Episode 50 from a bar in Shepparton

Josh: That's the audience clap, everyone. It's the Daily Talk Show.

Tommy: It worked. We're live.

Josh: We're in Shepparton.

Tommy: So this episode— happy 50th episode, Josh.

Josh: Thank you.

Tommy: This is big, mate.

Josh: Who would have thought we would have done 50 episodes?

Tommy: I told a mate the other day— no, actually this morning— I said to him, we're going to Shepparton to do the podcast. He said, what do you mean? It's like, yeah, we're doing episode 50 of the podcast. He's like, you started that the other week.

Josh: It's true.

Tommy: Well, technically 10 weeks ago.

Josh: It's, it's, uh, it's all math, isn't it? But we, uh, we've decided to go where our biggest audience is, and that's in, uh, it's in Shepparton.

Tommy: Well, this is my old stomping ground in terms of where I started out doing radio. And on my Instagram account, I've got— you can see the audience of people who follow me. I've got audience in Sydney, Melbourne and Shepparton.

Josh: So for people who don't know, tell us about Shepparton. Where is it based?

Tommy: Where is it located? Shepparton is— I used to always say north. It's not north. Is it north? So northern Victoria.

Unknown: Okay.

Tommy: And yeah, we're just getting confirmation from one of the— we've got kids in the crowd.

Josh: Great.

Tommy: They're definitely going to experience our swearing. But so it's northern Victoria. It's a country town. It's almost like a rural 5th biggest city, 5th biggest country city in Australia. Just got that said to us from the 3rd person in the crowd.

Josh: Perfect. So very interactive.

Tommy: I remember I, I got a message from the person who gave me the job at 12 AM one night. It was an email.

Josh: This is when you were working in Shepparton?

Tommy: No, no, this is before I even came to Shepparton. So I got this email from this guy named Dave Cameron who's like, was like a bigwig up in Southern Cross Austereo.

Josh: Yeah, also known as Grumpy Dave.

Tommy: Grumpy Dave from the Hamish Andy Show. And so he emailed me, he's like, hey mate, how would you feel about doing regional breakfast radio? And I shat myself. And I was like, yes, definitely. And then I moved to Shepparton like 2 months later, which was 2 hours from where I grew up my whole entire life, and met this girl and we started doing this radio show 5 days a week.

Josh: And so we decided to celebrate episode 50, we would come to here because you spent 2 years doing breakfast radio in Shepparton.

Tommy: So this is my nostalgia. You constantly bring up nostalgia from your childhood.

Josh: We'll be doing episode 60 at Glen Eagle Secondary College.

Tommy: So we're definitely not doing any episodes from my high schools because I was a menace. But this is— I've got lots of good memories. Shepparton for me is one of the times in my life that I learned so much in a couple of years and had a lot of fun and killed a lot of brain cells with a lot of alcohol and met some awesome people. We actually have one of those people who we talk about on the show quite a bit.

Josh: We have our hype man and, uh, tour manager, BMAC. BMAC, how are you?

Unknown: Hey guys, yeah, good. Thanks for having me.

Josh: Thank you for having us at this beautiful, beautiful establishment, which is— when it comes to venues in Shepparton, this is one of the places to be, The Deck.

Unknown: Yeah, correct. I would say that.

Josh: Yeah.

Unknown: Yeah.

Tommy: This is, it's basically an unofficial sponsorship of the show.

Josh: Mate, why call it unofficial? This is as official as it gets. This is huge.

Unknown: It starts now.

Tommy: Can you paint the picture of the deck and where we are right now, Bernie?

Unknown: So pretty much we're located in the middle of the Shepparton CBD, thriving on a Monday afternoon right now. And yeah, we're on top of Harris Garth, um, pretty much. And we're just, yeah, enjoying the, the views out here on the balcony.

Tommy: Did you drop your guts in?

Josh: No, that was my phone vibrating. But on these leather couches, we're sitting on leather couches.

Tommy: So this right now is like a grass, uh, fake lawn. Yeah, um, synthetic lawn, synthetic lawn, um, and it's got seats and you can eat dinner here, but then it turns into a raging nightclub. We had one night here and I woke up vomiting.

Unknown: Yeah, rough.

Josh: And it wasn't food poisoning.

Tommy: No, it was Jack Daniel's poisoning.

Unknown: I think he told Amos it was food poisoning.

Tommy: It's my wife.

Josh: But we can confirm the food is— we hear it's good, PMA.

Tommy: Yeah, it's really good food.

Unknown: Yeah, it is. Yeah, we'll try some out later for sure.

Tommy: I think we fucked up episode 40, which we did live from Krispy Kreme, because we didn't have a plan. And my programme director who is here, he's the third person in the crowd.

Josh: So he was the PD for you when you were in Shepparton?

Unknown: Yeah.

Josh: Back in 2014?

Tommy: 2014, 2013, into '14, and then I quit.

Josh: Yeah. So a PD would sort of tell you what you're doing wrong.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: What was the common feedback?

Tommy: I can't remember. Fuck, it all blurs. Was there any feedback? Will, I'm just going to go over to Will because that's what we can do. What, what was, what, what do you remember of me? What was the feedback you'd give me?

Unknown: I think the big challenge was trying to get what you could do on your social videos through the speakers. Yeah, that was the challenge. And that was your preferred platform. It's what you're amazing at, and it's what I've tried to model in my own work. So that was, that was just Being on the right platform for the right creative brain, that was the challenge.

Tommy: So basically you're saying I was in the wrong, wrong job.

Josh: You know what, very similar to your, uh, mate Jules Lund. That was the Jules Lund effect.

Unknown: He's—

Josh: he— when I was working on that show, it was— he'd built a career on Getaway and doing TV. Yeah. And then had to translate it to radio, and he would spend so many hours perfecting the video content. Yeah. And Sam, Sam Cav, who was producing that show at the time, would always have to remind him, mate, this is— you gotta care about what's going on through the speakers.

Tommy: Quick story, I doing everything that I shouldn't have been doing and making online content versus on-air content, I actually created a piece of content that got onto the project and was in at one point when you, when you Googled Tommy Jacket into Google and put photos as the filter. I reckon it was maybe the fourth photo was me nude.

Josh: Was this the washing machine one?

Tommy: With my legs and arms in a washing machine. And here's the thing, I was mimicking a guy. I was making fun of a guy, not really making fun of, but I was, uh, reenacting. Yeah, I was reenacting a guy who was a local bloke. What was his name, Bernie?

Unknown: His name was Lawrence.

Tommy: Lawrence. Lawrence was from a place called Maroopna, which is a few k's out of Shepparton. And one night he was hiding from his missus, pretending to be a funny bugger, got into the washing machine and got stuck and had the fucking fire brigade come to the house to free him out. They had to oil him up and he slid out like a slug.

Josh: I feel, from memory, he had an okay rig. If that was me, it would be the most horrendous thing you'd ever seen. Just this, like, the the oil, they would be like, hang on, was that oil we put on or was that already there? Just sort of, oh, just mind the bed sores, you know.

Tommy: We got him on the show and then I pretended to make a video and I made a video pretending to do that and then the Project used the fucking footage and here's my naked body on there. But anyway, back to what I was saying, we fucked up episode 40 with no structure. So I want a little bit of structure for— Will will be proud, my PD will be proud right now. So we've got a tray of drinks in front of us that are like fully funky looking beverages. There's like 2, 4, 6, 8, 9. What colours are they, Josh?

Josh: Well, they're— they start off at sort of the, the asthma-inducing blue, and they go to a sort of a strawberry red. Uh, the one at the back looks like I don't even know how to say, like a purpley color. There's something with a lot of mint in it. There's one that looks like a bit hoppy. Is that what they say? Hoppy? It's like beer type thing. The thing is, TJ, I don't drink.

Tommy: You don't drink. And so here's the thing. I don't expect you to drink, like actually drink them.

Josh: Okay, sure.

Tommy: We've had them comped from our hype man. He's done well. But what I want you to do at some point throughout the show, I'm going to just hand you—

Josh: We can do little sippy sips.

Tommy: Yeah, we're going to do taste tests. So you have a taste and I want you to say the first word that comes to your mind.

Josh: Can we mix it up where I have to close my eyes and tell you what colour I think it is? Just to—

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: The audience is loving it.

Tommy: He's got the filter of a 12—

Josh: 12?

Unknown: How old are you?

Tommy: No, 10? 8?

Josh: 8.

Tommy: Fuck, he looks older than 8.

Josh: Gained 4 years.

Tommy: He's got a beard. I don't know.

Josh: Can we see kids looking older nowadays? Let's start with 1. I'm going to close my eyes. Okay. Given the audience loves it so much, you know, I— the problem is—

Tommy: close those eyes. Okay, the 8-year-old's laughing.

Josh: I'm gonna smell it first.

Tommy: Smell it, don't tell us anything, have a sip.

Josh: And now it's— it smells like medicine.

Tommy: First word.

Josh: It's purple.

Unknown: Yes!

Josh: That was great. This is going great. Mate, this is—

Tommy: So what's the flavour taste like?

Josh: It's purple. It's a purple flavor.

Tommy: Is that an actual description? I don't know, is that a—

Unknown: I don't know, but it sort of makes you think about like colours and growing up and like how you actually got that. Yeah. Yeah.

Tommy: Purple flavor. I used to say, you remember Denka Rub that you'd rub on your body after sport?

Josh: Never did it.

Tommy: But you'd write— anyway, I used to say there was a chewing gum. I used to say it tastes like the smell of Denkerup.

Josh: I know exactly what you mean. It's like D-Pete.

Tommy: It's exactly what Denkerup is. Probably another brand.

Josh: I think my footy team was sponsored by D-Pete.

Tommy: Okay, so that's what we're doing, a taste test throughout the show. And then I also want to do like, what's 10 things we've learned?

Josh: From podcasting. Did you want to do that? I said that I was going to write a list of things that I'd learned, but I haven't really thought about it. But I do like any, you know, I enjoy any of these sort of retrospectives.

Unknown: Yeah.

Josh: Which will be enjoyable.

Tommy: So we'll do that. But any other storeys from Shepparton that you want to hear?

Josh: Yeah, I want to know what you were triggered, what triggered you when you came in? What were those moments where you would look at it and say, ah, that McDonald's, I vomited in that toilet.

Tommy: So when I was living up here, most of my friends were back in Melbourne and I met Amy. So what fucked me, which was kind of a good thing, when I moved up here, it was, I think, February or March 2013. And in August of 2013, I met Amy. And so I'm living in Shepparton.

Josh: You met Amy in Bali.

Tommy: In Bali.

Josh: I would say a bogan holiday, but it was actually a beautiful wedding.

Tommy: Yes, my brother's wedding. One of the last nights we're going out, I met Amy at a bar. And, uh, messy night, or Jules Lund ripped off my underwear, like fully tore my undies off because I didn't have, I didn't have bathers. So I went in, everyone was calling me Vlad the Russian. I don't know why, you know, like Russian guys wear like little, okay, little shorts in spas. Everyone was calling me Vlad.

Josh: Okay.

Tommy: And Jules ripped off my undies, so I was completely fucking nude sitting next to Amy.

Josh: Anyway, and what did Amy think? She clearly liked it.

Tommy: Well, I didn't know that she was a good little Christian girl at that point. Um, when you say liked it, she didn't— she didn't move.

Josh: She—

Tommy: yeah, she was a bit— she was very, um, it was interesting.

Josh: What do you mean?

Tommy: I was— I, I I don't know what she was thinking because I didn't have any context of who she was.

Josh: So what? Yeah, so why were you naked next to someone you didn't know?

Tommy: Because I had no underwear and, and, um, Jules Lund told me—

Josh: How did you end up sitting next to her though? What was your relationship?

Tommy: We were friends and then we, we met.

Josh: Oh, so you'd met the night before or something?

Tommy: We— no, we met that night.

Josh: Okay, so, so you're as bad as I am. You say— and I'd say everyone's my friend, and you've met someone and you're calling them your friend.

Tommy: Well, she was a friend of the night.

Josh: Okay, friend of the night.

Tommy: Wow, sounds really bad.

Josh: Tommy's memoir, Friend of the Night.

Tommy: Anyway, um, so I met Amy.

Josh: Hey man, doing a fucking great job of hype man though, our own Cackling Jack. This is great.

Tommy: And so I, um, yes, I met Amy and we, and we ended up just chatting heaps and she was living in Sydney, so I'm living in Shepparton, which is a 2-hour drive from Melbourne and then a 1-hour plane trip to Sydney. So to put it in perspective, I used to go and pick her up from Melbourne Airport and bring her back to Shepparton. I would leave before Amy even went to the airport.

Josh: Wow, that's love, isn't it? From both sides.

Tommy: And so we met, and then I'm living in Shepparton in a long-distance relationship.

Josh: Uh, so the, so the long distance— well, well, first, first of all, we're triggered.

Tommy: Triggers. We're driving here, the drive, there's a few things along the way. The Rooster on the Hill.

Josh: So that was just two trees together, which has somehow been described as something other than being two trees.

Tommy: It has a Facebook page. Give us a run-through, BMAC.

Unknown: Yeah, it's, um, everyone knows about the Rooster on the Hill, the Rooster Tree. Yeah, there's a Facebook page. It's called the Rooster— I think it's called the Rooster Tree Appreciation Society.

Josh: And so BMAC, was it something that when you were growing up that you saw, or is this some sort of social media thing that's just come about?

Unknown: Nah, I think it was something, yeah, growing up for sure. And you'd know if you'd get to that point where you were or how far you had to go as well.

Josh: Could you imagine You would never ever ever ever do this, but could you imagine the effect?

Tommy: Hang on, sorry, we're just getting, um, what's his name?

Unknown: Liam.

Tommy: Liam's just asking if we want to eat.

Josh: Do we want to eat?

Tommy: This is rockstar.

Josh: Yeah, I'm happy to. Yeah, thank you.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Josh: Give you the burger and spicy chicken wings.

Tommy: Amazing, yes.

Josh: There we go.

Tommy: Um, one each, not two each. The, um, thanks, hype man.

Josh: So could you imagine what would happen Do you think if someone was to vandalise the tree, so just if someone knocked the tree down?

Unknown: Yeah, well, nah, people would actually know about it. I think it would be definitely like on the news, but I think there was a scary point during the Victorian bushfires after it all settled, everyone was like asking about the tree and then it was kind of cool when you did drive back and it survived.

Tommy: That's sick. See, the rooster always survives.

Josh: Well, you've called yourself a bit of a rooster. You are. If there was a second Shepparton rooster, it would be you. Is it, is it in Shepparton or no?

Tommy: No, no, it's— where, where would that be?

Unknown: Tootgaroot?

Tommy: No, um, far out.

Unknown: It's about past Wallan, 5Ks out of Wallan, so I'm not sure what that is.

Tommy: So I always had this idea of doing a video about the rooster on the hill and where I would like do a mission, put my camo gear on, and go up the hills to the tree and put like fairy lights in it.

Josh: Oh, that would be sick.

Tommy: So that people actually see the Rooster on the Hill.

Josh: Has anyone ever decorated it? Have we seen any decorations?

Unknown: Never seen it, but there was a competition like around here with a local clothing store, and they said get creative with something in our clothing items, and the winner will receive like a $100 gift voucher.

Josh: Yeah.

Unknown: And one guy was wearing one of the shirts from a store here.

Tommy: What, it had a rooster on it?

Unknown: Nah, he just like had one of the shirts.

Tommy: You completely made that up.

Unknown: So it's pretty much like he wanted to advertise his business.

Tommy: Yes.

Unknown: So he said, if you wear something from my clothes store and put it in a photo, the most creative photo wins. Yeah. So we stopped on the way home from Melbourne one day and took a pretty good photo in front of the rooster tree. Yeah, and he won. He won the competition.

Josh: I love that. Yeah, it shows you how important the rooster is when a pretty good photo will be enough. Yeah, it doesn't even have to—

Unknown: it was pretty good.

Josh: It was a blurry selfie which he said had the, the tree rooster in the tree. Rooster, what are we calling it?

Tommy: So that's one of the triggers. You know you're almost halfway when you're driving from Melbourne to Shepparton when you see the rooster on the hill.

Josh: Okay, talking about roosters for a second and KFC. So BMAC was giving me a bit of insight into this KFC, which is apparently pretty spectacular. We saw it from the outside. Can you tell us who owns it and why is he a big deal?

Unknown: Um, so it pretty much started back in the day. I couldn't actually give you the year, but he came over here as like, um, this PC guy. Yeah, Peter Kublis.

Josh: Yeah.

Unknown: And, uh, he came over here, started working on the orchards, and eventually saved up to open up a place called Ollie's Trolleys at the time. And then these guys from America came over and said, we want to start this thing called KFC over here, but we want to do— we want to do it where you are. So that's where Ollie's Trolleys, where you saw the KFC, was located.

Josh: Literally like trolleys for—

Unknown: it was, it was pretty much a chicken shop, like it was a food shop as well. So that's why they— yes.

Josh: Like a charcoal chicken type of thing, fried chicken.

Unknown: It was fried. Yeah, it was like, yeah, it's chicken.

Tommy: Like, was he like before his time?

Unknown: This is before his time.

Tommy: Yeah, Coppola.

Unknown: Yeah. And then, um, he said no, no, no, no for a long time. Yeah, it's like, I'm gonna do my own thing.

Tommy: Bullshit three-letter business.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. And they won't even get fucking Colonel, like, and they won't even give us the fucking recipe. It's like, I'm calling bullshit on this. Yeah, go on. Go on, tell us more.

Unknown: Oh, good.

Josh: So, um, we could have continued that for about 5 more minutes.

Unknown: Eventually he took a flight and he went overseas and, uh, yeah, he saw that this KFC thing was legit and tried their potato and gravy and said, this thing is— that's it. And he obviously was a very smart businessman, so he actually didn't want to lose his actual ownership of the brand. So he offered a deal to KFC where he would buy it outright, almost like starting a franchise sort of thing, but not have to pay KFC itself, only for their recipes and things like that. So he was like the outright owner of the store, and, uh, that's how he built up—

Josh: yeah, so does he own the franchise in Australia, or how does KFC work?

Unknown: Well, pretty much you can apply, like, for a KFC. It's very, like, very, very hard to get. It's almost like—

Josh: I wonder how rich you would have to be to say, you know what, I want to have a KFC in my house. That would be pretty sick, wouldn't it?

Tommy: How many does he own now?

Unknown: Well, I don't know what the number is right now.

Josh: What do you mean you don't know how many?

Unknown: How can you know the number?

Tommy: Well, to put it in perspective, he owns a jet.

Josh: He does.

Tommy: Yeah, he's got a jet and we drove into Shepparton and there's a hangar and he built the hangar because his jet wouldn't fit in it. And so he built a new one so he could fit his jet in it.

Unknown: Yep, correct.

Josh: And so he, he, so was the first KFC then around here in Australia or not?

Unknown: I'm not sure if it was the first one in Australia.

Josh: I'm treating you like you're some sort of KFC expert.

Unknown: Yeah, some guru.

Tommy: No, hang on, does Will, Will? My PD doesn't know, doesn't know any details.

Unknown: Sheba didn't find this for us.

Tommy: We'll talk about this in the air cheque after.

Josh: Our one, our one researcher, an audience member, doesn't know where the foot—

Unknown: nah, it's very— it's like, it's super small. So, um, a lot of like, we know a lot of the family and that's how the storey's been, I guess, passed down.

Tommy: It's awesome. It's a good story.

Unknown: Yeah, so basically Um, up until a few years ago and stuff. I'm not sure what it's like now, but every KFC from Shepparton to the start of the Nepean Highway, um, was owned by KFC.

Tommy: The Bible Belt of KFCs.

Josh: Yeah, it's got that vibe. I'm trying to remember, there was, I think it was in Albury where I had my worst KFC experience ever, but I can't remember the exact. So let's scratch that one.

Tommy: What quantifies the worst KFC experience?

Josh: I just remember being, my brother was playing basketball as part of, I think it was like Big V, I think it was called, and it was sort of like touring. And I just remember my dad saying that it was the worst KFC he'd ever been to. Actually thinking about my childhood was a lot of listening to my dad rage about KFC. I remember the Endeavour Hills KFC wouldn't serve bacon because the owners were Muslim. And obviously this was going back, what, like 15 years? And it was just like, it was a massive topic. Yeah, can you believe, can you believe that these Muslims have come here? That's literally what it was like. It was crazy. And so like, people would go to the KFC and specifically say, can I have a Zinger burger with bacon? And then lose their mind.

Tommy: Far out.

Josh: Isn't that crazy?

Tommy: All right, drink time. All right, drink time.

Unknown: Here we go.

Josh: Closing minds.

Tommy: We're gonna bring another one over. Definitely have to close your eyes. If you somehow Um, you've skipped forward in this podcast. Uh, we're gonna hand Josh a drink. We've got a bunch of drinks here.

Josh: You don't need to reset it.

Tommy: No, I don't want you to. I don't want you to say the color. I don't give a shit about the colour anymore.

Josh: The kids were loving that.

Tommy: Well, that was the best bit. Let's just do—

Josh: can we get a cheer for the color?

Tommy: No, well, yeah, we got nothing. We're just gonna do—

Josh: have they gone? Are they staying still?

Tommy: We're just gonna do the flavor. I'm handing you over one. You can't smell it, you just need to drink it, have a little sip. And then tell me the flavor, or like what you think. It's up to his lips. They look like a pursed little asshole.

Josh: Let's just laugh. It tastes like— before I even taste it, it's got cinnamon vibe.

Unknown: Okay, wow.

Tommy: Go, drink, drink, drink.

Unknown: He's definitely not driving home back to Melbourne tonight.

Tommy: What's the word that comes to mind?

Josh: Methylated spirits.

Tommy: What is going on there? This is all responsible serving of alcohol here.

Josh: It is. No, they're very small.

Unknown: Test it out.

Josh: Have we got the burgers in too, by the way?

Unknown: That was definitely, um, that was Fireball.

Josh: Fireball, is that what it is?

Unknown: Here we have— this is Jordan.

Josh: Thank you, Jordan.

Tommy: Thanks, Jordan.

Josh: How are you?

Tommy: Oh mate, look at this.

Josh: Fireball, that really— that's not chili. What is that?

Unknown: It's cinnamon. You got it.

Josh: Cinnamon whiskey, man. I'm Can I have a chip just to help my throat? What? Why do people—

Tommy: and let's be, let's be clear, he drank about 1 mil.

Josh: He did. This is what Leon Churgren gets. You know how they play that song, Fireball?

Tommy: That's that drink. Oh, and now Josh is eating chips too.

Josh: Which one was it?

Tommy: It was, um, where is it? Bernie Scalded. Yeah, I'm used— I'm ref— what do we want to call you, B-Mac? Bernie Shades. You've got 3 names. Yeah, which one is it?

Unknown: Well, it really depends on—

Tommy: uh, PD's going. He's obviously— that means he's sick of it. His kids are hungry. Thanks, mate. Good to see you. Yes, thanks, bro.

Josh: Our audience has somewhat, uh, reduced.

Tommy: So what do you want? What should we call you?

Unknown: Well, it really depends on when you met me.

Josh: Okay, so you've gone through a few iterations.

Tommy: I'm going with BMAC.

Unknown: Yeah, BMAC, that's pretty OG. Um, Josh met me at Shades.

Josh: Yeah, but I still call you BMAC because I'm an OG.

Unknown: Yeah, OG.

Tommy: So let's just keep it at that. That's your real name. What's your driver's licence number?

Josh: So just quit. That Fireball is horrendous.

Tommy: It's good, I'm gonna have the rest of it.

Unknown: Shout out to Fireball.

Josh: I don't know, like, yeah, anyway, so, um, yeah, so the triggers—

Tommy: driving, I— it like brings me back those memories of being tired and coming back from the airport and, um, heading over, heading back to work, heading back to Shepparton, meaning I had to fucking go to work at 4 AM the next day and I wasn't getting home till 8:30 PM. And, and so I have these feelings when I come into town, but seriously, this place Like, it's defining moments in your life. And Shepparton for me is like that. The 2 years that I came from having my own personal training studio and in a career that I wasn't passionate about— I liked it and it was bearable, and it gave— and I had lots of spare time to be able to do something and chase another dream. Then I got the radio gig and it shifted me out of my life into this new space of being creative every day, 5 days a week, communicating every single day, telling storeys and moving here. So I like— I have such fond memories. And BMAC, one of my best mates, he got an invite to my wedding. Josh didn't.

Josh: Hurtful. To be clear, we, we hadn't sort of really started the bromance. Yeah, until afterwards. I'm sure that you said to me we became— it was one of those classic cases where you become friends during the engagement. And I remember you specifically, I don't know if this was just to make me feel better, but you said that you would have preferred for me to come versus some other people. Yeah, which was nice of you.

Tommy: I reckon there was a few people there.

Unknown: I remember listening to the podcast and yeah, I remember hearing that, that story.

Tommy: And it wasn't you, to be clear, it was not you. I appreciated you there.

Unknown: You brought the vibes. I felt like I really made that wedding. I knocked it out of the park.

Tommy: As in, you, you, you're lucky you made it there, or the sirens, the sirens?

Unknown: Time at, um, that wedding. It was like probably one of the best I've ever been to.

Tommy: Yeah, so I think that's Shepparton in a nutshell. I partied hard in the first bit when I got here.

Josh: With who?

Tommy: Oh, my mate Kel, who's one of my groomsmen at my wedding, actually. So I've met like some of my best friends have come from Shepparton, and Kel and I lived together. He was on the radio, other radio station up here in Shepparton, and, um And so we lived together and partied and drank beers at the pub most afternoons, played frisbee. We became addicted to frisbee, which is now my business.

Josh: My business is now full-time frisbee. I like the idea that people took out of that, that you were a full-time frisbee player. So as we are looking back and talking about turning points, what do you remember the beginning of the Daily Talk Show How did it come about? What's your first memories of it?

Tommy: I remember you— we have a lot of ideas. We're constantly throwing out idea concepts.

Josh: It's true.

Tommy: And we don't go with all of them. I think we've got like— we do so many that we just pick the best ones. And for some reason we said a podcast, and you'd done one before. Yeah, only did 10 episodes.

Josh: True, it was a guest style one.

Tommy: Okay, I've got it. I knew, I know what it was. I loved it that you were sold on the idea. So you, like, because of your excitement, and I see you as being this person who has— you're, you've almost got— Shades had— we didn't fucking get it, which one are you?

Josh: Just going B-Mac.

Unknown: Yeah, okay.

Tommy: B-Mac has an ability, and I've talked about on the podcast, he knows where things are going with music and artists that are coming up. He's got an eye for it. And I think you're the— you, that's you for technology and content platforms. And you were like, fuck, man, I seriously reckon there's a place for a podcast.

Josh: It was a format, right? It was like there was so many, uh, there's so many podcasts that are just guests on, or there's— they might do weekly or they might do monthly, but there's, there's radio shows that are doing daily And I think that there's an opportunity for this for people who want that daily touchpoint or that daily opportunity to be part of a conversation. And so I think that that was part of— the other thing was that we would be speaking on the phone and catching up at least a couple of hours a day. So it doesn't hurt just to be like, well, why don't we just sort of record this shit and work it out?

Tommy: To be clear, we're not both working full-time jobs for some company and doing that. We have businesses that are—

Josh: It's our only social time that we have really, isn't it? Literally, it's like when you are doing your own thing, you need to surround yourself with like-minded people and people who are going through the same struggles, dealing with clients, dealing with quoting, dealing with invoicing, dealing with working out where to take the business, what's the roadmap, what's the next 5 years look like. Should I do this, should I do that, should I say yes, should I say no? And so, you know, I think we've covered that on the Daily Talk Show as well.

Tommy: Mate, it's got all the elements that I love. Fun, like, it's— we're being young. It's like coming up here, there's no fucking— there's no one here to see us.

Josh: There's no return on investment.

Tommy: No, there's no clear return on investment. You could analyse and come up with a return on investment. Happiness. But yeah, happiness. So many things.

Josh: Yeah, I wouldn't have met B-Mac if we hadn't have started the podcast.

Tommy: You wouldn't know about, um, Lily.

Josh: Lily. I-L-L-Y. Yeah, thank you.

Unknown: He needed that plug.

Tommy: He's—

Josh: yeah, he needs it. Yeah, he's on Spotify.

Tommy: He's one of the other things I love about—

Unknown: he's got MySpace.

Tommy: The other thing I love about Shepparton, when I— when B-Mac and I became mates, we'd get together and fucking get get a few beers and we'd just—

Josh: Why do you sound so sleazy when you say, oh, was it—

Tommy: we'll get a few beers and we'd, um, just like Google different artists and he'd be showing me new artists that are coming up. And what would you do? I don't know, just any like brand, like music artists. You're not into that shit, but I like music. Yeah, not like him though. He's like a music—

Josh: yeah, yeah.

Tommy: And so it's like— and I'm— that's why I was like intrigued by BMAC. And he would tell me storeys about him coming up. Tell us the one about me. So Illy in Australia, if you don't, if you don't know who that is, he's an ARIA Award-winning fucking breakthrough Australian hip-hop artist that tours the world now. Yeah, he's got a record label in Australia and he's a big dog in the industry. And tell us, like, tell us about you and him, the early days, that storey about how you guys sort of came up. Yeah, at the record label. So you should tell us about, first of all, you calling up like those guys, Hilltop Hoods or Bliss and SO, getting into their record label. Who was that?

Unknown: And then what happened was, um, I used to play a lot of tennis and obviously we're all good rap storey start. We're all great.

Josh: It started on the tennis and I said to Illy, have you thought about, have you thought about rapping? There you go.

Tommy: I'm gonna take it a bit.

Unknown: Hang on. Perfect. Yeah, nah, I used to just reward myself with a CD every week. So if I played well, so I ended up getting into hip-hop. I really loved hip-hop, but I never knew what Australian hip-hop was.

Josh: You got 3 CDs from the whole year, was it?

Unknown: Nah, I killed it every week, every summer, like probably had like 12 by the end.

Josh: Great.

Unknown: That's like every weekend, right? Yeah. So anyway, I Bought this one CD. I had a choice out of this guy called Freyze or Eminem, and I always knew I was going to get this Eminem CD eventually. So I was like, you know what, I'm gonna get this Freyze CD. Then I heard him. He was from Melbourne.

Josh: What year was this?

Unknown: This is like 2005, I'm gonna say. Oh wait, 2000 and— yeah, yeah, 2005, 2006.

Unknown: Yeah.

Unknown: And So that happened. I got another CD straight away, killed it on the tennis court.

Josh: Perfect.

Unknown: And it ended up being Bliss and Esso. And then actually Liam's sister— Liam, who is serving us right now, is my cousin— um, it was her 16th birthday and I was going to La Porchetta just down the street.

Josh: Mate, this has every element of a good rap story.

Unknown: This is amazing. La Porchetta does the best—

Josh: is it calzone?

Tommy: Calzones.

Josh: Calzones, fucking great. It's like a pizza, right? And it's like, yeah, but it's got a top on it.

Unknown: It's like a dough.

Josh: Yeah, it's a dough. It's like a bread within it. Yeah, anyway, so I really want to eat the burger really soon, by the way, so I'm going to finish this up.

Unknown: Yeah, so pretty much, uh, what happened was I was supposed to go to this birthday party on a Wednesday night, and then it said Freyze and Bliss and Esso live here tonight, and I said no fucking way. So I stood out the front of Yahoo Bar, I waited for like 2 hours in Shepparton. In Shepparton. Yep. And there was like no one going into this venue and I was like, I have to meet these guys. So I waited the whole time. Ended up meeting them. But these guys just opened for Ed Sheeran. Like, that's how big they are nowadays.

Josh: Yeah.

Unknown: Yeah. But at the time they were touring around with like Gadinsky's son who was managing them and they were literally like they had no money for their hotel room. They were living in their car.

Josh: It's the Daily Talk Show, mate.

Tommy: You are—

Josh: Things happen in cycles and it's Bliss and SO and today it's The Daily Talk Show. Yeah.

Unknown: So yeah, eventually like I just waited out the front and then I got offered an internship and I did that in Melbourne. I didn't have to like go through uni or anything to get that because they thought I was ahead. Like I was helping them with music and MySpace and Facebook in the very early days. And yeah, I just now I'm, yeah.

Tommy: Now you're working with Illy, and so Illy was alongside you. So Illy was a nobody.

Unknown: Yeah, pretty much.

Tommy: Tell us about that quickly.

Unknown: Yes. So very quickly, I guess, um, me and Illy became friends because he was being mentored by Freys and Daniel Merriweather, and I was working alongside those guys.

Josh: This is gonna be a dumb question, but isn't Merriweather the boxer?

Tommy: That's Mayweather.

Unknown: Mayweather.

Josh: And what did you say?

Unknown: Merriweather.

Tommy: Daniel Merriweather.

Josh: Very similar.

Unknown: Very similar. You must get that a lot.

Josh: Go on.

Unknown: Yeah, so he, um, I just remember specifically one moment Al was on a smaller label at the time and his name is Al. Yeah, and we're at the snow and he's like, I really want this. Like, Freize was playing a really big MTV gig and I was just like, bro, like, you're gonna have this. And I guess like last year he was the number one highest selling Australian single in Australia and album. 73 sold-out shows around the country.

Tommy: Crazy.

Josh: And what did he do? What was the— if you were to pinpoint it.

Tommy: So technically we don't have Illy here, but let's pretend you're Illy.

Josh: So this is huge to have Illy on the show.

Tommy: Yeah, amazing. Welcome, Illy.

Josh: So Illy, what was it? I know how awkward this is. Like, can you just stop calling me Illy because it's making me uncomfortable? No, what was the, uh, what do you think was the, the thing that Illy had that other people don't have it, don't make it?

Unknown: Just hard work and just willingness to do anything.

Tommy: What does hard work look like in the music industry?

Unknown: Yeah, I think it's like playing shows for nothing, going to regional towns, meeting the people, building yourself up. A lot of musicians these days would never step foot in Shepparton, and Illy's first sold-out show was actually in Shepparton.

Josh: And ours as well.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: We had no seats available, so it was sold out from— I had 3 seats.

Unknown: But this is where it all starts. Yeah, like, this is the hustle, this is the drive.

Josh: Fucking, this is the grind.

Unknown: This is what you have to do.

Josh: This is the grind.

Tommy: Knew we had a hype man for a reason.

Josh: Yeah, boy, this is the grind, guys. That's going to be the episode. This is the grind.

Tommy: This is the grind.

Unknown: This is the grind. Yeah, and you got to do it. Like, you've got to do it.

Josh: Yeah, fucking oath. It's a daily talk show, everyone.

Tommy: Hang on, we haven't done our 10 things. Let's just do 10 really quick things about— Do I just ask you for one more drink or no? Oh yes, yes, fucking Love this. All right, all right, um, we're gonna do 2 in a row. Um, is any gonna be as bad as Fireball? No, actually there's not.

Unknown: Seriously?

Tommy: All right, here we go, another drink straight away.

Unknown: What is it?

Tommy: What's the word that comes to mind? You're sipping lemon. Lemon.

Josh: Weird because it's blue.

Tommy: That was a blue one. Let me just sip it.

Josh: It's gonna give me asthma.

Tommy: Oh my God, it tastes like you're at the pools as a kid and you've just got a bit of money off Mum.

Josh: I think you're gonna say you, uh, you took a golf in the pool.

Tommy: Um, which one?

Josh: That was yummy, you reckon?

Unknown: Uh, well, he's supposed to—

Josh: okay, okay, okay, yeah, okay. Fuck's sake, I told you people love when I guess.

Tommy: All right, hang on. B-Max pointing.

Josh: I really want the burgers when they're finished.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, we're gonna do— all right, hang on, here we go. He's sipping it.

Josh: Yeah, it's like, um, don't know. Yeah, orange.

Tommy: Yeah, orange. All right, so what was my favourite one?

Josh: My favourite was probably Fireball. Nah, the Fireball can go fuck itself. I think the blue one was quite good, the lemony one. And maybe the very first one, like the mint, the true— your— the Shade, Summer Shades.

Unknown: Yep, Summer of Shades.

Josh: Summer Shades.

Tommy: That was before, um— BMAC actually has a drink here named after him.

Josh: Okay, which is great.

Tommy: All right, 10 things to wrap up the podcast that we've learned from making a podcast. Who wants to go first?

Josh: I'll go first. Um, maybe not 10. I'm just gonna say things.

Tommy: 10 things sounds good. Just say one and then I go.

Unknown: Okay.

Josh: Um, don't, don't let your filter get in the way of doing. Okay. Um, oh, this is gonna be really slow.

Tommy: Let's do 10 for the tour coming out, like podcasting and doing as many as you can, the rapid growth in communication, not only just learning about yourself, but like how you're communicating to somebody else and how their communication style differs from yours, is huge. You learn so quickly.

Josh: Elaborate, that was interesting.

Tommy: So how I, I feel like I fumble around with a lot of what I say. I feel like I, I I've got other elements that make my communication, um, okay and bearable. But I listen to how you talk, and you're a bit more articulate than me. You know a few more words than me. You have maybe more thought-out sentences coming out of your head. Like, I might just talk and not think what I'm saying, right? But I think that adds to it, right? So I embrace— you always learn your communication style and then embrace that. I feel like I have. I feel like I've been analytical on me and going, oh, I kind of— but I kind of have energy coming with it as well.

Josh: Funny thing is we both don't feel like we're in necessarily control of what we're saying. Like, I don't feel like— even though you might say those things, which is really nice, I don't necessarily think that it's— the problem is that what I'm saying isn't always what needs to be said. So you don't always need a long drawn-out answer that uses a metaphor, but for whatever fucking reason you could say anything that goes there.

Tommy: Yeah, all right, what's one for you?

Josh: Uh, no, I think it's, um, uh, you know, the, the joy of doing it with someone else, collaborating with someone else. Um, we've got a bit of Shania Twain going on in the background. Is that who's singing?

Tommy: It's reminiscing Shania.

Josh: But, uh, yeah, no, I think, um, the collaborating and also just being reminded of the, um, how much podcasting can connect with people. And how we can have people all around the world listening. And they send us emails at hi@thedailytalkshow.com.

Tommy: Good plug.

Josh: Or the PO Box, PO Box 400, Abbotsford, Victoria.

Tommy: Good plug.

Josh: 3067 for the postcode, put that in. Yeah, no, so I think that I've just really enjoyed the connection with people. I feel like I've connected with heaps of people. The—

Tommy: it almost tests a friendship or it makes it stronger rapidly, like learning about somebody. Like, if you've been listening to this podcast for 50 episodes, you would, you would know Josh and I pretty well. Yeah, we're pretty honest in this, and I don't feel like I'm hiding anything.

Unknown: No.

Tommy: Um, a few things that came to mind that I was hiding, but won't bring those up. They just don't need to surface ever into any, any, anyone's ears. But yeah, you do, you, um, I nearly just choked. You learn about someone and you learn about the friendship pretty quickly.

Josh: Yeah, absolutely. Well, let's finish it there because I really want to eat the burger.

Tommy: Yeah, we've got 2 burgers sitting in front of us.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, everyone. It's been episode 50. If you've been listening, toot toot. If you've been— people are listening live right now in their cars. If you're listening and you've ever sent us an email or if you've given us a review or just press the download button and listen to us, Thanks so much because it's nice to know that we can connect with you and that you're allowing us to because it's something that's a two-way relationship and you have to press the button and want to listen.

Tommy: Yeah, we're in your ears. It's pretty intimate. Thank you, BMAC.

Josh: Thanks, BMAC, for organising the Shepparton tour. And we're very excited to announce a whole regional tour later in the year.

Unknown: It's coming. It's coming. Stay tuned.

Josh: And BMAC, where can people find you online? Where can they keep up to date with your musings and all the shit that you do?

Unknown: Yeah, so they can find me at @behindtheshades with two Es with the behind on the— okay, yeah, so behind the shades.

Josh: Okay, great. These people are getting real creative with their usernames now, aren't they?

Tommy: Uh, that's it.

Josh: Bye everyone, thanks for listening to the other talk show. Yeah boy.