Your weekly guide to comedy mastery with over 400 interviews featuring your favorite comedians.
Hot Breath! is the award-winning weekly podcast designed to be “your weekly guide to comedy mastery.” What started as a platform to highlight Atlanta comedians has since evolved into a masterclass on the craft of comedy that performers and fans alike have voted to be the “Best Atlanta Podcast” in Creative Loafing and featured in Atlanta Magazine.
Your host, comedian Joel Byars, conducts well-researched interviews with comedy’s most influential players with one goal in mind, to educate and entertain.
Zoltan Kaszas breaks down the real path from canceling shoulder surgery to do a set to selling tickets nationwide. We get into the NACA college boom that vanished, cruise ships that paid the bills, the Dry Bar spark, and the pandemic pivot where his wife took over Facebook ads and turned fans into buyers. We also cover independent touring on a budget, treating comedy like a business, why connection beats crowd work, and the writing process that keeps his act fresh week after week. If you’re building a career without shortcuts, this one’s your blueprint.
Zoltan Kaszas: A Hungarian-born, award-winning stand-up comedian known for his sharp, observational humor. Kaszas, who The Atlantic called a “breakout star,” has been featured on SiriusXM, Netflix Is a Joke, Laughs on Fox, Scotland’s Fringe Festival and has headlined comedy clubs and theaters across the country. It was his riff on why cats are better than dogs that brought viral fame, racking up over 68 million views with The Guardian’s (UK) calling it one of the “ten funniest things I’ve seen on the Internet.” Kaszas has two Dry Bar standup specials (over 5M views total) & two independent standup specials on YouTube: Modern Male (3.4M views), and White Lies. His ability to take relatable experiences and turn them into hilarious stories has earned him both critical acclaim and a loyal following.
