Marc Maron didn’t invent the query “Are we good?” or the medium of podcasting, however he’s made each indelibly his.
For 16 years, the caustic comic has opened emotional wounds and settled outdated scores on WTF with Marc Maron – the pioneering podcast that signed off on Monday after 1086 episodes.
Launched in September 2009, it’s featured everybody from Paul McCartney and Nicole Kidman to then-president Barack Obama, although the actually flamable instalments – the “Are we good?” episodes the place he would work via stress or decades-long grudges on-mic – have been often fellow comics: Louis C.Okay., David Cross, Margaret Cho.
Comedian Marc Maron throughout an interview with host Seth Meyers.Credit: Lloyd Bishop/NBC by way of Getty Images
That unapologetic, gruff method – which permits him to get to interrupt via the press-cycle glaze to get to one thing sincere – is Maron’s superpower.
Perhaps I ought to have tried it myself once we spoke in early October, every week earlier than WTF’s ultimate episode. Something was up. The first few awkward overlaps on Zoom I blame on lag between Sydney and Los Angeles, however even via pixelated iPhone footage, Maron’s furrowed forehead behind wireframes suggests one thing heavier.
Since asserting the present’s finish in June – citing burnout – he’s been trying again. On air, he not too long ago revisited the interview the place he first met filmmaker Lynn Shelton, who later turned his associate earlier than her sudden demise in 2020.
Did revisiting episodes trigger him to replicate on how he’s modified over time? “Not actually,” he shrugs. “It simply made me really feel like, I’m fairly good at this.” Okay, nicely, which visitor stunned him most? “That’s a tough query.”
Toward the top, once I ask if he’s able to say goodbye to WTF, Maron cuts via a query with one among his personal: “Are we wrapping up? I’ve received to get going. Sorry, I don’t imply to be impolite.”
For WTF’s devoted “What the F–kers” and “What the F–kniks,” that is peak Maron: the gruff philosopher-curmudgeon who can’t assist being honest. Not each visitor appreciated it (Gallagher stormed out), however the method remodeled him from a “comic’s comic” into podcasting’s unlikely conscience.
Robin Williams and Marc Maron photographed in 2010.Credit: Courtesy of Marc Maron
While he advised followers he was burnt out, he admits he’s not fairly positive how he’ll fill the hours as soon as the microphones are off.
“Between stand-up and the podcast, and appearing, typically, it was daily,” he says. “There’s going to be an enormous hole there, speaking to folks [on the podcast] is a bit a part of my social life and emotional life, speaking in these lengthy, very fulfilling conversations.”
“My social life outdoors of it isn’t that enormous, so I’m going to overlook that. I’m slightly nervous concerning the human connection frequently … I’m petrified of a smaller workload as a result of then I actually have to take a seat with myself. But I believe it’s necessary to try this.”
Launched 5 years after the time period podcast was coined and 5 years earlier than true crime saga Serial, WTF helped outline the medium’s trendy grammar: intimate, unfiltered, self-authored. Maron’s hours-long conversations created house for vulnerability and depth that conventional media not often allowed. From his storage studio – dubbed the Cat Ranch – Maron constructed a following of 55 million downloads a yr, riffing on comedy, politics, and his cats’ medical points. In doing so, he opened the door for a era of movie star interviewers who borrowed his intimacy, although usually stripped of his rawness, turning what started as one man’s confessional into a world content material format.
Owen Wilson and Marc Maron in Stick.
“It’s type of the wild west on the market 1760380443, and it’s a really glutted house,” he says. “But each from time to time, anyone locks into one thing, and it will get out on this planet. You simply have to remain on high of it, and hold displaying up with the identical depth that you just received your break with.”
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That consistency turned WTF right into a platform that revitalised his profession, touchdown the appearing gigs and stand-up specials that when felt so far-off, together with a spot on Netflix’s GLOW and his personal three-season sitcom, Maron.
Back in 2009, Maron didn’t have a lot left to lose. There have been two failed Saturday Night Live auditions (finally, he’d hash this out with Lorne Michaels). Should-be stepping stones, corresponding to an HBO particular and repeat slots on Letterman and Conan’s late-night exhibits, by no means made a lot impression. Fired from Air America radio, he was twice divorced, sober and seething. With producer Brendan MacDonald sneaking him into outdated studios after hours, they made a present. Marron quickly arrange a studio in his Los Angeles storage, a set-up he’s saved up even with a home transfer.
“I used to be at all times attempting to place myself on the market in an try and develop into a complete particular person,” Maron mirrored on WTF’s penultimate episode, his ultimate solo episode. “So, I believed, if I might be seen, and I may present myself that someway or one other, I might come collectively.”
Marc Maron (Gideon Pearlman) and Alejandro Hernandez (Luis) in The Horror of Dolores Roach.Credit: Prime Video
At first, WTF was a peak behind the comedy retailer curtain, with comedians like Patton Oswalt, Margaret Cho and Maria Bamford, chatting trade gossip and inspirations (“Who are your guys?” is one other traditional Maron query).
He was keen on bringing his issues as some extent of debate too, and issues clicked as Maron began being remarkably frank, speaking about dependancy and his frustrations in his profession, resulting in fascinatingly uncooked conversations as friends matched his vitality.
Less than a yr in, Robin Williams was remarkably candid about his struggles with melancholy, alcoholism and suicidal ideation. That Williams episode, later archived by the US National Recording Registry, captured the medium’s energy: two comics quietly discussing melancholy, alcoholism, and suicidal ideas. When Williams died in 2014, Maron re-released it, voice cracking via the intro.
The friends may need been a draw, but it surely was at all times Maron himself who saved listeners coming again. The cranky, curious voice that opened every episode like a involved buddy checking in: Have you seen the mechanic? What about that appointment you’ve been pushing aside? Over the years, 1000’s of listeners have written to inform him that these exchanges helped them via darkish patches and shifted their mindsets. With information of WTF’s finish, these letters have solely multiplied.
“I really feel dangerous for lots of the followers which have grown to have a really intimate relationship with the present,” he says. “It’s a loss. It’s actual, the load of not doing it.”
Despite the intimate nature of podcasting – the place hosts are sometimes talking instantly into your ear – Maron says his viewers is “fairly respectful” throughout the board, although he has realized to attract firmer traces.
The man within the ring: Marc Maron performs the wrestling coach.Credit: Erica Parise/Netflix
“When you discuss a relationship, they don’t actually have a rebuttal,” he says. “Various ladies have mentioned, ’It’s not truthful that you just discuss this fashion or about that, once I can’t give my aspect of it. That’s one ingredient.
“And you understand, I’ve a non-public life. Not all the pieces is out there … [Otherwise] finally you find yourself depleted. There’s one thing to preserving some issues to your self, so at the least you have got some self-ownership.”
If there’s been any criticism from followers, it’s that Maron, an outspoken progressive, isn’t sticking round to be a determine on the left. It has been on Maron’s thoughts: When asserting WTF’s finish, he referred to as himself podcasting’s Oppenheimer, delivering an ideal evil – the male comic with a microphone– onto the world. Last yr, Maron made headlines for calling out comedians who “joke round with fascists”, days after Donald Trump made a presidential marketing campaign pit-stop on The Joe Rogan Experience.
Despite this, Maron says WTF has by no means been a dial-shifter. “It was by no means a political present,” he says. “My private opinions about politics filtered in out of necessity. I do know that individuals say, ‘We want you now!’
“But nothing that we did on the podcast ever received as a lot traction as [political] bits from my comedy particular, which have hundreds of thousands of views.”
WTF host Marc Maron in his particular Panicked on HBO Max.
He’s referring to his most up-to-date HBO particular Panicked named after what he refers to as obsessional nervousness, a continuous worrying. “I additionally assume it’s a spot many people are at,” he says, including a clarification that he means “rational folks”.
The particular, which has obtained a number of the greatest critiques of his profession, is loaded with political jabs, together with a self-reflective, viral zinger on how Maron and different fellow progressives have “aggravated the typical American into fascism”. It freewheels between a risqué part a few probably traumatic childhood to an unexpectedly tender riff on a Taylor Swift tune that captures his mourning for Shelton.
If there’s one factor Maron has been most open about over time, it’s Shelton’s demise. Two days after she died in 2020, he replayed their 2015 dialog with a uncooked and messy introduction. “I don’t even know if I must be out in public speaking,” he says, “however that is what I do.”
Marc Maron and Lynn Shelton attend the 2020 Vanity Fair Oscar get together.Credit: Getty Images
But he’s most happy with that childhood part, as he eases the tense viewers into laughter. It is likely to be the primary smile I see, once I say that it made me snicker, and hit house.
“[The special’s] actually packed, however I be ok with it. There is a comedic problem to [that], and when it really works, it’s nice,” he says.
There’s one thing to preserving some issues to your self, so at the least you have got some self-ownership.
“That’s the last word aim. If you say the unstated – not in a ‘I shouldn’t say that’ method, however when you take the emotional danger and discuss one thing that most individuals hold unstated, then there’s an actual aid valve there for those that determine with it.”
Maron’s personal aid valve, clearly, is figure – and regardless of WTF ending, he has no plans to pause. Days after the finale, he’s testing new materials at Los Angeles comedy membership Largo. A WTF e book is on the way in which, as are appearing gigs: a Bruce Springsteen biopic, Apple’s Stick season two, his personal deliberate directorial debut.
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Plus, there’s Are We Good? – a documentary not too long ago launched within the US by Steven Feinartz, who adopted him round within the aftermath of Shelton’s demise as working as much as his eviscerating, grief-dripped 2023 particular, From Bleak to Dark.
Maron is proud of it, although says Feinartz made him look “slightly crankier than I’m. But it’s balanced”.
“When I watched it, as if I weren’t me, it appears to be the portrait of a cranky, delicate man who, regardless of himself, succeeded someway. And Steven mentioned, ‘Yeah, that’s precisely the film’.“
Panicked is out there to stream on HBO Max. The ultimate episode of WTF with Marc Maron aired on Monday.
