Do you feel seen by those themes?
I always felt that Taylor was always in a good mood performing. Of course, she can’t always be, but she never lets it show in her performances. It’s probably because of her performances that she is happy again. I always felt a little disconnected with her because when I’m depressed, I have to fake it a little bit. And I felt like, why can’t my art take me out of my life the way it does with Taylor Swift?
But then “I Can Do It With a Broken Heart” came out, and I’m like, oh, she has to fake it sometimes, too. Those songs have really touched me. I feel like everyone has that kind of connect with Taylor Swift, where she’s been through something specific that they’ve also been through, and that just happens to be the one for me.
Do you have a favorite era?
I am always in the era that she’s in. The Tortured Poets Department really helped me get through preparing for The Roast of Tom Brady, when I was really feeling isolated and alone and unsure of myself and, really, all I was doing was thinking about roast jokes. It was the greatest gift because it was a distraction. It reminded me that I care about other things and that my life is full no matter what happens with this roast. It really held my hand through that really stressful time in my life. And then, even after the roast, even though it went the way I wanted it to, that was really a tumultuous time for me, just handling that level of attention and feeling like I can’t live up to it now. And I just felt like I turned to that album so much.
You wrote and performed a single for the credits of your second HBO special, Someday You’ll Die. Did Taylor influence your own sound?
Without question, I think when I first started stand-up, I sounded exactly like my favorite stand-up, who was Sarah Silverman. I was obsessed with Sarah Silverman in a way that I am with Taylor Swift right now. So when I wrote my first jokes, it was like, what would Sarah Silverman write?