Hamish Blake on life

Tommy: Wait a minute!

Hamish: Crossface, the Daily Talk Show, a conversation sometimes worth recording with Josh Janson and Tommy Jackett.

Josh: It's episode 100, guys.

Hamish: We did it!

Tommy: We did it!

Josh: Thanks for— thanks for coming on by. Episode 100, Hamish Blake.

Tommy: Little did you know, he's been here every episode but just hasn't talked until—

Hamish: building up the courage, waiting and waiting and waiting.

Josh: You've been looking after all the technical stuff for us.

Hamish: Guys, thanks for having me to the Centurion party. This is massive. This is huge.

Josh: Centurion means 100?

Hamish: Certainly does.

Josh: Right.

Tommy: Are you feeling sick?

Hamish: I'll pop it in the show notes.

Josh: Are you cra— yeah, show notes is one area.

Hamish: So that's just something I like saying on podcasts because other people have show notes and—

Tommy: This is the first time I've had a podcast and I've been saying it just because of the exact same thing.

Hamish: Look at the show notes. Um, you know, speaking of, speaking of nuclear physics, I'll chuck some stuff in the show notes on cold fusion that I've just been working on while I've been waiting to come on there. I'm really sorry I'm late because right down to the buzzer, it's almost 10 o'clock at night. Um, I'm sorry it's a late episode.

Josh: No, we've only done how many late nights, do you think?

Tommy: Not many.

Hamish: Not many. No. So like, I just, I would have really felt terrible.

Josh: No, this is the thing, like, you've come from Sydney.

Hamish: Yeah, I flew down tonight. And tell me, you know, when you get— like, I knew at the airport already in 3 hours' time there was going to be an issue because you just can see, you know, things are going into the pipeline that you know that you just know need to get done for the kids. All right, now we need to get to the car, now we need to get home, then we need to feed them, then there's gonna be a wind down.

Tommy: Are you with the family?

Hamish: Yeah, yeah, we were flying back from Sydney.

Tommy: I thought you were by yourself.

Hamish: No, no, then like it's late night and there's traffic on like the— like 9 o'clock, it's not gonna happen. So that's how I already could just, I already could see my, you know, the world record line in the pool. I just see it getting away from me into the future.

Tommy: Mate, that's more of a compliment. Thank you for making this happen.

Hamish: Can I say, I mean, I won't obviously say where we are, but you're house sitting at the moment. Yeah. And in the suburb of Richmond in Victoria.

Josh: Yeah, correct.

Hamish: Celebrity news, do you know who used to live down on the corner?

Josh: No, who?

Tommy: Who?

Hamish: Rove McManus.

Josh: Really?

Hamish: Yeah, down that big place on the corner with the security cameras.

Josh: Yeah.

Hamish: That was Rove's compound in Rove days, heyday.

Josh: And Roving Enterprises is now Nando's on the—

Tommy: in—

Hamish: Well, the building might be, I don't know if the company turned into Nando's.

Josh: No, they do peri-peri. No, you know, Rove's—

Hamish: Like a wonderful pivot. No, Rove, you know what people like? Light entertainment and chicken. We're gonna take the same principles we applied to light entertainment and apply them to chicken and chips.

Tommy: I'm proud of the integration of our first sponsor, which is Nando's.

Josh: Exactly, the BLT. No, the, yeah, 'cause Roving Enterprises, did you start?

Hamish: In Abbotsford? Yeah, that was our old office. Is that a Nando's?

Josh: No, it's not a Nando's, it's their head office.

Hamish: Head office. Ah, Nando's head office. Yeah, good move from Nando's.

Josh: Yeah.

Hamish: It was a good place.

Josh: Well, what was the, so that was the office space.

Hamish: Yep.

Josh: So, and it was recorded in?

Hamish: I was out in Nunawading.

Josh: Nunawading, yeah, sure.

Hamish: So this is in Melbourne. So like out at the neighbour's When it was, yeah, Channel 10, it was under Wadding. Oh, and then it went to the— we're in the ABC studios for a few years, but it was still for Channel 10 in, um, in Elsternwick in Melbourne, like the Spicks and Specks studio, the Countdown studio, that, that, that the compound, the ABC compound. I don't know how that worked. I think maybe the ABC sold their studios to a private company and then just like rented them back because, yeah, for the last 2 years we were at out at, um, out of the ABC doing Rove.

Josh: Oh, that's weird.

Hamish: Um, I always remember being in the car, but the last episode of Rove, the, the like talk show Rove. Yeah, I think it was like 2010 or 11 maybe. No, probably 2010, I reckon, the last episode. And it was that thing of like no one knew if it was coming back the year after. We hadn't really even thought about it, and Then there was a bit of a rumor, oh, it's gonna be the last show, but they didn't want to do any pre-publicity for— it was an outside episode too. Sam Worthington was on it. I can't remember who else was on it. It was in the car park, like it was a warm summer's night. They didn't want to do any publicity because they didn't want it to be— I think they didn't want— I think they just opted against— this wasn't Roving. I think it was Channel 10 going, we don't want to— we don't want to go, it's his last, you know, watch his last episode. And then not have a good enough number after the fact to go. So we don't want it to be like, oh well, people expected 2 million and only 800,000 watched. Yeah. So I remember it starting and we were, Annie and I, we were like, we just turn up every 2 weeks and hand over a tape. So we weren't really in the inner echelons of like making the decision. I just remember sitting on the sidelines and Rove was like, did a bit of monologue, made a few jokes, was like, and tonight's the last episode. So, you know, if you're, and back then Twitter was a big thing and like it was like, like, you know, people were so excited if we were training. Like, Twitter had just started. It's like, yeah, so if you're at home, you know, text your friends, tweet your friends, tell them this is the last, um, it's the last Rove. I think they wanted— they opted for more of like an instant groundswell of everyone just rushing to the phones and being like, Mom, put Channel 10 on, it's the last Rove, than actually promoting it in advance and going, this will be the last one. So it didn't work.

Josh: On the way—

Hamish: it did not work.

Josh: I want to ask you about like transitioning from different projects before we do admin for The Daily Talk Show, the podcast that people are listening to.

Tommy: This is half an hour, haven't you?

Josh: So no, well, we, we started off—

Hamish: you need to do two podcasts a day.

Josh: No, we—

Hamish: an admin one and a real one.

Josh: Exactly. No, so I, um, The Daily Talk Show, I'm Josh, the other guy's Tommy, um, and, uh, this is episode 100, and I've written down every single person who has sent us an email, which in your game would obviously probably take up—

Hamish: Well, we have computers, so we could generate a digital list. Digital. Other than having it handwritten.

Tommy: So I just spent time doing it.

Josh: I wanted to thank the people who have, over the last 100 episodes—

Hamish: That's a great idea.

Josh: —written an email. Michelle, Sean, Jodie, BMAC, Trevor, Derek, Russ, and Robert.

Hamish: So yeah, because I'm reading that upside down, I thought robot was the last person. Robot. So we're now breaking into like machines that can listen and appreciate podcasts.

Tommy: We've actually got a couple of birthdays as well. Neil, it's Neil's birthday today.

Hamish: G'day, Neil. We had two people, Neil and Chris.

Josh: It's also Chris's birthday.

Hamish: Did they realise how many episodes out? Did they realize? On Friday, yeah, Friday Neil reached out. I was sort of wondering if it was in like the '70s. This was probably the longest.

Tommy: They didn't think we'd keep going, so we didn't know.

Josh: The, um, but the thing is that the, um, we've been teasing. This is probably the longest tease in the sense of having you on. I think you're probably—

Tommy: have you been getting notifications today from us posting about you coming on the show?

Josh: Instagram told me that you'd mentioned— yeah, but, uh, no, sorry.

Hamish: That's what I said to Zoe, how are we going to cut this Sydney trip short? Shit, I'm so sorry. I told the guys I'd be back in Melbourne. Uh, what's the—

Josh: do you What's been the biggest guest that you ever had on your show? What was the longest tease that you ever did?

Hamish: The longest tease would be probably different. There'd be— uh, I'll give you a couple of categories. There would be some ill-placed, um, teasers. Like, you know, now looking back on it, was it worth like talking up this person so much? Or this band? Like, you know, like, hey, we've got Flo Rida coming up, you know, he's gonna play live. Don't— but that was a top performance. I might. Um, that was funny. Were you there for that? No, I remember that was just before—

Josh: I think that I had to take a bunch of tweets down because I think I tweeted about it and then soon after got a job at SEA and did a big cleanup.

Tommy: I was— I got so close to Flo Rida. He was on a security guy's shoulders, and Flo Rida is probably 140 kilos himself, massive, and on his back, but like jacked up, like he's all protein, but I don't know if he forgets his name, but it says Flo Rida on his back, just, just as his cheat sheet.

Hamish: All I remember from that, like, I mean, that was a great one, but we— that seemed to be all over the station forever. Like, yeah, I just remember when he turned up, it was just a disproportionate level of him expecting— like, I think he was like, I can't believe I'm doing a radio station in Melbourne. Like, come on, I'm Flo Rida.

Tommy: Was that for one of the—

Hamish: that was for a rooftop party, the Logies one. That might have even been for our— because I can't— I don't know what it was. It was pre- Logie's Spit Roast. We were on at 4 PM and he played, he did like the 3 to 4 hour, it was the FlowRider party. But there was like a panic because, and this is another free Nando's plug, he wanted chickens. Um, it's like he's a crocodile. Yeah, he wanted like, like protein. He wanted like 8 roast chickens. That's right. Everyone was like rushing around getting him chickens because he was just almost like survey result day, you know. They were like, Nando's, but like, oh my God, like get FlowRider chickens, he needs chickens.

Tommy: And like 10 kilos of protein, bananas as well, because I was I was there that day.

Hamish: He might have just eaten chickens and bananas, like, because he's ripped. Like, he obviously is on a specific diet for muscle gain. Yeah. And the other two things he wanted, he wanted one bottle of Cristal, and like, it had— and we're like, man, come on, Flo, like, who are you? And then another bottle of Yellow Glen. Like, he wanted like super expensive champagne, then shit champagne.

Josh: So they wanted to spray it at the audience.

Hamish: Yeah, and, and, but he sprayed the— he was like, I spray Cristal as a show of strength, and I want— but I just have in my green room, I don't mind what champagne I drink, but I must spray the expensive stuff. So there's a lot of it was like, a lot of it was for sure. Did you remember when he threw that like gold chain out to the crowd? I remember the gold chain he had on there, massive gold chain on, threw it out to the crowd. Everyone's like, oh my God, like someone caught it, like a woman caught it. She was like, I can't believe I've like, it was— it looks expensive. So she's probably like, I think it was made 100 grand here. And everyone— and then he just said, so he sprayed Cristal through his gold chain. I was like, I'm out of here. And Fly Rider like goes back to finish off 2 or 3 chickens or just some wings or whatever, bit of popcorn chicken. And then his security guard came through the crowd and was like, give us the chain. He's got a guy that goes out and finds the girl, or who— the guy, whoever catches it, because honestly, give us the chain back. Like, as if See you later.

Tommy: That has to have gone pesh. I was at the footy on the weekend and with my brother Jacko. Yeah, because Hamish is friends with Jacko, and we were sitting there watching these footies go up into the grandstand. I was like, as if you don't just want to grab it and put under your— yeah, put in your bag.

Hamish: Just quickly, more people haven't done that at the footy. They just throw them straight back down. It's amazing because in America that's the whole thing, like you're trying to catch the foul balls to keep.

Josh: Yeah, it's a smaller ball though, I guess, as well.

Hamish: There's that. That's more convenient to take home. But like, the whole point of the game is like like bring your glove, try and catch a ball. They should have like bring your like old school AFL glove, catch it in the crowd. So the FlowRider was probably like, he wasn't the most we hyped up. There was a lot of people on the show, like I'm kind of like you, Josh, I cannot remember the names of people. So there would be hundreds of musical acts that we've had on that I couldn't tell you the names of.

Tommy: What about the one that I know sort of the behind the scenes storey that couldn't be told of Bono? Oh yeah, yep, he was—

Hamish: I mean, he was— but you couldn't— couldn't you get him on for your 200?

Tommy: Definitely, we'll think about it.

Josh: Yeah, I think we're going to get him for 104.

Tommy: But couldn't you— couldn't you not talk about that? Wasn't there only a few people?

Hamish: Yeah, for our last show, first time around. So we were doing a bunch of like shows around the country when we're like, oh, you know, we're going to stop doing Drive Radio, we're going to often do this. We went off to do the TV show Gap Year. And so we were going around, around different cities, and our last show was at the Music Bowl in Melbourne. I think this was 2011 or 2010, around about the same time as the end of Rove. And we were at the Music Bowl, and it was gonna be fun. Like, we were encouraging people, like, dress up as stuff from the show and, like, you know, just come and enjoy the last show with us sort of thing. And I think we had John Farnham locked in for the last show, so we're like, what a great result. Um, this is gonna be a terrific final show. And you two were in town. I mean, this is just super, like, just massively fortuitous. So Sammy, our producer, was— he stayed in Melbourne while we travel around the country doing these shows. The night before, we were in Sydney, and I think on the Wednesday night, we must have been in Brizzy because like that, that's when the news came through, like on the Wednesday night. Hey, um, the, the marketing people from U2 have contacted me saying, look, they would be happy to come play the final show. Like, they've heard about the show, or someone's told someone, or someone's explained to them, oh, you know, this radio show is finishing up and this could be a fun event to do if you guys want to do something for publicity. And so somehow it had got on their plate and they were like entertaining the idea. And so someone was like, here's the thing though, they they wanna— it only looks cool for them, only works for them if they can turn up and genuinely surprise everyone. Um, he's like, so no one knows about this, like the radio station doesn't know, no one knows. I've just got the, the head of like U2's entourage, or like the tour head of the tour has gone, here's what we could do, can like come back to us with an idea of like a fun way to reveal U2. And at that stage, that initial conversation, they're like, the guys from U2 it's too hard to get the backline there and do any songs, so they'll come but they're not going to play any music. And we're like, that's going to be weird. That's going to be weird if we say like, hey, Larry, The Edge, Bono, guys, play us a song. No, no, we're just, uh, just here, just hanging out. So then we're like, shit, okay. So we started trying to think of an idea, like, like, what's a funny reason that they couldn't play a song? Or, you know, we lose a bet with them and, you know, The bet was if we win, they play. Like, no, that makes it look like they don't want to play. So we're racking our brains a bit. Then like an hour later, they're like, good news, they will play. They will play. They want to play their new song. They don't want to play any— they don't want to play like one of the classics. Like, god, that's even worse. It's probably—

Josh: it was probably the one that was free on iTunes too.

Hamish: Yeah, they really want to give it away again. Anyway, luckily, I mean, this was cool. This was just like an example of like you see inside the workings of a group like U2 and a machine like the U2's tour. They're just the best in the world at, at everything they touch. Like, they're so, so, so good at every kind of decision and step that they make. Like, everything's so considered, and they just want to do it well, you know. Like, they sort of came back like, oh, we'll play 2 songs, we'll play like Streets Have No Name and like another one, like, oh, this is incredible. We're like, we, you know, so we came up with this idea. We were like, we, um, like, what if we wrote a song saying, we know, we know U2 are in town, and we asked them to come on the show and they didn't turn up, they're chickens. And so we made up the song called We Are Better Than U2, and like Andy and I singing it about how we had told them to turn up at 4:30 and they didn't show, and therefore we win and we're the best guys. And then they walk out on stage. But no one knew they were coming. Like I said, like zero, no one knew. Like they had their roadies turn up and soundcheck their stuff and play a bit, and they were like, they were on the run sheet as someone else. Like, you know, like, like U4. Yeah, um, UB40. Like, you know, they're on the run sheet or something else. I know they're on the run sheet as Jack Post Band, as Last Chance. They were. And so they were like Last Chance was listed as playing and we're telling everyone, are you okay? So Last Chance comes out and plays, which was Jack's high school band. Yeah. So yeah, man, that was awesome.

Tommy: That was so much fun. So you knew?

Hamish: Me and Andy knew. No, even like, that's it, me and Andy and Sam.

Josh: Because it was stressed that if it came out—

Hamish: Sorry, that's right, you're right, you're right. So the other thing was they're like, we want to do this, we want the surprise to be genuine. This is the cool thing about them, like, they're like, we don't want this to be manufactured, we want this to be real, we want this to be a genuinely awesome moment. And it— and we take this shit seriously. Like, we don't— when we do stuff, like, we— this is how we do it as YouTube. We do it well. They're like Apple. They really are. They're like— yeah, they're like Disney, Apple, like Lego. They're like, we don't take chances with our brand. So the, the— I can't remember—

Tommy: took a chance putting their song on everyone's iPhone. But I mean, it's—

Hamish: I guess it's the thing of like, they're considered. They're not always right, but they put a lot of thought into it. They're not sloppy. So they're like, well the iPod— the Apple's the biggest company in the world, and the iPod is possibly the greatest invention at that time for music. We're happy to be aligned with, you know. So you can sort of— you can see the rationale. They just kind of misstepped a bit there, but they— which I'm sure they would admit. But the— I think her name was Frances, or whoever it was. Yeah, that's Frances. Yeah, the head of— the head of the— the woman in charge of this, the head of this idea, yeah, was like sort of saying to Sam, listen, this is what we do. It has to be— that's critical for us. Got to be a surprise. Got to surprise the crowd. Gonna surprise the world, um, like that's watching and, and the people paying attention. If like, if, if you— if this leaks or if we get a sniff that this is— that, that people have begun to know about this, also just for the guy's security too, like we don't want to go crazy, um, they're like, we just won't do it. And, and if, and if you, if you say we were going to do it, we'll just say you're lying and no one will believe you. It's like that Bill Murray storey of him stealing people's hot chips and then them turning around going, what are you doing? You'll be like, no one will believe you that I stole your hot chips. Because who would believe us?

Josh: I was gonna say the Bill Cosby story, but that's a bit darker.

Hamish: Yeah, thank God people did believe them. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, they, they, they rocked it, man, and they were the best. Like, they were such lovely dudes. Here's the best part about like guys like that who aren't— they mean, they're U2, like they can afford to be a bit arrogant if they want. Yeah, but they, they were really— one of the interesting things from behind the scenes they were really hyper aware of is they, they obviously knew who John Farnham was and like what he meant to Australians as well. And he was the big deal for our final show, like having— and he was still performing, he was still performing. So to have— they were like, we don't— that it meant a lot to the guys in the band. They're like, we don't want John Farnham to think we like usurped him and came and like destroyed this. That's nice. So before the show they're like, can we meet John Farnham? Can we go into his dressing room? And so this was— there was— we were all in this secret little downstairs enclave. So we just— because no one knew they were there, we were just sort of chatting to them beforehand and they were asking their people, can we go and speak to John Farnham, who was in the green room next door. So they went, knocked on the door, and they're like, John, it's amazing to meet you, we're huge fans. And he was like blown away because U2's come to wish him luck. And they're like, you know, we're just supporting you today, this is crazy. Like, so they just made him feel like a king. And I was like, great move. Like, no, they thought of doing that. No one's telling them to do that. Like, that, that's just their radar, you know. They, they're, they're just, they've just switched on guys like that.

Josh: It'd be annoying if Farnham then tweeted U2, then it was all love.

Hamish: I reckon they took a calculated risk and went, I don't think John Farnham's tweeting doing that much.

Tommy: Is it John Farnham who's come out of retirement 10, 15 times?

Hamish: He's done a lot of farewells. And at the time we were teasing him because we were like, oh, you know, we're only doing one farewell tour and you do 50. We have since done a couple more.

Josh: The, the, um, the idea of being careful of what you're saying and things like that, how, how has that translated to being on air? And specifically, having done 100 episodes, Tommy and I have looked back on episodes that we've done and said, ah, We don't— we haven't edited any of our shows, so we just like in the moment, if we say something dumb, we'll like bring it up, but we're not really editing it. Have you had any moments where you, you've had that sick feeling of like, I shouldn't have said that?

Hamish: Uh, usually I reckon just with personal stories. Yeah, yeah, they sting. Um, more so back in the day I was younger, like less so with my, my wife, less, less so with Zoe, but I remember Like, here's where I reckon it comes from, especially doing radio like 2 hours a day. Sometimes you just get to 4 o'clock and, you know, most of the time you're fine for, yeah, content. You've got more than you need. You've, you've just had those little moments where you've stopped and just checked sometime before 4 o'clock, do I have enough for the shows? Because there's always parts of the show you're like, I got that, I got that, I'll do that. So no one really knows what you're going to say. There's like spots in the show where we're like, I'll talk, and there's spots where we're like, hey, Ander, you talk. Other spots we're like, well, we should talk about this and maybe do a phone, do a phoner off the back of it. For our show, that's how we would put our show together. Like, we had essentially 12 boxes to fill, and you— and each box would have like one sentence in it. Like, it might be, you know, like, um, you know, relationship deal breakers or whatever, one of our classics. Have you shaved your pet or whatever. And then we're like, great, 5 minutes on that. Then the next break we take calls. That's like, they're the two that would sort of be like, have you shaved your pet? Next box, calls. And the whole board kind of looked like that. Then sometimes it would just be like, you know, Andy or just Hamish. And you're like, it— you can essentially— you're saying to the team, guys, I got this, I'll take the Hamish spot. Like, I got something, which you usually do, like 99% of the time you do. But then there are those rare days where you just suddenly realise the show's happening, you look and you're like, fuck, 5 minutes. What did I want to talk about there? Something. And you're like, oh my God, I don't really have— what was I going to talk about? And then you suddenly just realised you've just been having fun the whole day, hanging out with everyone, mucking around, all the while not realising that this horizon is approaching. And you just had assumed because you always usually have stuff. Those are the times I reckon where you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my partner, she did something weird the other day and sort and then you're like, uh, should I talk about that?

Josh: So your gauge goes a bit off.

Hamish: Well, as the, as the shot clock's running down, it's just like, you got nothing else. Yeah, you gotta go for it. And so like, those are the ones where you're like, well, with a bit more forethought— because I, you know, for the way I would work personally is like, you either kind of know if an area is funny or not. The most preparation I would do for the radio show is just like literally give something a minute thinking just to see maybe mentally where it mapped out and you kind of go, okay, you know, here's a few of the ways this conversation go and I'll see what Andy says and that's what it's going to be. Those are the— then with those storeys where you're like, I'm probably talking about something that's either going to get my partner in trouble or is something she probably doesn't want on air. You've just accidentally— you've— you're— it's my fault, but you're in that position because you just didn't think about this before 30 seconds ago.

Tommy: I was telling Josh before you got here about something that happened to me when I was in Shepparton on air. And it wasn't something that we said that I knew would be polarizing. We— my co-host and I, we saw a cop at a coffee shop, and my co-host was like, oh, he's hot. And then we just talked about it on air. And then we decided, because you're left to your own devices out in regional radio, that we would launch a Find the Hot Cop 3 days later, we got pulled into a meeting. They're thinking about opening stalker charges on you two. Like, it had literally gone—

Hamish: but isn't there a comedy defense? I was talking to you in a fun way. But is that like— I'm adorable.

Josh: But how many times, like, being a comedian whose job it is to have moments of like— even because Even Haim, I think that your comedy is so much like in the moment. It's observational, it's improvisational. So how do you— because obviously what you were talking about there were sort of premeditated things, but what about in the moment where like me making the Bill Cosby joke? I'm like, uh, yeah, it's sort of funny, but maybe it's not that funny. But it got like— we all politely laughed, so maybe it's okay.

Hamish: I wrote it down actually. I wrote an edit note. No, I reckon we probably— we would, you know, we probably laughed the laugh of relief for a friend who hadn't done that bad a thing. Yeah, because your tone was, oh, I— okay, I almost said a bad thing. We're like, great, that's way less of a— that's why less years in prison than saying the bad thing. Like, there's a lesser charge. So we're like, oh great, yeah, thank good— good, thank God, Josh, you didn't say something that really derailed it with like— do you worry about it with a mental Only in the sense that it will reduce the impact of how funny the show is if you accidentally put an image in people's heads that you're just like, well, that's not fun. Yeah. And the whole point of, like, especially with our show, like, we're not pushing that many envelopes. Our show, we're just trying to make people have a fun time. Or trying to have a fun time and hopefully people join in. So only in the sense that I think if you did something, if we said something weird or wrong or something that put a, took people's minds to an area that's not funny. Yeah. It's just a lot more work to get it back and the end result is probably reduced.

Tommy: I feel like you had the real sweet spot of a show where it's like the breakfast shows are needing to be a bit, uh, edgy, or, uh, what's the word, compelling, topical, but in a, um, real thought-provoking way. Like, you guys didn't have to—

Hamish: you're thinking it, we're saying it. No, we were so lucky. I mean, you, you, oh, the money and prestige allegedly is in breakfast radio, but so is getting up early and having to talk about shit you don't want to talk about. Yeah. So that was, that was a big— that was enough of a turn-off for us.

Josh: And did you ever do— did you do a stint in breakfast?

Hamish: Did you do like— I behind the scenes did when I was 20. Yeah, for a year. So I got to see what it's— I think it's like, I mean, you just get to see— I mean, you'd know better than anyone, Tommy. Like, you just you— it's that thing of like, you don't, you don't rise to the— what's that saying? That like, under pressure you don't rise to the level of your hopes, you sink to the level of your training. Like, it, it reveals a lot about people because everyone's just sleep deprived. Yeah. Panicking, desperate for content, just need— like, just exhausted and running on empty. And so, you know, for great teams, they're the teams that can just work together running on fumes because you do a lot of stuff like running, and then you're trying to create a fun, happy environment. And I got to see that without actually having to like perform in that environment, and that was enough for me to be like, there's got to be a funner way to do this.

Josh: What were the conversations behind the scenes for your show in regards to, say, like shows have air checks, so you'll sit down with your boss and you'll get feedback? What was the individual feedback that you got? What was the thing? So for me, at the beginning of when we started the Daily Talk Show and I would just put it into like two tracks of Tommy and I speaking, if I saw that there was like a crazy amount of— and I'm doing it right now— a crazy amount of me talking, I would feel like louder, slow it down, bring— no, I didn't bring me up, I just brought Tommy's volume down, which is sort of— I didn't want to peak at all. Redid the intro.

Tommy: Exactly. Just me today, guys.

Josh: I had a nicer compress. Actually, on another thought, so I've been geeking out about— I want to come back to that, but geeking out on radio stuff. Do you know people do that in radio where, uh, they'll sweeten the sound of the host's voices? Oh, their specific frequency, their mics. So if you— they'll put beautiful broadcast compressors on their mics, but then they call it the domination feature.

Hamish: Oh, and then on the guest, and on the guest, they're all a bit—

Josh: yeah, it is, isn't it?

Hamish: But anyway, is that why that they've like the golden mic? Yeah, like people bring in their own mic.

Josh: It's less about the mic and more about the preamp, but anyway, the compressor. Of course, of course. This has become a podcast.

Hamish: Anyway, I build myself studios, you don't have to tell me.

Josh: So yeah, what is it? What's the conversation that you're having internally about what Hamish Blake can do to improve?

Hamish: Ah, back in the day, I mean, we would, we still for years and years, we would we would ask to be air checked and like write down, sometimes agree, sometimes disagree. But it was good to have, um, it was good to have, especially because we were young, like we were 22, 23 when we started, like so good to have people that had listened to a lot of radio give us their feedback. More so because it was like, well, eventually the day will come where we go, all right, well, I think we've— I don't know if I agree with that. But early days, you, you know, you hadn't earned the right to say that yet. So we just sort of diligently sat there and, and took it all in. I suppose like an apprenticeship, you know, we were like, all right, well, whatever you guys say is going to come from a place of experience and learning. And then in hindsight, it was just organically, it got to the stage where we wouldn't— we knew the kind of stuff that we liked the show being. Yeah. And sometimes that would not be not be something that was obvious in an air check, or what it wasn't doing.

Josh: What were those points? Like, what I'm curious about is, I think we just basically went—

Hamish: it's so bad, it's really basically like, it— nothing trumps fun. Like, nothing trumps having real fun.

Josh: Like, that's what— did you have to correct internally though and say, I'm talking too much here, or I, I don't give a breath here, or this is—

Hamish: yeah, I mean, only in the sense that I think we were like, well, you're— you could have had so much more fun there if you were more relaxed, or you were listening more, or you were allowing an idea to happen rather than trying trying to force a preconceived outcome. A lot of— I think we learn a lot about the science of, of having real fun, or like the conditions needed to hopefully grow real fun in a studio. And it's sort of— it's not a guarantee every time, but we learn a lot. I think we more learn a lot of stuff that guarantees you won't have real fun. Yeah. But a lot of— but I understand why people make those decisions, because it means you'll— you can— it's like you can have two things here. You can safely have something that sounds fine and is a, like, a facsimile of fun. Like, everyone's fake laughing and, and ending up at the thing you all knew you were going to end up at. Like, end up at the outcome you all knew you were going to end up at. Or you can maybe not have any kind of result, but in success, it can be something that's genuinely fun and wasn't a guarantee. And like, so I think we were always trying to go for that. Kind of thing. Our whole thing on the radio show became taking adventures where we were like, we don't want to know the outcome of this adventure because the whole point of the show is the journey. Like, again, to really roll out a leathery old cliché, we were like, that's got to be the joke. The joke has to be the journey, not— there's so much stuff in radio where it's like, ah, this, this sucks. I've spent 2 weeks servicing this idea that we hate like we hate servicing it, but eventually when we get, you know, the classic one is like, oh, we've got a funny idea for a party, like inviting people and organising the band and all that shit, it's just boring and we hate doing it, but we're hoping two weeks' time the party will be worth it. So all this has been worth it. And to us that always seemed really backwards because it's like, well, why would you spend two weeks having no fun in the hope that the ends will justify the means? Why wouldn't you rather Yeah, have a really funny way to invite people to this thing. And even if the end night is shit, that's one night out of 14 days that was shit, and you still end up with 13 great days.

Tommy: So how do you groom the radio stations to allow you, or even any business that's like creative? Because I think what you're talking about is this creative process of understanding the direction you're going but just taking on the things as they're coming and running with them.

Hamish: So I mean, I suppose it's that thing of like, it was more important for us to be 100— like, we cared a lot more about the trajectory than the target. So we're like, as long as we set our rudder in the right position here so that whatever happens is great, we'll be okay. Like, we know there'll be a fun— like, the best ideas are the ones where you're essentially hedged because a win or a loss is still funny. Yeah, yeah. And that was sort of true, that true on what we ended up doing in Gap Year as well.

Josh: It was sort of like, well, let's what's the language? Is it a vision or like—

Hamish: We would refer to it as trajectory a lot or getting, yeah, getting out like our angles right because, you know, you can be a bit off and it be wrong. But like to go like, all right, well, if we, you know, like, all right, a random example, but this could apply to most of the stuff we end up doing in Gap Year as well. We were like, all right, well, we want to have a race around a little roundabout in Vietnam they have really congested roundabouts. There's like 10 lanes everywhere. It's like mayhem over there in— in like, uh, we're in North Vietnam, like it's wild. We want to get in leathers and ride those mini 49cc minibikes and do 250 laps like a— like a MotoGP, like an enduro, like me versus Andy against like, you know, for 5 hours against each other. Like that's the thing we want to do, just go round around around the roundabout in traffic and we'll put GoPros and stuff on. To us, it's like the reason, like, when we came up with that idea in the room, as soon as we, as soon as we hear that idea in the room, we all have that feeling of going, yes, because it's so— anything can happen in that idea. We don't have to get 250 laps, like, we just don't. Yeah, I could get 5 and Andy might get 19. A bike might explode, we might have an accident, our pit crew, like, we might get fined by the police, our pit crew might leave us. It doesn't matter because like, fuck, it's kind of a visual joke and it will be an adventure out there. I hope it goes for a long time because we know the longer it goes, the more stuff could happen. But it's not that thing of going, ah, like it only works if we achieve the target. Even though it's like, it's an idea that has even, you know, that has a numerical target built into the idea. Doesn't matter because that's the— but if it was like, well, I'm gonna I'm gonna do something, you know, I'm gonna, I'm gonna, uh, I've found a world. Like, because for us that idea just was funny. We're like, that is just funny. I love the idea already of like shopping for bikes and getting in the leathers and like limbering up and talking to our pit crew and having like— we hired a hairdresser to be our like pit chief. I'm just picturing Ryan Shelton. He was doing the commentary, the details of that are funny because to us that's the journey. Like a lot of the stuff we would think of it would be like, right, the thing that really makes us laugh about all this is the nuance and the details and how layered we can go. And, you know, can we, can we just find some, like, a greengrocer and another guy to be like Grid Girls or Grid Boys or whatever? And that would just be funny. Organizing this idea will be funny. And that was to us, like, a lot of the key. Like, putting together this idea is 80% of the comedy. It doesn't need all that done behind the scenes to then, like, uh, to then hopefully have have a funny joke. Like, we always— for so much of our stuff, we were like, we would hear other radio shows do these, have these ideas, and then be like, why aren't you doing all that on air?

Tommy: It's like, um, the making of videos now are getting so much cut through online.

Hamish: Without wanting to throw a mate under the bus, Whipper, um, who's a good friend of all of ours, uh, no, it doesn't— over radio in Sydney, doesn't have a brekkie. They had this idea, they do a lot of like, they do parody songs on their, on their show. And so like a few years ago, he's like, oh, we're gonna get these musical bears for Christmas and we put the parody songs in the bears and American thing, like, you know, they did like Aussie battler style instead of Gangnam Style. And like, it's not a new concept in radio, but they did them well.

Josh: And so he was like, so it wasn't that long ago.

Hamish: Yeah, this could be 2 or 3 years ago. But he was like, oh, we want to get the bears right, like we want to release them for Christmas. Yeah, that's— so it's to them, and I kind of am throwing them under the bus here, but it always struck me like this is the difference between our shows. Yeah, he was like, we're gonna release them for Christmas and like, you know, see if we can get people all, um, like queuing up and like wanting a bear. I was like, great. And this is sort of in, you know, June, July. And I was like, how's the bears going? He's like, mate, that's a fucking nightmare. There's 6 different bears. One's fucking— one won't—

Josh: were they doing that content on air?

Hamish: He's like, I'm doing this guy in China, he's got another guy, he sends me this bear, it's the wrong song loaded in. And I'm like, that is funny, this is funny. Are you doing this on air? He goes, no, no, no, saving face, it's all for the people. Yeah, we don't want people to know about the bears until they're ready. I was like, but this is months of work.

Josh: Was you two producing the bears?

Hamish: I was like, this is so funny. You guys should be on the plane to China, to Guangzhou, to be like, where's our fucking bears? Like, this is the funny part. Like, don't you reckon? Like this, like yelling at the factory or like having to fund, like having to kickstart to get more money to release the bears. Like, who cares if they sell or not? But it was one of those things where like the team had thought of it and like they pictured like, oh, the funny part is selling the bears. Which is funny, but it's like, but you know, for no other reason than, guys, you missed out on like weeks of easy content and the serendipity as well, right? It's like, it's just a funny thing to be doing.

Tommy: Just stick up for these guys. It's breakfast radio, remember? They're all fucking tired.

Hamish: But even more, my point, I was like, that's 2 or 3 breaks a day where you're on the phone to China, and it will be funny because you're trying to, you, you know, you're doing it in real time. Like, you, it's all up front. Like, it, they like it kills two birds with one stone. So often in radio everyone's got this idea of being like, I will do this work behind the scenes and we'll present to the world we've got this cool idea. And so much stuff I reckon is like, well, if you just honestly were transparent about the organisation of an idea, that is often as funny. Or to us it was anyway. That was our— we always just found that stuff the funniest of trying to organize, trying to— trying not to, to Yeah, I don't know, trying not to sugarcoat it or whatever, like trying to have an idea that like where the organisation of it was as funny as the end result.

Tommy: Letting people in. Mate, perfect example is Suzie and Kate's scammer stuff. And not too recently, Josh Janson's scammer stuff. 'Cause you don't know the outcome. And so it's like this evolution.

Hamish: Yeah, by the third, for people that follow Josh's Instagram story, I made him highlight as a storey the other day because I wanted to show—

Tommy: It's currently highlighted. Genius, go cheque it out. I wanted to show my wife.

Hamish: Um, by the third frame of that, I was like, doesn't matter where this goes, you've already hit the threshold. This is already great. As soon as the— your scammer, um, as soon as your scammer was going, look, I don't— I'm sorry, I don't know what song it was, like, we're now in the stratosphere here.

Tommy: This is terrific. Previous episode, uh, 99, Josh got rich.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, we spoke about that. We got some— and even me, my fight at Bunnings, we got content. Like, I find that the best are the fuck-ups in life, right? Like when I was at Just Cuts.

Hamish: It's definitely the most relatable.

Josh: Yeah, the Just Cuts, like when I spent $15 on my haircut over the weekend and she said, "Is 3 an okay number on the sides?" I was thinking to myself, "I don't know, but I'm happy to do it anyway because if it's fucked, it's some form of content." Oh, that's good. But how much are you thinking? 'Cause Tommy got engaged, married, and had a kid for content. What if—

Hamish: It's a competitive market in Shepparton.

Tommy: And YouTube is hard to crack.

Josh: No joke. On the engagement story, here's an under the bus moment. Tommy did this beautiful engagement video where he went to the same spot every time him and Amy were in Sydney together because Tommy was in Shepparton at the time and Amy was in Sydney and he would go up every few weekends. Yeah. They'd go to this nice spot in front of water, Double Bay Waterfront, if you know it. And so he would set up the camera there and they would sit on a sort of a bench every single time. So he had this beautiful time-lapse of weeks and months of them going to the same spot. Awesome. And that was where he proposed. The problem was that the camera was too far away from the audio, so he actually, before he put it online, he ADR'd the proposal and so he recorded, and it was from my suggestion, but he got Amy. It was a pickup. Yeah, it was a pickup. With Amy's suggestion.

Tommy: Yeah, I do. Here's the thing though, you know what it's like getting partners to get involved in content when they don't want to? No, I don't want to. So she nailed it first take. Yeah, it was really good. And it was because she sounded slightly annoyed that she—

Josh: Yes. Oh, that's funny. How many things have you— has that been a filter that you've had to be careful of? Which is like, am I doing this because it's fun and it's great for my friends?

Tommy: Am I getting number 3 on the sides?

Hamish: Just because. I guess a little bit. It's more though that you like, it's what you said before about like, less so the highlights of life. Not that they're not good, they're terrific, but there's way more comedy. It's like, it is a hedge because you're like, great, actually, this is terrific. This has like been the worst weekend of my life, but this is— this will do. This is going to be a funny story.

Tommy: It's one of my favourite stories, the time I shat myself on a party boat. Yeah, and couldn't get off.

Hamish: I shat my— I shat the chair in the radio station. Felt horrible at the time.

Josh: I pissed myself going to work.

Hamish: Okay. I think you did that just because you heard the Batman Tommy and you wanted content. How'd you piss yourself?

Josh: Well, no, I didn't piss myself. I was pissing into a boat. There was huge delays on the— this was a few years ago, this was at the radio station. Was it on the train? No, no, there was huge delays on the freeway. I was on Monash Freeway. There were trucks either side of me, really needed to go. There was a truck fire, so there was 2 hours delay. So I put a bottle in my pants 'cause I didn't want the truck drivers to see my dick, obviously. So I put the bottle in my pants and I was sort of pissing sitting down, but unfortunately it just all tipped from the bottle into my pants.

Hamish: Did you have a lid for the bottle? Nah, nah.

Josh: So I was like lifting it up and just all fell in. And so that was the day. It was also, and that's why it's so hard to— What'd you do? Did you just go home? No, because we had, it was a huge, it was one of like our biggest shows. I was working on Fefe and Jules at the time. And Jules basically said, man, like, we need you for this filming, obviously.

Tommy: So I just had to. And did you tell Jules that you—

Josh: Yeah, so I told him.

Tommy: He appreciates a pissing-the-pants story. So we ended up going to like—

Josh: I went to the disabled toilets where they had like a Dyson air thing and just put them through the air. Oh yeah, the Airblade. The Airblade. They worked a treat. We got that for the station. Yeah, and the thing— Oh, really?

Hamish: Yeah, me and Andy talked about Dyson for a week until they gave us an Airblade. And then they put it in the disabled toilet because because they couldn't fit it on the wall. Oh no. In the boys' toilet. That's where I was.

Tommy: If it wasn't for Hamish, it wouldn't be for you dry toilets.

Hamish: I'd like to rephrase that. It wasn't— it's not the disabled toilet, it is the ambulant toilet, which means it's for everyone. Ah, is that what that means?

Josh: What does ambulant mean?

Hamish: Well, I have— I had this— put it in the show notes, guys. It's the Latin. But I've had this argument with Andy so many times on air. He's like, it's just for people in wheelchairs. No, no, it's for everyone. Including people in wheelchairs. Yeah, it's a good distinction. It's the facility that's able to accommodate people in wheelchairs, but also everybody.

Josh: As long as you're not having a fight with a person in a wheelchair, they should get priority.

Hamish: Yeah. And, but we were like, look, we, uh, that does— there's no one at— there was no one at the time in the building that was in a wheelchair. Yeah. I don't think there was still— I was like, so The odds are extremely low that a visitor to the building in the wheelchair will need to toilet. It's good toilet.

Josh: Get some sort of use out of it. Absolutely.

Hamish: And it's got the air blade. Yeah. And it's a much more luxurious toilet. And I mean, I just think from a company perspective, they wouldn't want an asset like that going to waste. Yeah.

Josh: Would you put a Sonos in a room that you're never in?

Hamish: You wouldn't. I was in there all the time. Yeah. Not thinking about the show. And then suddenly I was going, oh shit, I need a story. I'll just go for gold here with a storey that might really embarrass my girlfriend.

Josh: Brands and getting involved, you know, obviously you've, uh, for our international audiences, you had the— you can help yourself to some chocolate. The foil is quite loud.

Hamish: It's gonna be a long question.

Josh: So, uh, number one, you guys were the number one, uh, radio show in Australia, huge, whatever. But brands Okay, it's podcast world now. You're on the Daily Talk Show, things are going on. Um, the— yeah, brands, they would obviously be biting at you, trying to— what's the weirdest brand request or things that's being sent or awkward situation that you've been in with a brand?

Hamish: I feel like we always played the dance in the radio station of us going, look, we don't want to just do random stuff for brands. And then management would be like, guys, no, we got your back, we totally got your back. Back. But then at the same time, they'd be telling clients, look, just give us a few— just let us slow play the guys a bit and weasel a bit of stuff in here. We— the, the most fun— so there was one, we did one for Bailey's, and we were constantly saying to them, like, please just let us do some— like, I was like, Andy and I both did commerce at university, we understand brand management, like, we're not going to sink your brand. But we're big believers in the fact that if you're, if you're on our show, you're mostly on it for to get like a slightly broader audience or a different take, or for whatever value you guys get about being on our show, surely like the more— if you give us a little bit of slack, we can sometimes like find a fun way to play with your product. Was our idea, was that like— and you know, I would often probably arrogantly go, if I was this brand, I would love this, because— and that's where we sometimes— we got that right.

Josh: It feels like you got the— got it wrong in this case. I'm getting that vibe.

Hamish: And for Bailey's, I reckon we got it wrong because somehow it just became a funny joke. Like, we had 2 weeks where we were thanks to Bailey's, and their tagline was something like, you know, treat yourself to a luxurious Bailey's of an evening. Like, it was really— it was just really bland. And like, you know, it was just like so unexciting. And because we're like, people— like, people know what Bailey's is. Just encouraging everyone to treat themselves to a luxurious Bailey's of a night, like But how are you describing like advertising on radio in general?

Josh: Isn't that literally like—

Hamish: isn't that the thing? This is where the arrogance comes in. I think we were just like, no. Probably because Andy and I did commerce at uni, we're like, nah, we did product and brand management. This is what you want to do for your ad. Like we would just overrule, I think mentally overrule, go, nah, nah, nah, nah, that sucks. Like very arrogantly, because they know that like a marketing agency is like, all right, you guys are like 3% of our message. We have other channels and ways we're trying to tweak the brand here and convince people to buy from us. But Andy and I would see the sheet of their message and go, "No, that stinks. I think what you really want is just no matter what the context, us to talk about you guys more." And somehow, 'cause sometimes we just get exhausted and tired and you try and make each other laugh. And you know, like I would know I'm trying to make Andy laugh by saying something that's the worst possible ad for this brand. So I, out of something, for whatever reason, I thought one day it would be funny to go, and we should just— because a lot of the time it would be me saying something dumb and Anna being like, well, no, we can't say that, we do have to say the right thing. Like, then we just keep trying to push the envelope that way, and he pretending to hold me back, and, and us both laughing about having a good time. So this, this particular occasion, it just— I was like, I think this would just be funny for whatever reason to refer to Bailey as the world's number one sports drink. And I was like, so at the end of the day, get home after, after a big run, grab a Bailey and just bloody douse yourself in it. You know, like, chug a Baileys, it's the world's number one sports drink. Number one alcoholic cream-based sports drink.

Josh: Would that, like, even from the regulators, would you even be able to say that?

Hamish: This was before, yeah. Nowadays you really wouldn't because you're not allowed to glorify drinking. Yeah. But back, this was pre that. 'Cause the only trouble we got in, cockles I could get was, which is a key ingredient. That's the other thing Baileys is a key ingredient for, the cocktail. Um, the only thing we got in trouble with was like, this is just heinously off-brand for Baileys. And we're like, yeah, but people know that. Like, people know it's not a cream-based sports drink.

Tommy: And how much, how much actual face time are you having with Baileys?

Hamish: So this is the thing where like, these guys are paid for like literally two mentions. It could just be this: Baileys, enjoy refreshing Baileys at night. Like, you know, or Baileys, treat yourself to an indulgent Baileys. We're going on for 5 minutes about how, you know, Baileys is the world's number one cream-based sports drink. And like, yeah, get a bit sticky after the big match, but that's sports, you know? Like, have a shower, wash your Baileys off. And like, it just became— the more we knew we weren't allowed to, and then we kind of like 3 or 4 days in, they're like, guys, Bailey's is furious, you've got to stop this. And it just made it funnier to us. And then we're like, she did it more than once. Yeah, they were like giggling in church, and then when you can't laugh, it's funnier. So we were like, like, it just got— that probably got a big— Bailey's wasn't happy with us, that, yeah, from that, that instance. And another one that really did work though was Riccadonna, another alcohol like Riccadonna sparkling wine. I think it's about $9 or $10 a bottle. It's not your fancy— I'll be buying it after this. It's not your fanciest bottle, um, but good sports drink. We, we did— it was probably— it was, you know, a bit of an homage to Champagne Comedy, but we had bottles of Riccadonna in the studio, and at any point during the day we could classify a highlight as today's Riccadonna moment, and we'd like— we would pop champagne corks and then be be drinking Riccadonna. And this was one that went really well. Went really well. In fact, we kept the bottles of Riccadonna around in the studio for a few weeks afterwards to still have Riccadonna moments. That's great. And still, like, colloquially, we still get a few people referring to moments in the show as a Riccadonna moment. So it, like, for those ones, they were fun, like, because, like, Riccadonna was like, yeah, guys, go nuts. Like, this is— that totally works for us. Um, Thirsty Camel, or another one that stands out, is actually just a company go, you, you think, you dream of the companies like who are like us. We don't care, like here's some money. Yeah, just, we don't care, have fun, mention us. Like we just, like they paid for me to make a giant chicken suit that shat out an egg, like it could push out an egg out its ass, and you're able to open them up. Layla's loot shoot, we called it. So like half a plucker duck outfit with a pipe that went from the kind of the belly button through my eggs to the ass. You'd slide, you'd slide the egg down the chute, it would kind of like load up, it would ignite, and I had a plunger on it. And so then I would be like, and then it would like fire out, and you opened it up and it was a 1 in 6 chance of winning something. But like, Thursday, we're like, yeah, we don't really understand what Layla's Loot Chute is, but we're happy to sponsor the prize if it ever, if it ever goes off. That's the dream. Um, so I think those were the— yeah, there was another, another great one from the Radio I guess that stands out. Live reads, you would have had to do a lot of.

Tommy: Yeah, and we didn't get paid for them.

Josh: As in, like, as individual— like, the personalities don't get paid? No, no.

Hamish: Yeah, we don't get paid. We didn't get paid from— you didn't really? No, that went out first year of radio, I think we did. And that was always like— and I think it was like $21.50 a live read. So it was always like, oh, there's a lot of reads, but you know, here we go, if we do 5, we'll make $100. Yeah. And that was always like the silver lining of doing them. And then, and then from year 2 onwards, they were like, oh, by the way, guys, you know, get paid for love.

Josh: Surely that you rein that in. I remember being at the radio station and you guys were always seen as the, uh, the smart radio duo in the sense of milking it. No, I remember the radio station just being like, oh yeah, um, oh, we could put something on the website. Oh no, we don't own that. Like, you guys were very good at saying, hey, this is out, these are our early days.

Hamish: We, we took back— we owned HamishNandy.com, we owned our Facebook, we owned our Twitter. Yeah, that was a no-brainer from the get-go. They tried to go, why don't we own it, just like see how it goes? I'm like, no, no, no. Um, but we, we— part of, you know, part of working commercial radio is you got to do live reads. Yeah. But we would— because we were in— we'd only do them for capital cities, so we might— and the most we could have is one one per ad break per capital city, like 3 times a show. So the most you could have in it was 15, which quite often happened. And they're 7 and a half minutes— but sorry, they're 30 seconds. So that would just be 7 and a half minutes of me and Andy for the first time ever just reading this script back and forth, covering each other while you're reading ahead, like trying to get it right. It's amazing. We never redo them.

Tommy: What I love is hearing the person actually get surprised by what they're reading.

Hamish: Yeah, yeah. Or halfway through going, what the fuck is this for? Well, because you'd be like going, a lot of times in life, you know, you begin wondering why. Why is the— why is the sky blue? Why is the earth round? Why can't I find the right woman? What? Oh, like, well, you can find the right döner. What the fuck is this? Yeah, it's this weekend, it's Sleep Barn's döner sale. So there'd just be so many ads where you didn't really— you'd be We'd ask them to bold the company because sometimes you were running out of time and go, I haven't said anything that would sell a product yet for anyone to anyone.

Josh: I was triggered listening to one the other day. Uh, Fev was reading it, just reminded me being in SOS, being like not being able to read to the whole fam. Yeah, like having those elements that you're talking about and then also not liking reading the language.

Hamish: And we We would like, there'd be so many errors, like we'd be mispronouncing websites and stuff. It would require a heinous error for me to go, for Andy to call it, or for me to call it, be like, oh man, so I think we gotta redo that one. Because we just wanted them to be over. So it was like 7 minutes, 4 babies. We hated it, like we put it off for hours and then like finally, just every day we're like, live reads, we got the live reads. But there was one where it was, it was for like water safety. And the line was like, enjoy a dip in the pool with the kids this summer, but always be aware of like— so good message. But that was one where Andy said enjoy a dick in the pool with the kids, and I was like, sorry, man, you're gonna redo this one? I think you said dick. And they're like, I don't think so. And then it's like, it's still recording. Enjoy a dick. Yeah, no idea. It's so weird.

Tommy: It's a pain point. Ryan John, who was on our shows doing brekkie in Worth. When we saw him, he was talking about getting hounded for not saying the right thing in a live or missing live reads. So if you just totally miss them because you've forgot to do the pre-recording, do you know where I reckon the fault line lies?

Hamish: The salesperson that sells the live read to Doonabarn or whatever, they're like, I got the guys, can't wait to do it, they're so excited to do these live reads, they're great ads, the guys are just chomping at the bit, they're just so excited. Cut to you being, uh, and it's— and then you're always like, because it's always somewhere in like Brisbane that never been to. Like, uh, 31— um, it's just horrible because you know you're getting suburbs wrong. Like, in— I still don't know how to say Indooroopilly or Indooroopilly in prison. There's always seem to be factories out there, and it'd be like hearing someone, you know, for, for, you know, saying—

Tommy: it'd be devastating if you were dropping cash.

Hamish: Yeah, because then they were not cheap, probably. So if someone's like, well, we're spending $50,000 here, we go, oh, the guys, they meant— you should have heard them this morning, they can't wait to do your live read. And that's just, I guess that's just the world. But we did, over time, try and put, you know, we felt guilty, we tried to put a lot of effort in. There was one amazing one for Perth where it was like, good news, guys. And Perth always seemed to have a little bit more, like Melbourne and Sydney, Perth and Adelaide seem to have a few more kind what you might have been used to a bit more in Shepparton, tell me, like, like, for one of the better terms, like, slightly more regional. Like, you know, Melbourne and Sydney, you're doing live reads for Commonwealth Bank and Toyota and stuff, but you might be doing gyms, fish and chips in Perth. So you're doing slightly more like local small businesses. And there was one that was like, hey guys, great news, the Jiffy food van now sells coffee. That's right, you get a delicious Arabica blend from the Jiffy food van, and we're really— they're like, this is not— we're just— quick word, this is not to be confused with the Coffee in a Jiffy van. They're a different company. In the live read, it's like, hang on, you guys have both got Jiffy in your names. You're the Jiffy food van who are now doing coffee. Please do not go to the Coffee in a Jiffy van. They're a different company. It's—

Josh: and you've mentioned them in your ads. So then you're asking, which one are you guys? Oh, they lost it.

Hamish: They're like, this is the best ad of all time. Maybe they did a 2-for-1 deal.

Tommy: They could say, we'll split the money here.

Hamish: Or yeah, or it was like buddies that started the Jiffy Coffee in the Jiffy van, and then they're like, fuck you, man, I want to take Jiffy-based food in a different direction. I'm going to start the Jiffy Food Van.

Josh: You see that happening. There was 2 restaurants in Melbourne, and yeah, what they had, the business partners had a falling out. So you'd go to one and it was a very different experience. Like their website was was like their social media was fighting with their website. No idea. Grilled.

Tommy: The dudes from Grilled had a big falling out.

Josh: Really? Did they really? What happened? Well, I feel like on a podcast format you have to tell us everything now, otherwise there's no context. I can put in the show notes, it's fine.

Tommy: They had a partnership and there was a something.

Josh: Yeah, I think I saw that in The Age or something. It's the show notes, boys, show notes. The, um, one thing One thing that the Daily Talk Show always ends up doing is getting very nostalgic. We love nostalgia. And this whole thing has been like looking back. And even I was gonna mention, I remember watching you at Tropfest, like 2000, like just for purely a nostalgia reference. And then I was just gonna mention for some reason how I went and saw Red Hot Chili Peppers at Sydney Myer Music Bowl. I think it was just a Sydney Myer Music Bowl reference.

Hamish: I was there. I was there. Did Chili Peppers play Music Bowl? Yeah, and they— good gig. It was one of the best.

Josh: It was really great.

Hamish: That's a great venue to see Chili Peppers in. That's pretty small. Well, this is—

Tommy: Josh was up on the grass. Yeah. And he said that was the best area. And then I said no, down the front where the seats were. We were 5 rows from the front. Everyone ran to the front in front of us. And so me, Jacko, my other bro—

Hamish: yeah, other Jacko—

Tommy: we were all just there. And so there's no one in front, so we had this whole thing.

Hamish: Nice. Put your feet up, relax, business class.

Josh: Well, I'd never actually, um, gone to many. I think the concert before that was like Delta Goodrem, or this was my first like— yeah, that was the first concert I ever went to. You paid to go?

Hamish: Yeah, but, uh, I know you want to talk about Chili Peppers, but can we talk about Delta? Yeah, but just very quickly.

Josh: No, very quick on the Chili Peppers thing. No, I, um, I was excited because this was like my big sort of debut in like cool music.

Hamish: And so I was looking at Delta Goodrem and Brian—

Josh: listen, Brian McFadden. Yeah, he played with her. They did a sort of a live thing together. But no, the, um, uh, I was looking at forums, like reading forums about the show, and they said that they played Under the Bridge. I didn't realise that was a song. So on the corner of my eye, I was looking for a bridge the entire— I thought that they were gonna go backstage and then appear under some sort of— under a bridge.

Hamish: It's weird, you walk this world, this shadow life, like seemingly interested in pop culture, but at the same time knowing nothing about Well, I think it's this thing of, uh, yeah, I'm interested but I just can't retain.

Josh: Yeah. So it's this in the moment, you tell me something and it'll be very interesting.

Tommy: Well, BMAC, one of our listeners, has actually referred to your pop culture in a text message to me. Josh has no idea about pop culture.

Hamish: Are we sure that's not Brian McFadden? It should be.

Josh: I was actually going to call him Brian Adams, which is not—

Hamish: no, that's not— Brian Adams was not David Elton Goodrum, to the best of our knowledge.

Tommy: I was talking to BMAC, not Brian McFadden, on the way here, and he— I told him you're coming on, he's excited, and he said, I know you probably ask him this, but what is he doing? What's he actually doing?

Hamish: I'm doing my best. What are you doing? Doing everything I can over here.

Josh: But I thought, it's like, I, I've thought that.

Tommy: What do you like? What are you doing at the moment?

Hamish: It's so funny that doing a radio show, lean on that painting.

Josh: I'm sorry, there's a part of me which was like, you know You know what, if Haim knocks that over, he'll, uh, he'll do it. Yeah, he'll sort it out. But I also would prefer you not— there's—

Hamish: I mean, there's like— there's a bundle of sticks that are wrapped up over there. You know they're expensive. But how? I mean, this is a nice house. You've done well. Yeah. Um, what am I doing? Great question. Well, I wasn't doing much when I had the radio show, but I suppose it was the easy— it's like when you're at uni, you're like, oh, I'm studying. Everyone's like, oh man, 12 hours a week, how do it. Yeah, I like that for a lot of freelancers too. Yeah, I'm freelancing now. I just write on my airline card self-employed. Yeah, like it's just the easiest way to do it. I've been growing a beard. Uh, it's nice. It's— spoiler alert, I'm growing it right before your very eyes at the moment. Um, that's been— obviously that's a little tick in the box every day. Um, never a day when I'm not growing it. Is that enough for you? No, look, uh, honestly, think it— no, here's a question. The podcast once a week at the moment, which is good fun, the Overrun Podcast One. I don't want to poach listeners from you.

Josh: What do you, what do you think about— so even if you're not doing anything, you think—

Hamish: yeah, no, I'm curious because like, here, here, totally understand. So I am loving this year. Like, we are finishing a true story, the TV show, that requires some work. I— we're doing podcasts once a week, that requires some work. Look, that's all very good fun. This year, the whole point of this year, the whole point of going— right, I'm a big, big believer, I'm a passionate believer in you've just got to create a bit of a void to figure out what the next step is, especially even this for the creative world when like it— I get frustrated, I'm not frustrated by the fact, but our lives, we're very fortunate, like we would have a radio contract for 3 years or you'd have a TV deal for 2 years or whatever And, and it always just seemed like you were not— by the time you were coming to the end of one, you'd already leapfrogged it with the other one, you had something locked in, and then by the time you're coming to the end of that, you'd leapfrogged it with another one. And again, that's a lovely problem to have if you want to have a job and stay employed, but I think there comes a time where you're like, well, just having a contract is not the name of the game here. Like, figuring out the, the any sort of like meaningful next step becomes the name of the game. And especially for me, like, with my— with, with kids, and the most common thing that you get, like, from every, um, just literally snoring as I'm trying to drill down on my philosophy for meaning in life. I did warn you, it was enormous. That was a massive snore. I thought it was Bree. That was Josh's girlfriend. Um, like It's just, you know, like I just kind of feel like I got a 10-month-old and a 4-year-old, and I sort of feel like, like the best moment of my life is staring at me in the eyes right now, and I just don't want to— I don't want to have been absent for it. Like, I don't want to miss it. And I'm really lucky in the sense that I can do that. Like, we can wind down a little bit professionally for a while. We're still, you know, it won't be long, I'm sure, until we figure out what we're doing next or we decide what we want to do next. And we are— we have things that we're doing but I'm just in— I get my mantra for this year was just don't be busy. I just don't want to be busy. And I think a lot of people are like— I, I'm not one of the guys where when someone's like, hey man, how you are? Like, keeping busy. I hate being busy. My whole point, my whole goal is to not be busy. I've really tried to do these things this year that I'm like, that should be the things you do when you have been able to like fight for a bit of space. And we're going away for kind of like 10 weeks this year, like overseas and, you know, my wife runs like an empire and she's had to fight harder than I have. But you still gotta like fight for that space. If you're doing radio every day, obviously you can't go overseas for 10 years. Yeah, for 10 weeks or 10 years.

Josh: Um, is that, is that an exclusive?

Hamish: 10, 10 years, 10 years. I think he just did the show from LA for about 5 years and no one noticed. But that's the thing, like, I'm just not— I'm just, I'm actively trying to not be busy. And you do like good ideas, fun ideas bubble up. I'm just not in a rush to kind of like, yeah, activate anything. Like, I'm not— I'm not— I don't feel like I'm missing out on anything. I'm having a ball. Like, I've had a few days with Josh where I'm like, you know, we've gone for lunch for 45 minutes and just ended up hanging out for 3 hours. I'm like, that's— that to me, that is like a wonderful use of time because I'm just loving not having to be rushing to the next.

Josh: And I'm like severely procrastinating in those moments.

Hamish: At his house, so that's why we're at this place house sitting. But I— but like, that's, that's a luxury. And I still mentally, actually mentally feel a bit like it's between Christmas and New Year's at the moment.

Tommy: I love that time.

Hamish: I, I, like, I know everyone's going back to work now. I'd say early Jan, we're like, oh, okay, a few people back at work, are they? Like, I know it's June, it's like— but I love— I've loved that feeling. And I've just got to spend a lot of time hanging out with the kids. And like, you know, we just get to— we've just got to do weekends away, or like, you know, or just go on little mini adventures. And you're not— I haven't been constricted by a thing that, like, a work thing that I've got to do every day. Radio is the most fun job in the world, and certainly doing Drive with Ando is the funnest version of it. The only downside is, like, if it is a downside, it regularly pins you to that studio for 6 hours a day. And so now the one thing I'm doing is just enjoying doing the stuff that you can do when you're not not pinned to a studio for 6 hours a day.

Tommy: This position you're in now, is it a goal? Did you ever have that in your head of that's where you want to end up, or is it— maybe.

Hamish: I know, I know whatever the thing that comes next, whatever it is that happens next, I reckon it'll be a result of just of letting, letting the dust settle a bit, like creating a bit of a void. No, and I'm not— no, I'm just not rushing to do anything. Um, and I, when I know when something bubbles up up, I'll decide to do it because it looks like fun or a good challenge.

Josh: I think society struggles with that idea. Like, I think that the fact that your default is to talk about the beard and all that sort of thing, like, it's, it's an uncomfortable realisation that some people can't handle. Like, if, if people are doing a 9 to 5 or they're going to work or they're doing— like, there's all these expectations that we have, right, where it's like you need to do this, you need to do that. And it's like, there's all— even ambition. Like, what is ambi— like, what does ambition mean to you, do you think?

Hamish: Yeah, I mean, I think the older I get, the more I realise the, the ambition I have is to, to do something that's fulfilling and maybe has a good level of meaning to it. Because it's sort of like, all right, I feel like my whatever it is I think I'm good at and I enjoy doing, I'm applying those skills to a good spot that has a good effect, that has good— like, and I would say like doing comedy is a good meaningful job because like you guys, you know, you— doesn't matter how many people listening to the show, it has an impact on people's lives. And like, that's something I want to do and that's something I enjoy doing, and it's, I think, where my— in the ballpark of where my talents lie. So like, all right, well, that's my ambition, is to, to be able to do something that has meaning but also to not, yeah, to not, I think, I guess to not lose sight of proper, of what, what you, what, you know, what your more meaningful goals would be. Like, I don't want, I don't want to turn around and make, like, kids grow up so quick, or like, it's ferocious. I don't want to turn around and be like, shit, I've got teenage kids. And I, my biggest fear would have been that thing where you're like, I didn't want to feel like every year I'd be promising that next year I'd slow down. Down. Yeah. And I didn't want that. I didn't want to be— I didn't want the kids to be 18 and go, uh, yeah, I, I guess I always just thought I'd slow down later. Yeah. And I don't know, I kind of— it's like, feels like a bit of an audacious move, but I, in— I'm like, I'm 36 and maybe let's just see what happens if you slow down for a year.

Josh: And it's fun. What's been the learning so far?

Hamish: It's great fun. Yeah, it's, it's—

Josh: is it only nothing because you know you're going back to something?

Hamish: Like, but I don't know I'm going back. Like, even if that was I think you just realise like, so what, maybe that's it. Like even if Channel 9 or commercial radio or whatever it was, like the companies and the institutions I'd worked with turned around and said, oh hey man, you know, you left. They're like, we have a rule, if you don't love it and you're not here every day, you're out. I would go, great, all right. Like the funny thing you realise once you leave a radio station, and I would say this applies to any job, is you get out into the real world and you're like, oh my God, there's so many other things happening out here. No one really cares that much about what it was I was doing. I was there every day. Everyone's listening. Everyone's conditioned to feel like it's all that matters because that's how you keep everyone in the building. Management out walking around going, hey guys, we need to hit those sales targets, but just so you know, none of this matters. And when you're 85, all you'll care about is how much time you spent with your family. Dude, I see you later. Have a good day.

Tommy: I saw on a radio website a thread of people talking about this exact thing. You know, there's so much— there's life after radio.

Hamish: And they were really getting into any job, you know what I mean? Like, I'm sure if you worked like in retail sales and, and you and you could, you could be like, you could become obsessed with your targets and making sure you hit that. And like, what store is doing what, and are you going to make manager this month? And that's all good stuff because it's like, you know, we all, we all want to contribute to society and have interesting jobs and, and have things that we are fulfilled by. And some of them love doing that, no doubt. But there's just that thing of going, ultimately, it's like, well, we create these small worlds.

Josh: It's like how it's, it's, it's like who we follow on social media and stuff like that. If someone goes off social media Nothing happens. Yeah. And then I'm like, I don't necessarily, like they go off your radar a little bit in some regards, which is interesting.

Hamish: I often play that game with myself where I'm like, I sometimes take mini breaks from it without doing that thing where you tell everyone you've taken a break, which is like to get attention for the fact that you didn't want attention for a while. But I'm like, for all, like let's say I don't even know how many people I follow, lots, like 400 or 500. I often play that mini game with myself. Like, and I've, you know, let's say like Kelly Slater, not a huge surfing fan. I think he's a good guy, but like, I follow him, right? And so I would be part of his million people or 10 million people who are following him.

Josh: So much attention given that it's like, that's the point.

Hamish: But I noticed, like, I was just thinking about this the other day, like, sure, when he posts, I notice something, but I wouldn't— if he stops posting, yeah, if anyone that I follow is posting, I'm gonna be like, oh my God, what's happened to Kelly Slater? I'm gonna go to his profile page and just see what's up. Yeah. Which, which Which of course no one would do that. Like, you'd just be like, yeah, 500 other people were posting, and so I gave them my attention. And like, who cares what Kelly— like, go and do whatever you're doing. You might be on a hike, he might be fucking hanging out with his family, or like kayaking somewhere, possibly surfing. But it's that thing of going, but if we're to go off— we— if when we're like, I'm taking a break, or you hear people be like, oh my God, I haven't posted in 2 weeks. Yeah, you're like, I don't think anyone notices that. He's He's— he's— I got some breaking news for you. No one cares. And that's not a bad thing. Yeah, you should be relieved by that because it— you're not beholden to having to feed this animal. Like, no one will care if you don't post. I'm not saying people don't appreciate it when you do post, but just so you know, no one will care if you don't.

Tommy: But we feel the pressure because, you know, you look at what we're trying to build, Josh. Yeah. And our businesses, the show, and You do feel that pressure to be throwing stuff out there, but there's also the thing of—

Josh: and this is what we've built the Daily Talk Show on— is nobody gives a fuck. Yep.

Hamish: Which doesn't mean you shouldn't do it. Yeah, exactly.

Josh: It doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it, but the awesome thing is that that whole filter means that what we talk about and what we like, we need to enjoy doing it. We're not doing this.

Hamish: That's what I come back to. So on social media, yeah, I think people are following that thing of going like, shit, you know, I gotta feed something. Like, I had a good run for a bit or whatever. Yeah, like, what am I going to put up? And it's just not like— that's when I think it's got a hold of people for the wrong reasons. Because it's like, hey, like, I had to break it to you, but guess what? You now work for Facebook for free because you're sitting there at night going, shit, what can I— what an amazing company. Like, Like, you've got people sitting there going, how can I add? How can I contribute? How can I do some work for Facebook? Which is essentially what we're saying. How can I spend my time working for Facebook to create things that will capture other people's attention so Facebook can sell ads? How can I do that? And we're like dedicating all this mental real estate to it. Like, it's unbelievable. Facebook is like a— we're not sitting here going, shit, man, I I work for a radio station, but I'm just wondering how I could come up with a mortgage product for ANZ that would get more first home buyers locked into a fixed term rate. I don't work for them, I'm just interested in like, how can I help the business? It's just such a weird thing to do. Like, I wonder if I could think of a new role for Brumbies that would be like a real killer role. Uh, just love to see them do it.

Josh: Well, that's what's great about pod— the reason that I think Tommy and I are doing the podcast is is partly because it is platform agnostic, which means that it can be played anywhere. It's not owned by any algorithm. It's like we can park it wherever we want. It could be that— I think people get obsessed with, is it radio, is it a podcast? It's all like— the reality with podcasting was before 2004, you could listen to audio just like you could with the podcast. The only difference was because you're adding an RSS feed and you can subscribe, right? Literally, the extra step was just taken away, so you would just get it downloaded straight away. That's a thing, like these, I think that we get obsessed with the platforms too. So like people are talking about how are we gonna beat the algorithm, how are we gonna do this, how are we gonna do that? But like us as humans have these like core things that even if you go back really far haven't changed.

Tommy: What takes your attention, Hamish?

Hamish: And what I was gonna say, like just to round out that point I was like, that's why, like, podcasting, social media, these have great applications. But I think for my, my own philosophy is like, if you're— if you can stay in that space where you're doing it for fun, where you're doing it because you're enjoying doing it, like, like you guys are enjoying doing the podcast, like, you enjoy making the show, and so you should. Like, it's great. It's a— it's that perfect mix of like, well, it's a challenge and it's— and we never know what's going to happen. And like, you're making something. Like, it's fun to make things. And that— and I I like social media because, you know, when you have an idea that kind of like suits that format, it's fun to make things. Like, it's fun to create something, like create a moment or create a feeling or create a, you know, create a, create a small piece of entertainment or a storey or whatever it is, if you're in the mood. And that's, that's why you did it, because you were like, I had this, have this thing or something that feels like it'll be fun to make that for now. And then you leave it, right?

Josh: So that's, that's used for good, I Well, that's using it within a social context, but what about if you actually want to make— what is the equivalent of what you were doing within radio, the live reads and all that sort of thing? How do you, how do you do that within a social media context that we're now—

Hamish: well, I think, I mean, you look at live reads as a bit of a cost of doing business, I suppose.

Josh: So is that like a sponsored post? Is the cost of doing business that— well, it was that, yeah, more—

Hamish: I mean, it was our job more so. Like, I mean, there is in any commercial form, like radio, TV, there's a bit of a deal with the devil because it's like well, we don't just get to— we don't just get paid to do this because radio stations are nice people who want you to have money for having fun. Yeah, you're— it's the same business model. We're selling attention. Like, the radio station is selling attention, obviously, to advertisers. Like, they're going, we can put shit on our network that will capture millions of people's attention in the afternoon, and we can sell them— we can sell their ears to you, and they'll listen to your ads. And we're part of that, we're part of that equation. That's what commercial radio is. If you don't want to be part of that, then that's what Triple J is. Yeah. So, you know, and our, and our judgement call, I suppose, is going on that, well, we think we could still exist in that atmosphere and it'd still be a good deal for people. Like, we hopefully, we can create a show where even though you have to listen to ads, it's still— the trade-off's still worth it for people in the afternoon. And that was our— that's your, that's your judgement call. And I say same thing with sponsored posts. Nothing against people doing sponsored posts or or using their social media or their Facebook or whatever it is, or their podcast for an income stream, if you still think the trade-off's worth it for your people that you've built, your community that you've built, if you're like, all right, well, I think I'm making the call here as I guess the moderator or like the curator of this little microcosm. I think this is worth it for you guys. I still think this is worth it. But maybe it's making you sit through an ad, maybe it's put up a sponsored post, but I still think it could be funny and it's a product that you guys, that people could conceivably like. And if you really, really hate it, the cost is you scroll past it. And like, if that's what you had to pay and then the rest is still fun, then maybe that's, I think that's still worth it.

Tommy: I think it's such new days too, 'cause so many people have got it wrong.

Hamish: So many people are missing the mark. I think you're essentially sort of going, I love what, you know, social media is super fun and you build a community. And podcasting for us and for you guys is super fun. You've got a great community and you become protective of that community too, which I think is a good thing. Like, we're super protective of our podcast community. I, you know, like, I haven't really ever done— I've done like flirted with like a brand partnerships here and there with, with like stuff online fine, but massively not. Like, yeah, it was just— I don't really look at DMs, but when I do, I'm like, no, sorry, sorry. Like, you just— it's just full of people going, hey, we're teeth whitening, we're furniture, we're whatever. And that's fine, people do, and that's, that's— and good luck to them. But you're sort of like, all right, well, I reckon it comes down to not grossly deviating from what people expect. Yeah. So it's like, if you've built a world that where you're advertising shit all the time, great, because that's what people expect from that out. And that's what people expect from that experience. And if you've— like, we just started on commercial radio, we never were anything else. No one ex— no one was surprised to hear us doing ads or doing the things that people do on commercial radio. If we'd have started on Triple J and got, you know, a following after 2 or 3 years and then decided to jump to commercial radio, that's a harder gear change to make, even though it's— the end result would have been the same. Yeah, it would have had people going, well, this is not what I expect from this.

Josh: The Triple J narrative, the media are loving that. I feel like that's the last Hamish Blake mention I've seen is, what was it? It was you guys were given a deal or something to triple. I think you've made a mention on some podcast and then they got— Are they jumping on to it? Yeah, they jumped on to it. Give them a bit of a free pub.

Hamish: Where did we talk about that?

Josh: I can't remember. And so did you ever feel within the context of commercial radio, did you ever feel like it tipped towards you guys just feeling like used as puppets, or not even puppets, just sort of like this product? And have you felt burnout before?

Hamish: I mean, not burnout from that. I think that's where it comes down to relationships. Like, if you know in that commercial world, like at the end of the day, you sign a contract that says, words to the effect of, we pay you money money, you do these things that we— or, you know, you are part of a commercial network. So like, I mean, I don't know if it actually says it in there, but I mean, I'm sure it does. Like, I'm sure there is actually language going, if you have to do— if a client has to— if you have to read a message, you've got to read a message. Like, or whatever it is, like the actual nuts and bolts of this is what we're paying you to do. Like, you have to— equivalent of the show notes. It's the show notes. It's the legal show notes. But I mean, you know, you know what I mean? Like, that's the black and white, right? Then you're putting your faith in the people you work with, like in the management, to go, "Please don't fuck us." Like, "Please be also, you know, it would be in your interest to protect us." And so they're putting their faith in you to try and do the right thing by the clients, I guess, that they need to serve. You're putting your faith in them to try and not get you in situations where you're gonna be abused to the letter of the contract, even if they could. Would. And that's where relationships come into it. And we've been super lucky. And I'm— then some people don't get this lucky, but like, we stayed in the same spot for 10, 12 years, like at Southern Cross where we were. Um, and we still sort of are at Southern Cross because, you know, for a few key people, like our programme director, the guy that ran the station, Dave, always had our back. Like, higher up, the upper echelons of the company, always like— we had a great relationship with those guys. Like, you always trusted those people to not put you in positions where you were going get exploited even though they possibly could have for short-term gain according to whatever contract you signed. So that was always— that's always that balancing. I reckon. And if you didn't have that kind of relationship or that kind of protection, maybe you're more inclined to get burnout. Like, you could be— hey, do you know, or you could sit there and be like, this is not what I expected.

Tommy: Is that happening to friends of yours? No, you don't have to say that.

Josh: Not really.

Hamish: I mean, but you see it. I mean, I suppose— but again, like, you got to take it with a grain of salt too. Like, we were never— you know, we knew what we're getting into. We're lucky we had great people around just those situations. Like, like any relationship, if everyone's trying to help the— if everyone's going into it going, how can I help the, the people we're in this with, rather than how can I protect myself, it's just such a better attitude, such a better environment.

Tommy: Like playing a game of the commercial radio, because I felt like when I was within the industry, it was almost a game I wasn't up for playing. Yeah. And I look at my mate Ryan over in Perth, he's— I think he's good at playing the game.

Hamish: Yeah, yeah, it probably is a little bit of a game. I suppose you just don't know where to push and where to yield a little bit. Um, and we just sort of felt that out. And I'm sure there were a lot of times early on where it was like, I don't know, this doesn't look— you just end up doing stuff for, you know, because you're tired and exhausted and there's 500 things going on and you just end up doing something. And like, yeah, maybe it was bad or maybe it was shitty, maybe it was just like a real crass sellout, but The other, the other, the other caveat to is like no one remembers. It's like, yeah, I'm sure we did some terrible stuff, like some just because we were like we didn't come up with a better idea in time. And then that we were often afforded that and we were like, no, no, we don't want to do this, let us think of something better. And if we did, it was great, but that always required a lot of effort to try and kind of top what, what a commercial idea was that was put in front of us, to try and be like, no, can we remould that. And sometimes he just didn't, like he's forgot to or ran out of time, and then you guess what, bad luck, you're doing a bad idea. Tried to limit those, but I'm sure there were plenty of them. But like, I don't know, they just get swept away. And I'm sure there was— if you go back and find an odd bit from 2009, there'll be some stinky— I'll be going back. I'll go back. For anyone on air now, there's just like a heinous back catalogue of things that are horrific. No one can be bothered listening to it, so it's just going to be lost to the ages.

Josh: Unless Tommy brings it up, because I told a squeegee storey back. Oh yeah, 30 episodes ago, which— and I just brought it up anyway. But, um, uh, finally, what's, what's the thoughts on when you see what TJ and I are working on, you know, this sort of realm? Like, what sort of outsider looking in, you know, other people doing podcasts, what's your commentary on what's happening at the moment in terms of what you guys are doing?

Tommy: Yeah, and he wants an air check.

Josh: No, yeah, yeah, just in this order.

Hamish: I reckon it comes back to what we were talking about. I think it's— I genuinely think it's great with what you guys are doing because number one, you're doing it, which already puts you ahead of 99% of the field because you're doing it and you committed to something. You set yourself as a benchmark. It's funny and it's, you know, it's a bit scary. It's a bit like, you know, you didn't go, we're going to do 100 shows and we know what's going in every show. You were just like, well, we've— you built in a funny way, like you kind of built an algorithm which was like, do one show, um, if completed, do one more. Yeah. And like you ran that programme and that's just— you don't know what it's going to be.

Josh: It's a programme to stop thinking or overthinking, right?

Hamish: Which is great, which so many people do. I'm guilty of it all the time. Like, I love that you guys are doing it because the easiest way to not do something is to be like, well, I'll just wait until it feels perfect. I'll wait until I can really see it. And you you just started doing it, and you started doing it because it's fun. It goes back to what I was saying before. I was like, this— it goes back to when we're talking about like radio ideas. You just went, well, it feels fun. Like, it feels— the step that, like, the, the physical act of putting one foot on the other in front of the other is feeling fun, even if you don't know where you're walking to. The physical act of the motion of doing it, of the momentum of doing a show, clearly is fun for you guys. That's the reason to do it.

Tommy: This is the biggest creative endeavour I've committed to, I reckon, that hasn't had money attached to it.

Josh: But it's also felt the easiest because it's just been, you know, I feel like it's like having low expectations with connecting that with ambition and creativity and enjoyment feels like a good— so like we're not expecting like heaps, heaps of listeners or whatever. And the hope is that if we do lots and lots and lot. Um, it just gets better and better and better.

Hamish: But I also think too, you just putting— I mean, someone said it to us really early days, they were like, you just need flying hours, guys. Like, there's just no shortcut to it. Like, there's just no shortcut. It doesn't matter how much natural talent someone has, if they never start doing it, they will be really quickly trumped by the guys that had no talent but did 50 shows. Yeah, because because that's what counts.

Tommy: I've heard quite a few people say about you that you have a lot of natural talent, and I'm sure you do. How much hard work is there into— in that as well? Because I think that's left out of the equation a couple of times that I've heard people saying that.

Hamish: I reckon that whatever the amount of hard work is, that's the bit that changes you from just whatever the shape of rough bit of clay you are into something else. Yeah, better or worse. Like, I definitely sound a lot different different than I used to. And then like I hear back old tapes, I'm like, oh, I was like fast, somehow very nasal fast. I almost had like a British accent because I was, I, you know, I would have— I don't even remember consciously choosing to be like that, but it's just nerves. Like it was just—

Tommy: Josh had a Russian accent for the first 15.

Josh: It's a heightened sense, I think, right? It's the, it's the reason that like the it's easy to fall into, it's the Daily Talk Show, I'm doing a performance and I'm Josh Janson and this is— it's that fucking— don't do that. It's— yeah, but that's the, that's the area which like at the beginning you, um, you, you, you try and act like you're meant to be there.

Hamish: Probably a defence mechanism to just be like, oh, if I'm high energy and I'm laughing a lot and I'm saying fast things, yeah, then then I'm— then on paper I must be having a good time. Yeah. And I— you can't— you, you will never find out I'm scared.

Josh: If I'm yelling, no one—

Hamish: yeah, yeah, yeah. But I guess it's just that, and everyone falls into that trap in a version of that, I think, because no one just sort of comes on air and they're just a pure— but you just— this takes a long time, I think, to get to realise that if the worst thing that can happen isn't that bad. So just, just basically just calm down. Yeah, I think it takes a while to calm down. Yeah, absolutely. Um, sometimes like years, or for me, I reckon 5 years, 6 years it took to calm down.

Josh: And what about the dynamic change between when it's—

Hamish: that's right, and that, that's forever much or a little hard work there is. I can— that's the difference. Like, just even if it's not hard work, just the— just trying to run it again. Like, just do it again, do it again, do it again, do it again. Like, do a few thousand shows and there's like, oh right, you'll just naturally change. I guess the hard work is just to make sure you keep turning up and you're doing all the things you need to do to make sure you're enjoying it and you're doing it for the right reasons.

Josh: What was the conversation at the begin— like, what I'm really curious about, and I don't necessarily think many people do a good job of explaining it, is you can talk about the success that you have now, and you can look maybe a year, 2 years, 3 years back, but I feel like a lot of people who are successful don't do a good job of actually talking about the early days. If you try and get into that moment, what was it actually like when you rocked up at the radio station in the morning? Like, was it texting with Ando during the, like, in the evenings about this, what we're going to talk about? Or like, put yourself in that position. What was the vibe like?

Hamish: To probably follow on from the previous point, I reckon there was a lot of doing— honestly, a lot of doing what we thought you should be doing. Like, probably 90% of what we were doing was stuff we thought you should be doing. And remember, we're young too, so you're kind of like trying to show off to each other. And, and— phoners, have you shaved your dog? Yeah, very good. Um, Or Bird. But we— but there was like a— there's that natural thing of like, well, you gotta remember, like, when you're young, it's that thing of pretending like you know what's up. Yeah, well, I reckon we did a lot of that. Like, we, we were nervous and we wanted it to be good, but we also were probably just trying to do the thing we thought you should be doing. In that, we got lucky. Out of that, like, that just gets you to turn up, I reckon, because that's Otherwise you might just be too scared to turn up if it was like, no, everything has to be like completely original or whatever. Or having said that, we'd like— we're like, but no, we want to do things different. We want to like try the reference point at that. It would have just been other radio shows, like it would have just been who else was— who else was on, or maybe looking back at like the stuff we'd love from like Martin Malloy days or whatever. What that is, and I reckon anyone in a creative field does this, you're just trying on different— like you're just trying to pattern match a few different other things to see if that feels like you. You.

Josh: Yeah, and I thought you're gonna say hats, and it was going to remind me of the first time I ever, uh, interviewed you on Josh Speaking. I was like, I think the hot chocolate hat on. Yeah, I probably did. I know you still got it, but it was, uh, that was the one hat that I've kept. But I remember you hadn't done many podcasts at all at that time, uh, and we just sort of connected and I was so excited about interviewing you and I remember doing like spending way too long trying deconstructing like your thought process on—

Hamish: You asked me a lot about hats. Yeah, Josh was like, what's the like, you have a strategy with your hats? I was like, man, I didn't even realise I have a lot of hats.

Josh: But yeah, like trying on a lot of hats like, and you would know that I've, Like I'm very active and committal when it comes to rebrands. And yeah, you declared the other way.

Hamish: Glasses are a big one, aren't they?

Josh: Yeah, Haim, every single time.

Hamish: And I still kind of miss the old glasses.

Josh: You say that, but this is the thing, like Haim had the biggest fuck-off beard you've ever seen and he was having a go at my glasses, which I thought was a bit rich.

Tommy: But tell him what you declared the other day.

Josh: What did I declare? I can't remember. Guys, I've dropped the hat. Oh yeah, well yeah, I don't—

Tommy: He's not a hat guy anymore.

Hamish: It's really elegant, this new Josh, and I just don't know if I'm ready for it because old Josh was like hats and thick glasses. I was like, yeah, that fits our perception of Josh. Now it's like only you— it's like you play cello, you only wear concert— you only wear concert blacks and you have frameless glasses.

Josh: These are— these are The new promo shots, we, we went and if you've got a rebrand, you might as well have promo shots.

Hamish: Yeah, I mean, it's, it's, they're great, it's really good. But you've gone, you know, you're black and white, you don't wear a hat.

Josh: Is it too tryhard? Is it only trying hard? Because I'm not trying hard. But does it look like it's one of Josh's big concerns of being a tryhard?

Hamish: It's definitely one of those photos where you're like, we're trying to tell a storey in the photo because you've got You've got like the recording equipment.

Josh: This was my biggest concern and I wanted to talk— I said to one of the, the only things I said to Tommy that I wanted to talk to him about.

Hamish: Your monitoring levels, you've got the equipment slung over you.

Josh: But hang on, but look, here's the reality though. This is Tommy's mic technique. Have you said like it's outrageous? I'm loose. The plosives. But that's not what promo shots are.

Hamish: Well, so this was the thing. The promo shots of The Voice isn't everyone just sitting there backs to the thing, like scratching their head trying to listen to music. It's them all front and centre smiling. That's not them doing the show.

Josh: What was it? I just feel like over the course of your career—

Hamish: Otherwise it'd just be a screenshot. Every promo would just be a screenshot. But your, um— Here's Luther's new cover, is him just knocking on the door, like the back of his head waiting for the door to open, because that's what he does.

Josh: Have you had bad photo shoot experiences? Terrible, terrible.

Hamish: This comes into early days, you're like, all right, well, what does everyone do? Like, you do know what it is. I reckon early days, you on air, off air, whatever, new industry, you're just expecting that people will be able to tell you what to do, essentially. Like to go, I don't know, you do this. Then you realise no one knows. Yeah, everyone's making it up. Yeah. Then after a while you go, well, if everyone's making up, we might as well make it up and do a better job of it. Then after a bit you're like, well, hang on a sec, now people are asking us how to do it and we know we're making it up. So somehow we must have just got a bit further down the chain. So early days, promo shoots, yeah, all the all the time. It became a running joke, but at the time we just fell for it always. We were like, all right, you guys, what are you guys, a duo? Mates? Yeah, yeah, we're mates. All right, do something a bit zanier with him. Um, what do you mean? Get him in a headlock. Always getting in a headlock. There were so many, it's like 2 or 3 photo shoots early days before we just learned that you were allowed to go, I don't know if that's us, I don't think we'll do that. Just constantly in the headlock. It was like a judo championship. It's just both constantly—

Josh: what were their insecurities? Did you have insecurities? Like, I think that I've got a slight insecurity. I think that one of the slurs within radio is if there's any whiff of someone thinking you're trying to be Hamish and Andy, it's like the—

Hamish: that sucks for everyone else because we really, we just buzzed that position by being two guys. We've had so— like, there's so many people that have come along going, oh yeah, we get told like we're too Hamish and Andy. I'm like, that really sucks because I can— I definitely don't think you're trying to be Hamish. You just happen to be two male friends. Yeah, I'm so sorry, we just stole that from you. And it'd been long enough since Martin Malloy that no one accused us of stealing that.

Tommy: It's what I had early days. I told someone who's quite high up in radio, they said, oh, you know, there's a lot of, you know, kind of similar Hamish and Andy podcasts out there.

Josh: Yeah, well, what'd you tell them?

Hamish: I was like, guys, there's only really two I mean, I mean, I don't get into the debate about gender fluidity, but there's guys and girls on the planet. Yeah. And like, so if two people are doing something, there's really only four combinations that can be. They can't own one quarter of all the combinations of humans.

Josh: Do you think that there's just gonna be, you know, if, if you were us, is there like— I've, I haven't thought about what we're doing as mainstream at all. Is that the difference, that what you were doing was this mainstream pursuit, or being the the one that you have in the car and not be offensive.

Hamish: Like, I think that's all, that's all the stuff that you try and like pretend there was a plan in retrospect. Yeah, I mean, we just, we were doing our best. Like, honestly, we were just turning up every day. Our algorithm was try and make the other guy laugh. Let's see how this goes. Yeah, because you're on a commercial network or a commercial TV network, there is in cars, there is. Yeah, there's a few other considerations, and you're aware that you're being paid money to do do it. And if you want to keep earning that money, or you want to keep getting a chance to do it again, you have to be good enough to hit a certain threshold. Like, whatever that number is, like, there is a line in the sand somewhere. Whereas if less people than this amount listen, I'm sorry, but we have to get someone else, so you guys don't get to do this anymore. But if more people listen, congratulations, you do get to do it again. So that was the, you know, the goal was keep doing it because because it's fun. But you guys, you will get to do show 101 because you're in charge of it. Yeah. So that's— you've already met— you've met that goal. Yeah.

Tommy: And, um, we're talking about that this week. Yeah.

Hamish: If you were like, oh, well, sorry, we've got a thing on the website where if 100 people don't opt into the show, we don't do one, then yeah, you, you might find yourselves trying to tweak stuff to get that— those ticks in the but that's what makes her so good. You're not— yeah, you don't have that.

Josh: I mean, even Tommy said something the other day that really resonated with me, which was, I think, um, it used to be cool to have a boss, right? So you think about even Hamish Nettie, it was like, oh, Grumpy Dave has said we can't do this. It was fun.

Hamish: It was an easy common enemy. Yeah, yeah. And basic psychology. Yeah, but Grumpy Dave was a great guy.

Josh: Yeah, but, but now, um, um, like, there feels like there's a shift now, which is like, uh, you know, people are still on air doing that sort of thing, but I heard it recently.

Tommy: I heard someone doing that exact same shit.

Josh: Yeah, which is like, oh, the bosses have said we can't do this, but we're going to do it anyway. We're our own fucking bosses, and we'll just— we're going to publish this shit. And it does—

Tommy: what I said was, it's cool now to be the boss.

Hamish: Yeah, yeah, you guys are the bosses of this podcast. Yeah, bloody hell.

Josh: So that's why we can talk for as long as we Yeah, and until I get some social cue that we have to end, we're just gonna keep on going.

Hamish: Well, let me say this as a prediction as we wrap up the 100th episode. At episode 1,000, this show will have either become something else or sparked a new idea. Like, this will— this show will have been the platform for the next genesis of you guys, and it could well be massive, but it might not be this show, you know what I mean? It might be the thing that you needed to do 630 episodes on of before the penny dropped and the light went on, and suddenly something became so obvious to you that you couldn't believe you didn't think of it 630 shows earlier. But my philosophy is, and my, my belief is, you've got to do those 630 shows to find it. Like, you've gotta— you just gotta go on the journey to, to get the epiphany. Like, you know, you gotta— if you want, you gotta create space to have an idea, you gotta, you gotta push through, you gotta show up, you gotta just keep doing the work to get to the next spot. There's no— it would never have happened if you just were like, all right, you know, we're gonna go on a holiday and really, really, really think about our futures until it sparks up. I think the fastest way—

Josh: it's a paradox—

Hamish: to get—

Tommy: but hang on, isn't that what you're doing this year? 10 weeks?

Hamish: Slightly, slightly different, slightly different thing. My goal is to not be busy, so just— I'll make it. Yeah, I will achieve that goal. I can, I can do that right now. I can fall, I can just go limp and I'll, I'll win. But for you guys who go, right, well, where's this, where's the next iteration coming? Like, where's the next level coming? I promise you it's just on the other side of keeping on doing it. So we're gonna get to 630.

Tommy: Will you come back for the 630?

Hamish: I promise you it's at 630. I can't, I know what it is, I can't see what it is. We already, I remember me and Andy's 630th episode and we were like, oh yeah, great.

Josh: Do you remember counting the episodes?

Hamish: No, it was only in hindsight we went back and we were like generously, I think, gave ourselves like, ah, 40 weeks a year, 5, 200, yeah, 200 a year. But it was probably way less than 200.

Josh: Podcasters are a bit of a joke in the sense of how we count this shit, like, because every single day, like, we're doing 40 a year.

Hamish: It's outrageous, the song and the dance we're making about our podcast, because we have nothing else to promote. So like, we're doing publicity about our podcast. Yeah. And everyone's like, oh, great podcast, well done. And I said, they're going, yeah, but we've been doing a book, we've probably done about 3,000 episodes of the podcast. We've just never really— it's never been the only thing we had to talk about, so we've never mentioned it before.

Tommy: Well, Joe Rogan, 1,000, 1,150 or something.

Josh: Yeah, but talking about the radio show, like, that's what I was saying to you, TJ. Like, you did all these episodes in Shepparton, and the thing about these—

Hamish: I'm glad they're gone. Yeah, deliberately unpodcasted.

Josh: The system is that there's like lots of people doing that in regional areas and all that sort of thing. And we've created a system where they're sort of boxed into a certain spot, okay? So you've got metro, you've got regional, and that sort of thing. And podcasting is like democratising all of that and saying that I like that we create confusion where we can get promo shots done and look like a big fucking breakfast show. And we're just two dudes making no money on this.

Hamish: I think you might have, yeah, you've cracked a little bit of it. You're kind of trumping it. You're just like, I'm just telling, you just tell everyone this is bad.

Josh: Man, thanks so much for spending the time. Thanks, mate. Total pleasure. Thanks, bro. The thing that I always tell when people say, "What's Hamish like?" I think that people underestimate due to the fact that you're so funny. People forget how or don't realise how thoughtful, intelligent, and just like a good person you are. So, thanks, Joshie. Check out the show notes. My ears, whenever I say something nice about someone, one, my ears ring. It's really annoying. And tears come out his eyes. Should I go to a psychologist? Anyway, it's The Daily Talk Show, everyone. Send us an email, hi@thedailytalkshow.com. Make the list. It's Michelle, Sean, Jodie, Trevor, Derek, Russ, Robert. Thanks for the email.

Hamish: You still got 10 lines on the exercise book. Make that list, guys.

Josh: Have a good one, guys.

Hamish: Thanks, man.