WTF with Marc Maron Podcast

It's a doubleheader of singer-songwriters who are separated by several years but tied together by similar tragedies that reshaped their lives and their art. First, Phil Elverum of The Microphones and Mount Eerie tells Marc why he urgently needed to write his new album. Then Marc Mulcahy talks about the stops on his journey, from his work with Miracle Legion to finding mainstream recognition as par...

Marc interviews an interviewer when Lesley Stahl spends 60 minutes in the garage. The veteran journalist tells Marc what it was like to cover Watergate, interview U.S. Presidents, report on the struggles of real people, confront the changing nature of journalism, and become a grandma. Also, Demetri Martin returns to talk about his new movie Dean and the new challenges he's facing with his standup....

Marc travels to Washington, DC for a conversation with his old radio co-worker who now happens to be a United States Senator. Al Franken takes Marc through his start in comedy with Tom Davis, his fifteen years at SNL and his emergence as a political leader. The Senator works through the challenges of the Trump Presidency, gives his impressions of fellow Senators and explains how his career in come...

Jake Fogelnest was a teenager with a public access show who was thrust into a high-profile MTV gig and before too long was in rehab for drug addiction. Now Jake's a successful writer and show runner but it all started out with him as a 10-year-old comedy fan going to the clubs of New York City to see people like Marc Maron. Plus, Ron Funches returns to the garage as he gets ready to head out on to...

Danny Fields is a music manager, a publicist, a magazine editor, a writer, and a conduit to some of the greatest artists ever, including Andy Warhol, the Velvet Underground, the Doors, the Ramones, and many others. Danny takes Marc through a his experiences during a half-century of cutting edge music and pop art and also explains his role in an infamous Beatles controversy. Also, guitar legend J M...

Griffin Dunne caught the acting bug at a young age and had early success with movies like American Werewolf in London and After Hours. But tragedy struck when his career was ascendant and his whole family channeled grief into activism. Griffin tells Marc about that journey, as well as the moment he finally felt comfortable in show business. Plus, Bill Burr stops by because the new season of 'F is...

As AJ Lee, she was a larger than life superhero who won the WWE women's wrestling championship three times. But as AJ Mendez Brooks, she spent most of her life coping with mental illness. AJ tells Marc why she decided to open up about her struggles now that she's retired from wrestling. Also, Fred Stoller stops by again, this time with some insecurity over the interviews he did for his new book. H...

Joel Hodgson took his Midwestern sensibility, his interest in theater of the absurd, his standup comedy experience, and his robot assembly skills, put them together and created the beloved comedy institution Mystery Science Theater 3000. Joel takes Marc through the process of making MST3K, from its start on a local UHF station to its revival on Netflix. The new MST3K stars Marc's neighbor Jonah Ra...

Kevin Bacon started his career with an awkward experience on the set of Animal House. Then his fear of becoming a major star after Footloose led him to self-sabotage. It wasn't until he rejected Hollywood's idea of being a leading man and embraced being a character actor that everything flourished. Kevin also tells Marc stories about Diner, JFK, A Few Good Men, Sleepers, Apollo 13, Mystic River an...

John Michael Higgins is instantly familiar to audiences after seeing him in the Christopher Guest movies and Pitch Perfect and so many other films and TV shows. But he and Marc discover in the middle of their conversation that they actually share a comedy connection going back decades. They also talk about his Broadway career and his big break playing David Letterman. Plus, Maria Bamford stops by...

Wendi McLendon-Covey may have found success with The Goldbergs and Bridesmaids but the Hollywood lifestyle was never her thing. As she tells Marc, Wendi lived at home with her parents until she was 26, worked at a hotel in Anaheim while she was in the Groundlings, and kept a job on the side even when she was starring in shows like Reno 911. Marc's friend Al Madrigal also stops by to talk about his...

Although Mark Mothersbaugh co-founded Devo, he didn't think it was a band at first. To Mark and his bandmates, Devo was an art movement. Mark sits down in the garage to talk about his upbringing in Akron, attending Kent State University when the National Guard shooting happened, the unexpected success of Whip It, and the unforeseen creative rejuvenation he experienced while scoring television show...

Mark Lanegan is the soft-spoken elder statesman of the '90s Seattle grunge scene. Marc Maron talks with the former frontman of Screaming Trees and finds out how Mark went on to collaborate with a wide variety of artists, from Guns N' Roses to Belle and Sebastian. But first, singer-songwriter Mac DeMarco brings his laid-back Canadian rock vibe to the garage as he releases his third studio album and...

Poor health kept Walter Hill out of the Army in the '60s, but that twist of fate led him into filmmaking during the tumultuous end of that decade. Walter tells Marc about being there for the major shift in cinema during the '70s, making his own influential films like The Driver, The Warriors and 48 Hours, and working closely with actors like Steve McQueen, Eddie Murphy, and Richard Pryor. Walter a...

Marc is a fan of Amanda Peet when she's playing funny, quirky characters, like in Togetherness or Brockmire, and when she's cold-hearted and mean, like in Changing Lanes or Syriana. He finds out in person if those two sides of Amanda come to the surface in real life. Also, W. Kamau Bell stops by to talk about some of his projects and winds up talking with Marc about pretty much everything going on...

Baron Vaughn knows that growing up without a father and sharing a bunk bed with grandma can ignite the comedy spark. He tells Marc about being a latchkey kid watching cable TV and drawing inspiration from the black comedians of the early '90s. With a successful comedy and acting career to his name, Baron was also able to document his search for the father he never knew. Plus, Moshe Kasher returns...

It turns out Michael Chiklis and Marc went to Boston University at the same time, but soon after school Michael got cast as John Belushi in the movie Wired, which almost ended his career on the spot. Michael talks about how he bounced back with The Commish, transformed himself with The Shield, and finally got to engage his passion for music with his debut album Influence. Plus, Kurt Braunohler and...

Marc tries not to fanboy out too much with Anne Hathaway in the garage. While he attempts to keep it together, they talk about her path from party girl to motherhood, the lessons gleaned from messed up relationships, dealing with the aggressive anonymity of the Internet, and the real monsters in her new movie Colossal. Plus, Aimee Mann just released what Marc thinks is her best album, so she stops...

For the 800th episode of WTF, Marc welcomes back the show's very first guest, Jeff Ross. Just as WTF evolved since that first episode in 2009, Jeff evolved from the Roastmaster General to a comedian using his talent as a put-down artist in order to help us all better understand each other. He also talks about the unique relationships he built along the way with people like Buddy Hackett, Billy Cry...

New York Times comedy critic Jason Zinoman is the one person analyzing comedy from the most prominent journalistic platform in the world. So naturally Jason and Marc would want to talk about the nuts and bolts of creating comedy and, very specifically, the origin of David Letterman's influential brand of comedy, which is the subject of Jason's new book. Plus, Hank Azaria is back in the garage to t...

Marc was blown away by author Paul Beatty's celebrated novel The Sellout and wanted to know how a writer can turn a stew of ideas about identity, race, pride, language and representation into a provocative and hilarious book. Paul visits the garage to provide some answers and reflection. Plus, Marc's friend Jackie Kashian stops by to talk possums, iguanas, sci-fi, and her new comedy album. Hosted...

Paul Shaffer takes Marc down the path that turned a piano-playing kid from Canada into a keyboard-for-hire who became the bandleader for the famous Toronto production of Godspell. And from there, the dominoes fell, as Paul joined the SNL band, the Blues Brothers band, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame house band, and the band for David Letterman's show, which turned into a relationship that lasted fo...

Religious scholar Reza Aslan has spent his life studying the facts and misconceptions about belief and the evolutionary reasons people need to believe in something larger than themselves. Beginning with his family fleeing a religious revolution in Iran, then landing in Oklahoma as a child and growing up in a Latino community in San Jose, Reza talks with Marc about his lifelong exploration of faith...

Actor and writer Paul Rust knew how to be funny as a kid growing up in Iowa and struggling with OCD. But he tells Marc it was his knack for taking intense, borderline-unspeakable risks on stage when he got to LA that caught the attention of people like Scott Aukerman, Paul Reubens and Judd Apatow, which led to his Netflix show Love. Also, Dax Shepard returns to the garage to talk about CHiPs, the...

Filmmaker Louis Theroux once tried to make a documentary featuring Marc but he never used the footage. Marc's been puzzled by that ever since, but when you look at the subjects of many Louis docs - addicts, criminals, hate mongers, pornographers - Marc might be lucky Louis never made that movie. Marc talks with Louis about evolving as a filmmaker, learning from Michael Moore, and what went into Lo...