we met this year is a kind, thought-pro­vok­ing, heart­felt, and hilar­i­ous guy you’d want to be friends with (warn­ing: he will judge your piz­za choic­es). A guy with a future that seems boundless.

Fol­low Brad

• Web­site — www​.brad​williamscom​e​dy​.com
• Twit­ter — @funnybrad
• Insta­gram — @bradwilliamscomic
• Face­book — Face​book​.com/​B​r​a​d​W​i​l​l​i​a​m​s​Comic

Brad can be seen and heard:

• Pod­casts — About Last Night (100s of past episodes with Adam Ray)
• Com­e­dy Albums/​Specials — Com­ing Up Short (2011); Fun Size (2015); ​“Dad­dy Issues” (2016)
• Check his web­site for tour dates

A spe­cial thank you to Jeff and Jer­ry Hass for pro­vid­ing the sto­ry of Brad’s time on the YMCA bas­ket­ball team Super­stars and the pho­to from 1993.