In the world of stand-up comedy, there are certain performers who hold nothing back with their material and have no filter whatsoever. While their jokes aren’t for everyone, their honest approach can often be hilarious.

It’s fair to say The No Apologies Comedy Show makes no apologies.

The May 17 show at 7:30pm at the Park Theatre in Cranston will feature a trio of comedians, including Tom Cotter, a Providence native, Tammy Pescatelli and Jim Florentine.

Florentine and I talked ahead of the festivities about how he got his big break in stand-up, making prank calls with telemarketers, being a fan of heavy metal and hard rock music and his plans for the near future.

Rob Duguay: You got your big break in comedy when you and fellow comic Jim Norton met Andrew Dice Clay at The Comedy Store in Los Angeles during the late ‘90s and you both eventually became his opening acts. It’s been mentioned that you were inspired to do stand-up from watching Clay as part of a Rodney Dangerfield comedy special, so how did you and Jim get to meet him backstage after a show and what was the experience like sharing the stage with him?

Jim Florentine: That was during our first day ever in Los Angeles. Louie Anderson had a late night comedy show that he hosted on NBC, so we got flown out there for it. We heard from a fellow comic friend, Rich Vos, that Dice was hanging out at The Comedy Store. He was hanging out back with Rich, we asked him if we could get a picture, and he was like, “No”, and we were like,”C’mon, we’re big fans”, so he finally agreed to do it. We started talking, we told him that we were fans of his album “The Day the Laughter Died” where he pretty much bombs, we started telling him the jokes and he couldn’t believe that we knew all this stuff.

He told us to go up on stage and tell these jokes for him and his friends, so we got up and did the jokes and stuff. After that, he said, “I like you guys.” We exchanged numbers and started opening for him. It was crazy.

RD: That’s a great story. You’ve done voice acting for several characters on the Comedy Central show Crank Yankers, which was originally aired in 2002, so when you got this gig voicing puppets rather than performing in front of people, did it take any adjusting? Were you familiar with prank call comedy through The Jerky Boys and stuff like that?

JF: I have my own CDs out where I mess with telemarketers. They would call, I’d record them and mess with them, so that’s how I got the gig. The people who started Crank Yankers heard my calls and they wanted me for the show, and the show was basically the same thing other than that it was outgoing calls instead of incoming calls, but I was already doing prank calls at the time.

RD: You were also a co-host on “The Metal Show” that was on VH1 Classic, and you’re a noted fan of heavy metal and hard rock music. I know this is probably a tough question for you to answer, but who would you say is on your personal Mount Rushmore of favorite bands?

JF: Ozzy Osbourne, Black Sabbath, AC/DC and Motörhead, those bands are pretty much my top three along with Ozzy.

RD: Those are great picks. Are there any newer metal or rock acts that you listen to, or do you just stick with the classics?

JF: I stick with the classics. Nothing that new is sticking with me for some reason, so I don’t go searching that much anymore at this point.

RD: I hear that, especially with your busy schedule not giving you the time to surf the web or hit up local record stores. For this “No Apologies Comedy Show”, you are part of a stacked lineup with Tom Cotter and Tammy Pescatelli, so what are your thoughts on performing in Cranston and what are your plans afterwards?

JF: Rhode Island is always a great state to perform stand-up in and I’m excited to be part of a lineup with Tom and Tammy. We’ve been doing shows together for the past year or two and the Rhode Island crowds are always great, I’m always excited to go there. After the show, I’m just going to be touring. I released a special around a year ago, so I’m working on a whole new set at this point and that’s basically what I have going on.