HBO
Before we get started on Tourgasm, tell us how you got started in comedy?

Check out Dane Cook's bio.

DANE
I started doing stand-up comedy 16 years ago in the fine city of Boston and never looked back. It was the kind of thing where the moment I stepped on that stage, it was an addiction, and I loved it, and I can't believe it's been 16 years. And it's just been a joy.

HBO
For those who don't know you, can you speak to the comic stylings of Dane?

DANE
My stand-up comedy is improvisational... fierce, silly, irreverent, wry, corny, cool. My dream as a stand-up comic was to not be pigeon-holed as one kind of style. I wanted to learn from the greats, and I wanted to be able to incorporate what people are. And people are many different kinds of funny.

One of the first things that anybody ever wrote describing my stand-up was 'Dane's act reminds me of summer days when neighbors gather on one porch and everyone just throws out their stories of the week.' I remember reading that and feeling that I want to continue to develop so that I can express anything I can at any point to any crowd on stage.

HBO
Stand-up is one of the most difficult things to perfect. You're out there alone pulling the cue, almost like a prize-fighter, bobbing and weaving. What's the creative process like for you? Where do you get inspiration for material?

HBO
Yeah, stand-up is definitely brutal. At the same time, though, I'm not an Alaskan crowd-fisherman, so I'm pretty lucky. [CHUCKLES]

DANE
My approach has always been about coming up with a framework and keeping it very real on stage. Almost like when you go to see a band, you want to feel like the show is for you. It isn't just a formula set list, you're going off-book a little bit. And for me it is like boxing. You can't plan out your punches. You can't say, OK, I'm gonna go two jabs and an upper-cut. You have to be adaptable. And I'm adaptable with every crowd. I feel like when I take them on my journey, they know that. They sense that something new is happening right now.

HBO
Who are some of your influences?

DANE
I would say influence-wise, Susanne Plechette. [LAUGHS] Ruth Buzzy. [LAUGHS] My influences are vast, but I will say this: the two funniest people in my life, and maybe where I got my entire stage persona from, are my Mom and Dad. My Dad is very subtle, very dry. He's got a lot of sarcasm, doesn't move around a lot when he's putting it out there. You know when he's really still, something's gonna zing ya. He's got a cocky swagger. And I wanted to take elements of that. But my Mother is very physical. She's over the top -- she's not afraid to make herself look like the fool. She's just alive and uses movement. And that's what made me laugh growing up -- my Mother and my Father. I always thought, that's the kind of comic I'd like to be, to bring both of those things together.

HBO
You do have a nice blend of the physical and the speech. What about the stand-up comics you watched on TV - did anyone leave a real mark on you?

DANE
As far as comedians that people know, you're always gonna go Carlin and Pryor. It's like they're beyond comedy, they really are. Somebody said recently they are the architects. But I grew up listening to Cosby albums and Newhart stuff and watching HBO specials. Bill Cosby Himself. I remember that had a major impact on me. I was in junior high school at the time, walking around going, "Daddy's great. Making us the chocolate cake." I just loved repeating Cosby. I always thought, I would love to be able to put comedy out there that someday people wanna quote.

HBO
And now they do!?

DANE
I do get e-mails now from kids saying, We were walking up and down the halls saying your lines and, you know, it's like a secret language, our Dane-isms. That's unbelievably flattering and sometimes surreal.

DANE
But it comes from watching all those greats. I used to like watching Johnny Carson. I didn't even know why he was funny, but I remember I would watch Johnny Carson and my family would be laughing, and I would just be really soaking it in. The thing I learned from Johnny Carson was, it's not the material, it's you. Redd Foxx once said, if you know what really makes you likable, if you know that, then anything can be funny. But you have to find that, and part of what Tourgasm is, is pushing that. Trying to pull something new out of all of us.

HBO
Perfect segue to that next question: Tourgasm. The name kinda tingles the senses. Tell us what Tourgasm is and what we can expect?

DANE
Tourgasm is reminiscent of a young Jewish girl in the summer of 1963. No. [LAUGHS] Okay, I had this idea for showing people what was happening in stand-up comedy and what was happening with me. But then, more importantly in many ways, I wanted to provide a place where my three friends, Gary, Bobby and Jay, could be seen not only by current fans but by new fans.

When I saw all these people together, the first day on the bus, I knew Tourgasm was not only gonna be hilariously funny, but the stakes were high. This wasn't just gonna be Goodtime USA, pat ourselves on the back -- it was important for the people that I was traveling with. And I knew that they'd raise my level of performance, because they had to put it all on the line.

HBO
So it sounds like a pretty interesting mix of personalities. Did you look around and say, hey, these guys’d be good together, they'd feed off each other?

DANE
Fights, I want fights. That's what I want. Who doesn't love a good barn-burner once in a while? No, I mean, we have very different personalities. And we've never all lived together, let alone in a traveling prison. You could close your eyes and reach out and you’re touching Jay's cheek. You could never escape it. And then there were the cameras, 24/7. Except for Gary, who had cameras in his face during Last Comic Standing, we weren't used to that. I wasn't used to that. Even when you were relaxing, your mind was always -- what do we have to do next? And keeping that light on inside yourself and knowing, okay, I gotta bring the funny not just to every show, but to these cameras and wherever this may end up.

HBO
So tell us - what was the worst of it?

DANE
You had had to be ready to rumble 24-7, so you're always in that mind-set. I felt like I was at the gym sometimes, just constantly working out, and trying to keep up with these bastards. Sometimes they were just bastards. So that's the good and the bad. You always had to be ready, always on your toes, who's coming at me, who's gonna try to prank me, who's gonna try to one-up me. But that was also what made it so much fun. We felt like we were 15 years old [LAUGHS].

HBO
Of all this, the 30 days, the craziness, tight quarters, pranks -- what surprised you the most?

DANE
What I didn't realize would happen was the amount of really raw emotion that would come out, both in how we approach our comedy and how we approach each other as guys. I think the one thing that sticks in my mind is how we would change from day to night. During the day we'd be butting heads, trying to carve out our own place on this bus, alpha male stuff. But even if there was fighting, F-bombs in each other's face and the spit was flying... when the night hit, and that show is coming, a camaraderie happens, almost like with your family. You can fight with your family, but if somebody comes in and points at your sister and says something, you will all just come together and just out that person. We were each other's champions. No matter what I was feeling towards any of them during the day, I wanted to see them win. The camaraderie really impressed me, the way we looked out for each other.

HBO
That definitely comes across. You've got a raucous bunch of fans, the Dane Train. It's a pretty rabid, loyal following.

DANE
There is a little thing called the Dane Train. I remember when the Dane Train was just the front cart, just me, in my little hat, and a little shovel, and I'd be shoveling the coal...

It was like I was willing this thing. I treated it like politics. I wanna be elected. I do stand-up comedy because, I wanna be here, I worked hard to be able to sit in this seat, to face this nation, and say, I love what I do, this is the thing I am meant to do. I suck at everything else.

And I do it because I love to make people laugh, and I've never minded that that sounds kinda corny or cliché, or that some people might say I get to make a living off of making people feel great.

HBO
You've got thousands of people emailing you on your website, and it's as if they all know you.

DANE
I do feel like I have a relationship with my fans, and I feel like they know the good and the bad of me. When Retaliation came out, I remember telling my Mom, if I do this the right way, my fans will put me on the map, they'll give me the career that I've always dreamed about. Then it hit number four in the Billboard charts...that was it. They showed up. I did the work, playing the hustle game, doing what my Dad used to say -- nothing attracts a crowd like a crowd. But if they didn't show up, I may not be sitting here talking to you right now.