From The Comic's Comic

Chad Daniels is a Minnesota stand-up comedian with more than a billion streams to his credit, and in July 2024 released his 10th comedy special and first for Netflix, Empty Nester, marking his freedom from raising two kids as a single dad in small-town Minnesota. Daniels sat down with me over Zoom to talk about how he balanced it all in his early years as a stand-up, what he learned from working with Mitch Hedberg as a young comic, why he resisted the pull of Los Angeles and New York City, and how landing his 2017 album on Pandora gave him both a new set of fans and placed a new set of expectations upon himself. Since that 2017 album, “Footprints on the Moon,” Daniels has put five hourlong specials across YouTube, EPIX, MGM+ and Netflix — and that’s not even counting another hour he has in the can for Netflix already.

There’s a lot to get to, so let’s get to it!

During our discussion about Pandora and the impact of tech on stand-up comedy, Daniels talked to me about learning he has earned a billion streams for his jokes, which has been great for his drawing power in comedy clubs and theaters, if not always directly for his bank account. Daniels referenced to me this Snoop Dogg revelation that made the rounds at the end of 2023, in which the legendary rapper claimed he only received $45,000 or so for his billion audio streams on Spotify.

We also talked a little bit about I Need You To Kill, the 2017 documentary from J. Elvis Weinstein and produced by Minnesota’s ACME Comedy Co., that featured Daniels alongside Tom Segura and Pete Lee going on tour in Asia when they were all so young!

Much earlier in Chad’s comedy career (and mine as well), we both got to see Mitch Hedberg as his stand-up star was shooting beyond all of our peers. But Daniels could (and did) lay credit to one classic Hedberg joke. I didn’t ask him about that specifically, though, choosing to ask Daniels for other Hedberg stories because he already has recounted the moment he inspired a Hedberg bit in other podcasts.

Like this podcast with Dan Soder!

Back to my podcast… More options to listen to Last Things First.