The Byron Kennedy Story

This just isn’t how it’s done. Encouraged to remove himself from a highly successful career in radio and the music business, Byron Kennedy’s comedy trajectory took him from open mic nights to featuring, Las Vegas and beyond. And the explanation for his fast start is exceedingly simple: “I fucking hate meetings.”

Born in Arizona, Kennedy was a parlor act from the beginning. “My dad gave my brother and I a Smothers Brothers record because he wanted us to memorize the ‘Mom Always Liked You Best’ routine, which we performed during a party at the Elks Lodge. I don’t even know what the hell the occasion was, but I do remember getting laughs.”

Following that affinity as an adult, he quickly built a successful radio career – even drawing praise from Howard Stern who dubbed Kennedy “The Leonardo DaVinci Of Radio”. While helping launch a new Alternative station, Kennedy was the funny man in the room. “Everybody was trying to figure out how we could brand the station so people would know what music it played and that we had the Stern in mornings,” he says. “We must have been in this meeting for an hour when I finally said, ‘How about we just name it ‘Howard 93-7?’ When Howard heard about it, he loved it and talked about him on the air for 10 minutes.

Despite the VP title he earned at CBS Radio and his conference room successes, Kennedy didn’t enjoy the work. “I felt like an impostor,” he says. “I never felt like I belonged in any of those meetings.” Instead, he jumped into a new job with a Nashville-based record label – a logical decision considering that gig also involved lots of meetings. I kept getting promoted into executive roles that, frankly, “I hated,” he says. When I was on the air in radio, I would host club gigs – setting up the musical acts, doing giveaways – all that crap. I enjoyed that a lot more and being on a mic wasn’t totally foreign to me. Radio also helped with writing and timing. Then, towards the end of my career in the record business, I was in front of large groups introducing artists, and I realized everyone was more comfortable if I could get them laughing.”

The epiphany came in 2019. “I was at a birthday dinner with one of my friends who was always in my ear about doing comedy,” he says. “I was railing about sea turtles and plastic straws in California and had the whole table laughing. My buddy’s girlfriend says, ‘Have you ever thought about doing comedy?’”

That’s when a guest at the table named Roger chimed in. As in Roger LeBlanc, then the talent buyer for music, art and comedy festival KAABOO, which was 30 days away. “Your friends are right,” he said. “Next month is too soon for you, but if you’ll start doing open mics and learning how to do stand-up, I’ll put you on my festival next year.”