High on Life _{by Alessia Belsito-Riera}

With a beaming smile and a twinkle in his eye, comedian Josh Wolf answers my Zoom call. He’s so excited to be coming back to New Zealand with his brand-new hour of stand-up High on Life, he tells me. “What I love about New Zealand crowds is they love a story… So I’m telling them,” he beams.

Known for his unique and relatable style of stand-up, his new show features his comedian son Jacob Wolf as well. “This show is completely different than the one I came with in 2023, with better stories and more fun,” he continues. “At the end of all my shows, I do like 10 or 15 minutes of funny songs. So, I’m super excited for people to see the new hour.”

Are you hyped yet? What if I tell you he’ll be performing at Wellington’s Hannah Playhouse on the 14^th of February. This is an award-winning, sell-out comedian, bestselling author, television show writer, and actor with millions of followers and clicks and views we’re talking about. Currently a regular round-table guest and writer on Chelsea Lately, over the years Wolf has lived many lives. He has written for sitcoms All of Us and Cuts, sold a script to Adam Sandler’s Happy Madison Productions, appeared on mainstream late-night shows and comedy competitions like Last Comic Standing, hosted his own hit podcasts like Off the Rails with Josh Wolf and Sarah Colonna and Hey Maaan with Jacob, debuted his own show The Josh Wolf Show, and performed sets in top venues around the world.

In the lead-up to his biggest Aotearoa tour yet, I caught up with him to ask all my burning questions.

What do you love about comedy?

I love the energy. There are so many things! Okay – I’m a bit of a comedy nerd, so you’re gonna get an answer. There’s nothing that beats the energy that you get from a crowd, getting on stage, and making all those people happy at the same time. I consider comedy to be a puzzle. I have all these pieces. Let me try this piece. Oh, it doesn’t work. I’m not gonna throw this piece away; I know it works somewhere in the puzzle, but I gotta try another piece. So figuring out the puzzle of a joke or a story, to me, is so satisfying. It’s one of the reasons that I still do it, and one of the reasons I still love it and it’s not gotten old. It’s a live show too, so you don’t know what’s gonna happen. A couple weeks ago, I had somebody throw up in the front row.

Did you incorporate that in?

How do you not! I can’t go on now and do what I was gonna do. I have to do something different. It’s not like everybody else didn’t see that. It’s not like other people in the row didn’t run away. So I can’t just ignore it, right? What I love about stand-up is I kind of know what’s gonna happen, but not really. It’s what keeps it exciting.

How do you go about incorporating something unexpected like that into what you’d planned for the show?

I change the entire show right away. I’ve been on stage enough to have many weird things happen. The people that are there know that’s not how the show was gonna go and that this is a show nobody else will ever see. What I love about my job is that. Like, that’s fun to me. I know what I’m going to open the show with, and I have a bunch of material to work through, but I never know what order I’m going to do until I get on stage. It keeps it new and fresh. It’s never gonna come across as memorised. I want you to feel like your friend Josh is standing in front of you, and he’s just telling you some stories.

What inspires your comedy in general, and this show in particular?

Life. My show is relatable stories made funny. One of my favourite stories happened in Auckland. There’s that needle that people jump off of, and I tell a story about my fear of heights. One of my favourite compliments was from somebody who’s not scared of heights, but everybody has fears. He was like, ‘I didn’t relate to that story at all, but your fear is what I related to’. So in my stories, you either know that dude, that’s happened to you, or you’ve felt that way before.

What have been some career highlights?

Well, one is happening as we speak. I tour with my youngest son, and it’s the best time I’ve ever had in my life. It’s so cool. When you get older, when your kids get older, you don’t really hang out with them a lot. They have their own lives. So to me, this is bonus time, and then to have him involved in something I love so much, which is stand-up. I didn’t know it was the dream until it happened. This is what I always wanted… who knew!

The other thing is when my parents got to see me perform at Radio City Music Hall in New York City. That was a big deal for them… and for me, no doubt! But for them, that was like a symbol. Their faces sitting backstage and seeing me after when there were people wanting autographs and pictures, it was like something clicked for them. So those two things have been pretty amazing.

I love that both highlights are tied to family.

Guess what? You know who’s not wiping my butt when I’m 90? The dude who bought a ticket to the Radio City Music Hall.

[Laughs.] Were you surprised when your son wanted to do comedy? What advice did you give him?

I was surprised because he had always said he didn’t want to do it. Then one night, we were at a show in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Everybody knew who he was because I told stories about him. I go, ‘Hey dude, at the end of the show, let’s do a question and answer.’ He crushed. For a little while, he just did the Q&A, but one weekend I surprised him. I go, ‘Hey, by the way, tonight, you’re opening the show, get out there.’ If I had given him an option, he’d have been like, ‘Oh no, give me a month.’ But the best way to do it is just to do it. I tell that to people when they ask for suggestions for getting into stand-up. Go, get on stage. You’ll find out real quick if you like it or not.

What’s a favourite saying that keeps you going?

Get your sh*t together. I say it to myself all the time.

Yeah, that’s a daily for sure!

[Laughs.] I think it’s probably pretty universal!

Maybe I’ll put that as the title.

I might actually make a t-shirt [laughs].