Comedian Nate Bargatze talks being clean Christian comic for over 20 years

Nate Bargatze recently celebrated his 20th year as a successful clean Christian comedian.

The 43-year-old comic, who has been dubbed the “nicest man in stand-up” debuted his Amazon Prime Video special “Hello World” last month after rising to fame with two hit Netflix specials, 2019’s “The Tennessee Kid” and 2021’s Grammy Award-nominated “The Great Average American.”

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Bargatze explained that he chose a career in clean comedy — a family-friendly genre that is free of swearing, crude material or sexual references — largely because he felt that he couldn’t tell dirty jokes in front of his parents.

“I think I still feel I will get in trouble,” the Nashville native admitted.

He continued, “I’ll get in trouble and I will disappoint them. I don’t want to disappoint my parents.”

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In addition, Bargatze wanted to set a good example since he was his parents Stephen and Carole’s firstborn child. He explained that he would feel “mortified” and “very uncomfortable” telling dirty jokes in front of them.

“I just can’t imagine cursing in front of your parents,” he said. “Still, even now, I’m 43-years-old and I still just couldn’t do that. So that’s how I write. I think I write my comedy to — a lot of it is to make my parents laugh. I want them to be proud and be like, ‘Oh, come watch my son do comedy,’ and not be offended by it. I just don’t have that in me to want to offend someone or make someone feel bad.”

Bargatze also said that he was drawn to clean comedy because he was raised in a very religious Christian household and his parents were strict about the content that he was allowed to watch.

“It’s how I grew up,” he said. “I grew up that way. I come from a Christian family and Southern Christian, so I wasn’t allowed to watch anything, which I talk about in the special. And so growing up and only watching clean comedians, it was just how I was going to be. And it would feel forced if I was not.”

Bargatze said he would describe his style of comedy as “telling stories in a joke form.”

“It’s like you tell stories, but I try to have a lot of laughs in the stories,” he said. “I never try to be too far from a laugh.”

The comedian went on to say that a lot of his material is inspired by his family and how he was raised. In “Hello World,” he jokes about his childhood faith and strict upbringing, including an instance in which he left a sleepover because his friends were planning to watch an R-rated movie, which his parents did not permit to watch.

“My parents became Christian before they had me,”he said. “So when I grew up, it was going to church as much as you could go.”

Bargatze told Fox News Digital that he believes “Hello World” is more personal than his previous specials.

“It’s a lot more about me and how I grew up,” he said. “The stories are a little bit longer and just as I’ve gotten older as a comic.”

He continued, “I was very happy about this hour because this hour is built off of the back end of COVID. So I was home a lot, and I was able to gather a lot of material.”

In his stand-up, Bargatze also shares stories about his life as the son of a magician. His father Stephen was a clown who later became an award-winning magician and motivational speaker. 

“So growing up around that, I would go do shows with him,” he remembered. 

Bargatze added, “No one made any money. I didn’t know we didn’t have money. I don’t think money was ever a point to us. [My parents] raised three kids, and they did a great job. And I love what my parents did. And I’m very defensive of my parents and how they raised us.”

He continued, “They have three kids that I think turned out pretty good. And so and then their heart is…my parents are very giving. They will give you whatever you need.”

“I couldn’t imagine growing up any other way.”

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However, Bargatze said that he never envisioned following in his father’s footsteps and becoming a magician himself. “It’s a lot. It’s a lot of work and the comedy aspect plays into it,” he explained.

“I’ve seen a lot of magic,” Bargatze said with a laugh. “And so it’s like, if I go to a magic show and someone’s doing magic, I almost want to tell them, ‘Go show someone else.’ Like, I’ve just seen it.”

He continued, “I’ve seen tricks, and I’ve seen them not work.” Bargatze chuckled as he recalled growing up watching his father perform tricks for him that didn’t work over and over again. 

“I was just around it a lot and I love it,” he said. “And my dad is amazing at it. And my mom is actually the funny one. She’s very funny. And so I do love it, but I know how much work goes into it.”

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Bargatze recently embarked on his “To Be Funny Tour,” which concludes in November and is already selling out dates. The comic told Fox News Digital that he hones material for his gigs and specials through practice and repetition while on performing on the road. 

“You go on the road, you just do a lot of road work, and you do these sets, and you just tell these jokes over again,” he said. “And that’s a big part of it. You got to get on stage a lot. A lot of reps, you got to do a lot of reps.”

He continued: “That’s the biggest way to practice and get better. And now as I’m trying to generate new material, it’s just like writing a set list out and working on the new jokes and putting them in and figuring it out. You need a closer. A closer is a big deal.”

“That’s the hardest”, Bargatze added. “Like right now, I don’t think I have a closer for my new hour. And if I can get something to close off, then I will feel much better.”

He told Fox News Digital that he doesn’t often run his material by anyone before he performs and mostly relies on feedback from the audience. “You just really do it on stage, right? So it’s really the audience,” he said. “I’ll tell some comics or I’ll tell my wife or, you know, if I have a wife joke, I’ll kind of run it by her.”

Bargatze and his wife Laura have been married for 17 years and are parents to 10-year-old daughter Harper.

“There’s some stuff I have about kids, like my daughter,” he said, “Some of it, though, I don’t want to do because … she’s still ten years old. I don’t want to do too much and make her feel bad.”

Though Bargatze said that there were a number of comedians who inspired him to pursue a career in stand-up, Brian Regan was the first. “He was first one I saw that was like, I was blown away,” he remembered. “I couldn’t believe he was not the most famous dude on earth. It was just so funny.” 

He said watching Regan perform was an eye-opening moment. “I didn’t know who he was,” Bargatze said. “And he’s just unreal. And then when I moved to New York, it was like seeing, like Bill Burr or Patrick O’Neal and guys that are much dirtier and not like me.”

Bargatze recalled being amazed by the talent he saw on the comedy circuit when he moved to New York but realizing that making it in the industry would be challenging.

“You’re just like, Oh, my God…there’s people that are really, really good, and they’re not famous,” he said. “And then you got to see what work you have ahead of you.”

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He added, “If you want to be at this level, then, you know, it’s a big deal.”

However, Bargatze told Fox News Digital that he was encouraged by watching other comedians that he knew succeed.

“Aziz Ansari was another one because we got to see him go from doing open mics to like, he was hosting the MTV Movie Awards and Amy Schumer and you just see paths,” he said.

“And so you’re able to go, ‘Oh, look, that person was doing open mics with me, and now they’re like super famous and like, huge.’ So you see that there’s a path and that’s a big deal.”

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