Standup comedian Steve Hofstetter has made a 20-year-plus career out of material that’s both personal and unapologetically progressive, occasionally taking on icons like Larry the Cable Guy in the process. Ahead of appearances at Wiseguys Gateway April 29-30, Hofstetter talked to City Weekly about his comedy origins, dealing with hecklers and how a Utah appearance helped clarify his on-stage sensibility. This interview has been edited for length and for clarity.

CW: In one of your specials, you talk about how you grew up with your father playing classic comedy albums by the likes of George Carlin and Dick Gregory. How straight a line is it between that early exposure and you becoming a comedian yourself?
Steve Hofstetter: There are several lines in between, but 100 percent everything was set in motion by that. He helped establish my original enjoyment of stand-up. And from there, my brother and sister and I would watch Comic Strip Live [and] the American Comedy Awards. Part of it was growing up in a house without cable; because of that, anything that was on network that was interesting, we would watch. But my father definitely started my love of stand-up.

CW: What do you remember about your first time performing stand-up?
SH: I remember every moment. It also helps that I have the tape. And it’s physical tape. I got real lucky, in that the woman my friend was dating at the time was this aspiring videographer. This was 2002, before everyone was recording everything. So, actually having the footage of it, for someone who started when I did, is rare. I’m a bit ashamed for things that not only I found funny, but that the audience agreed with.


CW: How long did it take you to figure out what your own comedy voice would be?
SH: I think I try something new with every album. … There have been several realizations over the years. One of the biggest ones is, early on, I was just doing stuff I found funny, and it would sometimes be stuff the audience didn’t find funny, because it was political. Then I started writing towards getting laughs, and getting gigs. And I started realizing I was a better comic in 2008 than I was in 2011. I did a college gig that was terrible. They had me standing on a table instead of a stage, everything about it was bad: It was poorly promoted, the table collapsed two seconds in. It was horrific. And I realized the part I liked the least about it wasn’t that I bombed, but that I bombed with material I wasn’t even proud of. I decided then, “Write what you want to write.”

CW: You’ve shared a lot of videos about dealing with hecklers. When it becomes clear to you that one of these incidents is about to emerge, what goes through your head at this point?
SH: The fact of the matter is, I’m not physically afraid for my safety. I’m a big person physically, but also have hundreds of people in the room on my side. It’s really just a case of, I’m offended on behalf of the audience. For me, the rest of the crowd bought tickets, traveled there, some of them got babysitters, and made that night about that show. So it’s not ego; it’s “you are spoiling this for everyone else.” It’s a very “how dare you” kind of thing. ... I didn’t perform for almost a full year [due to the COVID pandemic], and the first tour I was back, the first time someone interrupted, I launched into [Liam Neeson’s] monologue from Taken. Because I have a particular set of skills. I don’t enjoy smacking someone down, but I enjoy that I can.


CW: In a lot of the performances you post to social media, you’re sharing the stage with your openers and fellow comedians. How did that component of your shows develop, and what it has given to you creatively?
SH: It happened out of necessity. I’ve been doing a Q&A after shows for maybe 15 years. But in … I think it was 2019, I found out my dog was very sick and had to be put down, and I had just a few days left with him. I’d post about my dog a lot [on social media], and people would ask a lot of questions [during the Q&As]. And I was a wreck. So for the Q&A that night, [I asked the opening comedian], “Can you be up there with me, for a little bit of protection?” Not only did it help solve the problem, but it was so much more fun to be able to go back and forth. And then from there, I was touring in Europe with Dan Muggleton, and I asked him if he wanted to come on stage with me. And it just worked on a level I’d never seen before. … I thought, “Okay, I’m never doing this alone again.”

CW: You’re obviously pretty open about your own politics in your act. But since [President Trump’s inauguration in January], do you feel that the vibes have changed at your shows in any way?
SH: I’m lucky to be at the point in my career where almost everybody who buys a ticket to my show knows what they’re getting. I’ve been watching audiences go through the stages of grief. My first few shows after the election—I was on tour, like, three days later—it was sadness. A vibe of just being confused, and disbelief. And almost denial, because there was a dramatic shift after the inauguration. … We were saying how bad this was going to be, but we didn’t know how bad it was going to be. There’s been a sense of relief [at shows], because it’s a room full of like-minded people. Being in a room full of people who are just as upset about this as you are, can be very comforting—even though my current set isn’t primarily political, it’s mostly about mental health. … I’ve always done really well in Salt Lake. It’s really progressive, but so much of the entertainment caters to the people who live outside Salt Lake. When you have an act like me come in, there’s a huge swath of the population that hasn’t had that kind of entertainment.

CW: You mentioned that one of your big career-changing moments took place in Salt Lake City.
SH: I was doing a show at the University of Utah. It was before I had a big social media presence, and I didn’t have a ton of media online. Someone was recording on a flip-cam in the back of the room. I don’t know who made the decision also to promote the show on BYU campus, but it was a very dumb decision. It was a 10 p.m. show, … and in the opening joke, I used the word “shit.” And a couple of people get up, and a third of the crowd walked out in the first five minutes. It was difficult to stay on track. But the 2/3 that stayed, I got a standing ovation. And when I posted the video of the show, there were comments saying, “The reason we like you is you don’t back down.” And that was the first time I really understood that: People want a loud voice in the face of hypocrisy. It’s cathartic to see someone say what you’d want to say.