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It's the daily Talk Show Episode 330 it's the Monday.

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Hey boys. How are you? I'm very good man. Always. This place is really cool. This little setup

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is really funny because we think it's a piece of shit.

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Great dude my stuff I where I do my stuff. I've rented a warehouse in the brothel capital of Melbourne.

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So this shits on it Really? Where is the brothel capital of Melbourne.

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If you read a few news articles, you may find something about a man being found in a being that nine was murdered 15 years ago, it's around there. Okay.

0:36
Well, one of the other five I know where you are, but the other one is also South Melbourne. Yeah, a lot of brothels. Yeah.

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South Melbourne is a weird area because I feel like South Melbourne is a social experiment because we do a radio show around there. It's like a weird experiment was like let's get like the richest 30 year old white women and put them right next to everyone in Housing Commission and just see what happens. It's like a social experiment in I

1:00
used to be horrible. Like it used to be a really shitty area. I think that's when I got the house

1:04
I was in and it got better.

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Well, this area calling would used to be an absolute dump. Look at it now. Now.

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The people is still around, you know, like I saw walking here I walked past there was like two dudes sitting on the pavement smoking weed, like opposite to a bar that has free board games. And I'm like, you know, just play chess voice

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for hipster area. Lewis species. People might know you from the inter web. I know you from family Christmas. Quite a few years back when we did it. Klay Faulkner's place my

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have a photo I brought my me. Do you have you and I

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yeah, it's fact. So

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we're basically family. My brother's wife is Lucy's cousin. So my sister. She's my sister. My sister in law is Lou Harris.

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There's a dinner,

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Todd Lewis, I was so hung over that guy. I bet made that.

2:01
Can we put this on our Instagram? Back

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to back looking just in the crown?

2:06
How old we then I don't even

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know my mom said that. To me. That would have been like maybe 17 or 18. Yeah,

2:13
so that was for me pre shipping and date. And I remember talking to you that day about you wanting to get into radio and get into media and starting

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your dad in your career. And you fuckin launched hard

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over that time. Yeah,

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try and it's it finally I feel like just this year, it's starting to feel big now, which is cool. Yeah.

2:33
Well, it's it's been exciting. Watching. I've been seeing you from afar and saying you stand up. Comedy Josh said to me. Was it stand up for Louis first? Or was it the internet stuff

2:43
I always wanted to do stand up like since I was 12. I saw lane on Woodley live. And I thought I want to do that. And but I kind of fell into online stuff at 18. I just started doing videos and mucking around and fucking with the media. I think it took me a whole year of doing that before I realized, Oh, this is comedy to you. And I can I can leverage this into getting people to come to shows and I can start stand up. So it was kind of weird. Like I always wanted to do stand up, I did online shit by accident, and then got this small audience and I thought, well, I can get them to a show. But I have no idea how to do stand up. So I just started doing stand up for a whole year and sacred because there's the last thing you want is for people to come out and you suck.

3:28
Where did you go back? Where were you doing the secret stand up.

3:30
I just did open mics all around Melbourne. And just you know, as many times awake, I get on stage and I still do that still the old the same rooms that I used to is there's not there's only one comedy club in Melbourne. And you can only really get on there maybe twice a week. And if you want to work on your act, you got to be up every night. So just lots of shithole bars.

3:51
Well, there's worse worse things you could do in secret like heroin. Yes. Yeah. playing chess. You mentioned

3:59
the media. Sort of fucking with the media. I mean, if Josh his mom and dad are watching, they might know you from ACA? Yeah.

4:09
I wonder if I saw back in the day when you were on ice I

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it's funny. That whole period of time it just that doing that if you don't know, basically a group I was in, we tricked day, we tricked the current affair into running a fake story about how we were bullying someone, that person turned out to be a member of our group. And it really just demonstrated how little time they have for research. Like they don't have time for research. You think about a current affair. And today tonight, they're going to do four stories five days a week. Like we send an email in, we had a whole plan and a backstory and we did a conversation map. We sent an email and we got one back going great. Can you meet us in two hours at this park? And we were like, Okay, and then it was on TV that night.

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So he didn't even have to show them any of the right like any of the stuff that you plant,

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not felt and felt like a big yc I'm really trying to try to counter their research that evidently was non existent

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while I saw you. They send a text message the girl that was in it saying, Do you have any photos of the conversations? And she just said no, no, like, no worries. That's fine. Yeah, but they still run the story. It's crazy. I think when you did that, it's almost at this so many people doing that now tricking the media, but that was kind of a little bit before it's become kind of real popular to fuck with the media. Yeah.

5:30
Well, it's it is it is kind of interesting, like saying all of it happened now. After we did it, it's really cool. I think it's good.

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You know, it's a whole genre.

5:40
If we can inspire some of that. That's great. You know, because all it was for me that it eventually was it? I think it just teaches people that maybe you shouldn't believe everything you hear because if it's that easy to trick someone into saying some fake stuff, when they're saying things they think a true maybe they're not actually because they haven't been research properly. Fake News. Yes. Yes. real, actual fake

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news. Did you this the stepping stone that online was to radio? Did it change your perception once you're actually in radio? And actually considering the fact that maybe it wasn't? Maybe these are the thing rather than the step?

6:17
No, really not doing doing radio? For us, me and Luke, we do a show called Luke and Lewis radio for us was, is just an excuse to do more content online. You know, it's it's like to just get our voice out to a demographic that we wouldn't reach before. You know, we've got a podcast now we film every show, and it's just a chance to get more stuff out. And me and Luke are like, really, really good friends. And we we'd be hanging out talking shit anyway, we might as well, you know, put it on radio. And I suppose that we don't you know, we're on we're on Fox FM. They're not known for their journalism, you know, we're not exactly doing news or anything like that. I think anyone there is so didn't really

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there is a nice room.

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Been in there? I don't know if anyone goes in there.

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Is that like, what's been the learning around content? Have you like? Have you had like content directors or people supporting and teaching them? Yeah,

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well, what's really good about working for for SCA who aren't hitting fox is they're, they're great at at nurturing talent, and just teaching us to avoid pitfalls. And like, what I think what we really learned from doing radio is that you can work a lot harder than you think you can like, you can actually turn on funny. If you can get into a room and you can structure the try and harness the chaos of funny and stupid, you can really control it a little bit. So I think just getting in a room and having that plan structure of the show goes for 40 minutes. So we need eight talk breaks that go for five minutes. So what are your eight subjects that you're going to talk about today? And just learning about, you know how me and Luke work like we we kind of worked out that at the stuff we would tell each other our ideas, and you'd almost do it in the meeting. And then you get on air and you would just try and recreate what it was. But we also needed to talk through our ideas to make them better. Yeah. So we just kind of got to the point where I'd be like, okay, we're going to do my ideas. Luke leaves the meeting room, I told the producers, I've got to walk work through it, they still help me modify it, make it a bit better. And then when Luke he is it, you know, he knows that it's planned, and he can actually hear it for the first time and react more organically. Yeah,

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that was always the problem. I mean, we didn't even have a producer when I when I was doing my show and shepherded. Yeah, but it's always like it. If if you do it the other way, you almost need to run through your ideas with your co host. Yeah,

8:41
for a certain amount of time. But then it sounds like amateur radio, which is like we tried to pre record our shows. And then I just got so into trying to work out what day it was and what potentially could have happened. So now we don't pre record bridges here on Monday doing the show right now. Yeah,

8:58
East Amanda. Amazing, right.

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Hey, did you get many eggs?

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No eggs, no eggs? Not? My family doesn't celebrate a snack. I think it's blasphemous eggs. Everyone's allergic to it.

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Really? Yeah.

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The guys have fish on Friday, because that's an old guy.

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We had fat Fridays, and we had the Yeah, what do you have? Again? I can't remember. Anyway, the

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thing is, no pre recording goes on.

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No way. No, no public holidays, never

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potentially.

9:30
So from from radio stand up or like what are the commonalities, then in all of this,

9:37
I would just say the commonalities is just the most important thing is to be genuine. And that's kind of always been my thing of like, I'm just going to try and be as honest as I can with the people that liked me and obviously funny as I can like, that would just suck if I rocked up and told everyone what I had for breakfast and then went through my day with that.

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That's your flow diary. Can food diary. Have fun with it? Yeah, nice. Like everyone has to have breakfast. Yeah, everyone can relate to it. What did you have for breakfast? Today? I actually had a coffee. So I had a McMaster recently. Yeah.

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And so I got it. What is that and McMaster

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is like it got it from the guys that were playing chess.

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That's a drip coffee so you put the coffee in and it might drip scene. And then this is

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the most early 30s conversation.

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I walked

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in here and I think I may have had the most boring conversation with you I've ever had in my life Josh told me about how he bought eight pairs of sketches in America. America and the only thing you come back with is pairs of sketches Why do your trips up? Why do

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you have to Why do you think you get two bags of luggage for us?

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Do you ever Do you ever feel because you do stuff that is slightly controversial? We're pretty known as

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coach visuals were sketchy

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man that's right you guys in that one Josh

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I did.

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I don't earn any of the sketches but I stand by their

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skin I actually gave them to my girlfriend's dad.

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And he's never wanted he's like man, he'll never come to the wedding. Like this kind of gave me sketches I'm not walking down the aisle

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I feel like he's into I think that is like because they sort of look like they're like oh it's like a bit formal nice like

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night he was being polite.

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When they sell you on it sketches is like you press

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you have to walk in for them to sell you

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know, but you press like the soul and it's like real cushioning. Like it's like it's like memory foam.

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It looks like you've got a foot roller on the side you walk

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into the sketches still and they go look I know they look like shit but feeling your finger in the shoe and you go this is great. Am I ever gonna put my finger in the shoe again? And they go no generally your foot and you're like I'm solid Why is it wrong in front of me but

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the get 150 percent off like a Buy one get 150 percent off

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equal eight

11:58
Yeah, well no you forget for anyway it doesn't matter controversial. How much

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money did you spend?

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Probably like is the way that justified it is probably 400 may $400

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sketches

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into it they really like the part of its called Big it definitely feels it feels like the same sort of brain as people who are into like it's almost like the apple stole been

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no

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no.

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There is times that this friendship and this trade in a friend actually pays off. Yeah, it gives you a shit but he's not sketches Iraqis well

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I was like I had a rebrand and so I bought some new shoes would you

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yes I had a

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little bit

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what was your brand before?

12:50
My brand before was no so that was that was to finish

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the sketches with sort of pray right brand so I'll be sort of ice be 120 kilos. I would sort of go comfort whatever so like three XL wouldn't give me room to move things like that.

13:11
You look like a small young American boy who was traveling you know when a Winnebago Yeah,

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cuz I got some like chicken sort of shirts or whatever. But yes.

13:20
Because playground attire very much

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very much that and so I went from like the snap backs and stuff to something more minimal and so now I'm trying to go from more sort of like a Steve Jobs esque.

13:33
That's good. Look. We've battled the terminal illness. Yeah,

13:37
exactly. But I do we've spoken about on the show. He's going to sort of

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he had that because he had cancer.

13:45
No really look you want to go for it.

13:48
Look like Steve Jobs fucking die. I'm just gonna go out in

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the sun. Yeah, just a little bit just that that

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sort of lean local guy you haven't overdone it? You know? Like you've got that look like because like with your high well I look like someone dying.

14:02
I'm leaving.

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I think it's like the aspirational it's because you could wear anything I think

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well I've struggled finding pants that are loving I'm

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Lucy six foot eight Yeah,

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we see really six for that only three meters

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I felt

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like it because Tommy was talking

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and then he came in I was I don't like did with usually the tallest in the room majority of the time. Like it wasn't over my

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knees hurt sitting on this desk. Yeah,

14:31
mine too but I'm on the on the height thing very quickly is a when you're on a plane is it like a annoying or is it a medical issue? Like would do you have to get upgraded like

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I don't do I don't do the robot check in because if a human checks me and I always get the free upgrade because I go oh poor boss because I only fly Tiger

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like you know whole basket bastard and will also help you out.

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I can put you they just put you in the eye on will say

15:00
emergency line and they go Really? Are you willing and able to help in a unlikely event of an emergency and I go it's Tiger pretty likely. And also Yes, but my fingers are crossed. I'm not helping. I'll open the door and I'm getting out and everyone else can you know, I'm not helping

15:16
you posted on the Instagram. Today I was gonna say today but that was probably like a week ago. This one's pretty

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much been posted today. Yeah. Which is the day we're on

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Monday

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about how 30 of your followers fetish tall people fetish pages. Yeah,

15:40
I have I have there's a website out there don't go on it. It's called told guys for a.com and I am the thumbnail and the most popular person in the the tall and lanky category.

15:53
What's the frame it?

15:55
I think it's Friday. So you know, look at that Netflix

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have on apparently incredibly told men is a fetish. And so have they got photos

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of you? Yeah,

16:07
there's photos, every single photo I've ever taken with my top off and there's not that many. like they've gone through my whole Instagram. Most of them are just me doing jokes. Like there's one where I put myself next to someone wearing a ridiculous outfit. And then I crop the other person out and then they just put my topless photo up there of me on the beach. It's not it's bit weird is it's

16:29
very fucking weird.

16:30
Today at least give you like a link for search engine optimizer. Yeah,

16:34
they do. They credit me. So I don't know if anyone's going from whacking over my spine length to laughing at my comedy. But

16:43
yeah, I think like the SEO thing is actually could be quite good. If you if you they're linking off

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you're you're essentially being trolled. It's a no.

16:52
It's you being celebrated you being i think it's it's a good thing,

16:55
but without his permission. Yeah, I mean, that's what it is. What do you feel about it? I don't know. It's funny. Yeah, I guess.

17:03
It's just it just points out that there's a fetish for everything, man. Like, everything's a fetish. I mean, I knew told people were like, Ah, he's told that's good. But I didn't know if anyone's been like jacking off to just hype.

17:16
It's a weird thing that I'm all about centimeters

17:20
into like basketballs and stuff you think like that?

17:22
watch basketball. There's people that have told them may and they they're not. They're not like Steve Jobs.

17:31
What we've worked at is Josh is actually really into that. Yeah, I like the look. I like the look. He's actually built the website. Yeah.

17:37
I wasn't gonna reveal it. But the the controversial stuff. Do you do you get anxiety around like the fact that there's a portion of the population that dislike what you've done? Like the anti Vax one, for instance?

17:53
Uh, no, I just think it's

17:54
funny. Yeah. I don't know, end

17:57
of the day, I've only ever been yelled at once in public. And it wasn't that scary, like some. And it wasn't even for anything that I did. Like content wise, it was pretty if I haven't years and years ago, someone off in the car was always on the train. And, and I was just by myself. And these two girls came up to me and they were like, ah, are

18:19
you Louis? And I said, Yeah,

18:20
how you going? And one of them sat on my knee to get a photo. Which was, you know, bit too, too touchy for me, but whatever. So you got the photo. And then she walked back to her boyfriend. And he saw that he was not happy. And this is like a Friday night. I'm by myself, I think that might have had something to drink. And I got up to get off my stop. And to get off at my stop. I had to walk towards the group. And the guy looks at me and he goes, Oh, boy. Are you Louis Spears? I said yeah, man. How you going? He goes. You're not funny. You shit.

18:54
Way low level. Yeah, I was like,

18:54
Ah, sorry, man. Yeah, and then the doors open. And then he goes, Yeah, fucking run away, you pussy. And I just said, Dude, I'm not gonna miss my start to punch you.

19:09
I'm going home man. I've got a book I want to read I don't want to you know, potentially lose a fight just to be something because you called me a pussy. And then he he just I'm getting off the train. He goes no one likes you can't. I said your girlfriend does.

19:24
The doors closed and then I think that may have been the end of Did you touch off? No, I didn't touch

19:31
I guess there's a massive difference between what people will say in real life versus the internet. Your comedy special district death threats Don't scare me. So you legit got death threats? Yeah.

19:42
So online ones that were online worse. Yeah. Cuz that even that guy yelling at me fair enough. You know, he wasn't he wasn't angry about something that I did. He was angry because his girlfriend sat on my leg. That's whatever. I'd be mad if she posts the photo. Did you get tagged? Yes, I tagged me that really?

19:57
Did you click through the voiceprints?

19:59
Along with thing? Yeah.

20:01
Give him a follow. I feel like your

20:02
problems. Maybe not with major. Yeah. But yeah, the death threats thing. You just get them and you kind of you kind of learn some of them. The only ones that that can get a little bit and I talked about this in my comedy special. The only ones that get a little bit scarier the ones that are specific. Like I did a joke about the dream world accident that like the day it happened. And it went it went nuts. Like most people thought it was funny, but obviously a lot of people think it's angry, which just goes with the territory. But I got this one. I got all these death threats, but only one scared me, which was I see you coming to the Gold Coast on April 14. I'm going to be there with a knife. Oh, geez. Oh, that

20:41
one I thought

20:42
oh, little bit spooked? Yeah. I don't know if I'll do the meet and greet after the show. But I did it anyway. And you didn't get knifed? No, but one guy came up to me, because I meet everyone after all my shows if anyone wants to kill me.

20:57
And he had his hands in his hoodie. Oh, thank you came up to me. And I was like, Hey, man, and he didn't take him out of his hoodie. And I was like, Ah, fuck, this is the guy. I was like, Hey, how you going? And I put up my hand to shake his hand and he took only one hand out left the other one in. I was like, Oh, this is how I die. But he was just nervous. Yeah, or you might be the name. I don't know.

21:20
He's actually scary.

21:21
But that was that freaked me out just that moment. But that was just all my head. Yeah, never Scott.

21:25
Well, I guess like Josh said, it's it's more the space you're playing in the ads you have if we started saying controversial shit. We're not comedians, so it'd be just like we're real. Kant's Yeah. And do you see being a comedian? as an opportunity not to be count? Yeah, yeah. Well, you know,

21:45
thanks for that joke. My my Yes, but I always think that as my intention is never to offend. Like, that's never my intention. That's always just a byproduct. You know, like, if I went in there. I'm like, I'm Lou species, and I'm gonna offend the whole crowd. I wouldn't sell any tickets. Good. Would you like a guy's an asshole? Yeah, my intention is and should be to make you laugh. Yeah, you know, and I'll take dangerous topics or dangerous subjects. My favorite thing is taking something that's subjectively not funny. And being like, are that have you thought about it like this? Yeah, like my favorite laugh is 7030 which is 70% pacing themselves and 30% God

22:22
I don't know about that line.

22:23
But you get those people with the next one. Yeah, like I try to I never try to to preach more to voice only one opinion. I try to make fun of all sides. Because I think there's so much comedy out there that that puts like, convincing you I'm right ahead of being funny like phonies here. I'm right is there and I think that sucks my I like my comedic inspirations where the chases and they did they show the chases war and everything. And if you watch that show, you would have no idea what they actually thought their actual opinions were because they took the piss out of everyone. Yeah.

22:58
What do you like it funeral?

23:01
Mostly crying.

23:04
I feel like a coping mechanism. I definitely. Like there was moments where I've gone to funeral like my, my Nana's funeral or whatever that we are like, when we're in the car. There's some opportunities that we're just trying to Yeah, find moments. Yeah,

23:19
I've only only really been to two funerals one when I was super young, and I didn't get it. And the and the other one was was recently my grand and yeah, it's it's like I it's not really a depressing thing. I've I've used it more of like, Fuck, she did some amazing stuff. Yeah, you know, and like the eulogies were all funny. Most of them anyway, depending on who was doing it, but most of them would funny, which I think it might be just our family. No, definitely. I think everyone's just a little bit funny or a bit of a shit Sarah. Yeah. And and yeah, I thought I thought that was great. I think if there's an opportunity to, to either get angry about something or to to make it you know, try and turn that darkness into something good. Why would you not take that opportunity?

24:01
I think that like the last couple of years is definitely the sensitivity. politically correct ness of the comedy space has definitely amplified like yeah, Chris Lily is just brought a new show. And I was a fan of Chris Lee back in the day. And I sort of whatever now I'd like I'm sure I could get into watching the show if for some I

24:22
check it out some hi Ty was sort of like literally just my school exactly how it was. So we really

24:27
everyone's school. Well, like that shows huge in the UK and the US and you wouldn't think that it would translate but it's gone. Like that's the whole thing's going global, which is just make sense of the high school experience. Yeah,

24:37
I think I look at some of the new show that's just come out hectic or something. Oh, what a brand new one that's just coming

24:44
out. He's doing like six or so characters and none of them are in blackface? Yeah.

24:51
Well, yeah, well, I guess he's, he's felt the brunt of that. Coming from a time where it was kind of acceptable just wasn't even critique. Like, it wasn't.

25:01
It wasn't.

25:03
I think that the thing is that that black folks in America is, is I wouldn't do it. And I think that no, I want you to do it there. And, and I think no one should really do it now. Because we know the reasons why. Yeah. But in Australia, we didn't really have the huge like minstrel shows and like, the whole blackface thing that America did, we had it to some extent, but it wasn't like as popular. It wasn't in movies, and all that kind of shit. So I think that I guess that whole blackface thing came from him doing it came from like, just ignorance of like, Oh, you know, you just did it because you weren't doing it with a racist intention. But, but now that it's been seen by a broader audience that, you know, have that history, they see it and the only thing they see is a racist intention. Because the only people who did it from where they're from were who had that

25:54
racist intention. JOHN Safran, I remember, he did race relations. And he is I had like a full prosthetic face, that he was black. But it's interesting. That was at a time I remember, I was personal training him at that stage, and he's telling me about it. And it came out, there was no sort of nothing said about it. Yeah. And so the time that we're in now, what are the sensitivities that you have? As someone who really plays in this space?

26:22
I don't have to I my, my thing always comes back to if I check myself, and I was, am I doing this because my intention is to piss people off or to make them laugh. It can be buzz, but the main thing has to be to make people laugh and to bring joy. pissing people off bit of fun for me. Yeah. But I don't I think that there's, I really liked a quote by Patrice O'Neal. He was talking about this before, like he did an interview in like the 90s. I think it was the 90s, where he was talking about rape jokes, and there was person saying that you should never tell them. And he kind of said that. I'm not going to tell anyone. What type of joke to make, as long as their intent is to make people laugh. So she was like, so you support rape jokes. And he goes, I don't make them. I don't make right. I don't think you know, it's funny, but I've heard that, you know, and I think that's, that's the kind of thing as as the darker a subject matter is, the harder it is to make it funny. Yeah. So I think a lot of the time when people get offended, it's not so much the subject matter. Maybe it's just the skill level of the person doing it. You know, like so many times, I've written down an idea that's quite dark. And I've tried to do it. And it does. It's not funny, and it doesn't work. But then I come back to it. Two years later, when I'm a better comic, and I've worked out how to make it funny.

27:43
Like I used to this joke about

27:46
sex work in Thailand, and like the ping pong shows it because I went to one and it was fucking horrible. Like, it was just sick. Strange. It looks really bad about it. And I tried talking about that when I was very early in my career, and everyone just felt sad. So me like two or three years before I was better, to finally get people to laugh at that, and then also pass on a positive message of maybe don't go to these things. Yeah, a bit fact.

28:11
How did you actually apply my comedy to it? And how did you? How did you make it funnier?

28:15
live demo.

28:17
What the? Yeah,

28:18
I don't know. I just I just taught just the

28:20
whole, I just walked through the whole experience of what I thought it was going to be in my head versus what it actually was like, we walked. We got flyering and there's this woman, she was gone ping pong show ping pong show. And you're thinking, yeah, like the noise that it makes me like, Oh, that sounds fun. That sounds like everybody wants to be there. And not because they have kids to fade and they have no skills. Yeah. And then we went down an alleyway and down another alleyway just got dirtier and darker. And we walked in, and it was just this horrible. And you just like, the minute I walked in, I saw the girl on stage. And I was like, Oh, she doesn't want to be here. Fuck, and then we just tried to leave and they tried to drag us back in because they're all desperate for money. And I was like, I'm not doing this. And, you know, obviously, that's not my joke. That's just what actually happened. But yeah, it's just a just a bad thing. But you can make you can make it funny and still pass on the message of that, you know, a positive thing without just standing out there and telling people not to go to it or or only making light of it without, like, with it just going Haha, their life sucks. Isn't that funny? Yeah.

29:20
Your crowdfunding campaign? Yeah, was it? So Josh I don't know if you would have seen Lewis at this time. He was he tell us about what you did.

29:31
So I was at a stage. I've been doing comedy for three years. And I knew I wanted to do a comedy special, I plan to do it year two, but I wasn't good enough. So I delayed the year. And then I got to a stage where I had like a really good hour of stand up. And I wanted to film it properly.

29:49
Because the nature of the online thing is most people who watch me, you know, now most people from America, and I don't have a visa yet, so they can't see me live, you know, or people live in regional towns. And I didn't come there yet. So I was like, Well, most of the people who like me have not seen my stand up and potentially weren't for like five years until I become successful enough. So the solution that problem is a comedy special. So I approached a bunch of networks, and I approached a bunch of distribution companies and all these different people that could fund it. And they all tell me that my stuff was too controversial, or it's too expensive to do it properly, or this or that, or we can do it like this, but it has to be this length. And he can't joke about this and I just thought Fuck it. I'm just going to do it myself. So

30:31
what are you showing me like showing them jokes?

30:34
He's a list of jokes go it's hard. So you just I basically just showed them my I filmed a show just on a fucking camera. So I really shit but you can hear that the jokes are funny, you know. So you can get an idea of what it would look like if it was done properly. So you show that to them and they go I basically all I got was this is really, really good, but we can't touch it because it's too controversial or this or that. So I just thought Fuck it. I'll do it myself. And I launched a crowd fund and it was going to cost 30 grand. So just Louis's fee. Yeah. Yeah. That was that was my fee and then it costs 10 bucks to get an iPhone up the back.

31:12
So yeah, it was gonna cost like 30 grand was what I worked it out to be So I got all the money I had in the world I put up 15 of my own and I did a crowdfunding I asked for 15 grand and I said if we can get this I'll pay for half will go half with my audience. And then you guys will have a special. Anyway, I raised that in about three hours. And then the first day I raised 30 and then by the end of it i'd raise $70,000 shit to this thing, which and we broke the world record for the biggest comedy special crowdfund ever, which makes me feel a little bit guilty because this previous world record was was I want to do my last comedy special before I dive kids. I think he deserves it more than me turns out the tall fetish have more money to spend but you know what? He's still around. So bullshit. Yeah.

32:00
It's fair

32:01
was a Kickstarter, or what did you actually

32:03
used Indiegogo.

32:05
I remember saying I was refreshing go Holy

32:07
fuck, it was insane. I knew I could raise 15. But that but raising 70 was was not even I didn't even think I could get 30 Yeah, but I guess it's just that thing of, I always try to be honest. And I was, you know, telling people I, you know, I tell my audience how much money I have, and how much I'm paying myself. And I've been doing it for years. And I think they just thought, you know, he's given us so much shit for free. It's, it's time to step up. And it worked. And it's, to this day, the best performance of my life. Like I was just, it's the one it's the rare moment in my life where everything from the crowdfund to the production to the people that I worked with, to my performance itself, where I just thought I could not have done that better. Yeah. And I think that's the only time I've ever because, you know, you look back on shit, and you go, I could have done this, or I could have done that. It's the one thing in my life where I've gone I fucking nailed that. And so did everyone else who helped. It wasn't just me, of course.

32:59
And it was it's just fucking amazing. And now it's just sitting on my website. It's like a $5 download thing that you can stream or watch. And it's just something that's always there where if you want to see me live now you can just go get it and you know, now it's it's kind of made me go well, I don't have to wait for TV. I don't have to wait for Netflix or, or any of these people to do it for me, you can just kind of take control. And that looks like how I might do the next one. The conversations you had with the people that said it was too controversial. And they see that habit. I mean, it's always fucking great. You're like, yeah, so that's what it was. And then and there was a there was another conversation I had with with some people from America who were going to find it, but they were like, yeah, we'll find it but but we are in half of it. And in the contract, it said it was like we are in half of it in perpetuity forever. And I was like, fuck that I'm only gonna get one opportunity to, to own my comedy special. Maybe you know, someone else might pick it up feature or whatever. So I thought, you know, I won't one for me. What did you do with the extra cash? punted it?

34:02
No, I just say, Oh, yeah,

34:03
put it back into the hall. And I just use it to fund more comedy. You know, I got myself a film space. And I've hired an editor, and a camera guy to help me put more stuff out. Because the biggest struggle when you do stand up online, and radio, those are three completely different jobs. The only thing you have in common is you're trying to be funny, but really the actual way you do it is so different. So I've managed to hire help with it and, and find the tour offered and yeah, I'm just trying to I'm just trying to hold on to it and not not being an idiot. What happened to it. So like, how a boy recently raised a bunch of cash. What, what who gets that cash? How's the actual process work? So when you get $70,000, how the hell on? That was the craziest. So what happens is, is it goes to Indiegogo, it takes it from everyone and they hold it. And then when the crowd funds over, they just send it to you in bulk. And then it's this dude, the coolest thing ever was just looking at my bank account saying 70 grand in there going on fucking rich. And then but then you just got to send it all the live in a sentence all the camera people you got to send it to the people who do the merge. Yes. And it to do this into that. And then you have, you know what, what you actually have. So I didn't, I didn't end up spending 30 I end up spending a lot more than that. Because I wanted I had this extra money. So I was rather just fucking do all the stuff that I cut out, because I thought I could only raise 15. So I cut out a bunch of stuff. So I thought, well, I'll put all that back in. So it's like the perfect thing. We got like, three extra cameras and all that kind of shit. So it was really, really good. But yeah, you just just just saying that. It's just the thought in your head of going, I could just run away.

35:42
Obviously, you can't there's there's only a few people in Australia. Like there's probably 20 or 30 people who have created these audiences online like Christian how, like you're in that same sort of category? What is it that we don't understand about the audience building and the type of audience that you have? versus the audience that you would say I'd say, like a hidden network or something like that?

36:09
Well now, net, especially now that I've been, I've been in both worlds properly. The difference is the people watching you online choose to that's the main thing where people sit down and they go today, I'm going to listen to the daily talk show you don't show up anywhere. You know, it's you're not on a billboard, you're not yet turn on.

36:30
So yes, sir. But

36:32
But you know, you're not on radio, and they and and it's just, it's just on Yeah, listen to it. The main difference is people choose to listen to you so that that audience is so much harder to get, which is the downside, but when you get them as long as you're consistent and good and honest, they fucking stay. And they'll support you because they sit down and they go, I'm going to turn on a Lewis species video, listen to the podcast or, or whatever. And I think that that's the main difference that we noticed. Because Luke who I do the show with also built his his crowd is just you, you earn that crowd with the online thing, whereas the mainstream media thing, it's there and it exists, and it's given to you. And you can lose it if you suck, and you can increase it if you're good. But at the end of the day, it's it's there.

37:18
And it's also days, so it's not yours. Yeah, you can lose their audience. You can build their audience. Still not yours. Yeah, yeah.

37:26
I wonder about like the the financial reward of having an audience how do you know how much your audience can spend?

37:35
Well, clearly, I had no idea. You know, like, I had no idea

37:40
did you actually try and work out the math for the 15 grand think, say, I've got 15 grand? I reckon maybe based on my followers, it's x y&z Yeah,

37:48
well, I kind of was like, I pitched the crowdfund I pitched it as I want to do a comedy special, and I want to make it as easy for people to buy and stream. So I'm going to make it $5. I know, if you have a smartphone, you have $5 or you have the ability to get $5 you know, if you

38:05
don't let it or you can, you can steal another five.

38:07
Exactly. If you don't, you lie.

38:10
You have five bucks. Yeah, you just don't want to give it to me, which is fine. But to be honest, you know, sometimes I get comments like, Man, I wish I could watch your special but can't afford it. It's like, dude, just tell me that you're not going to watch it. Don't lie.

38:24
So that's what I my logic was, everyone has five bucks. And that's all but I'll ask for. So I did the math, I couldn't do it in my head. Now, if However, many thousand people give me five bucks, it'll work because I worked out. Well look on my last tour, I sold like 1500 tickets, and those were 25. Whereas the online thing is not constrained by distance on travel or dates or what you're doing that night. So if I can get this many thousand people to give me five bucks, it should work. But what I didn't really take into account was people giving way more than five you know, some God gave me 1000 bucks. What do you say?

39:02
I want some notes. I'm from that tour website. Yeah,

39:06
baby crazy. I just I just said I'll give you a sign setlist and as the reward for $1,000, and I didn't think that anyone would do it. Yeah. But someone did it. And and that's a crazy thing, because that means that I guess that means that I'm their favorite. Yeah, you know, and which I don't think I'd ever experienced before. And I had a lot of a lot of people that liked me, but I never, I never had many people girl. You're my favorite guy. Because everyone's favorite is like a special thing. Like, mine is Bill Burr. I love Bill Burr. He's my favorite. And

39:37
so instead slightly creepy that he's my foot. Like saying my favorite.

39:41
My favorite comedian. He can't say you're

39:43
my favorite.

39:45
It sounds like a little Walker thing.

39:47
And so was so does that mean that you had like 10,000 plus people all chip in?

39:52
I think it was I think it was a few thousand people. I can't really remember off the top of my head. But like when it when? Because it's been now I think we're nearing 10,000 people buying it. Yeah. And I includes two people contributing. So

40:06
that's really, really cool. Do you start sort of like, what is that called when you put your hands together and saying, fuck, I can just if I get some sort of subscription thing and get all these comes paying me 15 bucks a month.

40:21
But that's I don't want to do that I want to make my shit. I always want to make my shit accessible because at the end of the day, I'm doing this because I want to perform as much as possible to the most people as I can. You can't do that by ripping people off or just trying to get money.

40:36
So how do you know what you're worth then? And do we do you think that as artists or comedians to people tend to undervalue,

40:45
definitely undervalue and that's a big problem with me like my like my first tour, I did a national tour and I only charge $20 for tickets. And then I got to the end of it, and I had made my money. Like I made a little bit of money, but not enough to fund me to the next two hours to fund the next to it was enough to live for six months. And I was like, Well, that doesn't work. And yeah, and I think that I think that a lot of people do undervalue themselves in terms of ticket price or, or stuff. It's like, it's like a weird thing of some people undervalue. Most people undervalue a lot, but I think I'm not worth it. Or I don't know why people are listening to me, or, you know, this video and they got 100 views, that means that I suck. And then there's the other side, which is people overvalue themselves, and that's just trying to get take as much shit. I've always been about giving, just giving as much shit away for free. So that when I asked for something once, yeah, they'll turn up. And that's just what it was. Because I did. You know, I did comedy online since since 2012. Just for free, never asking for a thing. And then, you know, five years after that, I said, I need one thing and they showed up.

41:50
Have you? Did you learn this? Like, is it this is the Gary Vee Jab, Jab, Right Hook? Yeah, it's like, that's exactly what he does free, free, free, please.

42:00
How do you work out what the ask is? Um, yeah,

42:03
I don't, I think it was it. It. Ultimately, it was a combination of my dream, which was to do a special and to be a stand up comedian. And then also, because I was honest about that dream, that became a problem for them. Because they're like, we know you care so much about this. And we know you're performing and you do this and that, but we can't see you. We want to see you. So like, it was a combination between what I wanted to do and what they wanted to do. And then the solution to that was the comedy special, you know, they were like, We want to see you live and I was like, Whoa, I can't show it to you unless you come and they're like, I'm in fucking Sweden. Dude, I'm probably never going there.

42:40
Sorry, then be crowd fund a trip euro trip. lower speeds does zero.

42:46
That's true.

42:47
I think like the other thing, too, is it's like you talk about that five years. Prior people say the biggest amount, there's an appealing nature to saying I do it too, when, especially when are starting to get into video production, you talk about these bigger mountains that you make, but then what people don't realize like, okay, five years, if you take $70,000 and putting over five years, you're at like minimum wage, your territory.

43:11
You know, as that being something that like that you've been thinking about in the future where it's I had to I actually get a sustained salary.

43:21
That's, that's what I've started thinking about more now. And that's, and that's come from my problem of undervaluing myself, when I talked to read just recently, I talked to a bunch of people, and I was like, how much would you actually pay to say, me, and all these people that like me will like I pay $60. And I was charging, like 25. And I was like, Oh, fuck, I'm to change. Yeah. And you know, that will be reflected in how much money was left over at the end, and all that kind of stuff. And because I do all my tools myself, up until recently, I've just finally got someone to help me out with it. So I never really had all these, all these people like going on your way to Yeah, now I look at, I look at my peers that are on the same level, and they're charging like $70 a ticket. And I'm not going to do that. So now what, what I've kind of realized is that if I really want to give them as much comedy as I want, I need to start making enough money to fund that probably

44:16
100%. I've always found that like, when it comes to charging, what's the amount that comes to mind add a little bit more, because usually, it's always

44:23
Yeah, we tend to value value. And yeah, the other thing too, is it's like it's this still is coming from a place of serving people. Right? It's like realizing that the only way that you're going to be able to serve people is by making enough cash the sustainable. Yeah,

44:37
so that's, so that's what I've really taken seriously, this year is and that's also the opposite end of like, well, if I want to make money, I need to start spending a bit as well to, like, get what I need, like, so this year, I was like, well, I need it, I need enough money to fund an international tour, and that I can lose money on because you generally lose money the first time you go apply, so I need to make enough money to losing money justified. So I was like, well, I'll get I'll get a warehouse and I'll get a guy. And I'll employ him to help me make videos. And then I just, you know, put it out there. And I said, I've got a Patreon and I said, Look This, this, I'm spending more money.

45:16
I need some more patrons, then people are like, Oh, yeah, I have noticed he's doing more. So I'll jump on and I'll support him a little bit. Whereas before, maybe I would have been like, oh, I'll get a guy when I get more Patreon supporters or, or I'll rent a space when I sell more tickets. But sometimes it's just, it's a matter of working harder and giving more so that they kind of go, Oh, he's working hard and giving them all maybe I'll contribute more as well. Or I'll say a show or I'll buy a poster or whatever. So yeah, I think that's I think that's the thing i've i've always, I've always been hyper, hyper focused on being giving as much shit away for free. And then when I do charge being as fair as possible. And to me, in my mind, that meant as cheap as I could make it, wherever. I found that from talking to people who actually liked me as they don't, they don't mind they happy to pay a normal amount of something. They're not offended by it. You know, like some, like when I did the crowd fund, all these people messaging me will go and thank you so much. And for doing this so I can give you give you something and help you achieve something. And I was like, Well, no, thank you. And I think that's something that that a lot of entertainers maybe should realize is that it is a mutually beneficial transaction, you're entertaining, and they're giving you something they're getting entertained and giving you a bit of money and the world fucking spins.

46:36
I mean, maybe it's hard because the thing you do is something you love. And then you like, that's not this is like, it's not easy for me. But it's like, this is a bit like, if I get paid for this, like you could go to LA right now if you had money for holiday, and then you can go and do a bunch of stand up in LA. And you'd feel like fuck this is, especially once you start if you got paid, I guess that's the mindset of big comedians, he Joe Rogan talk about you kinda feels like, from what I gather is, he's like, Fuck, like, this is amazing where I am, like, they're all super grateful for having turned on this floodgate of money doing something I fucking love, if you

47:11
like, if you love the process, then it becomes, you know, a lot easier. Yeah, with the with partnerships and teamwork and stuff like that. How, how do you reconcile that with what you're doing? Yeah,

47:25
well, that's, I think that's that's what it is like, you find yourself when someone offers you a job that you don't want to do. You quote them a stupid amount of money. Yeah. Because, you know, if they say yes, great, then doing the shit job is worth it, because I'll get him some money. And if they say no, great, I don't have to do the job. And so sometimes the opposite is like, Oh, you want me to do comedy? I'll do it for 10 bucks. I love comedy. Yeah. And you got to find that middle ground.

47:54
So with

47:56
your radio show, and what you what you develop, going forward with that online, is, you know, what is the what's what's your thoughts on the team? dynamic of it. So yeah, to two individuals coming together and doing a show? Yeah,

48:12
well, it's really good. So So me and Luke, were were friends. And we we never wanted to do a radio show. Together. When we started being friends, we just were friends. Because we liked each other. We met through comedy, and we built a good friendship and a relationship. And we started doing online stuff together. And every time he grew, I grew and it was just, you know, tide rises, all ships kind of thing and mixed with a really good friendship. And then I knew a few people in radio, and I thought, well, we do shit all the time. But we've never actually created a project we've collaborated, but we've never like built something new. So why don't we try radio? And that it just felt like the most natural thing in the world. And it really demonstrated to me also after seeing all of a lot of other radio teams and radio show is that fall apart or don't do that well. just comes down to people getting put in a room that don't know each other. Yeah.

49:06
And forced to be friends. Yeah, it's like friendships can be forced. Yeah,

49:10
you can't like end of the day. That's why Hamish and Andy is so big and so genuinely loved by people because it's a genuine friendship. If they didn't have a radio show they'd be hanging out anyway. Yeah, we're so many of these radio shows is like a bachelorette. com. Yeah, testing and a guy who hosted a TV show two years ago, and then some dude kick the ball really good. They would never hang out together. This reminds me of like those undercover ticket inspectors when they walk through the train and they're wearing like, it's like some 40 year old indian dude and then like a 30 year old six foot three lesbian and then some giant six two white guys like you guys are friends. And that's why I know that you're taking in space, and I'm fucking out of here. Yeah,

49:55
but I definitely could do original break.

49:58
Exactly like that's what that I said the undercover ticketing spaces like undercover friendship. Not real

50:05
hopefully. Something funny that you do online is spot nibs. Hashtag Spotnitz Josh Have you seen that?

50:11
Yes, I have. Yeah, you should like tell me why you are constantly showing me every single time there's

50:17
a great photo. Well, basically, it's you've it's like pepper Razzi. It's like fan populated pepper. artsy. Yeah, we're out sourced.

50:26
It is a really

50:29
cool St. Louis and take a photo from ages of white who it who started that? Did you start that with some of these cool guy that looks like Louis.

50:36
I don't know if you know this man. But you can actually take a photo of yourself from across the street.

50:43
Did you say if you see me you get a piece of cake. Okay,

50:46
it kind of was pretty. It was pretty organic. So this is when Snapchat was like a big new thing. Someone just took a photo of me and they sent it to me. And I think I can't remember if I can't wait names all day caption it. But anyway, there's took a photo, I thought it was funny. And then I screenshot it. And I didn't post it. But then like a month later, someone else took one. And then I took a screenshot. I didn't post it. And I just had nothing to put up. So I just chucked it up. And it was just me from across the street just looking at my phone or whatever. And I got heaps likes, people thought it was funny. And I just had this little caption of going if you would just taking a piece of the people that did that. I was like, if you want to take a photo of me and send it to me, instead of saying hi, follow me here. People thought that was so funny that they just started doing it. And, and to the point where there was a little bit in my career, I was like, man, I am fucking dying. because no one's saying hello anymore. No one's coming up to me. But people if people was doing that less, they would prefer to take the money, and then send it to me. So I was getting more of them and less hellos in public, which is

51:53
money. We're talking with. stringer we had on the show last week. And it was talking about me becoming a meme. Yeah. And do you plan to become a meme? Or does it evolve? And that's essentially what's happened. you'd become a meme in that in that, yeah, well,

52:10
that's that's what it is. Like, that's like, it's not a viral thing. But that's just, I don't think you can I never think you can plan that main thing. You can only embrace it. And then and then you can kind of take control a little bit after it happens. Like DJ Khaled is a perfect example. Like he started doing that everyone was just laughing at him. And he was like, Okay, I can do this. If you want me to be that guy or that guy. And it fucking works.

52:34
What was it? Who was Howard Stern, just saying that phrase,

52:38
he calls himself the king of all media. And it all of a sudden started to stick

52:43
like I always like I'm the number one podcast in the world. Any video lately?

52:49
I said one, he was like, biggest podcast in the world. Yeah. Yeah,

52:51
it's now it's now climbing. Even on one of these recent videos. He's like, Dude, it's fucking

52:58
a self fulfilling prophecy. Yeah,

53:00
you have to do that. Like I like I remember. You gotta have that self belief. Like we I used to I still do. I always before I get on stage, I'd gone the fucking best on the best. And me and my friends used to do that for us when we were starting out and we sucked. But we will lie. Let's be the fucking best. And every now and then it would happen when you be the best comedian on the lineup. Yeah. And you'd be like, Fuck, yeah, I am the best and it becomes true. I'm not the best yet. But that's the that's the mindset. You know, I want to I want to become that. You got to tell yourself that otherwise you won't be like Dave Chappelle, you know, he's probably the best stand up in the world. And he starts one of his recent comedy specials going on the best comedian in the world. Yeah. And it's comedies getting too easy for me. And he and his whole hour is just about how fucking good he is at stand up and how he can do anything and make you laugh.

53:48
And he's right. And he probably wouldn't be right if you didn't think that. And yeah,

53:51
I bet you he thought that before he was

53:54
what's what's your international audience? Like? It's criminal.

53:59
It's growing more. So I saw before it was like 90%, Australia, but now it's like 60% America. So it's kind of growing there. So

54:07
it's probably the best thing right? Well, that's

54:09
I think that's where I picture myself going. I'm going to LA and New York and next month for a whole month. Because I in my head. That's where my career ends up is either LA or New York has a stand up sounds really good. I may hate it. That's what's going you know, because I want to scope it out. Have you been to the states before? I've never been I've only ever been to Thailand. It's about as far away from the trailer lady led down a back alley. Wow. Yeah, I didn't like that.

54:31
There's like legit like a lot of I know, you're you're making fun of the sketches stuff. But their presence in the US. They've got a lot of sketches. That always

54:39
that's good, especially around just King hitting.

54:45
So east coast and West Coast, like, you're going to spend what a couple of weeks in each one?

54:51
Yes, I'm going to do New York for two weeks. And I know a bunch of stand up comedian as well. I don't know them. I've just from online, just the Internet people. So I'm just going to link up with everyone in often I know that I'll go to LA and live with everyone there that I know and try and perform as much as possible and say it and do everything and, and then kind of because I realized that that's probably years away from actually moving there. But if I like one more than the other, I'll be like, well, now I'm going to be working towards living in New York or living in LA and trying to do that. Because I think I've always been like such a long term goal. First, I love setting impossible goals. Like I wanted to do the comedy special. I knew I was going to do that year one. And I knew it wasn't gonna happen for ages. But that was always the goal. And then I did the special. And for about eight months, I felt really lost. Because I didn't have this thing that said fucking impossible. Yeah. And now I think it's blow up in America. And that's impossible now, but I'm I do it.

55:44
And is there a pecking order? Like, does it feel like, I guess from being online, where you get to put it up wherever you want? And if it works, it works? If it doesn't, it doesn't the comedy scene on a actual on the ground level, you go into, you know, thinking about going to LA? Is there do you have to sort of stay in your lane is where whatever he doing nothing? Well, I

56:04
don't really ultimately know. But I have I have noticed that the the people that blow up online, uh, so much more welcoming to other people. Because I feel like I feel like people mostly know that, that we benefit each other, you know, the bigger your friends are, the bigger you will be when you do a video with them and all that kind of stuff.

56:25
How democratized as well, right? So it is that's

56:28
quite a merit based thing. Like if like if you know, if you're if you're good and consistent, you will get big online pretty much. There's obviously exceptions to that. But generally, but yeah, I've noticed that in in Melbourne, a lot of the people from the traditional saying don't like the online thing, because this there's this mentality of of white to get chosen and white to get picked. But and then then these online guys come out of nowhere A few years ago, and just start selling tickets with no radio, no TV, no one, putting them in that position one saying yes, you're allowed or no gala spot or even a good venue in the comedy festival. And all of a sudden, these these 20 something year old people come out of nowhere and start selling more tickets than these people have been doing for 10 years. And this whole reaction was like, Oh, you guys are skipping the queue. And then we're all standing they gone. There is no queue. Didn't he just go and get your food? Yeah, you know, as sometimes with the traditional thing, a lot of them, as a lot of them act like you selling a ticket takes one away from me. But I've noticed with the guys that are all blown up online, we're all completely different people from different backgrounds, but whenever any one of us does well, the other people are like fuck yeah, that's

57:40
awesome. Yeah. What is your What is your narrative look like? Going back? Say before you'd sort of built an audience? What were those key milestones? Do you have it like clear in your head? Yeah,

57:53
I would say I would say it was. It was the first one was when I realized that the online thing was, was comedy because I did it for almost a year just for fun. Because without even realizing because they weren't there was when I was started was 2012. There were really no big consistent online Australian personalities other than Alex Williamson, who I think paved the way for all of us.

58:19
He because but when I started it was uncool to like Australian YouTubers. Yeah. Even to think of becoming one.

58:26
It was an interesting, I remember going to a conference called Game on. And it was like, pre VidCon in Australia type of thing. And it was it was that it was in Sydney it was when I spoke to an audience of this is the one I saw. Yeah. And it was like the YouTube saying was a very specific and underground, it's like, very blue hair like

58:50
VidCon last year I went Jules land had some tickets in it was like, it's still the same thing. It's not the same as the states still, but will because

58:58
VidCon won't give any fucking tickets to people who are actually big here. Yeah, they all say can't Yeah. Like that's, that's what it comes down to like, so I like you know, I reached out to VidCon a few times, and they knocked us back. And I'm not the biggest, but I'm one of you know, if you're talking like actual YouTubers, and there were people 10 times the size of me that reached out and got knocked back because they were to Australia, which is swearing and drinking and yeah, stuff like that.

59:26
So with that ad pocalypse thing is that actually something that you have to worry about.

59:32
I don't thankfully, because I have ticket sales. But But if I wasn't doing stand up, I'd be fine. Yeah, you know, like, thank thank God, I've got, you know, ticket sales and people can download the comedy special because yeah, I'm not like, I reckon, I reckon I used to make three times as much on ads as I used to. And I'm bigger now than what I was. Yeah. So that,

59:53
that milestone thing that you were talking about. So the year and so

59:57
realizing when I realized that it was comedy, and then I started thinking about stand up. And then another thing was when I left the group that I was working with, because I wanted to do stand up and nobody else did. And so it was kind of like a natural thing of all I needed to stand out. You know,

1:00:13
were they doing mainly like sketches. Was that what that was? Or what was what was just

1:00:17
like a like a different goals growing up, you know, I mean, like we started at when I was 18. The other people were like, 17 it was just we just grew apart quite naturally. Yeah. So then I was like, Well, fuck, I need to, I need to be Lewis Spears, because at the time, I was going under a name nibs, which was just a nickname from high school. So fact, well, I can't be like welcome to the stage nibs suck so so I left the group I started a new my page got deleted on Facebook because I was too much stuff on it. And it was like right after I left the group. So there was like, no, go and check out Lewis who's doing stuff over there was none of that. So I had to start from scratch. And I had this moment of like, Fuck, I don't know if I can build it from zero again.

1:01:01
What was the audience like when you left in size, size wise, ah,

1:01:05
not that big 20,000. And so still, which is still there, but then it got delayed. So it was back to zero. So then I started again, and I was like, Fuck, I don't know if I can do it. But because it was first time working by myself and first time building from zero as well. And then there was a moment where I had this one video that went crazy viral, where I just did paying a paid the police of planning a party. And that still goes around today, where it's just it's like a police ad about road safety where they go and the police are planning a party and they go there is lollipops and they liked doing math swabs for drugs and just like a parody thing. So I reacted to it. And I was like, Well, that sounds good. See? Yeah, this whole thing of like, Oh, I'm gonna go to this party. And then that went that went crazy viral and I was like, Oh, no, I can do this by myself.

1:01:59
And then it was just like just I just kept doing and the the other notable milestones was getting on stage at the comics lounge for the first time and I did okay, I didn't tank on my first comedy said tank hard on my second.

1:02:13
What was that? Like? Blow the wind out of your sails?

1:02:15
Well, yeah, cuz I because I did my whole set. And I researched digging, and I went up there going, I'm going to tank and that's okay. And then I got up and I did pretty well. Yeah, I didn't smash my didn't pretty well.

1:02:27
April. Was it like your primary audience? Or was it just nothing?

1:02:30
It was just the comics clown show was like just the perfect just strangers who didn't know me. So it was a genuine response, you know, so I got up there. Because I also knew that if you get up in fans in front of fans too soft crowd, it's hard to bomb in front of them. So I wanted to do it properly. So I got there, and I did pretty well. And I was like, Fuck, if I did pretty well, on my first gig, I'm going to be amazing. And I did my second or third and my fourth and our tanks are hard on all the next ones. I was like, Amanda clearly I flew. Was it?

1:03:00
Is it? No laughs or is it an internal feeling where it's just you feel like you're fucking every minute of it.

1:03:07
It was vice. It was like I got on be like gonna smash it again. And then just silence was like, Oh, shit. And then and then I was quite bad for a while. And then I started getting better and better. And what are the towels by the way of that you notice around whether something's tanking, but what do you do? Do you start speaking a bit louder? yelling like that? Yeah, like, well, what's good is it's, it happens less. It still does happen. But it happens a lot less now. Because Because I have backup material on to I generally only ever don't do well. Now if I'm trying something new for the first time and maybe I'm maybe I'm wrong. Or maybe I haven't remember it properly or the it's just a little bit new.

1:03:50
But I haven't like properly bombed for a while now. Which is

1:03:55
if was still happening at this point. Yeah, you'd be worried and maybe thinking maybe it's not for me.

1:04:00
Have you got material in your headband? where it's like, if shit hits the fan? Yeah, I've got a real easy confidence booster that I can just yeah,

1:04:06
so So now what's great is now when I'm testing material, I start off with something really good that I that always works pretty much. And then I Chuck in my stuff. That's a gamble. And if that tanks, no worries, because I finished it with something awesome. You give them a shit sale.

1:04:23
And then and then eventually, you know that stuff that's in the middle becomes good. And then you can start opening with that. And then you replace this shit stuff with some more new shit. And you just kind of work it like that.

1:04:34
You listen back to all your sets, like Yeah, yeah,

1:04:36
so I record I've got this awesome app called I think it's called otter that transcribes it as well, which is so good. So now when because before, what I would do is I record it and if I did really well, I would sit down and write it out listening to it. Now I can if I do if I smash I can just take out the text and fix the spelling errors that I've made. Yeah, which is great saves me a lot of time if search continues say many times it's a continuous shot. Well, no, I've I try I use kind as a weapon is I try not to swear as as because I do know that I swear a lot normally in conversation. But when I'm on stage, I try to use it properly. Because that was a bad habit of mine, when I started was I would just swear so much. And then if a punch line had a swear word in it wouldn't hit us, really.

1:05:21
And so when you are at the stage of those first few shows, and what was your audience at like on from a online perspective, were you back at the 20,000? Or Yeah, so

1:05:32
So basically, my my page got deleted, and it took another year to get it back to where it was. And through that year, I was just because you know, those people still know you just need to find you again. So it wasn't as hard as starting from nothing. Yeah, because they were there. They just were like no fuck, why isn't he showing up on Facebook and they'd search me and I kind of got them back with a couple of viral things and got new people so I think when I did my first tour, I was only at like 20 20 28,000

1:06:02
people or so which is quite big but but if you're doing a to a pretty small and I just did like I did the ground Melbourne Comedy Festival I did 12 shows there in like a little 60 seater conference room where my head touch the road.

1:06:19
Funny story from that is as a joke, I used to rub my forehead on the road. Just which was really funny, and it would like it would vibrate and make a stupid noise. Which was hilarious and such a good joke until I had to pay to get the sweat stain room. Really. Yeah.

1:06:36
And then and then I to it around. I did every state except for Tyrese. And I think in Brisbane, I booked a 176 eight or I sold 17 tickets on a ad. And that was humbling. But it was turned out to be one of the best shows of the tour to the seven day baby. Yeah, just because I just went on there and acknowledged it and people would just kind of like oh, well he fucked up but I'm so but but you know, it's it's just from perseverance and keeping on doing it. I went to Brisbane last year and I sold out 450 cries went from my smallest show ever to my biggest what's what's arriving for you? You know, like, if you think about these times, all these stories of rubbing the head, like this is seems to be the fun.

1:07:22
You know, it's like it's hard because it's so hard as you're doing it. 17 people is no fun for anybody several times fucking great. Maybe great for us. We just

1:07:33
feel like lights and paper venue higher and eBay.

1:07:36
I 17 tickets doesn't even pay for breakfast.

1:07:39
When I did the game on little there was one person in the crowd was talking. They still getting paid. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

1:07:47
But what's your show? arriving for you? Do you say it like that? You know, like getting to this? Or?

1:07:52
Well, yes, it's finally I feels like at the beginning stages of big, you know, like, it's not huge. But I went to prison winner in front of 450 people. And I did an hour and a half. And like I had the skills to back that up. And it was definitely my best show that I've done. And I've got this comedy special and a body of work out there that people can go and it's just constantly taking over of new people watching and and finding me online and I've got a guy working for me to help me put out more stuff. It really feels like, I'm right on, on on. Like I've hit a plateau and I'm just about to hit the next flight of stairs. Like I feel really, really good about what's coming next.

1:08:35
Because I know that I've you know, I'm I think I'm through the scary stage, you know, where I might run out of money or you know, I'm not rolling in it. But I've got enough to last until the next tour. And that's all I need.

1:08:47
Do you feel that in this new age of sort of building an audience? Are we going to have people who are known around Australia? So for instance, you look at like the Hughes ease of the world, whether it's like, the Australian icons or whatever, or within Australia, they go down the street, and everyone knows that. Do you think that that is the destiny for what you're doing? Or do you think that with all of these audiences? They're the sort of thousand true fans or the 10,000? Or the 20,000? true fan? I

1:09:19
don't Yeah, I don't think that will happen. I don't think that well, I don't know. Maybe. But what I've noticed now is like when I so melancholy festivals on so all of the people who are big online and do stand up as well, are in the same city. So there's May, Luke kegel Isaac Butterfield who's new Frenchie, Alex Williamson, fan bomb films, then you as well, between us. Three of us have like over a million people who follow them. I've got like half a million so it is Luke. Between all of us. There's probably about 5 million people following all of us as a group. And when we walk through the city, no one recognizes all of us. Like one guy will go up to Frenchie would be like, Frenchie, I love you. And they'll see all of us don't know what we look like. Yeah, some guy will come up to me like Louis man, I love your stuff. And I do a fucking radio show with Lou. Yeah, he has no idea who he is. Yeah, it's I think that the future is just grabbing your type of person and holding on to them. And we always laugh in the city when someone comes up to us and we go, Oh, that's one of Frenchies. Because he's got like a mullet and the flannel. It's like, Oh, it's one of mine. He's like a lucky name. Okay, get you to take the photo. Yeah, yeah, I've had that so many times where I'll take the photo. And I think that's fucking awesome. Everyone just finding their crowd of people. And that what that also means is that, you know, if I do a video with Frenchie, I'm being opened up to a whole audience that I would never attract on my own. That would that means that the more we work together, the more we have so much more to grow. Yeah, even the people that are 10 times the size of May, if they're not attractive, the people that I am, I have so much to give them by working with them.

1:11:03
You said it perfectly rising tide raises all boats. Yeah,

1:11:07
exactly. And that's and that's why I think that the guys who are big online, the kind of new wave of comedians I found have been so much more supportive and welcoming, then then the traditional industry in comedy, which is, which is changing a little bit because they feel like they're kind of realizing that Oh, shit, maybe. Maybe TV isn't the future. Maybe they should maybe channel 10 can't make my career anymore. For

1:11:30
me. What is mainstream main? Like, what I wonder is, it's like, what is what does that mean? Say in five years time when you go into an Uber? At the moment, they're either, you know, they've got like, your old FM, Fox, they've got like one of the, you know, the radio station in Melbourne. What happens in five years? What is what's on the screens at bars? What were what a people?

1:11:55
Well, yeah,

1:11:55
that's why I think everyone's just listening to their own shit. Like I was in a drive around a friend who has a Tesla. And being in that thing, I was, like, it's got Spotify. It's got podcast, it's got had like four different apps of just whatever the fuck you could think of. It was just in the car. Yeah. And I thought there wasn't a radio button. Yeah. Like, there was not a radio button on that thing. There was no dial. I was like, Rk. It's fucked. You know. And the same thing with with TV, I go to my, my friend's house, who's, who's young, and he's doing really well. And he's he's got enough money to build an entertainment system in his house, and all these massive fucking TV. It's YouTube. Yeah, you know, just auto playing stuff that that's recommended for him. And then if he gets bored of that, he gets the remote and hits the Netflix button. It's not me. I think the future is just everyone's specific interest. And there is no mainstream anymore. Like, when's the when's the last time like you guys obviously have friends in right? Yeah. But when if you talk to a friend that doesn't work in the entertainment industry, when's the last time they said, Oh, man, you know what I heard on radio, dial. You know what I watched on TV? Yeah, never. I like to know this guy on Joe Rogan said that, or I was assuming this podcast, you should check it out. I remember

1:13:16
going into inverter where I used to work tech company, over 200 people in the office, I was on a mission. And he did a whole bit the whole like segment on there. And I walk in the next day like a top dog. And there was literally one person in HR who has a community who heard it. It's like, no one's listening. Like, no one is listening to the whole show. Yeah, exactly.

1:13:40
And that's what that's what being in radio really told us is, you start every single talk break, when the song finishes I go, it's Luke and Lewis, because no one listens to the show. And you have to tell them what they're listening to. And then so often throughout the top break, which goes four minutes, you got to keep using each other names, because people will turn in halfway through and they'll hear two voices have no idea who they AM. Until I go. Great idea. Thanks, Lewis. And I got on Lucas so much racing. Yeah,

1:14:11
I mean, like Forward, forward, hooking something is useless. Like I've pulled over and search something like coming up after this is this. I mean, that's interesting on wish your search right now. Yeah. Yeah, good. Yeah, it's, it seems that kinda like we found,

1:14:27
because what we do with radio is we Luke and I folded it into our online content. And so we filmed every show, and we did a podcast and we made sure we set that up. And we earned that ourselves instead of the radio owning it. And we noticed that when we we were filming, and we were editing clips and putting them out there, Luke did a tour. And then I did one six months later. So when we were putting effort into our socials and putting videos out, people showed up to Luke show with in-joke. So we had a thing of like, civilized to the best biscuits, some guy brought 40 boxes of cereal dilute show gave one to every person in the audience. Like he would have spent like 60 bucks on a stupid radio joke. And people showing up giving him gifts and wearing t shirts that we talked about and just shit like that. And then because we were putting so much effort into the socials of the radio show, our personal stuff started slip a little bit. So me and Luke went well, we need to focus on us because we have tickets to sell. And we are each of our own main priority. Luke and Lewis is a project we're doing but Louis spears and Luke Cage or the main thing, so we stopped making videos for Luke and Lewis, we started again, for an individual stuff. I had my two or six months later, not a single person came from the radio show, which means no one's coming to the show from listening to us on radio. It was all the online stuff we were doing. Yeah, it was all the podcasts, all the videos, everything like that. There wasn't a single person who heard us on radio and thought, I'm going to buy a ticket to go and say him, or I'm going to check them out on Instagram or Facebook. You know,

1:16:00
last few years of Hamish and Andy, I literally was just watching this snippets online, I felt like I was watching, I was listening to a show. I remember, I was an avid listener at one point. But then that slipped but then I felt like I'm still getting everything getting the job.

1:16:12
But when you don't have that commute, or whatever off it changes, like I heard a stat around having long podcasts and the fact that like, if it's over an hour, people let listen to less than 50% or whatever. But it's like, it's still good when you consider like a radio show, like you definitely aren't listening to a radio show

1:16:34
from as opposed to what listening to 30 seconds of a radio show and then changing it because you hear an ad. Yeah, that happens way more, you know, like, and I've talked to him Shandy about this about what you were saying was they they would talk to people that are genuinely huge fans of them be like I listened your show all the time. But they would only ever reference talk breaks that they posted on Facebook or YouTube. And they feel like they're listening to it and they are they're just listening a little chunks, but they're not actually listening to it on radio, or even listening to the full show.

1:17:05
That's why I think video is so powerful video I don't think like I don't think like a lot of people argue you don't you know, you don't need to film the show. And I think you do it. Yeah, when it comes to actually being able to have snippets and being able to share it for for us the the full show is video is just a nice to have that will slowly build over time people open up in a tab. It might be the choice for some people, but the real benefit is from the from the show will have a clip and it'll go up on Instagram and then that might inspire people to to to listen, but also,

1:17:40
that might be the leaders bullying, Joshua out sketches. I have to listen to this.

1:17:45
And so that's I think that there's there's so much power in that video content is Yeah,

1:17:50
definitely. And that's we that's what we made such a big deal out of filming every show and the radio people like I think you'll focusing too much on filming the show, then actually doing the show. And we said I think you're a dinosaur.

1:18:03
Because we noticed like, you know, we're on we started on modern digital, which has no listeners, which is kind of the point so we could be shit and yeah, while we were learning and that we had people calling the show and they were like how are you getting this? I was like because we're doing videos. Yeah. Yeah.

1:18:17
super interesting. Would love to have you back on when we're now.

1:18:24
Just

1:18:24
worried about the height fit the height, the door. The door height I'm concerned about.

1:18:28
I'm used to that. It's what is it? 2200 you fit 20 210

1:18:35
millimeters.

1:18:35
You

1:18:36
still got two centimeters to spare. Is that really? To me?

1:18:39
Now? You it's 20 centimeters. So your two meters? Your 2000 the doorframe is 2200.

1:18:44
Okay.

1:18:46
That's good.

1:18:47
Otherwise we could we could like wind you up? Yeah, right for whatever. The topic

1:18:52
you have to come back in. Yeah, when we are in an Esports Josh will give you a free pair of sketches.

1:18:57
Right. I'd love to come in when it's not a stir. This is a real fuck around. Yeah.

1:19:02
Well, public holiday boys. Yeah, I've I've definitely done the whole egg thing.

1:19:09
I was prepared to just ignore it. We're gonna rub Lewis into patella pretending for you guys. Your podcast. Recorded we recorded it.

1:19:20
That's not true. Now. It's exciting saying what's happening. I'm looking forward to seeing you woke up that next flight of stairs. Yeah,

1:19:26
it's really cool. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's a

1:19:28
daily talk show height the daily talk show.com Do you have any emails to people email you ever was that old dams and

1:19:34
follow me on instagram guys.

1:19:38
Been to paypal? Actually, you do have a I get an email thing for my podcast. Yeah,

1:19:42
I like the emails. The emails are good. That's all that I want to sit down and write an email. A Damn it's just like a dick pickle fuck. You just

1:19:50
need to actually write them out. That's a bit that wait like we said we tell people the email address them. Yeah. But to send us an email. It's a daily talk show. Will see you tomorrow, which is Tuesday. Yes. Yeah. Highs daily talk show calm. And also we have a p o box. You have a p o box. No.

1:20:05
She's yours. Yeah, yeah,

1:20:07
actually, no, seriously. p o box 400. Abbotsford Victoria

1:20:11
3067. You want to send me a letter.

1:20:14
Going guys.
"