Evon Campbell

Today I am interviewing Evon Campbell, a comedian born in Kingston, Jamaica who has been doing comedy for three years. To find out more about Evon, please visit his website.


Why did you start doing stand-up comedy?

Well, when I was a kid I always imagined myself performing in front of an audience, I just didn’t really know in what capacity I’d do it. During college I took up playing electric guitar, I did that for about six years but nothing really came of it as far as performing in bands or out in public. Plus, those long tricky guitar solos were really tough to master.

After a while I started hanging around movie and music video sets doing extra work. It was great being on set; the people, the cameras, the free food. I decided I should take some acting classes. Ultimately instead of acting classes I chose to take improv classes thinking would be more fun, and it was! Performing in front of people felt natural and exciting to me. When the classes were over I wanted to continue doing comedy in some way. Ever since I was little I would always love making my friends laugh so stand up comedy seemed like an option that would fit me well. I began watching a lot of stand up videos online and hanging around open mics trying to write material. I did that for about three months before I went on stage for the first time...

Did you find anything surprising about stand-up comedy since you started?

Sure, I’m surprised by how little I’ve changed off stage since I started. I’ve always been kind of a quiet type of person, so when I started doing stand up I thought it would make me much more loud and blabby. But even as I’ve become louder, more confident and better on stage I’m still pretty much the same person off stage as I was before I started.

Another thing that surprised me after I started was how fragmented stand up comedy is. There are so many different types of shows and scenes out there. You’ve got mainstream shows, urban shows, alternative, Latino, Italian-American, hipster, anti-hipster, shows based on weight, height, etc. Just about anything you want, its there...in New York at least. Support live comedy!

What was your first time performing comedy like?

My first time was at the Comedy Cellar open mic. I wrote 5 minutes of killer material that I was sure would destroy the room. Usually when a comic goes on stage to perform for the first time, they’ll announce it to everyone for some added support, but I decided to just go up without saying anything to really get the raw feel of my jokes. In fact I was so confident that about two minutes before I went up I decided to open with an Axl Rose impression just for the hell of it. Well, I didn’t do good at all, each joke painfully bombed in complete silence. I went home feeling defeated but eventually decided to give it one more try. The difference was I was going to write jokes based on how I really thought and felt about stuff rather than what I thought a stand-up comedian should sound like. Took me about 3 months to write a new 5 minute set and work up the courage to go back, then I went back to the Cellar open mic again and did great. I’ve been doing it regularly ever since.