The world isn't a scary place when I'm with my brother. When I'm with my bro it's a happy place. It's a funny place, it's a warm place. It's loving.
Hi, and welcome to separate bathrooms. We would like to acknowledge the.
Gadigal people of the e Or nation, the traditional custodians of this land.
And pay our respects to the elders both past and present. Hello, my name's Cam Daddo. It's a different chat today. You just got me. OL's not feeling well. She's got a hall pass. He's in bed. So anyway, we'll dive into this. It's already a different version of separate bathrooms today, so let's lean into more of a a men's locker room type version.
Right.
Got a couple of fellows who I'd pick on my team on any given Saturday. Shane Jacobson and his brother Clayton are outside. They're ready to clean up.
Brothers. I've got three. I love my brothers.
When friends weren't about, we leaned on each other for entertainment, got up to a lot of mischief.
There was fire, sports and a little bit of streaking.
Clinton closely at Eliza got a feeling that these two will be no difference for many. Shane burst under the scene as Kenny smythe and the Iconic or as the Iconic Duneyman and the hilarious feature Kenny.
It's been bringing his authentic.
Style of well acting everything to stage TV and hijacking every ida in the country.
Now.
Clayton was the bro behind the camera, writing, producing, editing and directing Kenny and a whole bunch more. There's a whole.
Lot more to their story. What a perfect place to hear it in the bathroom. Welcome Shane and Clayton Jacobson.
Hey mate, you're going very well. No strangers to the Duney you.
Too, No, and this is the most crowded you've ever had it in this bathroom, isn't it.
We take up quite a bit of real estate.
We've never had three blokes in here. I hope it smells a little better than the ones we were introduced to.
You too, and canny.
Most would who came up with the line this has a smell that will stop.
Religion, the last religion, that one religion, that one was my me and plays shared the lines that one was mine based on I think I can confess this. I had a guy that worked for me. He used to drive me mad, and I won't name him because I don't want him to know. He created something that went well for me, but he drove me mad when I was employing staff and h yeah, a friend of mine watched me stare at him with that thousand yard stairs.
He turned up later again to a job that I needed the mat early, and when he walked off, I just kept staring at the back of his head. And the mate walked over and observed me staring at the back of this employee's head, and it's my mate Mac, and he said, you really don't like that guy, do you? And I said at the time, I said, I have a dislike for that man. That's going to outlast religion. And and my mate laughed for many, many, many minutes.
And so after that close said we need something here, for something that smells on us said I've got something, because we me and Clay would race to get a line out of what would work. And I said, hang on, I've got something and that goes in. That's that's it, that's it.
One of the best moments of that Fielm. I thought that was like that is genius so funny.
Look take us through the early years. Where did you grow up and what was that like?
Well, it was where we grew up in Avondale Heights, sort of Melbourne West, very working class area. The house that we lived in was chosen because it was the area that my father had caught the most rabbits with his brothers and we were the first, one of the first houses in that street. And so it was a very young town. You know, all the teenagers were you know, all the kids were around the same age, because that
whole area populated around the same time. I haven't I've been told that the Switchers grew up in Abidel Heights as well.
Yeah.
I spoke to Rob Sitch about it just the other day because they had this they had the Sitch bus lines and and bro. We were reflecting on the fact that the old couple that worked in the fish and chip shop, we couldn't believe that they did nothing to change the fish and chip shop for all of our youth. The only thing one day they swapped the Chico roll poster and we were just thrilled there was a Yeah
roll poster. And then we were having a discussion about we couldn't figure out why the couple, the old couple husband and wife that ran the fish and chip shop, never aged, and then we'd figured out that they were kept perfectly preserved under about a centimeter.
Yeah, I think so.
I thought it might have been the preserves and the Chico rolls as well.
They were you know, my voice broke in that fish and chip shop. I was ord I said, I'll have that twenty says you know. We probably was five says a chip, two potato cakes through And he looked at me and I was starting to kept talking and my voice was completely different, and he told me that my voice had broken. So you know it's there. You know, you don't know where wisdoms.
It's these little things, isn't it.
We grew up in Madalaiza where Mick malloy and the James Rain and David Rain and all sorts of I think there's little clique areas where you find that something in the water, but I don't know, maybe something to that.
It was a fascinating area to grow up because the ammunition factory where our parents had met was nearby as well, so there's a lot of a lot of interesting history, just on those little outskirt sort of buffers of the city, you know.
And our mother could see across the river from the ammunition factory, the land that her and our father eventually purchased together. She said, I used to look at that land from the window I worked at.
Is that incredible? So it was just you two.
You have a sister, don't you two sisters? Two sisters? Okay, all right, so Clayton, you came first.
I was first. I think I was supposed to be a sister. I think based on the fact that my mother was was and probably still is a dance teacher and had hundreds of girls that she was doing. I think she was desperately wanting to have a girl. And but I didn't quite fit the bill. And I had asthma as a kid, so I wasn't good at I wasn't good at much really other than doodling, drawing and
being sort of creative. And it was my Nan that kind of made me realize that, you know, don't don't go into dancing, you know, do art, because she was I do remember the one time I don't if you know this story of Shane, but I was at NaN's. I was very I was about seven, and I was looking up at her because she was she was in a higher chair, and she had I don't remember, she always had this one angry hair growing out of her chin that I couldn't take my eyes off. It scared
the living hell out of me. And she had away with words and she I was sketching a tree and she led him and she said, that's that's bloody good what you're doing. That's that's good. And she said, he's bloody good. That look what he's doing. He's bloody good. That you could make a living out of that when you're older, you can make a living out and that
that's bloody good. He's bloody good at that. And I thought, oh, well, if she sees something in it, maybe you know, maybe there is a future in this.
And the hair and her chin hit him straight in the eye. He's well glad.
I had an aunt who had a whiskery, whiskery top lip that she insisted on kissing us on the lips.
And it was no, Maggie, no, no, mom no.
It is funny, funny, isn't it. How we all have people in our youth that like we had an uncle that turned out to be a minister. But I was terrified of him coming around because he was the guy that gave you the handshake where he crushes your hand.
You know, were you were you guys close growing up? Were your good mates.
He's nodding his head no, which is really disupport I was about to say yes, but clearly one way.
Well, there was seven years difference. So when Shane was, you know, thirteen, I was twenty, and you know, and so it's sort of he was that kid that was sort of yapping at my heels all the time, and he sort of had a lot of interest in what I was doing because I was the older brother. And I think that's the sad thing about those kind of age differences is that it's a little too great to
have a real connection when you're younger. And to be honest, I was I wasn't particularly good at fostering being a great brother at I remember my dad pulling me aside one day and gave me great advice, which was rare for him, but he just said, he said, you know, he said, you know, son, that boy you know looks up to you, and he said, that's not a given. You won't have that forever. You keep behaving the way
you do with him, you'll go off you. And at the time I thought that's not such a bad thing, But then I thought, I don't know I like him, and so it took a few It took a while for sort of the ages to even up. And what I love now, of course, is everyone assumes he's older than me, So I love.
That, but I do.
We get asked a lot who's oldest, which does my braining because obviously, when you've got an older brother and you get this can when you've got someone who's older than you were younger, when it's seven years for all of your youth, that is an eternity that's a long way away. So now when they go who's older, it kills me. But I will get the ultimate laugh because
on averages, roughly this should work out. He'll die probably seven years before me, and I'll get seven years without him, So I kind of get it better because he had seven years without me when he was little and that he didn't know I was coming. But I will know what it's like to be without.
Him, right, that's the perspective.
I was going to say, Yeah, when you you'll have your adult perspective of going g life's great for seven years without you assed to kid?
What about you can? What about what's the difference between your brothers and age?
Yeah, so we're pretty close.
Mum had five kids before she was thirty, starting at twenty two, so my sister is the oldest, and then it's me, and then Jamie and Andrew are identical twins. They came about sort of twenty months after I was born, and then Lockie was born another three years after that, so it was always me and lockey versus Andrew and Jamie in any team sort of scenario that we would, you know, whether it was on our knees, cricket in the living room or whatever we were doing.
So did you I.
Mean, okay, so we've established now there's seven years between you guys.
Did you have I mean similar interests? Or it's quite an age spread, isn't it that? As you said it is?
But I would categorically say that the thing that has fundamentally been first and foremot most in our lives for as long as I can is humor. It's like it's our uncles were all very very funny. Our dad is still the funniest man. I know, and it was you know, Shane, you know, at age four, I was being sort of carted around my Auntie's place in a purple tuxedo that my mum owned and getting miming to Danny Kaye albums, and so we were kind of performing from a young age.
And then Shane kind of took that, like I sort of gravitated more to behind the scenes because so much of my childhood was spent in the wings of all of mum's theater shows. So one of my favorite places to be in the whole world is in the wings of a theater looking at the ropes, because that's what I actually stared at in a cot for many years. I was pushed to the edges of the wings and I or what I saw with these ropes going up into the heavens. So I still get a very warm
feeling about that. But Shane, you know, you can talk to this. He kind of gravitated more to what was happening on stage.
Why do you think that was Shane?
Well, as Clay said, like a dad never saw himself as an actor or comedian when he was younger, but we all we ever saw him do was do comedy stand on stage at cricket night, entertain crowds of people.
They may not have been on the other side of.
A curtain or paid to get in, but we watched that entertained people all of our lives and.
Usually great funerals. He was asked many, many times to give talks because he was funny.
People liked him to get the greater funerals. Well, he's funny everywhere, isn't it. But he's one of the few people that can still be funny at a funeral and somehow makes it fit. And so and Dad was a drummer, and Clay was a drummer, so like and Mum taught dancers, so like I in many ways. You know, I don't know if I was planted in another family, if you rewound the clock and put me in another family, whether
I'd still go to entertainment. But I was surrounded by it, and I loved it, and that's all I wanted to do. But I was desperate to get on the stage. And I did one thing where I dressed as a cowboy for mum's dancing concert and went out. And I mean, this sounds ridiculous as a routine, but I went out, pointed two guns at my head shot myself fell back. This was the whole rout scene. Fell straight on my back as you can when you're a little kid. It
doesn't hurt. And I did this thing where I made my legs go up off the ground and then they dropped to the floor, you know where it looked like I was dead. And then three seconds later I brought my feet back up and they fell to the floor again, and it got to laugh. And I don't know what that is, but I want more of that. And that was and that was when I was about eight, So yeah,
I think i'd like And then, you know, Clay. I wanted to do more of the acting at the start and did lots of amateur theater, and Clay knew he wanted to direct from day one. I have no memories of Clay not wanting to direct, and I just wanted to act, and you know, and then the great thing was as I got to watch him do all that, and Dad didn't say that I look up to him. Dad said that kid worships you, and it was true because he was seven years older than me and everything.
He was driving cars before me and dating before me, and he could go out later than me, and then he was directing stuff and then he get me to acting stuff and I would overact terribly and he would cut the camera and say, what the hell are you doing? He kind of helped. I think I was. I think I had the theater thing sorted on stage, but it was. Thank goodness, I had Clay as a director to calm that down a lens because you and me, no came, we've done both. It's a very different thing for a lens.
And yeah, so he had to calm my screen yet, but I still remember him. I did a thing called Tarzan South Here Adventure for his mate Ray, and Clay was filming for him, and I just had to I didn't even speak. I just to say, oh, I had to say Tarzan, Tarzan and move my head and I did. I was trying to act to the backseat of the
palais theater. I'll never forget Clay cutting the cameras proud as punch of my brother's going to get me to acting, and he said, what the hell are you so at a young age he got to kind of reset that and kind of help my screen acting.
You know, Clay, were you more like the icebreaker for for Shano in terms of getting into trouble or sort of leading you.
Know, those sort of stories as we do when we're kids.
Possibly, I shame would have to answer whether it had an effect, But I did get up to mischief when we just we we lived in an interesting town that like it was a long way, Like to get to the city was a forty five minute you know, tram ride and you had to walk a long way to get to that tram and even going to school was a long bike ride. And we were surrounded by the Marrabanong River. There was lots of arid land. It was a very colorful sort of area. But there was a
lot of mischief you could get up to. So my mates and I, you know, we did all the classic things that kids did, you know, Like is it called nick nogging when you go to a house and you tap on the window and run off in glee and then they come out and you chase you down the
street or something like that. Then there was that we had the golf course across the pipe bridge, and we used to get dressed up in our version of commando gear, which is basically just black jumpers and stuff, and rub dirt in our faces, and we would crawl across this pipe bridge with a slug gun and fire slug gun shots at the windows while they were having social club dancers and stuff. And so that was, you know, that was I don't know, Shane, youew about that, but he
did know. He did know. On that particular evening, we stole a rope from the golf course that because it looks great when you're in a commando gear with a rope, like a bound up rope over you, you know, you look like the real thing. Yeah, yeah, So we had that. So I got that and brought that home and then had nothing to want to do. But Shane took a liking to it. He wanted it, and I didn't want him to have it, and he was at me and at me and at me. Can I have the rope?
Or do you want the rope? And so I got so sick of him, I said, all right, you can have it. So I grabbed him and grabbed the rope and took him out the back and I tied him to the clothesline with it, and then put the sprinkler on him and said, if you can get out of that, you can have the rope. And Houdini himself couldn't get out of that, and he did the bastard and he got the rope.
But the only way I get out of it was he left. You left to go back to Wayne Dixon's house, and I was there screen and our mother came out and found me tied to the clothes line with a sprinklage at my feet.
Were your clothes steal on?
Oh yeah, I was fully clothed. It was just green.
The funny part was, you know, you do stuff and go I'm breaking new territory. And then as we got older, Clay would tell his stories and I'd go, all right, So then you know, seven years later, I'm climbing across
the same pipeline to get there. But my story and me and my mates would go there to steal golf balls and and you know, you'd run out from the trees and grab a golf ball and then you go run back into the bushes and they come down they couldn't find their ball, which we thought was funny, but
we got kind of caught. Some people saw us and they called the police, and Mema mates saw this police car coming and we went, oh, there's police coming, So we ran and the police car started to chase us, and and of course they caught us because we're on foot. And then when the police finally caught up to us, and they were there looking for some people kids who were stealing golf balls, and when they got to us, I just turned around and there was about men five
of my mates. I turned around went, oh, thank god, it's you. I'll thank and they went what And I went, oh, there was this. I remember I was a fan of eh Hold and I said, there was a blue eh holden. It's been chasing us. They said they're going to kill us. They said they're going to kill us. And they went on what I said, a blue ah Hold and they said they were going to kill us. That's what we're running from you. And they said which way did they go?
We said right at the corner. So the police took off. So they came to grab some kids who were just stealing golf balls, and then thought they were in hot pursuit of people trying to kill children. There was no blue eh and my mates went that was genius. And I said, now we need to run because they'll figure out there's no eh in about five minutes and back across the pipeline to Evandale Heights.
When we worked together doing beacons filled then was probably a decade ago. You were talking about fireworks and working with Piro. So were you both involved in that in that in that line of work.
No, Clay was already making doing film clips for just about every band you can think of an Australia. He was already busy. Yeah, and so I was the Clay was you were? That'd be right because I started when I was sixteen doing the Royal Melbourne Show.
And yeah, I hadn't moved into fireworks because I nearly set fire to a mate's house with fireworks. I literally set the whole side of his house on fire with fireworks. We were we had ten shooters and we were chasing each other around the street, firing at one another, and he was and he was chasing me, and I thought I'd run into his house. He won't, he won't follow me.
I'll hide in amongst the bushes and they were all pine trees and they're all dry, and he followed me and the whole thing went up in flames, and luckily the house didn't go down. But now I thought, I'm going to leave fireworks alone. I also had. I also tried to throw a penny banger once and put rick back went to throw it and blew up my ear, So I only had I only have sort of hearing in there. But no, it was Shane did the fireworks and I was doing more music videos.
Did you hire your brother to do the fire the pyro in the video? Is that.
Now?
But Cloud, I'd like to quickly to explain the well abed I explained it for you in case you've forgotten how you explained when that up and Wayne?
It was Wayne's family, wasn't that came home?
This is why you told Yeah, I love let's put his name in it. Wye, you you told our family and his family. I think the kids came over and were and you were terrified. And that's when we had.
One minute to come up with a story. Because we worked out that his bedroom window was open and as the trees all sort of went in golf, I could see the flames licking into his bedrooms. So when you were in trouble, his neighbor came out and saw it, and we ran around the corner to get a hose, and it was as we were fitting the hose. I said, right, they're going to want to know what happened. This is what happened. We were walking down the street. There were
kids playing fireworks. They were doing it exactly what we were doing in the front of your house, and we screamed for them to get away. They ran off. We chased them, but it was too late. The house was on fire. Got it and went yeah, got it, and that was it. We got and we got away with it. But it was it was like it was it was you know, you do speed storytelling, and I think that was my first chance at pitching an idea, you know, in approximately one minute.
Yeah, before the lift hit the ground.
Yeah. Yes.
The only difference was I was getting paid to do it for bands like bon Jovi and Guns and Roses.
Yeah.
One of my best mates, Steve Lawton and his dear father Deares is no longer with us, who did fireworks for Sid Howard fire Weeks International. So the first big fire Weeks show that ever happened on the Sydney Harbor Bridge that made the front of Time magazine. That was all Sid and Deirs and so yeah, at the age of I started doing five Weeks. I think I was like fourteen or fifteen when I started, because they were my mates and I just head around country Victoria and elsewhere.
On the weekends, I'd be doing firework shows all over well, all over the place. And yeah, I did it for i know, ten or fifteen years or something, and yeah, worked for you know. I did Die Straits, we know with their Brothers and Arms tour and when it came to Melbourne and Debbie Gibson's Electric Youth Tour that was
nineteen eighty six. You know, did the Melbourne stuff for that, but yeah, any big concert that had fire weeks and the rural Melbourne show and everything else, and yeah, I lived, you know, it was kind of a bit like a CARNI for a little bit. Was on weekends I would literally getting getting cars and drive around and I love that because our dad comes from Cardifolk and that made me feel like I was, you know, when I was at the Royal Melbourne Shallen working out of sheds. I
loved all that. But it's not a great job and I was glad to see the back of it in the end.
Well, I mean, experience, isn't it. Experience gives you confidence as you move forward. So I think that's wrapped up. We've established that neither of you took responsibility for your actions as young folks. What what what? What values did you? Can you remember that your parents get taught you, your mum and your dad.
Well, from my point of view, we were told a lot about the Jacobson you know ethos, and a lot of that was through storytelling more so than hey, you know, just know Jacobson doesn't this, or a Jacobson does that. It was more the storytelling of because as Shane just said, you know, our grandparents were carnefolks, so my grandfather and grandmother they owned they owned a carnival and you know, Dad, from a very young age, with his brothers, would travel
around Victoria and New South Wales with his carnival. But then my grandfather died when my dad was about eight, right in front of him, and they sold up the carnival, kept the tents and they were given a block of land they could set the tent up in Marrabanong. The local women in the street allowed them to share a lot with the Clydesdale Horse. So for the first twenty three years of his life, Dad lived in a tent and so we grew up hearing lots of stories of hardship.
They didn't have a lot of money. They worked in the abbatoires, they had multiple jobs. You know, Dad talks about all those classic great stories you hear of tough times of putting you know, newspapers in the holes of your shoes, or never had a never ever having a proper toy for Christmas at all, being made from his brothers making toys for him out of scrap, out of rubbish tips. And you know, I think my uncle, my uncle once pulled me aside. He gave me advice, and
I thought it was kind of interesting. He said, Unchael Bill said, son, never get I was a teen. He said, never get into a fight. He said, fighting as a mugs game. He said, you know, avoid it at all costs. And he said, but if you get cornered and there's nowhere else to go and you have to hit, don't hit to hurt, hit to kill. I am a foot behind the head because you're always slowed down to hit a target. And I thought that was fascinating that we went from pacifist to hardcore killer in the space of
one sentence. So there was a lot of confusing and conflicting advice that we got. But I think goodwill to others, family and friendship is important. You know that they are the two main things. Dad would always say, family is everything.
And your word is your words bond.
Yeah, absolutely, And yeah, if you say you're going to do something, live up to it. And one thing that my dad used to say, be going to lie better have a good memory, you know, So that was that was good.
Yeah.
And going back to dad, coming from nothing, he said, you know when they were young, they were so poor growing up, they couldn't even afford to pay attention. But that word that and the other thing was that, well it's not this wasn't explained to us that your word is your bond. But the thing that I think all all Jacobson seemed to possess and the Jacobson name really meant something like if you if you were going to do anything that brought disgrace to the Jacobson name, that was, well,
you just wouldn't do it. I guess is the point, wouldn't you brother? That would be it wouldn't it? Like I can't explain how they got in there they were and not and not only that, there was you know there was a reputational thing that we do as we say we're going to do, but it was yeah, be kind to others, but it was also and it does live in within all of us, is we're fine with everyone until they mistaken our kindness for weakness and that and then things change.
I think there's a thing in our DNA because of the fact that they were known as the tent family. So the Jacobsons were known as the tent family, the family that live in a tent, and I think, you know, they were ostracized a lot for that, and the thing that the brothers were proud of is that. And you know, the interesting thing with you know, we I think about
how tough my Nan was. She was an extraordinary woman because she you know, I've got such a wonderful relationship with my dad because he has such a great feminine side to him because he was brought up from the age of eight solely by a woman. But he had these older brothers that we were you know, you know, like what Shane and I were talking about before that, you know, they are inspiring to him and he looked up to them and they placed and Nan would say things like if you if you mess and she was
as rough as she she would say. Her language was pretty pretty well long. She s ate my fright out that you you know, you laid your hand on a woman, you know, in any way shaping You know, I can't do anything about you when you're awake, but you've got to go to sleep at some point, and I'll cut your bloody balls off. So she would, you know, she would instill. The biggest fear that anyone had with Nan was that she would cut them off, you know that,
And so that was interesting. That sort of carried through, I think through to the brothers, and so there was this underlying thing of do the right thing, but you know, if you're going to get ostracized or you're going to be picked on, you've got to stand your ground.
She had great all the Jacobson's had a great turn of phrase. And we're not talking.
About rhyming slang, not not you know, a dog and bone for phone that, not that, but the turn of phrase, and my favorite one that Nan did was if she thought you were doing something that sounded like a waste, waste of time or a shit scene, not worth the effort, she'd say, oh, you may as.
Well rub your asse with a bread.
Now I had thousands of them, or thousands of expressions, but that just meant if you sat there rubbing your backside with the brick, that would be a complete waste of time. And so they had they did have a turn of phrase, and you could hear a million different expressions and sometimes never hear the same one twice, you know, So it was it was a whole different language that made it feel entertaining. As much as they didn't have the money, always felt like the most amazing place you
could be was around a bunch of Jacobson's. You know, I was forever their audience.
I was not. It's funny, you know if people say.
To me, you know, you must have been the life of the party in the family, and I'm like, no, no, no, no, no, no no. I was an audience member to the Jacobson Show. You know what I mean, Like sitting there on Christmas Day. You know I might say one word, I mean, that'd be it. But that you're listening to my uncles and dad and other cousins talking. I mean we just sat
there on the floor being entertained for hours. You know, it would just get it would go from the sun would be out and then that would get dark, and I would I wanted to be nowhere, but sitting in that land room listening to so we did just.
Sit there and listen to. Like we lost a cousin recently, sadly, Kenny Jacobson. And he was a funny guy too, like I just you know, he said things like, you know, you know, people say we're a garbage family, you know, and I guess we are a bit of a garbage family.
You know.
Our dad was a garbageman, and his father was a garbageman, and his father before him was a garbageman, and then his father before him was a lawyer, and all good garbagemen come from lawyers, so you know. And Uncle Billy and I remember once I've got it on video somewhere saying, Uncle Bill, how how's been Christmas for you? Uncle? He go, well, Sonny, and he smoked. He actually smoked with one of those little pipes with stickt and he actually he died of
lung cancer. And my dad said that, said Bill, the doctors have told you to keep away from the cigarettes. He said, I'm keeping away from I've just put the little stick here, he said, I've got and so.
He said, the doctor told me to keep away from them.
So here I am about four inches away from the bastards that should.
Do very stylish though they were a little cigarette hold.
Yeah, I had. The teacher who had one of those things, was like, that's pretty sad.
But it wasn't. It was the smoke going through the tube that was killing them. I wondered what that thing was. It'd be like only shooting up heroine. It's not the length of the needle.
Yeah, I guess.
I guess it's solved them from getting orange fingers and having their smell like smell like that might have been. And amazing you say you were you were witnessed to your family doing all that stuff, and then and then you bring Kenny to light. And I'm thinking that your grandfather wasn't pooing in the tent, so he probably had
a portoloo outside or some other thing out there. So it just feels like it's just been this organic growth for you guys in terms of like especially we're bringing that movie because that's full of those wonderful you know, like like we talked about before that the sayings with the religion, it would it would halt religion.
You know, so wouldn't the film wouldn't exist without Clay. The truth is I worked in the events industry. Clay was flat out doing film clips in excess midnight all again. Anyone you can think of an Australia, Clay was directing or editing or making film clips and doing short films
and winning awards for them. And Clay's always been Clay's always observed the world and looks at stories like I get excited by a story and laugh and then I want to tell a joke afterwards, whereas Clay has always That's why when people say, Shane, will you ever go on to be a director? I go no, because I know what you know. My brother's a director. I to see how directors think, and I don't think like a director. I find stories funny and then I'll think of another
funny story, whereas Clay will look at situations. And Clay does observe the world more. I'm more the guy running around like a chicken with its headcut off, and Clay's more the guy watching. He'll watch the whole what goes on at around the whole fire pit. I'm just standing at the five pit trying to listen to the joke and then going, I know one, you know what I mean, Whereas Clay will look at the whole function. And that's how directors think, and it is a very different function
I think from actors. And I know a lot of actors go on to be directors and many do a great job of it. And I'm not saying I wouldn't be able to direct, but I know there's a difference between an actor and director. And I worked in the event industry and was telling Clay some stories about and having heard about the uncles, this is a quick story to tell these Splashdown plumbers. Splashdown was a company that were delivering toilets and I used them at events when
not because I used to allso do event management. And they reminded me of my uncle's And I was telling Clay some stories about these guys that reminded me of our uncles. And it wasn't long into that that Clay said, which was.
Never my point.
I was commenting on someone at the fire place of life, you know what I mean, at the five pin of life, and he said, what a great way to look at humanity through the eyes of Splashdown plumbers. Who have the heart and the humor of our uncles and use a sense of humor as a suit of armor.
And he was the one going, what a great idea for a show.
I didn't see that I was telling him a story, and he went on, I don't know that would make it.
Go into it. People don't realize that like it. Shane resisted for a long while. I knew there was something, and I'd actually clean toilets to put myself through film school, so to pay for my third year film I cleaned toilets at the James Hardy factory for a year. So I would at nine o'clock at night go and polish their office floors and then sleep, get up at four in the morning, go and clean all the factory toilets, and then go to school and learn how to be
a filmmaker. And it was really interesting. By day I was being taught to be the great auteur, and then at night I was called a turd and it was so and I remember that amazing feeling of not feeling like one or the other. And so when Shane he actually did this impersonation of keV, that's no longer whether he was one of the splash down guys. It was a very funny quick story. I still remember it. It was that one of it which never ended up in
the film. Strangely enough, it was it was keV saying, you know when we do all the factables and you know, everyone comes in with all their trucks and everything. You know, they get every other bar diet, a meal, they'll get our feet, you know, but they never give us any bloody food.
You know.
I don't know why he goes, but you know what I do. I go in with the tep where all the food is. I see all the sandwiches shacked up, and he goes, And what I do. I make sure one of the guys is watching. And I just plunged my hand right into the bottom limb sandwiches and pull them out. I just saw on it. He goes, Trust me, no other bar said wants to touch those sandwiches after that, and we get the lot. So that was that was the story that he told me, and it stayed with me.
But what wouldn't It stayed with me? But what really what really resonated for me was and is that you know I had had Shane used to always come in and entertain us or at my workplace. So I was I had an advertising company and he would always come in and entertain everyone and and but there was something about this, and when I went home, I went, I
didn't see Shane in that impersonation like that. There was a very it was almost like a fully formed character, and there was heart there and sadness, and I went, wow, there's something in there. So it took a while. Well. I kept bringing him up, going, come on, let's do something with it, and you go, I don't know what. I don't want to ask, you know, Glenn the head of Splash Down. And then I think one day you rang up and said I actually managed to sit next
to him at a function. I'd mentioned it and he's up for it, he wants and I went, oh great, let's go.
Ho is it true that Shane stayed on as a working plumber after the shoot?
Went? Is that a rumor that I heard?
So that was a bit that became confusing for people. So there's two parts of this. There's two reasons why people confused. Is people saw the film and went, it's a documentary.
Yeah, you know Van Brian Brown ran Clay.
Going, you've asked having me falled until I realized about you know, two thirds of the way, and it's a it's a freaking movie yours, and so a lot of people I still have to this very day. I get called Kenny as much as I get called Shane out of car windows, like daily, which is a wonderful thing, you know. I mean, I'm happy with either. You know, We've always said it's better to be remembered for something you've done and forgotten for everything that's right. So you know,
I'll take it every day of the week. And you know, no one else is driving past, and you're a great accountant to like, it's just an amazing electrician mold like it just doesn't happen in other people's lives. So it's
a privilege, you know. But but the thing is, so people will confuse number one because they thought it was a documentary, and then even if they kind of learned that's not it, the amount of people that say to me, but you were a plumper, right, I'm like, no, no, no, no, And my answer used to be and now Tom Cruise, you're on that camp has blown this because I used to say, no, I'm not a plumber, and Tom Cruise
isn't a fighter pilot. But what did confuse some people, which didn't help me at all, is when the film was finished, I'm not a plumber. As Dad used to say, you couldn't even swap a seal and a tap that. After we finished the film, I used to do event management, which is I and as I said before, I hide splash down to do the toilets at major events. And he needed a bit of restructuring and needed an event manager.
And Glenn actually said, look, while Clay's in sort of post production trying to get the film ready to release, I was national general manager of a company. I couldn't give them enough of my time, and my time there was coming to its natural end. And as a lighting guy and national general manager, he said, how about you work for me. You know all my clients, you know how to do site management and event management, and you
helped restructure the company. So for about a year before the film was released, and probably about four weeks to after it was.
Released, and then after that my life changed. But he said, how about you work here?
Because if Clay said we need to do some adr or go and shoot some pickups, or go and promote the film, Glenn could continue to pay me to live, and I'd already had a child at that point because I was indirectly working for him, you know what I mean.
So we also knew, like I had already planned, and this was long before Borrett, I'd already planned that I needed to get Shane out in character doing interviews because I knew, just intrinsically knew. It's a film with no stars, it's made by two brothers, all my families, and it's shot on video. It's about Pooh. Who the hell is going to want to see this? And even our visual look I knew would probably be a turn off for women, thinking, I don't know if I want to watch that guy
put fact, you know, plunging his hand and shit. So I wanted Shane out there as a character, showing how lovable this character was, so that the only equation that an audience would have is well, I've heard him on the radio and I've seen him on TV and he seems really funny and adorable. All I want to do now is see what he does in the movie. And that was the idea. And so when actually Glenn rang me before he offered it to Shane, he said do you think Shane had is. I've been watching how you
guys acting because we don't have a foreman. I think that job should exist. You know, do you think your brother will do it? And I went, well, I hope he does, because when we come to doing the I said, he can only do it for a short period because when we get him out on the run, he'll be able to answer every question on plumbing. So he did. He knew all the terms, all the terminology. It was so funny and so it was the opposite of Danira, right because de Niro drove a taxi for months before
he did Taxi Driver. We got Shane to plumb toilets after he made the movie, so it's.
You know, I kind of have to wish we didn't have to wind it up, but we do. What's next for you guys?
Shane? Are you still doing the show with Todd?
So the film? Yeah, finish, just finished that a couple of weeks ago.
So you did did eighty shows of that, yep, you know it works Camp made a week so I just finished that.
I've got a film.
I did a film with Rebel Wilson, which is just made the final night at Toronto Film Festival, So that's big.
The TA the Toronto Film Festival is one of the major film festivals in the world, so that's great.
That's no small small thing.
Yeah, well I'm heading I'm heading over, so I believe it or not, I'm sure she won't mind me saying. But there wasn't a budget for it, so Rebel Wilson's personally paying the paying to fly me over and booking my flights and accommodation. She said, I want you here.
I want you to some myself and Tara Maurice, who people would know as the star from Strictly Ballroom, so she plays my love interest in the film, so she's her and I going over there to catch up with Rebel and go to the closing night at Toronto.
So that's coming up.
And to be honest, I've me and Claire working on some stuff we can't talk about now, like a TV series. We could say it's for the ABC and you know, I mean Claire and Clay's working on another thing for us at the moment which we can't talk about. There's lots of things we can't talk about. Camill have you have you announced the Clay Well, what are you're going to share it with anyone I'd wanted to.
I think you can let me put it this way, you know, you do it. We get asked a lot to do Kenny sequels, and the truth is, I've never felt comfortable doing them, only because Kenny was a riff on decency and I really felt like I investigated that top to bottom, left or right up and down everything that I feel about decency. And you know, the sort of the kinder side of Jacobson is in that film, and I just there was no way of repeating it without it being a bit sort of novel.
And even idea cam I've not put on the overalls. We did it once for the A five tenth anniversary. I've not pulled on the overalls in eighteen years, right, I did once in eighteen years, So back to you.
But yeah, but the idea of Kenny singing on stage and bringing sum of Shane's on stage talents to the world of Kenny. So what I can say is that we are working at this moment on the musical to Kenny, and that yeah, that is I'm having a lot of fun. There's titles like eighty percent water. That's a good song.
Which are the toilet.
I think I'm going to have to throw my hat into the ring without knowing what any.
Characters are there. I have to throw my hat into the ring and say, can I come plain?
Oh yeah, you don't throw your hat in the ring. You throw your ring.
I'm throwing a ring in.
Oh I like it. Can I make a note of that. That's good?
We're just yes, absolutely, now, this is.
Good, Shaney, this is great. I bypassed the agents and the managers, and the whole idea of doing this interview was to get cam in the music.
I'll tell you what. My whole thing was to get you two in a shower together.
We've done all this.
We do we do a two minute shower. So let's clean up.
So keep your answers as short and succinct as you possibly can. This is going to be a hard one for you both, I know. But if you could relive one day with each other, what.
Would it be?
Oh? Wow, what a question?
Ah gone claim the premiere at Poo Wong. I suppose standing. I supposed standing outside, and we could hear everyone laughing inside, and I turned to Shane and I said, they're all laughing with your mate. There. I think this might work. There was a lovely moment, just you know, standing out there alone together before it all went crazy.
Claim I want to hear it, but it was was to be honest. I used to lay in my bedroom at night and he'd come home later than me, and there's no one in particular, but I'd lay up and then go I could hear him coming and realize my big brother was about to walk in the room. But there was always humor, So I'll give you one. He was putting stuff on his face. He had pimples, and I said I was laughing. I was trying to laughing at him, and he said, it'll happen to you one day.
He always warned me that everything that happened to him would happen to me, and it said that he was right. And then I was having a go at him and he was in the bottom bunk and I was in the top bunk. And you know, they're not bottled together, or they weren't back then, and I was giggling him for some reason, and he put his feet up onto the bed and he would kick me up and I nearly hit the roof, and he would kick me in the air. And as much as it drove me mad,
I thought it was hilarious. And when how much fun is having a brother? So yeah, probably sitting on that bunk with him trying to kick me to the roof.
Because I will gladly kick in the ass next time I see you.
Well, what about your relationship makes you feel most grateful?
I'll go with it. The blood of them water thing. It doesn't mean me and Clayton haven't had our battles, but you know inherently, which you can't say about friendship, that when push comes to shove, they're there to push and shove anyone that's trying to push and shove you. And knowing that that's a given, there's you know, only
people who have brothers and can you'll know it. And those listening that have brothers or sisters, there's it's an unwritten law that you can have a go at each other, but if someone else has a go at you, they're in trouble. And that's kind of nice to know you've got. You know, it's like your own emotional bodyguard.
You know.
I won't mention the film, but I walked off a movie five weeks before it was I was due to direct it because someone was trying to be macha alien between our brotherhood and it was just nothing was nothing is more important to me than that. So no film was going to get in the way of that. So I sort of stepped aside. But yeah, it's like there's a it's funny there is seven years difference, but that was when we were kids. They were two different people.
They were two different the Shane and I we feel like I feel like he's twin and and and there's no one I would rather spend time with other than my wife. And that's kind of weird, isn't it. I haven't Shane in bed with me with my wife is kind of but we're just it's always just that big. The world isn't The world isn't a scary place when I'm with my bro. When I'm with my bro, it's a happy place. It's a funny place. It's it's a warm place. It's it's loving. You know.
I love that answer, all right? One word to describe each other.
Fat what he said? And you know what camp you know one listening is.
You guys, thank you so much for your time.
Clayton and Shane Jacobs and you guys have rippers and yeah, thanks so much.
Man, it's joy Camp. Thank you went.
Off the brothers, Jacobson go. I love that chat. That was. That was fantastic.
I worked with Shane probably a decade ago on the Beaconsfield mini series and we struck up a really great friendship that has continued.
Always love seeing him. He's as I said in the intro, he's just so authentic.
And Clayton is He's just the same.
He's a ripper.
I'm so stoked, I, you know, get to have a chat with a couple of blakes and maybe walk away with a job.
Unreal.
All right, well, listen, Ali will be with me here next time.
I'm going to race out and go get the ingredients for the for the chicken soup, so I will catch up with you next time on separate bathrooms.
Thanks for being here, and Cam, I'm going to give you my favorite memory of you, which was when we were shooting Beaconsfield. You and me had a cabin right beside each other and Tazzy we did and mornings I would be woken, not in a bad way, but just in the distance. You'd be sitting on a porch playing guitar. And practicing ever so slightly, and it was and it was soft music. And I used to lay and listened to you singing playing guitar. You had that little plain
guitar oead of you in your bag. So that's that's one of my favorite every time I've ever been near you put a smile on the face because you're one of the world's great humans. But listening to you serenade me with that, you knowing you were doing.
So he's my favorite memory of you.
There you go, Oh, it's very kind of you. Well, guys, let's make a shitty musical.
Two yes, yes,