In the 15 years since Craig Ferguson emigrated from Scotland to the US, he has managed to make quite a name for himself. The actor/musician/writer/director/comedian/talk-show host, best known for his role as the Snooty Brit Nigel Wick on ABCs long-running sitcom The Drew Carey Show, has been the host The Late Late Show on CBS for nearly three years. Feguson is currently on a nationwide standup tour, which stops at UB’s Center for the Arts (ubcfa.org) on Friday, October 5, at 8pm.

Artvoice: You played in some of the worst punk rock bands in the history of the UK. How did that work out for you?

Craig Ferguson: Well, by nature of me being in them, they were pretty bad. I was the drummer, and I drummed with a lot of different, really crappy bands. The only person I drummed with you might have heard of was—are you familiar with the Velvet Underground?

AV: I am, yeah.

CF: All right, well, Nico had worked with the Velvet Underground. When she was touring in the UK, I was her drummer. It’s not difficult to play drums along with a heroin addict. You can pretty much relax and just go with the flow.

AV: Did playing in a band called the Bastards From Hell provide you material to start your career in standup?

CF: Not quite enough, but it certainly was inspiration to try to find an alternative. The Bastards From Hell were actually a great band—I miss those guys. Sadly, they’re all dead…no, they’re not. They’re all fine—probably all corporate accountants or something. We weren’t very good, but we were enthusiastic, like a lot of punk rock back in the day.

AV: Well, you were obviously successful enough to transition into standup—which you did under the name Bing Hitler.

CF: [Laughs.] He was a character I did in Scotland. Back then there were a lot of alternative comics—that was what they called them. It kind of went hand-in-hand with the punk movement, really. And the Bing Hitler thing was—I needed a name that would get noticed on a marquee. There was no real agenda to it, certainly there was no anti-Semitism, and certainly there was no easy-listening singing involved. No crooning and no fascism.

AV: What brought you to the US?

CF: I started coming here when I was 13 years old. I went to my first ever rock concert in the US. I went to an American high school for one day. I had family who lived in Long Island. My father’s younger brother and his kids, they were born here, so I had American family. I would come over a lot, and that, I think, was really what did it. I moved here in 1984 for a couple years, then came back to the UK, then came back in 1995, and I have been here ever since. I lived for a while in England, but it doesn’t seem like a natural place for a Scotsman. I think America is a more natural choice.

AV: On your return to the US, you got a starring role on a short-lived sitcom on ABC called Maybe This Time.

CF: With Marie Osmond and Betty White. And I’ll tell you, Betty White’s awesome. She’s still a friend of mine. She’s been on [The Late Late Show] a couple times, and she is very, very funny.

AV: Any plan to visit Marie Osmond on Dancing With the Stars?

CF: If I have the time. But I’ve got a lot of different things I have to do, like watch television and go to the store.

AV: When you were selected to take over The Late Late Show from Craig Kilborn in 2005, you didn’t seem the most obvious choice. How did it come about?

CF: I don’t know. I guess I was as surprised as anyone else. Peter LeSalle, who produces the show, and who produced The Tonight Show for 30 years, and produced David Letterman and discovered Jon Stewart—he kind of saw something in me that I guess I didn’t know was there…and neither did anyone else. But that’s his gig. He finds guys that do this kind of thing, and he’s pretty good at it.

AV: How do you keep the show different from the competition?

CF: What I try to do is, I don’t watch any of the other late night guys, and I would encourage all Americans to do the same. I know this sounds weird, but it’s probably because I’m 45—I don’t really give a fuck. I do what I want, and if they don’t like it they can shake it on me, but if they do like it then fine. Did you ever see the movie The Shawshank Redemption? You know the scene where Morgan Freeman’s character goes in front of the parole board for like the 100th time? He doesn’t try anymore, just says, “I don’t care. Let me go, don’t let me go. I don’t give a fuck.” I don’t know, something to that effect. But then they let him go, which is kind of like me on this show…I do what I want and I think the audience senses that. I try and do a show which I have fun doing. If I don’t enjoy it, I won’t do it. If there’s somebody on the guest roster that I don’t want to talk to, I tell them not to book that person. I won’t do anything that I don’t think is going to be at least somewhat amusing.

AV: Recently you interviewed James Woods, and I had frankly never seen an interview like it before. It’s clear that Woods is a firecracker, but you were giving it right back to him.

CF: I don’t think it’s going to be news to anyone that James Woods is crazy, but the thing is that he is a decent guy. I like talking to him, and he’s honest, and completely unafraid of what he says. He doesn’t try to censor himself to make himself palatable for any particular demographic, which I find very interesting.

AV: You’re a recovering alcoholic, and you’ve pledged not to make fun of Britney Spears on your show, saying that “no one should attack the vulnerable.”

CF: I remember the warning I gave to my employers when I did the monologue to “protect” Britney Spears, because the real message of that monologue that night was to tell of my own suicide attempt. [Prior to his 16 years of sobriety, Ferguson attempted suicide in the UK, the result of which was his continued advocacy of addiction awareness.] It’s interesting to me that my suicide attempt pales in the news value to Britney Spears’ haircut. What I told my producers was that I would continue to do these monologues even when they are not popular. I got lucky in the sense that people agreed with me on that, but there may come a time when I take a stance on something that isn’t that popular, and I think that causes some jitters around here.

AV: You released a novel last year called Between the Bridge and the River, which was praised by critics and readers alike. You’re also an actor, a screenwriter and a director. How do you wear so many hats and still host a television show that airs five nights per week?

CF: Well, I haven’t done much since I started doing the television show. I do standup, but that’s only so I can keep my tubes clear. But you really can’t direct a movie and do this show. You can’t write a novel and do this show. It’s pretty impossible.