It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Airline. Welcome TV Reload listeners. My name is Benjamin Norris and this is your podcast to get all the inside goss on the popular TV shows you may be watching from around the world. Undeniably, our TV sets are a major part of our home entertainment and very little is known about how our favorite
shows get made. Each episode, I find guests that want to dive just that little bit deeper into the shows they're currently making so that you can hear all their exclusive stories and gain access to the biggest names in Australian television. I want to thank you for downloading or subscribing to this podcast. I love hearing your feedback, so make sure you leave a comment on your chosen podcast platform and I will make sure you feel is included in the production of this show as I possibly can.
On today's episode, I have one of my favorite Australian TV personalities.
It is Julia Zamiro.
Julia is a French born Australian television presenter, radio host, actress, singer, writer and comedian Wow Resume. She is best known as the host of the music quiz and live performance show Rock Quiz, which has just been rebooted and given a new home on Foxtel. Rock Quiz airs Fridays at seven thirty pm on Foxtel and if you want to catch up on those episodes, you can do that on demand. If you've never seen the show before, make sure you
check it out. Julia is phenomenally entertaining and a joy to watch, and if you're a music fan, there really is something in this for you as well. We will discuss her influences and find out who particularly she looked up to in her early days. I will ask how Rock Quiz got rebooted for Foxtel. Julia explains how the role came about and how her relationship with co host
Brian Nankervis has evolved over time. Plus, we will get some exclusives on the new series Rockquiz, which includes some tidbits regarding the guests like Ben Ley, Tina Arena and Jimmy Barnes. What a list of music legends. However, let's bring Julia into the podcast as I'm sure you're gonna love this chat. Hi, Julia, thanks for coming on podcast.
It's my pleasure. Ben how are you I'm.
Doing very well.
You know, you are actually someone who is often on my mind, and that is because you know, I have a lot of respect for you as you know who you are as a comedian, presenter, actor and all rounder and always have done like I've always looked up to you.
Thank you. Look you know you. Look when you graduate from acting school like I did years ago, you have no idea where your career is going to take you if you even had the you know, the wherewithal to use the word career back then about it? You just think am I ever going to get paid for a job? And then when you do, it's really exciting and you start to think, oh, maybe this can work. So I've
been around a long time. So Ben, if I've been an influence or a guiding light in the darkness of our times, I'm delighted.
You know.
I've had friends in the industry say at times, you know, I'm not exactly sure who I am or where do I fit in, and I always use you as an example. I think what's quite amazing about you is that you kind of know who you are and you don't really apologize for that.
Look, Ben, do you want to get married that's such a lovely thing to say.
You're still with Carton. Am I going to get in trouble with you?
No? I am still with Carston absolutely. You know.
I'm actually going to just tell you something that last night, as I was going to sleep, I put on a podcast of you being interviewed. It started off with one and then I didn't realize that they would roll into others. So I've literally listened to every podcast that you have ever done whilst I've been asleep, So I know facts about you that I probably don't even really I wasn't even awake for.
Oh my god, that is like some subliminal level stuff right there. Oh god, I think too though, in terms of playing your natural game. You know, any industry, and it's a shame that we have to call the arts
in industry anyway. But whatever world you're working in artistically, you can tell the people who want to do you wrong or have your worst interest at heart, or you know, aren't going to take you in the right direction, and you can just say no, I'm not saying that you've got to do anything for work or you sometimes you can't turn down work because you need the money or whatever.
But there are times when you can say that doesn't suit me, and I won't do it, And I think, you know, you kind of have to have some kind of say in what you do in your career.
But were you always like that?
I mean, I mean people get like that in their career later on and they can then pick and choose. But were you always in control and thinking, I'm going to say no to the things that just didn't suit you.
So for example, you know, I came out of acting school and I did Shakespeare in high schools with Bell Shakespeare, where you got a regular paycheck every week. I could not believe what was going on. And then I auditioned for an AD for a sanitary pad AD and it's probably one of the better ads about sanitary pads that you'll ever see, sure in natural ultra thin MAXI shields.
And I'd never got an AD before or gone for an AD, and it was unbelievable to get it and get that kind of money at that time, and couldn't believe it. And over the next few years, I did seem to do an add a year and I got offered things like McDonald's and said no, I did do pizza hut. I mean, you know, one monologue as as bad as the other. But you know, I've been offered gambling ads, I've been offered racing. I don't do Melbourne Cup events. You know, they're all things that you can
actually say no to. Had a woman once come to me in an event saying, every year we asked for you and your agent, I'm sure she doesn't even put offer through. And I'm like, well, no, she shows me everything, so no, no. I just think she decided and I just said, okay, what's the gig. What do you ask me every year to do? She said Melbourne Cup? And she went on this whole thing about Melbourn Cup and I said, well, I'm just going to stop you there.
Don't believe in it, so that's why it never comes back. Yes, And she looked at me like I slapped her in the face and said it's not personal, not saying I don't like you. I just will not do that event. So you know, and it might not sound like much to say no to her. You know. At one point I stopped am seeing austraighted events. You know, I was really I was really ignorant about indigenous issues in my
twenties and I'm ashamed of that. And when I started to understand what was going on, I went, well, that's a no brainer. I'm just not going to do anything anymore. I'm not going to see anything on Australia Day anymore. And I might be involved at all. So you can make those kinds of decisions just to make you feel like you have agency in the work that you're doing.
And no, I think we're always evolving as well. And you're the sort of person who is absorbing, you know what I mean. Like when you say I might have been ignorant, you know, I think a lot of people were, and then once you found out that information, you stopped doing it, you know, And I think.
A lot of who you are.
I mean, I love you because I think you have a great understanding of social commentary, and I think that's what your humor is. Like, I think you understand people well.
You know, I think too. You know, I did a lot of training as an improviser and in improv. The I mean, you know, the cliche is that you always say yes and and you don't block and all of that. But the best thing I ever heard about training in improv when you're in a scene with someone. All you need is who's in front of you. So there's no
point trying to invent something that's out there. You don't need to make the scene interesting by pretending there's a planet coming to hit the earth, or you know, dog's just walked in or whatever. All you need is the person in front of you. And I would say that works in relationships. It works on home delivery when I'm interviewing people and taking them back to their childhood home to a rock with contestant who has been dying to be on the show for years finally gets through, and
my job is to kind of go okay. In my head, I'm always like, you need to have people laugh at something you say and make you feel warm inside before we get going. So that little warm up we do where I say, first album, first concert, When they hear the audience clap them or go or laugh straight away, they relax. Why is that good? Because I'll get the best out of them for the next half hour, you know.
It's so whoever's right in front of you is what you need to kind of concentrate on and just listen and take in what you're getting back.
But I think that's I think that's the importance of going to drama. Like, I don't think everyone needs to be a drama student, but I think the things.
That you learn in that is powerful.
And you know, I've got a lot of friends who have anxiety now, and there's a lot of social anxiety coming out of COVID and I and they get really stressed about going out and I'm like, well, who.
Are you going to see?
And they're like, I'm going to see my friend Carla or you know whoever. And I'm like, you don't need to worry about, you know, everything else, you know, just you're going to see that person, and you don't even need to worry about what you're going to say.
You just need to sit down and ask how are they? You know? And it helps me.
Yeah, it's so funny how that happens. And I think, look, I grew up in a different time with a different set of circumstances, no social media, you know, I was well known before you know, Instagram, Twitter, so I've never had to use it to get where I need to go. So I feel like I've grown up in a world that was a bit more I don't know, you could kind of understand it more or something you kind of knew where you stood. Things didn't go as fast, so
that anxiety. I don't have that kind of anxiety. But I think you're right if you just say breathe, go in there, have no expectations, you know, then the world is tricky, so you've got to be ready for the trickiness around it. I mean, it's it's been a tough time. I still don't think people are really I really processed that weird COVID downtime, where on the one hand you thought, Wow, what a great holiday, and on the other hand thinking the world is ending.
I don't think we're out the other side of it. I mean, I still see the little signs in people and I'm like, that has to be those Melbourne lockdowns, you know what I mean, Like that has to be this. And I wasn't anti any of that. I was, you know, whatever the government told me to do. It was fine and I rolled with it. But then I probably wasn't aware of how much it was going to affect people anyway. This is a completely different conversation.
I mean, we could be doing the whole of the world's problems.
Then I really could, and I could unpack this with you, but people will want to know things like, you know, who are your influencers?
You know?
And that's what I I would love to know, because I mean, you know, you were born overseas, you know.
But I guess you moved here when you were two? Is that? I think that's right?
But you would have absorbed a lot of I guess as you know the Australian entertainment industry, who was it that influenced you?
Look? For me, the first person comes to mind is Noline Brown, okay, because she was in the Naked Vicar Show and I would turn that would come on at night on the TV and you'd see this brilliant, glamorous woman sitting between two men being hilarious and then next minute she'd be in a beanie being a hilarious character or playing a man. And I just thought she was gold. And when my dad first came to Australia, my mum's Australian, so of course she spoke English, but dad didn't. He
was French. And in the kitchen that he used to work in in his restaurant, when he was getting stuff ready for the evening, he would listen to the Naked Vicar Show on the radio to understand jargon, slang, Australian sayings, get used to the accent because it was tricky, and when we Noline for home delivery, it was just a beautiful circle of a moment to be able to say to her. You probably thought you were making comedy and just TV, but for some people were learning English offer
and learning all these different things from it. So she was a real model. But then in my teens it was French and Saunders, those two women. I'm a big English humor fan, and those two women just he just felt like they could do anything and it was all character based, which I loved. And look at the careers they've had since then. They're women who just did what they wanted to do, is all. And I'm sure they'd probably say it wasn't always like that.
But I see those stories though from you know, even Jane Turner and Gena Riley, you know, they really believed in the Kath and Kim characters and they kept trying to take it to the networks and the networks kept dropping it. But they believed in those characters and that their influences are from England. And then I was talking to Jimmy Reese the other day on the podcast, and his dad was into English humor, and so you grew up watching all of it. It's kind of like a
masterclass growing up. If you understood English humor, then you got it, you know what I mean.
The ABC was on in our house all the time, so of course you got the two Ronnies, and you've got Dave Allen at large, and you've got Morcam and Wise and you know, I mean a lot of blokes. So that's a but I got what I understood and loved that sort of sense of humor more than the Americans definitely. And then with French and Saunders, it was
just the friendship of them, the sweetness of them. They're doing a caricature, not really doing it, but sometimes doing it, Jennifer actually really nailing it sometimes and going wow, I mean you've almost been a serious actress, but Dawn always undermining it. I mean, yeah, it's so playful, playful, you know, And that's what improv is. It's about being playful and that's what that was my background too.
What a gig Rockuiz has been for you? And hasn't this show been on an amazing journey.
It's opened every door. I was thirty seven living in Melbourne, having a nice enough but poor life and going, okay, you've done lots of things in your life, but if by the time you're forty you haven't got that gig, then that's going to sort of pay rent in a more serious way. And not that I got paid a lot of money for Rock was the first series, but when we got renewed and renewed and then we went on tour, and then all of a sudden, you know, SBS went, oh, Julia, right, well this is a bit
we're going to be doing eu Vision. Do you want to do the commentary on that? It was like, what, yes, I do? It opened that door. And then you know, when I was interviewing people backstage at Eurovision, which was such a popular part of the show because Sampang and I would always kind of do research on the people
and try and find things that people didn't know about them. So, like, you know, Robin from Sweden was a wrestler, and so when Sam went in with those wrestling questions, it really took him by surprise and he loved it and he ended up flipping Sam in. I mean, it was gold. You know, So these moments that were golden. The home Delivery people saw those interviews and said, you really can talk to anyone even when you don't have the language.
Would you like to do an interview show? And they came up with the concept of Julie Zimiro's I'm Delivery. Then I did radio with beautiful John o'cleman as well, and things just kind of they started to roll. So I really feel that Rock was an SBS opened every door in that way.
How did the show come along to you? Because the question I have with this is, you know, did you work with a production team on how you wanted to be included in this show?
Because you know, I just rewatched an old episode before interviewing you. This morning.
I got up and was watching old episodes and I just was thinking, really just suits you, you know, the improvisation, the comedy, the relatability with people, the music, you know, your passion for music, all of it just culminated. You know, did you work with them before the show rolled on the first episode with how you wanted to be included or did they just had someone been watching you.
I've been auditioning for a lot of hosting jobs for really shit things like dating shows. Dog shows before dogs were you know popular now shore, but they were kind of demeaning shows with the dogs being dressed as things. I mean, you know, And I remember going every audition's experience. It's always good to do them. But anyway, my age rings goes, I've got another audition for you. I'm like, oh, no,
what is it now? Shit's music? I went, oh, great, okay, can do so go to the audition and Brian and Kervis is there, and two other producers are there, and I do all the kind of auto Q stuff and then they seek we give you a quiz. So they gave me the quiz. I got seventy five percent. I think they were pretty delighted. I got a callback and at the callback there were two teams of professional comedians. Colin Lane was there, Ross Daniels the band was their camera,
and I remember thinking, right, it's now and ever. What the Rock Quiz production team did though, is they never got in my way. Now, if you're a real creative, if you understand how things work and you get the right people, when you do that callback with someone, you say, be free, go for it. And in fact, they didn't need an expert on music. I mean, I love music,
but they didn't need an expert. They needed someone who could improvise, who could control two teams of people, who could turn on a dime, who could think on a feet all that, and when they saw me really take control of the space, that's when I think they thought, we've got our person. And they have never given me any direction to change.
What I do.
The only thing that was said to me the only real nighte they've ever even and it's ironic because you trained active for three years, you get notes all the time. It's fine, give me notes, it's fine. Was because we filmed at the SB Hotel in the Gershwin Room, which is a real pub, and there were three hundred people in that pub and the camera. I would sometimes play too much for the crowd and yell instead of just doing it for camera. So they would just say can
you not yell? And I used to stick it on my lectern, little handwritten notes saying don't yell, don't yell.
It's hard to.
Do that with a live audience, though, And I remember once thinking with Rove, someone needed to tell that to Rove because Rove, I felt, with these monologues he would always be, you know, just yelling it at you. And then I remember meeting him and talking to him about it and he just was like, I just was so excited to do this show. He'd start every episode with that passion and he was like just you know, and
the audience was there. So it's a hard footnote to learn, I think when you are a television slash live entertainer.
And when people said it was you know, oh, rockquiz, you're going on the road, God, how will you do that? Do you all know how to do theater? And we're like, we all started in theater, like none of us started in TV. The band didn't start on TV. Brian died that we were all doing improv or stand up or gigs. So in fact, we all had to learn how to bring it to television when we go out on the road. I mean, you've got this huge stage where you can be as big as bold as you like and take
up all the space you like. So TV is a very it's you're right, it's a tricky. It's a whole other kind of skill. And that's why you know, some people are it's really their forte and that's why CRUs certain crews that work together well, and we've basically almost brought back most of the crew that were at SBS.
That says something about the people that are in the show that make the show. You know, you read about that, you see that all the time behind the scenes. You know crews being turned over on popular shows, and you go, something's not right here where with you and Brian. You know, everyone still wants to come back and work with the two of you.
But also two I think all of us, everybody that turned up, seventy percent of the people shooting on that day know the show, They know the vocabulary, they know everything about it. And it's just such a smart move because it means there's so much already knowledge in the room about the thing, so that when we were readapting it to a new space because we weren't any longer in the pub. We're in the studio. That's exciting for them because they know how they can make it better.
And I'll tell you this for free. Then I'll tell you this for free. The nice thing about being in the studio was the lighting. Ah, real, lovely, beautiful, soft, delicious lighting for all of us, which we all appreciated because the hub, I mean we really had to rig not great stuff.
If anyone's ever gone to the SB and played a game of pool, even you'll notice that their conditioning's never been there.
Fourteen.
So when you guys were doing rock was there and you'd watch it and the episode I was watching earlier before, you know, you know, you can understand why you'd be a little bit clamming, you know, Oh.
Yeah, oh yeah. I remember wonderful, brilliant Renee Gayer, who I had the privilege of having on the show Varlet beautiful woman. She was really sweating as well, and she's like, God, it's hot up here. I said, mate, I know, so you just get dabbed down in between, you know shows. When we filmed in winter, it was lovely, but it
was freezing backstage. On stage was great. I mean, we had one time when all the equipment kind of died and we literally got ice from the front bar and had it there near the equipment with a fan blowing it so it would cool down. I mean, but they're the great stories, you know. That's what made it feel really rock and roll and gave it that real kind of feel, and it made it a place where musicians felt relaxed to come and do the show because they knew the sp for them. They weren't walking into a
cold television studio. They were walking to somewhere that they kind of knew a little bit, which was nice with the Foxtel studio. It was great too because we actually did ask back a few people that we worked with before who are a bit older now and get the world of it as well, and some new people like Jimmy Barnes paired up with Wilson. Wilson's a fairly new performer, and so that's that thing we've always loved to do where you're sometimes giving a person their first time on
TV playing. When Meg Washington did Rock Quiz years ago, I'm not sure if I can say it was the first time she sang on TV on television, but she was still pretty young, and we get her back for this series and her solo she does a duet. I'm not to say he does a duet with, but her solo, I mean, it's just a work of art. She's just such an artist, and I just feel so proud to know that she was with us at the beginning and went on tour with us as well. When we toured around the country.
Part of the magic of this show, though for me, has always been there are a little bit of rough erends, the edges in the production of this show, and I wonder whether or not we have become too word perfect in other formats where this show, I mean, it has an unbelievable cult following. People love this show. You know, if people have watched it once, they're still watching it, you know, fifteen years later. And I think it has a lot to do with a relatability of feeling like
it's real, do you know what I mean? And I think a lot of shows these days are missing that element that engages audience. It makes them feel seen and makes them feel included.
Yeah, and well I guess too. You know. With me, I've got bits on AUTOQ that stop the top and tail each section, of course, and then in between I can do what I want. But also it's about the contestants, these amazing people who I've just met five minutes ago, who I meet backstage, and I say them, right, you are no longer contestants. You are actually part of the show. You're cast now and together we're going to put on
this amazing show. So give have some fun. It's going to go fast, enjoy it, breathe, sing along, give me the wrong answer. Sometimes if you don't know the answer, just buzz in and say anything. The audience will love it. You've got to give them permission to have a good time, and then when they come and sit down, whatever I get from them makes the show different every time. And that's what I love. And we've been doing it a
long time, you know. We started this in the mid two thousands or late two thousands, and you know, I feel like we created it almost a little template, you know, of going well, if you've got a good enough host who can improvise, you can be in the moment, muck around and then get back to what you've got to do. And it's what live TV is like too, you know, when you've got to do any kind of life stuff, you'd know about that.
Yeah, well, I just I remember once I got booked to do a trivia in Yupoon in Queensland and I had to do it by myself and I actually watched you because I knew, so I watched clips of you
before I went out and did it. And the one thing which I don't even know if that is something conscious of you but even when you're doing the stuff that you need to do, you're reading the teleprompter, but when you interact with people, you always gave them affirmation of things that they said, Like, even if it's like it's little sentence before you'd roll, you keep the show going. It was very much flowing, but you did always make sure that that person felt heard. You never let someone
say something without acknowledging it. And that's what I've taken from you and borrowed it, and I think is very important for the audience as much as it is for the person that's taking part in the show.
Oh thank you, Ben, that's lovely to say. I mean, you know, the thing is, I know there's a lot of TV that's about being you know, nasty or being gotcha or whatever, but that's never worked for us, and it's never been that. It doesn't mean you can't be cheeky, it doesn't mean you can't have fun, it doesn't mean you can't kind of skirt around the edges of it. But at the end of the day, I need them, I need them to be in a good place to
have some fun. And look, I can count on one hand, really the times we've had troubles with contestants, and it's and it's usually been you know, they've tried to be too cool or something, or they won't remove their sunglasses and you're like, well, you're gonna miss half the show if you do that kind of stuff. But they're nervous too. You know, this is assumption that everybody wants to be on television. They don't. But when they get through and they get the high score and we have them on,
you can see them going is it today? And yeah, and it's hot and it's new and there's lights, and then all of a sudden, Jimmy Barnes are sitting next to you, I mean all of a sudden, Tina Arenas next to you, all of a sudden, Meg Max next to you. It's like, but those performers, when they bring that team together, the team feels included. And I don't know, I think it's also saying fame is great, blah blah, but you're still a human being. How do you kind of work with people and still come in and kind
of be a cohesive team, a cohesive whole. And yeah, when it works, it's beautiful. And you know, we rarely had problems, so it's been a beautiful.
Ride, I think as well.
When people ask me they're going to be on a quiz show, I get that a lot from people who will hit me up on my social media. I've been picked to be on hard Quiz or whatever, and they then start talking about curating their appearance or curating what they're going to say, or preparing like lines that they have thought that they will say because they've seen the show so much. I'm like, no, I'm like, the moment that you start to curate this performance, it actually makes
you look affected on screen and people disconnect. You know, you really have to just turn up, be happy with what you've picked to wear, and just relax, you know, relax and enjoy it and watch what's going to happen. Because the moment you try and control the narrative you come across badly on screen, you know.
Yeah, and when we were filming at the pub or even when we out live on tour, you know, when people come to the show, they don't know they might end up on stage. So sometimes that's why it's always had that rough kind of look, as people are just in a T shirt or a daggy cartigan because it's cold outside and there they are being a rock star because they know all the information and they can answer
the quiz with the Foxtel version. Brian actually went and found we did exactly the same audition process of selecting and getting them, because you want to get the best ones, you want to get people who kind of know stuff. He did that off campus and did a couple of nights and we got out to our contestants together and had them ready to come on the show. So they did have a chance to dress up a bit, which
they really loved. You could tell they looked incredible. They got to be in the makeup chair, they got to have that kind of treatment. And also, you know, on a couple of nights of shooting a couple of them who you know, we had to get everyone to test for COVID et cetera. On the day tested positive. So luckily we had some standby guests and all a sudden they were like, oh my god, I get the geek. So it was lovely, It was really lovely. It had a good vibe.
How did the show come back around for Foxtel because you know, were you shopping this around? I mean you really were owning the brand of rock Wiz. You know, in its time off television, were you shopping it around to different networks and trying to look for a new home, Like how did it come about to be back where we are now?
Well, the producers really do the shopping around. So back to what you quit your question before about how did you get involved? I never went in going this is my idea or this how I want to do it. I was like a jobbing actor, going, you need a host, and then they let me be who I wanted to be. But as the show's kind of grown on, and then when we finished at SBS, and I mean shows finished, right, you know, home delivery finished, there comes a time where
it ends. And I think we kept shopping it around and no one really wanted it. And as you know, Ben, that could be because you know, if there's too much music on TV, I don't think so it all right?
Is it?
Because there? I mean reality TV has really kind of nudged its way in and people get people get excited by that what are you going to do? And then and because we kept doing the show live, we didn't we kind of didn't miss it being on TV. And plus the repeats were happening on Viceland, and we knew that if we were going to do it again, we'd have to kind of do it in a slightly different way. We pretty much thought we would like to go into a studio and see what that would be like to
do almost feel like is it a tonight show? Is this what it could be? It's not that still the show that it is, and just to have the space and like I say, the lighting and the time. So you know, when Foxtel said we're interested, we were really excited because it was that sense of this will probably be the only time and the second time is the last time we'll go to TV. I mean, because we're all getting old and that's fine, but how am I going to fit into pants that much longer? On?
You look pretty good, my friend.
I'm just saying right now, this is just for people who are listening to this podcast we're recording in the morning. I'll probably be like, you're five hundredth interview this morning from where you are, But you look pretty good, my friend.
Thank you. No children, lots of sleep, don't really take drugs. So let's everyone you're after and just you saw Belene. Don't be ridiculous save your money, go overseas. Anyway.
The funniest thing that you just said, you know that I got asked years ago what moisture is. I'm forty three and people are like, oh, you look so young. What's your secret? And ill people by just saying, you know, stupid shit that people say. I have an egg and a piece of bacon every morning, which is crap. But the one thing about my routine is that I use Sorbelean as moisturizer.
We got off on a.
Ta you have the hot tips we're giving.
Yeah, yeah, people listening to this now we've changed their lives.
I was going to say, though, you know, the format was so well oiled, and I love that there are some differences that are coming to the series, and there's some familiarity that's obviously there. Just for the record, Pearl Jam was my first concert and Michael Jackson Black or White was my first album. However, I did get to see that album in concert then afterwards. But yeah, so Pearl Jam and Michael Jackson's pretty I think.
You would get claps. You get a little Wimbledon clap for that if you were at the show. Then they go ooh. People make sounds like pitty be clicking. Hey Ben, question, Pearl Jam, how old were you?
I was fourteen?
And were you a bit scared?
Fucking terrified? I can swear on this podcast just so you know. Now we know, but fucking terrified. And I remember I was told at school and I was in year nine and my brother came over and shook me and.
Said, we're going to see Pearl Jam. Anyway, I didn't know the music at all. I didn't even know what Pearl Jam was.
So I thought I had something to do with jam, you know, like fungus in your toes or something. And so I was explained what it was, and I listened to a couple of the tracks with Eddie Vedder. But it was when Vitology was coming out, and Vitology was a very loud album, and it scared the Bejesus out of me. But I love Pearl Jam's music now, like that whole experience, the fear, the whole excitement.
You know, I nearly was going to spew all.
Of that is my love of concerts, and I still go see concerts all the time because I think they're so important to the soul. Like I think people who pay and go and see concerts live longer.
Hey, the last time I saw Pearl Jam. They're all very well behaved. They were had wine, they had drinks. They were drinking red wine on stage. They all had sense of sexy designer glasses on and in between songs they just stood there quietly waiting for Eddie to introduce the next song. I was like, what it's going on?
What is going on?
I will have to say though I got asked. This is in twenty twelve. I got asked to go to the Gold Coast and he go to like a it was like a festival, like a what was it called the Big Day Out and I think twenty thirteen Big Day Out? And I was told I get to interview some of the bands. I got to interview Eddie Vedder and I got taken to where he was to interview him. And the thing was my partner at the time was acting as my manager. Word otherwise for people, get a
real manager, not your partner. That's fuck it.
Sure.
And Ben didn't tell me.
My partner's Ben. I'm Bennet's very weird. Ben didn't tell me that they booked me to pretend that I was at the Big gay out and that everyone I interviewed I had to seem like I was confused, and all of a sudden, I went, I mean I went rang my partner and yelled at him in the toilet and cried and said I can't do this, and he was like, well, they're paying you good money, you know, just do it.
So I interviewed Eddievedder and the first thing I said to him, as I held a nine inch microphone to him while I was interviewing, I said, you know, just.
Welcome to be gay out. I said, does this feel very strange? I had to lean into it.
I was like, you know, it just feel very uncomfortable with me holding my nine inch microphone. You're like, anyway, this Phallix joke and I thought, he's either going to punch me or the gods of music are going to strike me down for this person who is.
A legend in my world.
And he could see through all of it, and he laughed and he gave me good He gave me good chat.
You know, Oh I love that.
But how you know that's where the universe and you've mentioned this before, it's it's you know, the industry, when the when you work in the industry and things like that come back around. It feels almost too serendipitous. It feels quite like this was always supposed to happen, you know what I mean?
And I mean, you know, take it. You know, there's so few great moments sometimes you know, you just go
take it. And I hope, like I finally got to interview Abbat on the pink carpet at the abb of the museum opening now and Yetta wasn't there, but Beyond and Benny and Freda were, and I mean Freda was the one I really wanted to interview because she was my girl when I was little, watching ever and Abba was my first concert Sydney Creakert Ground on the Friday night, not the Thursday when she slipped over.
Did your mom take was it? Your mom took me? She did?
My mum bless her, she took me. I mean, I mean she'd like them too. And that's the thing. They cut through everyone in those days. Everyone. I drawed them. And when I finished that interview, I remember turning to a beautiful Swedish camera and going, what do you do when you've done it?
Like?
And he said, just take it, enjoy it, and I went bloody HELLK, you're right, and it was great to go back to the team and say we got them and yeah, she was beautiful. She was just beautiful.
I always say to people that because the industry can be so rough at times and people don't know that behind the scenes, those moments are the parts that make you realize this is what I should be doing. You know, they're the reward. Anyway, people be like, we're supposed to be talking about Rock, Well, we guess we are's.
Performing in general, you know, like everything feeds into everything else. I don't think you can talk about one job in isolation. Often it is related to other things. Everything you do in your career will feed into the confidence that you have the knowledge about the industry, that you have the knowledge about yourself going eh, I'm not enjoying this, or I know what I need to do to kind of, you know, connect a bit better. So it's all, you know, it's a body of living in a body of work.
Well, your chemistry between you and Brian and Curvis, which is just absolutely amazing. It feels very iconic. I'm very old school television and so I see like the relationship of you know, the TV relationship with like Ernie and Denise or Darryl and Jackie McDonald, like it's very it feels very real, and it feels like real people that get along. You know, how does that? How did that chemistry work? I mean, did that just click straight away?
Was that it.
Didn't click straight away because we were still strangers to each other, and I reckon by series three you can start to see that there's there's a connection. And then when we went on tour, I have to say, going on tour, traveling, sharing buses, sharing backstage, not knowing how the show would work live because we've never done it before. Would we feel Darwin, would we fill Canberra, would we fill blues Fest?
Whatever?
And all of a sudden you really saw people's true selves. You know, we were around each other the whole time, the whole man. And I really think that twenty ten first tour where we went everywhere, really solidified our friendship and our working relationship. And now I mean now Brian and the other two producers, I mean they are like older brothers. There's no doubt he's a brother from another mother, definitely,
and I think we're quite similar in style in some ways. Yeah, I didn't sort of see it until a few years in, but I think we are. We're both very generous, I think with the audience. And also, you know, he's someone whenever I think to myself, whenever I'm somewhere that I'm annoyed or a bit shitty with someone, or you're in public, can you thinking? I always think, what would Brian do?
He'd just be patient a little bit longer, wouldn't he He'd just have a little bit more of a chat and he'd diffused the situation, and he'd get the selfie and he'd go. And I think that stuff is right, you know. And he trained as a school teacher, so that's where his patients comes from.
Did you ever watch him on Let the Blood Run Free? Because I remember that was like absolutely, I was so obsessed.
With that show.
But I would have been like eight, I think, I mean, I don't I think, oh, maybe I was ten. I think it's ninety ninety that show was out. But I just remember being so obsessed and asking Mum to let me stay up and watch it. And you know, it was kind of reality before it's time because people could vote on what could happen.
You know, it was the Tuesday your own adventure.
It also reminded me slightly of I don't know why, maybe because it was surgical masks and it was over the top and it was nuts. It reminded me of rocky Horror. Yeah, the music.
Actually, I was going to say as well, I think your guests that have been picked this year, so whoever's done the booking for the guests phenomenal because I love Tina Arena and they don't mind having a bold opinion of themselves, and I think that suits this show. You know, like think quite often you could be like, who are we going to get to do? Who's our special guests? And they don't fit, you know what I mean? Where these people all fit the rock Quiz brand very well.
And then you've got some like Jimmy Barnes, who you know, has been in a band like Cold Chisel that I mean, even though they were a huge band, I always feel like they're a bit indie as well in their own way because their music was so I mean, the songwriting so good in that you know, it's such great work from that whole band. And then his own big career, he's quite mainstream in some ways, and yet he fits
in the show completely as well. And then he got Meg Mack, who is a pretty quiet person but she fits into the show as well. And also it's about who you pair them up with and about again making that guest feel feel comfortable as well. So yeah, we were and of course, you know, you always have a wish list, and we really wanted Ella the Hooper on the show because Ella was in the beginning almost not the first episode, she was in the pilot and she's been a lifelong friend of the show, so we couldn't
have done that season without her. We adore her.
I could talk to you absolutely forever.
I mean, hopefully one day we'll talk about you know, Fisk and all the other other amazing things in your life. But before you go, everyone who joins the podcast, I ask people, what's something from behind the scenes, something that we as an audience will never know, kind of like a behind the scenes secret of your time making rockquiz.
Behind the scenes. Oh look, you know we used to shoot two shows in a row. There were big days, two half hour shows and in the one night, so costume change. You know, you're sweating, you're getting cooled down so that you're getting padded down. Getting to the other thing. You're all kind of Nancy gamsd up, trying to fit into everything. And I had this tiny little change room. My wardrobe mistress is there, and the first show I
camera who we had on. But the second show, Susi Ktro was going to be on the show and I'm literally in my underwear and she burst the door, burst up and comes and he goes, where are we starting? When's the show out?
Me?
Come on? Come on? Where do you go?
Come on?
I'm like, I'm literally only the host, I'm not produced im and my rather undattractive Nancy business. Do you want to come on? I mean I'm ready. I'm like, I'm sure you are, lady, but would you just make your way out and you will be seen to now she was a bit jet lagged, et cetera. And look she gave a great show. And she was on with Chris Chaney from Living End, who will also be on this new season of Foxtown. So it's a beautiful round mate.
But yeah, to have Susi Quatcho, who you you know, used to love Leather Trespadero on The Happy Days with contin bloody hell lady naked.
All right, joyat This has been a highlight for me, like I have looked over and looked off the screen, and I've had to pinch myself a number of times because the sisters been so Thank you so much for your generosity with your time, and you know I'll always be in your audience.
Oh and i will always be in your sight lines. Thank you, Ben