Loud-mouthed vagrant, Libertarian booze-hound, subversive truth-sayer, self-confessed lover of losers and taboo-thrashing rebel; these descriptions all hint at the compellingly erratic comic genius that is Doug Stanhope. Since turning to comedy over fifteen years ago, he's been another maverick in a fine lineage of outspoken, often misconstrued stand-ups that reads like a humour hall of fame; and though certainly similar to the greats like Lenny Bruce, Sam Kinison, Richard Pryor and Bill Hicks, Stanhope is certainly his own man.

No stranger to controversy, he provokes with his words; but provoking a reaction, making people think about the insanity of modern day life and, above all, entertaining is what the great art of comedy is supposed to do, and something Stanhope does very well.

His stance against the commercialisation of comedy at this year's Edinburgh festival is crazy yet commendable; Stanhope is putting on one show (A Day With Doug) with only one ticket on sale for the show at the princely price of £7,349 Sterling (the amount Stanhope reckons the majority of comedians lose every year at Edinburgh by having to pay for the privilege of putting on their own shows).

Padraic O'Connor caught up with Doug early one morning in his Bisbee, Arizona home to shoot the breeze ahead of his upcoming European and US tour, which includes a stint at the Roisin Dubh on Wednesday 3 September.

P: Doug, comedy has become big business in the last five or ten years. Has this made it necessarily a better thing for comedians, with better gigs and better money?

DS: Oh yeah, I mean you wouldn't want to be, you know, in the lute industry or you're never gonna make any money! I live in an artist town, it's a small town of about 6,000 people and everybody I know is broke because their art isn't anything people want to see! You know, you got little sculptures of a dying flower, well that's cute but you've got to get money from the state in order to get by and you're eating with food stamps so yeah I'm glad that I'll suffer through the hack-awful Frank Caliendo, Dane Cook and Larry The Cable Guy act that shame my art so that I might make a decent living ''cos I don't really give a shit. The only way to do art is to do it for yourself and if you can get paid while you're doing nothing but focusing on amusing yourself then that's fantastic.

P: Which leads me nicely into my next question. A lot of comedy has become very sanitised, family-friendly, "let's keep everyone happy"; yet one very refreshing things about your act is that you seem to perform for yourself quite a lot and not just perform to make other people happy.

DS: Well if you perform for anybody else you are always going to have people who are disappointed, so if you try to just please other people and you fail, then you've failed completely! Whereas if you can try to at least amuse yourself then you can go home with your dignity intact! And it's not just comedy that's the only thing that's become bland and mediocre, any art form that's popular will always gear towards the middle of the road. That's how the free market works; they want to get as many people buying pieces of the pie as possible. I think porn is the only thing they haven't made family friendly yet… But I guess they have Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue and Maxim magazine so on some level porn has been made family friendly!

P: You've been moving away from gigging in comedy clubs and playing more in rock and roll venues. Is this more enjoyable for you?

DS: It's a lot more adrenaline and yeah I certainly enjoy it, people know what they're coming to see. When you put up a sign saying "Comedy Club" people can expect anything but when you just put up a sign that says "Doug Stanhope" the only people showing up are people who have at least some cursory knowledge of what I do. Hang on just one second (shouts to his partner) 'Honey it's 10am and I used "cursory" in a sentence!' OK, thanks, I'm back.

P: I was quite taken aback when reading about your stance this year at Edinburgh that a lot of comics actually pay for the privilege of doing the festival!

DS: Most comics pay a shit load, and not just the 'six months-into-the-business-just-learned-how-to-tell-dick-jokes' guys, I'm talking well known named guys who lose money because they just set it up to think that that is what they are supposed to do!

P: But surely comedy at its core is more to do with the comedian and the audience, not about somebody in the middle making a load of money…

DS: Exactly, but as soon as there's a dollar to be made anywhere there's gonna be a sea of sharks who are going to figure out how to get between supply and demand to get a percentage; and there are so many people making money off of comedy that add absolutely nothing to the equation! You have a room and I have an act and a following, we don't need a guy to talk between us. Thankfully I have eliminated almost everybody I can that doesn't add something to the equation.

P: The right way!

DS: Exactly! Brian Hennigan is the only guy I have ever used in this industry that I would consider able as an agent or manager. He has done more for me in my career, just as a friend, above all the representation I have had in 18 years of comedy. I don't even have a title for him - I call him my life partner just to make him squeamish.

P: So as you slip 'gracefully' into your 40s, do you feel the vitriol fading at all? Do you give a f*** as much as you used to?

DS: I'm tumbling backwards downhill over shale into my forties! People like me don't age well but I still manage to laugh about it. Yeah I give a fuck less. The biggest problem so far as comedy goes is finding shit to talk about 'cos after 18 years, there's not a lot of subjects I haven't covered at least once – if not several times - so you go 'Wow I'm cannibalising my own faeces here to find a different way to say something!'