Comedian and writer Hannibal Buress performed in the Illini Union on Wednesday. After his stand-up routine, Buress sat down with the Daily Illini to discuss his tours, his past performances and life as a stand-up comedian.

The Daily Illini: Congratulations on your performance, Hannibal. I apologize that you had to come to Champaign for it.

Hannibal Buress: (Laughs) It’s alright, man. It’s my job to travel places and get onstage.

DI: Since you have toured at several colleges, what is it like to gauge each audience?

HB: I really do close to the same set I’ll do in comedy clubs. I’ll go for more college material, like talking about tuition or my college experience. I’ll do that more often than not, but my shows don’t change that much outside the fact that I do five-ten minutes of college material.

DI: You have appeared on “Louie,” “30 Rock,” “The Eric André Show” and you have created your own web series in addition to your stand-up performances. How have you balanced all of this?

HB: Well I’m not on those shows anymore (laughs). The only show that’s current is my web series, which is new and just fun for me. The web series was filmed when I went to music festivals. “Louie” I did a couple years ago, and “30 Rock”’s done now and I didn’t do anything on its last season. But the web series isn’t that taxing. Hopefully, I’ll do a couple of music festivals in the future … maybe Coachella or Bonnaroo. It’s fun to just get out there in any way I can.

DI: Last May was particularly big for you on Comedy Central when your stand-up special “Animal Furnace” premiered, along with “The Eric André Show.”Has your career changed at all since then?

HB: Yeah, more people come out to my shows now because of those shows. I think they exposed me to a lot of people, especially in the cities. I think they’ve helped a lot.

DI: I am sorry to hear that your flight into Champaign was not the most pleasant trip. Hopefully, traveling is never too miserable?

HB: No, it’s not miserable at all. I’m with my friends; we get to hang out and do shows and go out afterwards, and then we do the whole process again. My employees, I mean (laughs). They’re glaring over here, wanting to correct me. But it’s good to travel with people I’m cool with and do shows and hang out.

DI: I remember you described an earlier tour in 2008 as exhausting.

HB: Yeah, when I traveled solo, parts were a bummer. But it depends on the place I’ll be in. Early on, if I knew people already in the cities I was going through, I would know of spots to go to and it’d be fun. But it makes it better to have some people around. That’s a main thing for me.

DI: You interacted a lot with the audience during your performance. Do their responses dictate the rest of your show?

HB: It depends. Sometimes, I’ll add on something to a joke if people respond positively to it. But I just do the show. I’ll change up the order of the jokes sometimes, but for the most part I go through the bits. I’ve been doing this show for about a year, so I know how people usually respond to each joke.

DI: You mentioned that you go to comedy shows a lot and enjoy listening to other comedians. Is there more to it than personal interest?

HB: I just like to go to stuff so I have stuff to talk about (laughs). Cause if I just do comedy … when I was on the road a lot about two years ago, all my stand-up was like, “Yeah, I was in this hotel” … it was all hotel and rental car material.

DI: So, the shows give you experience?

HB: Kind of, yeah. I’ll get ideas for more jokes that I can do. So going to shows can help or they’re at least fun to be at.

DI: Has your comedy changed at all since you started?

HB: Yeah, now it’s more what I really think about things or stuff that really happened to me as opposed to when I first started out trying to think, “What’s funny about towels?”

DI: So how do comedians develop that keen sense of observation?

HB: (Laughs) I don’t know, you just got to know where to look … see things from a weird or new angle.

Adlai can be reached [email protected].