Daniel Sloss Speaks on the Tour That Broke Him

1. 0:00 – 0:43

   No manual for fame: self-worth tied to strangers

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr0:00

      Did anyone ever give you, like, a fucking manual of, like, here's what to do when you become famous. Here's how to manage it. Here's how to spend your money, and look after yourself, and make sure you don't do much drink and drugs. Like, how do you... Uh, was there any arrested development in that phase?

   2. DSDaniel Sloss0:12

      Yeah, still got it. Yeah, still got it. Uh, you know, it's why I go to therapy. Um, you know, I don't think, uh, my brain is a particularly normal or great place to be a lot of the time. You know, all of my self-worth, uh, for over half my life has come from the love and approval of strangers. You know, I was... COVID fucked me up a lot, um, because I was touring

2. 0:43 – 1:14

   Touring too hard and the “year off” that arrived as COVID

   1. DSDaniel Sloss0:43

      too much before, uh, because I was so terrified of losing the heat, you know, strike while the iron's hot. I was... You know, the momentum that y- I fucking had. You know, all through the X tour I was begging. All I want was a fucking year off, and then, uh, and then COVID happened, and, you know, I got exactly what I wanted, and it fucked me up worse because, you know, now I, I, I had no idea how to like myself,

3. 1:14 – 1:45

   Incremental success vs. overnight global exposure

   1. DSDaniel Sloss1:14

      uh, or love myself, or see any value in myself as a person because, you know, you know, just years and years that you, you get that from the strangers in front of you. You get that from after the show when people are thanking you. All this fucking, you know, really ego, um, building stuff. Uh, nobody prepared me for it. I, I was very fortunate in fact, like, a lot of... I'd had, like, the incremental success before that, so, like, I, like... You

4. 1:45 – 2:34

   The X tour spiral: drinking on stage and relying on drugs

   1. DSDaniel Sloss1:45

      know, fucking Mack and Dave's road show was, like, a slight inoculation, and then Conan was, like, another little inoculation. Like, here it's gonna blow up a little bit. Little... And then Netflix was, was overnight and, uh, global. Um, it absolutely stunted my growth mentally. Uh, I handled it really poorly. Like, on the X tour I was, I was doing three quarters of a bottle of whiskey a night on stage. Uh, I was... I mean, at one point I said to my agent, and this was really fucked, and I... You know, I've apologized to her many times since, but I was, uh, I was in a dark place during those times. I was like, "I don't care what it does. Wherever I land in the world, it's your job to get weed there," when I la- when I landed.

   2. DJDavid McIntosh Jr2:33

      Yo.

5. 2:34 – 3:04

   Isolation on the road and losing his sense of self

   1. DSDaniel Sloss2:34

      I was like, "Whoever the local promoters are," I'm like, "I'm not doing a fucking second of this tour sober. And I can't do it." Like, I'm away from home. Uh, I'm away from my girlfriend. I'm away from my support group. Thank, thank fucking God I had Kai there with me, you know, who's, you know, known me my entire life, and he was able to, like, do his best to keep me on, uh, the track. But God, yeah, I lost myself. I fucking hated myself. Took years off my life. Uh, and then, you know, when

6. 3:04 – 3:35

   Aftermath: therapy, toxicity, and lashing out at others

   1. DSDaniel Sloss3:04

      the X tour ended, I went straight to fucking therapy. I was like, "Ah," like, "this is not a good place to be, and I've become, I've become toxic." Um, you know, I was really awful to my agent, uh, 'cause I blamed her. Uh, I was really awful to a lot of people around me 'cause, you know, I just wanted to f- I wanted to isolate. I just... You know, being on the road is really fucking lonely. It's, it's one of the most lonely things in the world,

7. 3:35 – 4:28

   The shame of ingratitude and the “successful but miserable” stereotype

   1. DSDaniel Sloss3:35

      and, and I hated myself for what I perceived to be ingratitude. You know, I felt like such a stereotype. Like, you've gotten everything you ever fucking dreamed of. You're a global success, more than you ever thought that you would ever be, you know, when you were 17 years old, and you're not fucking happy. That's pathetic.

   2. DJDavid McIntosh Jr4:00

      Mm.

   3. DSDaniel Sloss4:01

      You know? Go back to the stand, talk to all the people you started with. Every single one of those cunts would murder for the career that you have. And there I am fucking, you know, crying in a hotel in Hong Kong, drunk in a bath in Moscow, you know, being unprofessional, being unfulfilled, and not really savoring why at. Um, and it was a... Yeah, it was a fucking dark, [laughs] horrible, uh, spiral.

8. 4:28 – 5:12

   Rebuilding while touring again: shifting validation and priorities

   1. DJDavid McIntosh Jr4:28

      Given that you're touring again now across the globe, how have you... Like, what have you learned in that process? Like, how have you rewired your relationship with self-validation and external validation?

   2. DSDaniel Sloss4:37

      Um, oh, fucking, you know, I've got two kids-

   3. DJDavid McIntosh Jr4:40

      [laughs]

   4. DSDaniel Sloss4:40

      ... and a wife who loves me. Um, you know, and that's... I mean, and that's... It... And it's hard, you know. It's something I still, you know, struggle with. I'm still in therapy, you know. I s- You know, I s- uh, still s- uh, struggle with my sense of self, and my ego, and, you know, I, I have really bad imposter syndrome depending on where I am in the world. Uh, I still have such huge anxieties and fear about my career, and my success, and my future, and how

9. 5:12 – 5:43

   Boundaries with touring: making home the default

   1. DSDaniel Sloss5:12

      I'm perceived. Um, but what's really helpful is, you know, stand-up comedy's no longer my priority. I love it. I love it. It will, you know, it will always be my first love. But, you know, now I'm home most of the time. After my daughter was born, I took a year off. I just stayed at home the entire time until my wife was like, "You need to fucking go back on tour. I love you, but fuck off." Um, uh, and

10. 5:43 – 6:50

    Letting go of the “Netflix Daniel Sloss” persona

    1. DSDaniel Sloss5:43

       now I'm at the stage where, you know, I said to my agent, "Never ev- never again am I away for more than half of a month." I'm like, two weekends a month. That's how much I get. I want being home to be my normality, and I want touring to be the exciting thing. 'Cause when ev- when I was on the road for fucking, you know, 18 months with X, and I was, you know, at the peak of my fame and success, I was Daniel Sloss every day. I was Netflix's Daniel Sloss every day. I was HBO's Daniel Sloss every... All these titles that I'd fucking given myself, this massive fucking unbearable ego that I had in me. And being that person, who was not a real person, it was a stage persona, and it was an act. Being that person was exhausting, and, and a sham. Nobody's that confident. Nobody believes in themselves-

    2. DJDavid McIntosh Jr6:34

       Mm

    3. DSDaniel Sloss6:34

       ... as much as that. And now I'm like, I... You know, I, it's nice to step into the shoes of that person, uh, a- and sort of get to experience that again. But now I w- you know, I j- I, I want my normality to be Daniel and dad.

Episode duration: 6:51