"It was about assessing whether I am really truly of the mind to attack the President – which of course is absurd."
NME caught up with the 54-year-old to talk Julian Casablancas’ kissing technique and how a joke that got the Mormon Church’s knickers in a twist spiralled out of control.
Your 2016 ‘Making America Great Again’ show came after a five-year break from touring. It’s taken less time for ‘Oh Come On’. What was the inspiration behind it?
“The only reason there were such lags between the prior three or four tours was I was very busy and wasn’t able to get a set together. This time, I had a show I was doing in the UK for Sky called Bliss. I was getting the potential series two together and my gut told me it wasn’t going to get picked up. Anticipating the reality that in six months I may end up having no work, instead of just waiting around, I figured I’ll just get material together for a stand-up tour. As expected, they didn’t pick up the show and I just said: ‘Okay, we’re good to go, starting in June’.”
Both this and your previous stand-up tour take aim at Trump and his supporters. Have you been targeted by any of his more rabid enthusiasts?
“Yeah, but it was more an anti-Mormon thing I did and the Mormons sent people to my Salt Lake City show. They wrote negative things about it and it got picked up by right-wing sites like Breitbart. They got the secret service involved, so last week I had a long interview with the secret service. Which is intimidating of course, but they could have not been cooler.”
Read Gary Ryan's full interview at NME.com
