Steve-O talks life and x-rated stunts ahead of city show

Steve-O has been a featured star on the Jackass television show, as well as the subsequent feature films, performing a range of crazy and, at times, dangerous stunts, which include pole vaulting into a lake full of sewage, snorting Wasabi and walking a tightrope over alligators.

He has also worked as a clown and circus performer and taken to the stage to perform stand-up comedy, including two comedy specials where he performed stunts such as getting electrocuted with a taser.

All of this has led to his latest tour, The Bucket List Tour, which has played to record-breaking audiences in the USA, Canada and Australia and is now touring the United Kingdom, with a date at the Alexandra Theatre in Birmingham on July 8.

The show is filled with stories of Steve-O's life that, he admits, could only happen to him, plus a series of filmed stunts that he said even Jackass wouldn't let him do.

He said: "What the Bucket List is is a bunch of Jackass-style ideas that, for various reasons, were never supposed to happen as they were either flagrantly illegal or completed XXX-Rated and were never supposed to happen.

"Whereas my first comedy show was just me and a microphone and what I did on stage, my second comedy special was me, a microphone and what happened on stage, plus video footage edited in, so it was illustrated with footage put in post and I had a really good experience with that.

"This show is all about bringing together a show where I can bring the multimedia component on the road with me, so it was all about filming the crazier-than-ever stunts and going with the forbidden ones.

"To qualify it, about a year ago, I got Jackass director Jeff Tremaine to come over to my house to screen a recording of the show for him and when it was done, he shook his head and said 'this can't go on Netflix' and he applauded me for having outdone myself, but said I had created something that cannot live on any mainstream platform because it is so ridiculously messed up."

The show itself will follow on from three previous tours of the UK and is like a homecoming for Steve-O, who was born in Wimbledon on June 13, 1974.

He said one thing he took from doing these shows was his development as an artist and how he had established himself as more than just Steve-O from Jackass.

He said: "I'm really grateful for what I've been able to do to establish myself as an artist in my own right and I'm proud of what I've been able to achieve, although I do cringe a bit at parts of my first comedy special.

"However, I have improved a lot since then and I attribute that to the process of preparing that first multimedia special in order to see if it was going to work, taping my performances and watch them to know when to edit bits in, so that forced me to study the performance and really sped up the process."

One thing that has helped Steve-O to focus his mind has been his continuing sobriety, having been dry for nearly 15 years, and he said that everything he had been able to do in his life and career had been due to that, saying that he had managed to improve the art of living.

He said: "I think people are seeing the real Steve-O these days and I think that getting better at life is good as it takes the edge off getting older, which sucks no matter who you are, but if you can learn from your mistakes and improve, then getting old isn't so bad.

"The fact that people still want to see me is crazy and what you would call a multi-generational thing, as the range of my audience is such that I could be doing a show and there will be kids there with their parents.

"There is definitely a nostalgia for Jackass and it's like all the musical acts from the 1980s who are bigger than ever, like Motley Crue, who are regularly playing to 100,000 people on a regular basis, who I got to meet back in the day when I managed to get myself backstage, and Tommy Lee and I are like little kids."

As he reaches the end of his 40s, Steve-O said he had learned many things, in particular the idea of restraint of pen and tongue, and said the most important thing he had learned was not to worry about his legacy.

He said: "As I grow older, I worry less about my legacy and, back in the day, it used to be all about how videos were going to be forever and that's my immortality, and that was so self important and kind of silly.

"I think now, my priorities are more in trying to he happy while I'm alive and if there is a legacy to be left, then maybe an animal sanctuary would be cooler than the videos."

Steve-O will be bringing The Bucket List Tour to Birmingham's Alexandra Theatre on Saturday, July 8 ahead of the taping of the comedy special in London on July 14, with tickets costing from £32.41.