CARRYING preconceptions into an interview can be like carrying large aerosol cans in your travel bag. It’s really not advisable.

But when you read of Jason Byrne’s 1995 guerilla comedy stunt on Irish television’s The Late Late Show, you can’t help but form an opinion of the man.

The thought is he’s partially off his head. And all the more likeable for it.

The story runs like this; Jason was in the audience of the show hosted by Ireland’s first minister of television, Gay Byrne (no relation) and on the night, Gay’s guest was Bill Murray.

As the American was chatting about his film success in Ghostbusters, Jason, wearing his dad’s shirt and tie and a respectable hair style, interjected.

He told Murray that the film had inspired him and his friends to set up an Irish Ghostbusters - “possessed pigs and sheep and stuff”.

The crowd laughed themselves senseless.

“Nobody knew I was in the audience,” he recalls. “My mother didn’t even know I was there, she was watching it live, and my mates were watching it live, going, ‘What is Jason doing with his hair parted?’

“I don’t know why I did it. I’d be terrified to do it now.”

Jason’s days of live TV bombing are over but it doesn’t matter because at 43 he’s still making many people laugh.

And it seems there was an inevitability about it.

“I always thought I’d be something in the public eye. At first I thought ‘Maybe a politician. Or a hotel manager.

“But I once went to a comedy gig and a mate recommended me for a spot. I was offered seven gigs on the basis; ‘Go on, go on. And if you’re sh*** you don’t have to do anymore.’”

He wasn’t, as it happens. And he was bitten. And the 20 minute comedy club spots kept coming and soon he was earning more than he did in an electrical warehouse in Dublin.

There seemed to be a wave of new Irish comedians come along at that time. Was there a reason for it?

“Yes, around that time 96/97 people Dara O’Brien, like Dylan Moran and Ed Byrne, Andrew Maxwell and Ardel O’Hanlon appear on the scene. There’s never been anything like that since.”

He adds, grinning; “As for the reason? I think it was a shift in the earth’s crust. A comic plate moved and revealed all these Irish comics.”

Since then, the Dubliner has sold more tickets at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival than any other comic.

And along the way he’s won a Sony Radio Award in 2011, and had a BBC broadcast, Father Figure, in 2013.

In recent weeks, he reveals he’s been doing gigs in Portugal and Sweden.

Do the Swedes, for example, get the comedy nuance?

“It wasn’t hard for me to connect with a Swedish audience at all because I just do what I do at every gig.

“I talk to the audience. I ask them about themselves, their names and what they do.

“I just morph into wherever I am. I can gig anywhere. I could do a gig in the Congo if it came to it.”

Yet, there are some areas of stand-up he can’t go into.

“I tried to have a laugh in Edinburgh with the independence argument but my jokes died on their a***,” he admits, grinning.

“You can’t talk about nationalism but where’s the comedy line? Here’s the thing; when I was on stage in Edinburgh this year I told the audience I’d been picked up by a taxi driver, who asked me ‘Why did the leprechaun wear two condoms? - To be sure, to be sure’.

“And I pointed out to the taxi driver; ‘Here, if I were Indian or Chinese you wouldn’t do that joke!’ And he said, ‘Ach, it’s just a Paddy joke.’”

Does the pc-ness of today bother him?

“No,” says the father of two boys. “But then I don’t really make big statements. I was once introduced at a gig with ‘Here’s Jason Byrne. You’ll have a great laugh – but you won’t learn anything.’”

He’s also been confused with Ed Byrne, a fellow Dubliner.

“I once did an interview with FHM and they ran it with a pic of Ed. I mentioned they had the wrong pic and they said no, they’d got it right.

“Then Ed read it and we laughed. And we both talked about it on stage in Edinburgh and explained we weren’t even related.”

He laughs; “I added that if we were two Chinese guys there would be an uproar about being confused. But because we’re two diddly paddys it’s okay.’”

He could have spread the rumour they are both the illegitimate offspring of Gay Byrne?

“We tried that,” he says, grinning.

Jason feels comedy tones have shifted over the years.

“It’s not like the days on the Generation Game when Bruce Forsyth could call someone a big girl, or a big man.

“Years ago, Kenny Everett, the whole lot of them, were all doing mad, racy stuff; you’re not allowed do that now.”

Yet, while comedy may be more correct, it has never been more popular.

“It’s a tonic,” he says. “People tell me they really need a good laugh.

“In fact, I once had a guy in Melbourne come straight from the hospital having had heart surgery to my gig. He told me he just had to be there.”

Jason reckons the likes of Frankie Boyle administer therapy.

“I remember him from doing spots at the Stand in Glasgow, and never thought for a minute he’d go on to upset so many people.”

And he loves Brendan O’Carroll commitment.

“He’s been doing comedy for years. He kept on working and he never gave up.”

He deliberates; “I’d love to be as big as he or Kevin Bridges is, but the trick is to keep going. And I’m happy to be doing the gigs I do.”

And when you’re on stage it’s not about success. It’s just me and the audience.”

• Jason Byrne, 20 Years A Clown, Oran Mor, November 15, 8pm.