The Comedy Cast with Eric D’Alessandro

Summary: <p>This week on The Comedy Cast we speak to American stand-up comedian, actor and filmmaker Eric D’Alessandro.</p> <audio class="wp-audio-shortcode" id="audio-744-46" style="width: 100%;"><a href="http://thecomedycast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/The-Comedy-Cast-with-Eric-D%E2%80%99Alessandro.mp3">https://thecomedycast.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/The-Comedy-Cast-with-Eric-D’Alessandro.mp3</a></audio> <h3>Comedy Podcast</h3> <p>Follow Spud on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/The_ComedyCast" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p>We kick off the interview speaking about Eric’s musical talent though, pinned to his <a href="https://twitter.com/ericdalessandro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Twitter </a>profile you’ll find a comedy rap song called Be Careful. So we speak about the difficulties of comedy in music, and especially when trying to do a comedic rap. But the genius of it is making it about an ex-partner, something we can all easily identify and laugh about.</p> <p>Now, Eric is first and foremost a filmmaker and actor and about three years ago he made, as in, he filmed, produced, edited, wrote and starred in a film called 5 Miles from the Spotlight. This was of huge interest to me, as most of you will know documentary making is the direction I’m going in and we spoke about what drove him to make the film and to take the initiative and take on the mammoth project of putting a feature film together on his own.</p> <p>You can watch the film here: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3cQbZfofGU">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w3cQbZfofGU</a></p> <p>We rewind the clock a bit then and speak about Eric’s love for sketch comedy and we speak about how that lead to him getting into performing stand-up, both to get himself out there more and to learn more about the craft of comedy as a whole.</p> <h3>Funny Podcasts</h3> <p>We talk at length then about comedy in the age of social media. Eric’s got a huge following on Instagram in particular where his videos regularly get 1000s and 1000s of views and he speaks about how he went from posting photos and videos of everything and anything to just concentrating on the comedy that people liked. He speaks openly about how he battled for quite a long time about whether he just give people what they want or should he push other things on them and it was fascinating to listen to him describe the decision making process.</p> <p>I ask him too about how he keeps his social media profile professional and in a world where it looks like followers want more of the person they’re following he actually does the opposite.</p> <p>Eric’s YouTube is full of videos and a kind of series he’s been doing since leaving New York for California is that he documents his ‘comedy journey’ on the comedy circuit there. We speak about the frustrations of performing at open mic nights where you don’t get a proper comedy crowd you just get comedians who want to joke about Battlestar Galactica and Thonos (I’ve no idea what the second one is) and who play for the open mic crowd rather than for proper comedy club crowds. As open mic nights become more and more popular in the comedy world it’s becoming a common complaint from stand-ups. Makes you wonder what it will lead to.</p> <p>Eric D’Alessandro on Instagram: <a href="https://www.instagram.com/ericdalessandro/?hl=en" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p>Eric D’Alessandro on Twitter: <a href="https://twitter.com/ericdalessandro" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <p>Eric D’Alessandro on YouTube: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJKT2w89t6E3OmmsSwtuoww" target="_blank" rel="noopener">here</a></p> <h3><strong>Get in Touch</strong></h3> <p>Don’t be shy, get in touch with <a href="http://thecomedycast.com/2016/06/08/comedy-cast-comedy-podcast/">The Comedy Cast</a> o</p>