You started your comedy career in Edmonton 13 years ago. Since then, you’ve lived all around the country, including Calgary, looking for Canadian laughs. Now that you’re recording your first comedy album, you’ve come crawling back to where it all began. My first question is: Where do you get the nerve?
Scott: I wouldn’t call it nerve. I would call it gumption. That’s a good word. Stand-up comedy is hard, and it takes gumption to sacrifice and push your comfort boundaries to move all over the country to make connections and grow as a comic. But I love Edmonton — it’s where I started this wild journey and it just made sense for the site of my first album recording. Plus I wanted to get a really good donair after the show.
Call it what you want, but you left Edmonton hanging, similar to how you left me hanging by not getting back to me about this interview when you said you would. Why should we welcome you back?
Scott: Yeah, sorry about that man. I’m glad you still made time for me and aren’t being a total dick about it at all. But Edmonton has always had my back. I wouldn’t say the Edmonton audience should welcome me back, but I hope they do, because I still love the city, and I talk it up in the comedy community all the time. So I hope Edmonton comedy supporters will still support one of their own, even if I live in Calgary now.
I remember seeing you at an open mic in Kingsway Mall, back when you would return my calls promptly. The Grindstone didn’t even exist back then. What makes you think you deserve to record your first album there?
Scott: I’d say the main reason I deserve to record there is because I paid the fee to rent the theatre. That goes a long way. But it’s a beautiful venue and a place that has really helped the Edmonton comedy scene grow and develop. Snooty magazine writers aside, I want to support venues that support comedy, which is the Grindstone to a tee.
Back then, you had a joke about how plastic is one molecule away from being Cheez Whiz. Are spreadable, food-adjacent substances still a big part of your act?
Scott: First of all, it is wild that plastic is only one element away from being Cheez Whiz — one element! I do still think about how close plastic is to being delicious, and Cheez Whiz is still the only reason I eat celery — as a Cheez Whiz delivery system. But to answer the question, no, I’ve moved on from food-adjacent spreads. Now I talk about peanut butter, which I’m pretty sure is real food, though I suppose it’s still a spread. Maybe I haven’t grown that much.
You claim to write the “dirtiest clean” comedy around. What’s your favourite clean word that sounds dirty and why is it “kumquat”?
Scott: Actually, these days I’m liking “cream cheese,” because it sounds disgusting and basically any sexual euphemism that includes cream cheese is instantly dirty.
Your sister is a comedian too, and has lived in many of the same cities you’ve moved to across Canada. Why do you keep forcing your younger sister to uproot her life over and over only to abandon her in another place far from home?
Scott: Yes, my sister Clare is a very talented comedian. She started in Edmonton as well. I moved to Toronto and she came that way a few years later. I was in Halifax, and she is there now too, but I wouldn’t describe it as abandoning her — I always have her back and am a phone call away.
So it’s more like you led the way, she followed, and then went on to surpass you comedically. So you left.
Scott: If that’s the case, I’m completely fine with it. Everyone should check out her album released just this year, called The Entire Cabbage.
Sounds like she eats healthier than you do.
Scott: At least I’m eating celery.
Speaking of cheap food: You started in radio. What attracts you to low-income careers that mirror your underwhelming skillset?
Scott: Is celery cheap? Either way, I’d say it’s a mix of bad parenting and a lack of upper body strength. So… the same reasons you’re a writer.
Hey — I did almost 10 pushups last month. What’s the name of your album? Something like, This Weed Won’t Smoke Itself?
Scott: No, I thought I’d make it something that was at least vaguely funny, so I’m calling it Staying Together for the Cat.
Oh, because you have a wife, and a cat, but you don’t have kids.
Scott: Yes, that’s the joke.
What do you identify most with, when it comes to cats? Is it their sleep schedules?
Scott: Yeah that’s one similar thing between cats and comedians. Not putting up with people’s shit is another.
Right on. So the question everyone is dying to ask: What colour of plaid shirt will you be wearing for the recording?
Scott: Not sure yet. Which eight-year-old hoodie are you wearing right now?
I’ll have you know I bought a new hoodie last week! It’s from Old Navy and it’s very fluffy.
Scott: I’m sure it’s your best hoodie yet. But what I wear is something everyone will just have to come find out in person! The shows are Thursday, April 14. There’s a 7 p.m. and 9 p.m. show. Tickets are available at the Grindstone or at craftislandentertainment.com
