Pete Murray & Hamish Blake - 24 Hour Live Stream

Mason: The Daily Talk Show.

George: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 715, and this is a very special episode. It's a two-parter. To start with, we've got Pete Murray, and this was probably the highlight of the 24-hour show. The gronks got to share an incredible moment when Pete played his song "Opportunity" for us. It's something that we'll remember forever. Then after that, we've got Hamish Blake and his cat Meowbit.

Tommy: Pete Murray is in the building, mate.

Mason: Welcome.

Josh: Thank you so much for coming on the show, mate.

Tommy: How many live streams have you done like this before?

Pete: I've just done a couple on Instagram, uh, nothing on Zoom, so you guys are first ones.

Tommy: Okay, great, mate.

Josh: This is amazing. I could imagine you've been in quite a few green rooms over your time. Can you give us a sort of run down of what the experience was like before you entered this. That's our version of a green room.

Tommy: Yeah, Charles, what was the experience? Yeah, just review on Charles.

Pete: Um, what have you guys been to a lot of other green rooms? But just thought I'd ask you this question first to see what you're—

Tommy: oh no, look, we once went to the— we went to the, um, we did a— for the, um, the fires, we did something at the Espy in Melbourne. It was the first time we ever got sort of the green room experience. And we were enjoying it.

Josh: We took advantage, Pete. Yeah, we took advantage.

Pete: Did you draw a penis on the wall? Pretty much most people draw a penis on the wall.

Tommy: I thought that was a Pete Murray thing. Like, are you— is that an industry thing?

Pete: Pretty much. I don't— yeah, it seems to be an industry thing.

Tommy: I don't know why.

Pete: I mean, I'm not saying that I do that, but every green room that I've been to has a penis and a set of balls on the wall. So. And there's quite a few that have lots of those on the wall. So I just, that seems to be the, you know, especially for the, you know, for the grungy scene when you're first starting off and you're playing some of the smaller rooms, that's kind of pretty standard.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: Pete, I know you were involved in some bushfire relief fundraisers. How much cash did you help raise amongst your colleagues?

Pete: The latest relief, guys, it's 9 million or something like that.

Tommy: That's outrageous.

Hamish: Oh, wow.

Tommy: That's so good. Yeah.

Pete: I did one ages ago, the tsunami, which is 2004. That might have been the SCG. And once again, they probably raised, I think, 6 or 7 million, I think, for that. Back then, you know, Midnight Oil were playing, was with Powderfinger, Missy Higgins, John Butler. It was kind of when I first kicked off, and so it was really great to be part of that. Heath Ledger was over there for it as well, so I got to meet Heath. It was, you know, what is your favourite venue in Australia to play at? Oh, you know, um, Well, you got indoors and you got outdoor venues. So the outdoors are always fun. You know, I had a— there was a little venue in Melbourne and for the life of me, I can't think of what it's called now. It's on Nicholson Street. I think it's closed down, but it basically had— it would fit 100 people. And when I first moved to Melbourne to play these shows, I'm so sorry, guys, I just can't think of the venue, what it's called. But I used to go there and play to 20 people, and that was a good crowd for me. So when things started blowing up, I went back and I would do actually just a couple of secret shows at this little venue that had the red velvet curtains and just a couple of little tables in the room and a couple of little candles. And it was just Beautiful spot. That was kind of like my spot to play live, you know, indoors. Outdoors, there's many places.

Tommy: I feel like I saw you perform years ago at like the Melbourne Zoo or something like that. I remember like there was like a Twilight-like show, which was awesome. Yeah, the outdoor ones.

Pete: Anything around sunset's fantastic. You just got that great mood and the sunset's going down and it's just like, it's incredible. We did a Zoo show in Sydney, Taronga, and that was pretty amazing because you've got the real estate there is incredible. You've got the backdrop is the Harbour Bridge and then you've got Sydney. It's a really amazing place. So that's probably, yeah, it would be one of the top spots to play.

Mason: Yeah.

Josh: In terms of your sort of, I could imagine you kind of bringing the same energy to each show, but when you have less in the crowd, say you got 20 people, What's the difference between 20 and 20,000 in terms of your experience as a performer?

Pete: Sometimes 20 people is more intimidating because they're so close to you, they can see what you're doing, they can hear everything that you're saying. When you're playing to a big crowd, it's— you know what I used to do when I first started having success in playing to larger crowds? It was scary to think, you know, you'd walk out and there'd be 10,000 or 15,000 of you playing, like a lot of people there packed in a tent wherever you are. And I started to go, okay, I've just got to think of this as one big fat person rather than thousands. And that kind of made me relax and have a bit of a laugh because I would go out and I'd go, jeez, it's that fast today. And you just start to relax with it. So you don't think there's so many people, it's just one big fat dude watching you play.

Tommy: One of the reasons why George, our producer, our executive producer, reached out was because I had been mentioned— like I mentioned on the show, we did a bit where it's like, what are you listening to at the moment? And every single— I just got a Google Home in my bathroom, and so every morning I wake up and I say, hey Google, play Pete Murray. And sometimes I say opportunity, sometimes I just let it spin, whatever it's going. So it was awesome. It's amazing that you're here and we really appreciate you giving your time. What are you listening to at the moment?

Pete: Oh, you know what, I've been listening to a lot of my new mixes. We've got some new music coming out soon. So I've been— once you start to do a new project, it's kind of hard to to cheque anything else out, you know. You've got to get focused on your own music and make sure you've got that right. What I do love, and it's a good friend of mine, is Ben Howard. I really like Ben's stuff, you know. I think he's a great songwriter. And, you know, we first played together over in the UK years ago. And I didn't know who Ben was. He wasn't very well known, but I was headlining this festival and Ben was supporting me over there. Lovely guy. And then, you know, a couple years later I had kind of lost touch with him and a friend of mine said, oh, have you heard this guy? It's fantastic. It's Ben Howard. I said, no, actually I played with a guy called Ben Howard years ago and it turned out to be the same guy. So he just exploded, you know, and great, really unique style the way he plays, I think, with his guitar. Yeah, so I listen to a lot of him most of the time.

Josh: Yeah, I mean, when I listen to your voice play back to me, I love it. And I think, ah, what a voice. When you listen to you, Pete, when you are in that process of doing a new album, what's the internal monologue about Pete Murray's voice playing to Pete Murray?

Hamish: What—

Josh: it's an obscure question, but what are you— or are you beyond that?

Pete: I'm beyond that now. I think early days, you know, when you guys— same thing— when everyone hears themselves recorded talking for the first time, you're going, yeah. That's not me. It sounds weird. And for some reason, you're the only person that thinks you sound really silly, you know, where you're normal to everyone else. But, and same when you hear yourself sing for the first time, it's a strange thing. And doing some of the first early demos was a tricky thing for me because you had to get used to that. And, but now I'm kind of fine, you know, where your voice sounds good and what range it kind of works well in. I guess I've been producing a lot of my own stuff for a long time, so I guess you get to know that. I'm so used to it now. I've been doing this for nearly professionally for getting close to 20 years now.

Tommy: It feels like there's something about your music that's very moment-based, whether it's in the car on a road trip or sort of like imagine especially going into winter, having sort of the fire going. Do you get into that? Like, do you want to play, say, your guitar and sing along in those types of environments, or do you get that sort of vibe?

Pete: You know, I do love like an intimate setting and where you have— where I can play my music. I have done some— I played at a friend's place one time and it's just crowd of maybe 10 people and they had fireplace going and, you know, I've got some beautiful acoustic guitars now. I had an old '60s 12-string and just playing that in this massive big room, the acoustic sounded so good and the vocal sounded so great, you didn't need a PA, you know. So that's such a great vibe to play in. But then playing with the band and playing, you know, on a bigger stage and you've got the whole thing's amped up, 'Cause I'm a big fan of both mellow acoustic songs and then also some rockier stuff too. Like Neil Young was a big influence on me. Neil does his folky acoustic stuff and then he's got the big, the kind of the old rock band stuff that he played with too. And Crazy Horse was a band. So for me, I love kind of music that has a groove to it. And you can feel a little bit of energy. The more that I've gone along with music now, I'm starting to get a little bit more groove happening in some of the songs. So for me, they're both great things. It's hard to sort of say one's better than the other, like sitting there around the fire and getting acoustic guitar out because I did that for years. Now I'm lucky enough that I can play to a large crowd with the band.

Tommy: You're actually the guy that when you bring out the acoustic guitar, you're impressed. There's sort of varying levels of the guy, like the cliché guy with his guitar at the fireplace, right? Like, I feel like you've got the ability to back it up, which is nice.

Pete: Well, that's good. I appreciate that. Yeah. I think a lot of my songs have, you know, I guess it's lyrical content that people connect to as well. I mean, you mentioned Opportunity. Opportunity is a great song for it's inspired a lot of people to make change and to get out of something that they're unhappy with. It was used in a lot of graduation songs for kids coming out of school to talk about what it's about. Be happy in life, make sure you make the right choices and don't stay in something that you're not happy in. So it's really great. There was a long time. I don't know if they're still playing it now. I'm probably too old now for the schools. They wouldn't know who I am. There was a generation, few generations that basically came through and they were all going, oh, your song was the song that, you know, took us out of school and we grew up to. And so it was kind of nice to be a part of their lives. And as yours. I saw.

Tommy: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, every morning.

Josh: I mean, it's an ISO appropriate song, right? I mean, have you seen Do you have access to your Spotify numbers as an artist? I've always been curious about that.

Pete: Yeah, I don't really, I don't cheque that too much. I guess a lot of my fans, I think Spotify is kind of slowly taking off for a lot of my fans, but a lot of people have bought albums in the past and so my fan base are still touring. We have a lot of people coming to shows. Spotify, it's probably not as big as a lot of younger acts that are playing that have that following because their generation, they're into the Spotify. They understand. I still have some friends of mine that go, "Yeah, how does Spotify work? I don't really understand it." So, it's slowly changing quickly because people, you have to get into it now because it's so handy. You can just get anything you want. But yeah, I think My fan base is majority, they've got albums of mine, CDs or LPs, vinyl. But Spotify is changing. I think I'm excited for this new work. I think we haven't really pushed the Spotify stuff before. We're looking at actually getting into that and looking at getting on playlists and starting to work in that path.

Tommy: I remember when I was probably like 20 years old and I was like, I heard somewhere, I think I'd read somewhere that you started playing guitar like later, like you were like, I think 20-something, like early 20s. And it sort of gave me all this, yeah, it gave me this confidence to have a crack because I wanted to play when I was like, yeah, there's still maybe. But yeah, I tried to play when I was a kid, like when I was like 5 and they're like, my hands were too tiny. So, they gave me a keyboard and I fucking hated it.. But so that's why I'm not a musician, you see. But so that is true. Like, how did you pick— what was the first time you sort of picked up the guitar?

Pete: Guitars. Chicks dig guitar players rather than keyboard players. I've got to say that. It's very true.

Tommy: Yeah, well, you're not even taking a keyboard. If I had to take a keyboard to a fire, you know, sort of, it's a bit pathetic, isn't it? It's just like, has anyone got spare batteries? Because I'm running low, you know.

Mason: Shit.

Pete: Can we run a raid? They'd probably go and start another fire up with the guitarist and they'd leave you with your own keyboard. Yeah.

Tommy: So, you know, how did it all happen?

Pete: I was 22, guys. So, you know, it's funny. I'm a big believer in fate, you know, and I had a friend of mine. I was studying natural medicine. I was right into sport. That was my life. I was doing athletics and I was playing rugby. And studying natural medicine. So what I wanted to do when my sporting career was over, I wanted to get in and work with other sportsmen and women. So that's the path I was heading. 22, I had a friend of mine, he was studying, he was— we were living together, he was doing teaching, but he just came into my room one day and said, I'm going to get a guitar lesson. I've always wanted to learn the guitar and I'm finally going to do something about it. And I thought, that sounds pretty cool. I've never thought about doing music at all. That's never been anywhere, not in my family. It's just, I've had nothing to do with it. And I thought, that sounds great. I might go and do the same thing. So I borrowed a friend's guitar and I went and had 3 lessons, which I didn't learn much from because I just knew nothing about it. But back then, we didn't have the internet. So I took the teacher's book and I had to learn the chord shapes, you know, and that's how I taught myself how to play off the book. I went travelling overseas after that, and then I met buskers around the world that just showed me different things.

Tommy: Did you actually travel with the guitar, Pete?

Pete: Yeah, I took off and I went and bought my own guitar in LA when I was over there and went from LA across up to Canada, right across to Toronto and then over to the UK and through Europe. And the whole time I took this guitar with me and I only, I met other buskers. I wasn't quite good enough to busk, but the only time I busked back then when I was still kind of learning, I learned a couple of Neil Young songs and Bob Dylan songs, I guess the folky thing. And I was in Canada and it was freezing cold. It's my very first time busking and myself and a friend, We went down and got the guitars out and played a couple of songs. And the very first person came up to us and said, hey, here, boys, here's $20. It's way too cold. Go home. Okay.

Tommy: Is that what you want?

Pete: So we went home.

Mason: Yeah.

Pete: So we got $20 and we went home. And, but, you know, the experience of just going around and learning off people coming back, you know, and then taking it a step further. When I got back, I started to get into songwriting. And I was happy to kind of play some covers for a while and actually got a gig in Brisbane at a small little venue and did some covers and I thought this was great. And after about 3 months I thought this sucks big time. You're playing to a bunch of drunks that want to hear the same songs over and over. I thought the only way I'm actually going to have a career in this is to write my own songs. So for about 2 years I went and had a little room downstairs in my house and I just sat there and I played 2 gigs a week, Friday, Saturday, and the rest of the time I just, I wrote songs. And during that 2 years I wrote songs like So Beautiful and Lions and things like that. Wrote quite a few songs off the Feeler album and went and did my first independent album at the age of 30 and I then put that out and I remember doing interviews with guys saying, look, what do you think of the fact that if you— well, they say if you haven't made it by the time you're 24 in the music industry, you're never going to make it. What do you think about that? And I said, well, that's bullshit. If you write a good song, it's a good song and it will find its way. So then after this all happened, everything sort of worked and exploding. Just talking about what you said to me earlier, how I've inspired you to do things, to play guitar and pick up chicks and stuff like that. Which is—

Josh: So, you know, business, right?

Pete: That's right. So a lot of people who were in their 30s then started to message me and say, look, you've inspired me because, you know, we didn't think it was possible to have success when you're in your 30s. And I think that was kind of also part of my storey because it was late start. And I did my first independent album at 30 and then Feeler came out, I was 32. So it was like, that's late. And so that was inspiring yourself to pick up again. You can do it at any age. You just have to believe in yourself and believe that you've got the the skill to, um, do you kind of, do you kind of think, uh, that you're glad that it happened?

Josh: I mean, 30, you're kind of starting to find some maturity, hopefully. Are you glad that it didn't happen at 22?

Pete: Yeah, look, I was definitely, uh, I could handle, um, I handled fame really well because it didn't affect me. I've never— I've kind of really got my feet on the ground with that sort of thing. I don't know how it would affect me when I was if I was in my 20s. I might have thought I was pretty amazing. Who knows? You know, when you're 20, you kind of— you do think you're pretty amazing anyway.

Tommy: Mr. 97 is a good example of that. He's 20 and absolutely outrageous.

Josh: I'm surprised Seb hasn't asked Pete Murray to play at his 21st birthday with the confidence.

Pete: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be great.

Josh: Would you, Pete?

Tommy: It's November.

Pete: That's the thing, when you're 20 guys, like I said, you think that you're pretty amazing. I think you think that you're bulletproof. Nothing's going to take you down. I think as you get older and start to have kids and real life starts to hit you, whatever happens, it becomes tougher. You know, that's the challenge to start to begin.

Josh: Uh, Pete, I know, like, um, I feel, uh, musicians need to sort of build some thick skin around people that don't like their music because everyone's a critic these days. What do your kids think of your music? Because that can sting, can't it?

Pete: Yeah, look, uh, actually they're really, they're really positive about it. Um, I remember the My boys were quite little when the song Always a Winner came out and they were in the back of the car. We were driving in Perth. I think I had some shows on over there. The guys were singing this song and fighting because one was getting the words wrong. The other one thought, no, no, that's not the words. They're having a fight about it. They knew my songs better than the other one. They're great. They've been to lots of shows. I think they get a bit over it now, like anyone's kid that's been in the industry. When you go to lots of shows and you meet lots of famous people, it's kind of like, "Oh, this is just normal." So they're still really supportive of it. And the important thing is— and I've had lots of other friends who are musicians and get really affected by what people say about them. But the thing is, what you've got to understand, there's going to be people that are going to love you and there's going to be people that are going to hate you. I mean, there's nothing you can do about that. And you can't be affected by that because everyone has their own tastes and it's their own opinion. If they don't like your music, then that's cool. You know what I mean? Anyone that gets caught up in what people are saying to them, you just got to forget it and don't even read it. And just as long as you know within yourself that you're enjoying what you're doing and you're giving, you know, a lot of joy to other people, then that's what you gotta do. You know, it doesn't matter. You're gonna have, you'll have the haters. They'll be there.

Tommy: Yeah. Pete, thanks so much, mate. We really appreciate that you, we're just getting a little bit of an echo. But really appreciate you coming on the show. I know, you know, you're a busy guy. You're a dad. You've got a lot of things on and speaking to a few gronks on the internet that you've never met. We really appreciate it. So thanks so much.

Josh: Is this weird for you, Pete? Because we're loving it, but is it weird for you?

Pete: No, no, no, no. I'm having a great time too, guys. No, it's really cool. Did you want to hear a song? I think you guys want to hear a song or something.

Tommy: Oh, that'd be great. Yeah, absolutely.

Pete: Oh yes.

Tommy: Is it too obnoxious, Pete? I do have Uh, this request? Uh, no, I don't know. Look, I mean, opportunity would be great, but I also have the, um, well, I've got the, the, uh, the exclusive Daily Talk Show banner. I don't know if that's too much for you, but, um, is it? Yeah, is that all good? Look, I can't look at— hang on, maybe I'll give it clean. I think George will be pissed off if I do that. Here we go. All right, what are you gonna play?

Pete: Uh, I'll give you two choices. I can play feeler or I can play opportunity.

Tommy: Opportunity, please.

Mason: Aapachi plays it.

Pete: Sing harmonies anytime, guys, whenever you want to come in.

Tommy: I was waiting for your permission.

Mason: It's waiting just for you. Don't pause too long, it's fading now. It's ending all too soon. You'll see soon.

Pete: Now I get you to do a keyboard solo, but you don't have one there, so I'll just go— I'll go to the hum. Mónica está ahí.

Tommy: Okay, perfect.

Mason: All right, guys. Don't pause too long, it's fading now. It's ending all too soon. You'll see. Soon you'll see. Soon you'll see.

Josh: Murray.

Tommy: Hey Google, play Pete Murray. Thanks so much, Pete. That was awesome. That means so much to us.

Pete: Good to talk to you guys.

Tommy: All right, awesome. Thanks Thanks, mate.

Pete: Thanks so much.

Tommy: Hamish Blake. Hamish Blake.

Josh: It's better than the Sting.

Hamish: Hamish Blake.

Mason: It is.

Hamish: Am I— all right, first things first, and I know— I assume everyone, most people are consuming this with a visual component as well because it's the live stream, but why am I the only person that doesn't have like a cool depth of field camera? How come you guys— yeah, it looks so good.

Tommy: Do you know what? I know that we've been talking about you buying my 1DX Mark II for a while, but Canon—

Hamish: I mean, you'd have to say that the price is going down day by day.

Tommy: No, absolutely not. No, Canon just released an app so you could even turn your 6D into a webcam. So it's great. So like you can plug in a good DSLR and you can use it on Zoom.

Hamish: Yeah, that makes way more— I mean, you guys look Unbelievable. This is insane. Um, I feel like I'm talking from the '80s and you guys are talking to me from like the Star Trek Enterprise. This is crazy.

Tommy: When we had Ben Fordham on, I think like straight away after he came on, it's like the producers like, we need to fix the camera because he's like, Ben's not happy. He's like, he can't look, he can't look shit in front of us.

Josh: So, um, as, as you know, Ham, it's about the content though. I mean, like your Zoom.

Hamish: 24 hours, it's not about the content at all, it's about just getting to the end. Um, I mean, JJ, and look, tell me, you guys would know, various people have attempted— you did your research— various people have attempted the 24-hour live show. I think, I mean, I, I think maybe it was Jase from Jase and PJ in Melbourne, for people in Melbourne, who used to go by the on-air name of Lab Rat. I'm pretty sure when he was in Brisbane, they might have even gone for like 40 hours. I think they attempted just as long as possible.

Tommy: We had Jase and PJ on. They did 56 hours, and so they gave us a pep talk at 10:30. Yeah, but there's ads. It was radio 56 hours.

Mason: I know.

Hamish: Did they nap? They had to have napped.

Tommy: No, I don't think so.

Josh: No, no napping. No nap.

Hamish: But that's the thing, like just going until, like going that far, it's like, it becomes a bit like a demolition derby, doesn't it? Where it's like, you know, people are just listening for them to lose their mind. Like no one's listening. No one's, no matter how great you are, even Jerry Seinfeld, probably by like hour 3, he's not gonna come up with anything profound. Like people were listening for people 3 hours just to hear someone die from not sleeping.

Tommy: Confused with what hour we're at. How many have we got to go? Because I don't know which sting to play.

Josh: I think, I think you're running 7— oh, 6.

Tommy: Is it the 16th?

George: Hang on, so we've, we've done 9 hours and 10 minutes on the live stream.

Tommy: So what is that?

Josh: You're the smartest one in the room.

Tommy: So if we started at 7, that's 24 hours. How long have we got to go?

Hamish: Yeah, you have done 9 hours, so you've, um, oh, that's really—

Tommy: I had the 16-hour sting ready. I was really— I was going to impress the pants off you guys.

Hamish: Uh, I would just say don't start doing hours to go until it's like under 10, because like, like, you can't— you can't do more than half of the hours to go, can you?

Tommy: I mean This is like the University of Melbourne. I saw that they had a painted path advertisement that said the 44th best university in the world. And I just thought at that point, probably don't bother.

Hamish: Yeah, mate. I mean, there are some lists where it's honourable to be like, I suppose like, you know, the BRW richest 500 people. It's cool to be number 400 on that if you're into that kind of thing. Like you don't mind being 400, but yeah, there are other lists where top 3 will do, top 10 at a pinch. And I think the general rule here for countdowning is you just wait until at least half the time's elapsed, because otherwise it kind of makes it look like you don't want to do it. If you're like, 23 hours to go! It does make the question, where's the question going? You're counting down.

Josh: 15 hours.

Tommy: Sorry, Ham, it was automated. I couldn't help it.

Pete: You just put—

Hamish: you obviously put a lot of effort into that and was going to get played no matter what. But next time we do it, let's just start them at 10, you know, like start— start— can't think about the end too early. I'm sure Jason PJ told you that.

Tommy: No, well, the thing is, I, I wanted to talk about some miscommunication because, um, when, when you said, hey, um, can we do 3:30. I had— I'd sort of— not that, you know, I'm— I may have used sort of your brand equity to the gronks where I'm like, yeah, Hamish Blake's coming on the show, you know, that's why we have 108 people watching right now on the stream. Um, the, uh, and what was that?

Hamish: I think it was for that 15 hours to go word art.

Tommy: But anyway, I was using your brand. I hope you don't mind. And I sort of said Hamish is coming on. But with the text messages that we had, we were all celebrating the fact that I thought you were coming on at 4:40 in the morning as like a final pump-up. Were you ever coming on at 4:40 in the morning?

Hamish: No, absolutely not. Sorry about that. I'm glad Let me look back at these messages.

Tommy: I literally said to Brad Blank— Brad Blanks is joining us at 4 AM. I said, mate, just before Hamish. He's like, man, you guys are doing amazing stuff. Like the fact that Hamish is getting up at 4:40 in the morning. I'm like, man, he rides every morning at 4:40. I think he's just like, he's working. Oh, I had a real good story.

Hamish: You really, yeah, you really invented— you projected a lot onto that, didn't you? There's a lot of— because it's like, hey, what time do you reckon you'll be, um, we'll work for you Friday, Saturday? We're doing 7 AM to 7 AM. So I was like, yeah, man, what about 4:40? I think I misread it as 7 AM to 7 PM. So you're right, because I said I'll be close to the end and I'll get to see you guys really loose. Because in my mind, doing 7 AM to 7 PM, that's still a lot of radio to do. That's like, you will be delirious in 12 hours. So that's kind of my, that is my error. Oh, that's all right. And then, you're like, oh wow, AM or PM?

Mason: Obviously.

Tommy: It's okay.

Josh: I mean, you're going to be doing it 4:30 AM. Just curious though.

Hamish: I mean, I'll be watching. I just wouldn't trust myself to go live. I was like, I can't join you live. No, look, I mean, sometimes I do get up early to exercise. Certainly not 4 o'clock, but maybe sometimes like earliest I'll ever do is like a 5:30. But the anguish it causes my wife is just never worth it because I think I can be super quiet and then I go and like have a bike ride or whatever. Then I get home at 7, I see a message from like 5:54 going, "Not as quiet as you think, mate," or whatever. Okay, it's not worth it.

Tommy: What's ISO been like, Haim? What have you been up to? This is a disaster. Are you still there? Hang on, you've just— connections just shit the bed.

Hamish: Um, um, Blake, you hear me? Is he coming back? This is Hamish.

Tommy: All right, here we go. Do you know what, we could, um—

Hamish: I'm back, I'm back, I'm back. I'm just saying I'm back a lot. Hopefully you can hear me.

Tommy: Yeah, we can hear. You know what you could do? I mean, this is slightly annoying at your end, but I can call you for audio and then we still get the video. It will look good. You won't get that reverb that you're getting. Hang on, give me a sec.

Hamish: Um, I understand that. Um, I, I just realised I do have to call Channel 9 in about 3 minutes.

Tommy: This is, this is convenient.

Hamish: Um, so apologies for that. But just quickly, for what I'm doing in Iceland today, just seems to be like the day of catching up with people. I've, um, I've been doing a bit of Zooming. I've always got a fairly hectic Zoom schedule. So zoomed around a little bit this morning. Then I actually— this was not as though I was properly invited to this meeting. I had just come from a meeting of LEGO Australia and New Zealand. I got invited to be a special guest speaker at their company catch-up. I dropped a lot of hints about how I would love some sort of gold card to get me free LEGO. And now I'm going to hang with you guys, and then I've got to talk to Channel 9. So honestly, today's the only day that's actually felt like what people must be doing the whole time, which is like, oh, I'm talking to people all day. Because mostly I'm wrestling on the trampoline with my little boy, or I've been battling my way through prep for the second time in my life. I'm learning all about the alphabet and basic reading, which, geez, prep school stuff is boring. It's pretty boring, I gotta tell you.

Tommy: Meowbit is scaring the fuck out of me right now. Meowbit is actually perfectly positioned.

Hamish: It looks like— It does look like he's a tiny evil cat in my ear, doesn't he? He's sitting on top of some drawers and now he's gone into my neck. But yeah, the way he's positioned, it's like I'm a mini Tiger King. Like I've got a palm-sized pot on my shoulder. Oh no, sorry, other way. Yeah, there he is, he's back.

Tommy: For the final 30 seconds, uh, our editor George comes into the office all the time. He's always wearing the perfect holiday jumper. He's, um, which I think like wearing— I mean, you, we're in different spaces, so I think, um, you know, you do your podcast and all that sort of thing, but it's sort of a different thing. But George, I thought you could give Hamish a question. You're a big fan of, of Hamish and Andy. What's your question for Hamish?

George: Oh great, um, I mean, a 3-minute answer is going to be tough.

Tommy: That's all right.

George: I just think of a different one. All right, uh, how do you— I've heard you talk about you pedalling hard in your 20s and just working, working, working, and now you're taking a bit of time off. I feel like the pedalling for me is sort of happening right now. But how do you stay present at home? Because that's something I need to get better at because I just keep ticking over in my brain when I get home. And yeah, I want to be more present.

Hamish: Great. I mean, very apt that my kids ran into the bedroom there as I was doing this to start dancing off camera. In terms of In terms of switching off from work, in terms of staying more present?

Mason: Yeah.

Hamish: It's a great question because when we kind of do the stuff that we do, you're not switching off that much when you get home because you also kind of know that when you work in the ideas industry, one idea easily counts as a full day's work because you would never do I wouldn't— there's no way you have 365 great ideas in a year. So if you actually have one good idea in that day, that's like you've produced an above-average day's workload by having one good idea. So there's that weird temptation because you always know that it could come at any time. So I think the temptation is that your brain is like, I better keep thinking about work and keep doing stuff. But I think there really is a lot to the magic of properly switching off and and you let your subconscious do what it's gotta do. And honestly, the simplest thing that I've learned is to chuck my phone somewhere else. And then you are present. And if you chuck it, like I do the basic stuff, like I put it on a shelf in another room. And it's weird because you feel like you've got a big problem and you feel like you're an addict and you're having to confront yourself on that. But as soon as you do that and you put your phone on another shelf in another room, I reckon you feel yourself reaching for it like, 10 or 15 times when you're like meant to be with your kids and it reminds you that probably putting your phone away was a good idea.

Tommy: I mean, George, you've got the 24-hour stream, so mate, he's actually sleeping at the office tonight, so he won't be able to sort of—

Hamish: Bad day. Bad day to talk about trying to not think about work so much is actually all you can think about.

Tommy: Awesome. Thanks, Hans.

George: Great.

Josh: One last thing, what should I get for dinner off Uber? Give me an order, what do you reckon?

Hamish: Ah, gee, there's a lot of restaurants on there now. There's a lot of good stuff. There's a lot of fancy restaurants that are on Uber now too. You can't miss with pizza at the moment, like I've been doing a lot of pizza. Pizza and Thai, I reckon. You know what, Thai. Thai holds up even better.

Tommy: Yeah, do you get coconut rice?

Hamish: Always. Why wouldn't you?

Tommy: Yeah, I just spoke to someone the other day and they said they don't do coconut rice, which was just—

Hamish: what is—

George: it's a bit too sweet.

Hamish: There's no such thing really. Might have to leave you guys.

Josh: Oh my God, we've left Hamish. He's pissed, he's jumping out.

Tommy: Thank you, catch you, mate.