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A man in a wheelchair once pretended to be blind to meet Alanis Morissette backstage after one of her concerts.
Another claimed he was Hootie and the Blowfish frontman Darius Rucker.
"And five minutes after he left, I turned to my bandmates and said 'that wasn't Darius,' " recalls Morissette. "And it turned out his doppelganger, someone who looks exactly like him, does that. He goes backstage and says that he's Darius and he's not Darius ... the funniest part is we had no idea."
Morissette, who was back in Ottawa yesterday lying low and visiting her family and friends, laughed as she relayed some of the better-than-fiction experiences she's had on the road in the last decade.
It's all fodder for We're With the Band, the new rockumentary-style reality/improv show she is set to start shooting in L.A. next month.
"That kind of stuff happens all the time," she said. "And you can't write that sh--."
Morissette says there are already a dozen or so episodes of "95% autobiographical" material written. They have her at the centre, playing herself, surrounded by actors. Each script is wide open to improvisation, a form of expression Morissette's practised since she was 14.
She hopes when the show airs sometime next year it will also expose just how "very human and very wonderful and pathetic" rock stars are.
"When you're in the centre of a big team that you've created, as the artist, I think a lot of times the perception is that the world revolves around this person," she said. "But what I've found to be funny is how in all these environments how invisible I've felt."
The idea for the show came from Morissette's touring pal Brian Blondell, who will be the executive producer.
"In being at my side so many times, we've experienced so many funny things," she said. "He would turn to me and say 'God this would be hysterical to actually share with people at some point.' "
Morissette first financed a movie-length version of the idea three years ago with Blondell and some other pals. Back then she was too busy for a TV show, but later gave the trio a green light to shop a half-hour version around. Tom Hanks' Playtone Prods. soon signed on and will produce the show with Comedy Central.
Lauren Corrao, the channel's senior vice-president of programming, who told Variety Morissette is "a natural," compared the show to Larry Sanders if Garry Shandling was really a talk show host.
Morissette has already showed her funny side -- and improv skills -- when she guested on an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm.
The timing for her own show, says Morissette, is just right.
"I'm not a 21-year-old touring the planet for 12 months at a time, which is great," she said. "And I'm settling into a more consistent way of life ... it enables me to be with my friends and be in one place at a time."
In addition to having friends around her directing and producing, actors Andy Dick and Ian Gomez have signed on to play members of her entourage.
She isn't ready to give names but says she has "a lot of friends in the public eye" who want a cameo. And fiance Ryan Reynolds is welcome, too, though Morissette says she hasn't decided whether to play herself as "engaged."
"Maybe I wouldn't be, because there's been so many stories over the years that include the romantic aspect, that are pretty hysterical," she said.
The show will air sometime next year on Comedy Central in the U.S. There is no word yet on whether the show will air in her home country but Morissette, who says Ottawa should count on a "hometown episode," is optimistic.
"We'll find some way to have it shown up here," she said. "We have to. We're Canadian."
Breakout album gets unplugged
It's been 10 years since Alanis Morissette's career exploded with Jagged Little Pill and she's celebrating by re-recording the entire thing.
In a "tip of the hat" to the original, Morissette will head into a studio in March to record an all-acoustic version of everything from You Oughta Know to Ironic.
She'll then head out on a European and North American tour to support the album.
Morissette says she always wanted to reissue her first rock album, which went on to earn multiple Grammy Awards and sell a mind-boggling 30-million copies worldwide.
Morissette decided to strip down the tunes to avoid being "redundant."
"We've done so many acoustic versions, different configurations, over the years," she said. "It would be cool to share those."