Stand-Up Byron Bowers Confronts Pain With Comedy
On the surface, there’s not a lot that’s funny about trauma, mental health issues, and drug addiction. But Athens-born comedian Byron Bowers mines those darker areas for some of his best material.
Bowers made a recent appearance on Comedy Central’s show “This Is Not Happening” with a story about how as a teenager, he discovered his father was addicted to crack.
“I stripped everything I thought was funny from it that would take away from the moment,” he explains. “Where I’m at as an artist now, you’re able to learn the right stuff to make people feel something. I was able to emote that. So I’m watching people about to cry in the audience as I’m telling this story. My comedy style was dark anyway, and now I’m just telling you why these types of things make me laugh.”
“The tense situations in life is where comedy comes from for me,” Bowers says.
The comedian has also appeared on the Showtime program “The Chi,” where he plays what he calls “spiritual gangster,” named Meldrick.
“I feel that all Southern criminals have a spiritual side,” he says. “That’s the number one buyers of chains with crosses on them, it’s people that’s doing dirt, ’cause they need God right there by their side. Even when I hustled, the first thing I bought was a Jesus piece. So that’s where that character comes from. It’s knowing people that hustle, but they’re very spiritual but through chain of events, that’s what they ended up doing. They bring people closer to the spiritual world, except they’re doing it through pills rather than the pulpit, because that’s what was accessible for them.”
Bowers is performing at the Punchline June 8 through 10.