Ep506: Craig Ferguson - Comedian, Actor, TV Host & Music Fanatic
The Vinyl Guide - Artist Interviews for Record Collectors and Music Nerds
Nate Goyer
4.7 • 579 Ratings
🗓️ 10 July 2025
⏱️ 60 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Comedian, Actor, Author Craig Ferguson discusses his early punk days, making music and comedy records, avoiding David Bowie and many musical moments that influenced his path.
Topics Include:
- Discussion begins about Craig's new vinyl release "I'm So Happy"
- Craig has released most of his comedy specials on vinyl
- His first album was vinyl in 1986 when that was standard
- Vinyl became the poor cousin during the CD era
- Craig's vinyl collection is currently boxed up after moving
- Used red sleeves for expensive records when kids were young
- First owned record: Monkees "Headquarters" from uncle James
- First purchased: Brian Eno "Here Come the Warm Jets" 1976
- Son experienced vinyl for first time with Mogwai album
- Son said he felt "robbed" by digital music quality
- Modern music feels overproduced and digitally assembled to Craig
- Artists release music before it's properly developed or ready
- His first concert: Blue Oyster Cult 1975 Nassau Coliseum
- Still shops at record stores with tour manager Thomas
- Prefers tactile experience over buying vinyl records online
- Has couple of precious singles from his own bands
- Missed lots of music during blackout drunk years 15-30
- Now discovering missed artists like John Cale collaborations
- Doesn't consider himself musician but thinks like one musically
- Stand-up comedy has tempos, moods, feels like musical performance
- Music and comedy both require audience participation for value
- Paul Weller didn't want interview despite initial tour requests
- Never invited David Bowie due to being too in awe
- Never spent time with Iggy Pop except seeing performances
- Drummed for Nico briefly when young and impaired
- Last public drumming was disastrous Rock Bottom Remainders performance
- Billy Connolly's vinyl albums were forbidden contraband as kid
- Vinyl comedy creates different atmosphere than digital formats
Watch "I'm So Happy" on YouTube & order the vinyl here.
High resolution version of this podcast is available at: www.Patreon.com/VinylGuide
Listen on Apple: https://apple.co/2Y6ORU0
Listen on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/36qhlc8
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. |
| 0:10.0 | Here's your host, the biggest record nerd of them all, Nate Goyer. |
| 0:13.5 | Ah, well, hey everyone, it's Nate. |
| 0:15.7 | Welcome to episode 506 of the Vinyl Guide, the podcast for record collectors and music nerds. |
| 0:22.7 | And ladies and gentlemen, this morning, I had an absolutely lovely conversation with a person whose work I have enjoyed for many years, Mr. Craig Ferguson. |
| 0:34.4 | Now, many of you will know Craig from his hosting of the late late show, |
| 0:39.1 | or you may know him from his acting work and TV and movies, and he does a lot of voiceover |
| 0:43.9 | work and animated films. Heck, you may even have one of his books. He's got a few. They're all |
| 0:49.2 | very entertaining. I do recommend all of his books there. They are quite fun to read. You may also know |
| 0:56.3 | Craig from his comedy. I mean, that's how Craig got his start. That's how he entered the global |
| 1:01.4 | zeitgeist. And he's a comedian with quite a few comedy albums, a lot of them on vinyl |
| 1:08.2 | records, which again, we talk about today. What you may not know is that Craig Ferguson is also an absolute music fanatic. |
| 1:17.8 | Craig is a drummer. |
| 1:19.1 | Well, these days, he doesn't drum so much. |
| 1:21.7 | But he used to be in several punk bands and has his name on several records. |
| 1:27.5 | Again, we talk about that today. |
| 1:29.4 | He even spent some time playing with Nico. |
| 1:31.8 | So the guy has skills beyond the comedy and film stage. |
| 1:35.7 | And with that in mind, today, Craig and I have a chat all about vinyl records, music, his early days, avoiding David Bowie, our mutual love of Iggy Pop, Brian Eno, and of course, vinyl records. |
| 1:49.2 | So I got to share that Craig has a new comedy special. |
| 1:52.8 | You can enjoy right now. It's called I'm So Happy. It's on the YouTube's, so feel free to pull it up and watch it your leisure. |
| 1:59.5 | And you can even order a copy of I'm So Happy on vinyl. That's at craig Ferguson.merchtable.com. It's pretty cool. Not too many comedians get their act onto vinyl record. Not done a whole lot these days. So kind of cool to see that done. And apparently it's quite a deluxe package. |
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