Kyle Sandilands: Australian Idol - Judge

It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week that line and 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

I was sort of playing a role almost back in the old day, still me but this time around, I just feel a lot more comfortable.

We will find out what he will bring to the return of Idol and what advice he has for the young contestants.

I just think these kids they need as much advice and guid's as possible, and then it's up to them to pick it up and run with the ball.

I will also ask about his current relationship with former hosts Dicko and Mark holden Well.

I thought Mark was dead, but apparently he's still alive.

We will talk about those former judges and if they were actually asked to return.

I think they came to me first. If I'd have said no, they might have gone to Marsha and then down the line. Down the line.

This year, Australian Idol is back, and we will find out what Kyle thought of the new set of judges, including Harry Connick JUNR Like.

Harry doesn't like me very much, but that's a bit prickly, but that's okay, but he's definitely worth his while.

We will also get some exclusive stories from Kyle Sanderlance and I feel like this chat is the perfect way to kick off the reboot of Australian Idol, which debuts on Channel ten this Monday, the thirtieth of January. However, we really should bring Kyle into the podcast. He's in the car and on the fly, but sometimes that's the best way to chat with him. So guys, I hope you enjoyed this episode. I promise you it's going to

You've got the driving in the traffic, but that's all technology is like.

Good to see you.

Well, I get to talk to you about Australian Idol and I am loving this show. I was thrilled to see that you came back for the format. Not only was show a favorite of mine, but I thought that you were super entertaining when you joined the original.

Oh thank you mate.

Well, you know, to tell you the truth, I was so nervous because I used to watch the show and then when Dicko left. Remember Dicko left because he thought he could do any show, and he was like he was bigger than everything, and off he went to do some dud some cooking show that failed. Anyway. He eventually came back. But when I first went there and sat

Whatever it was of the day.

But I was very nervous and I was sort of playing a role almost back in the old day, still me, but this time around, I just feel a lot more comfortable and pretty much charged.

So it's fun, it's relaxing.

Interestingly enough, you know, Dicko left to go and do Survivor, and then now you're up against Survivor, so like this is very serendipitous.

Well, Jackie, who I worked with on the radio, sheesus of hands. So I said, what are you going to be doing?

Because you know, we.

All love a bit of maths and we all love Survivor And now Idol's back, and I was like, where's your where are you going? I'm one hundred percent she wants the nostalgia of Idol like she misses, she misses it.

Did you ever think that you would come back and do this show again? I mean, you know there was There's been fourteen years since we last saw it. Did you ever think you'd come back and do it again?

Well, after I got fired, I thought, that's it to me and I loved that show.

I was spewing. I went on to do X Factor in Australia's Got Talent and stuff like that, but they were never the same as Idol. Like Idols the Juggernau. Idol is the big one that's world makes worldwide stars like and so I tried to sort of patch the wound of that firing, you know, by doing the other shows, but it was never the same. And I've done a few TV shows since over the years, but nothing gave me the same sort of scratch that that thing did.

So there was a few non negotiables for me as an audience, and I'm pleased to say that the format.

Is very true to the original.

Did you offer any notes before coming back when they were willing you to come back and do the show.

There was a few things that were a bit disappointing the first round because when you do it year after year, you know, they could never sing an original song or there was no accompaniment.

There was no piano or guitar or anything.

And you know, some some people need that bit of magic, you know, to show their true skill. So there was that, and there was like even in my mind when I was first auditioning, I was like, if you ain't Britney Spears, I wasn't interested, you know, But music, the artists themselves have evolved and like you can be anyone in any shape, size, any age, which is their new thing, and be super successful so I think we've all grown up as listeners and purchases of music, and also me on the panel,

You've got to look a little bit deeper than just what they show you.

Well, I love how honest you while with these contestants on the show. I mean that was what I was nervous about. I was like, twenty twenty three, we all have to be so careful about what we say to people. However, you give them some really great tough love on this show, which is what you need if you're going to survive in this industry. But I've always wanted to know where did you learn that tough love from?

And honestly, I was just I was just a hustler as a kid because I was sort of on my own early and it was like make or break, and you know, I felt every mistake. If I made a mistake, I didn't eat, or I didn't have anywhere to live, or I didn't have anywhere to sleep.

So I just learned.

Early and I knew that you can't treat everyone exactly the same. You know, some people you can wrestle with, and some people will never be able to be wrestled with. They can only respond through them through a hug. So you're almost going to be a chameleon. You can't just be the same harsh person over and over, because what you want is your message to connect with the person, or your advice to sink in, whether they use it or not. Like you know, I've had a lot of

Yeah, well you need to have that thicker skin. I mean, it's one of the one of those industries where it's basically impossible. And if they're going to be on television and getting the critiques from the people on Twitter and on Instagram, you know they've got they've got to know.

It's no good because some of these people can they can be absolutely crushed by one person saying some horrible comment online. I was like, you know, I told a few of them, you know, name someone that you think everyone would love, and they were like, oh, you know, Jesus, Ronald McDonald and Beyonce. Everyone loves them, no one would hate them. And then I showed them They've got actual, dedicated websites of hate out there floating around online too, Jesus,

I think if you're on television or if you're in the media, what people need to realize is that there's as many people out there that loves you that hates you, because if you have that currency that resonates with an audience, you are polarizing, you are engaging people fascinated, and there's going to be two sides of that coin, always.

Exactly exactly, and you actually need to have both to be big enough to be successful and make an earning and living out of this. You know, you can only I said, there's three groups of people. People who love you, people who hate you, and people who could care less.

And don't even know your existence.

Service Only the people that like you and hope to take, you know, from the people who don't know anything about you, hope to take a bit from them and add it into your love pile. But a lot of people waste time dealing with all the hate and blah blah blah blah blah. And that's ridiculous because it's a waste of your life trying to get people who hate you to like you and ignoring people who actually.

Like you for what you do.

A lot of people spend more time worried about, oh, why does that person not like me? You know, and then ignore all the people that are giving them positive comments online. They just never respond, but they are obsessed on the people that hate them. I think, get over it. It's bullshit. No one's always going to love.

You, I know. And that's the thing. You're a good person to talk to about that.

And you've definitely had to see a lot of negative comments out there and choose what to connect to.

But I'm quite right, some they're right.

Sometimes I have done stupid things said stupid things, done stupid things. But when you're on here every day of your life for decade after decade, everyone's band is fucked up and say something stupid or do something dumb.

Have you changed over the years, Like, how have you changed since the first time, say, Australian Idol was on television.

I think that I have mature ed.

And back when I was first doing the auditions, I think I was still trying to make it forwards my own path, so I was like bulldozing myself forward, and I think I'm going to do this regardless whether I think it's good or not, because I think it will work. But now I think I'm more comfortable and more sort of settled in my own my own business, my own life. I don't really I'm not out hustling anymore. I can pick and choose what I do, which is lucky, but

A lot of people think, oh, the hardest thing that is get a deal. That's easy.

Staying decade after decade after decade, making money, that's the tough part, and only the best can do that.

It's interesting, you know.

I know a lot of people that work in the entertainment business and people often say, what are they really like in real life? And I quite often think to myself, they're depressed.

Ah, well, you know what, have a look at comedians like this is what surprised me. Even just comedians.

You think, oh, my god, they'd be starting I imagine living, being married to that person whatever.

And then when I've met nearly every comedian, they're like you, and you think, I suppose that's their work is being funny, and ah, this is loud and carrying on of course that they're just normal people. I think people just get a thought of what people are like. And it's the same that happens with artists. You know, even see movie stars getting abused by fans for a past they played and I'm like.

Oh, that must be just the weirdos doing that.

But there's a lot of people out there, and these different artists in different ways have impacts on people's lives, and you know they carry that around like a wait and I'm like, oh, I just go write another song, have a little bit.

Do you think that they made the right choice of not returning people like Dick Oh and Mark because everyone's like, oh, they're going to bring back everyone, and they've brought back you, which is I think a very smart move. You're just as relevant today as you were back then, even more so. But then you know you are losing two familiar faces that were synonymous with the brand.

Yeah.

Well I thought Mark was dead, but apparently he's still alive. So I've rung him since because I told Marsha he was dead. She went, no, he'sn't easy.

He's dead, is he? And I said maybe?

And then we rang him and he was like hello Mark, and I was like, oh, he's alive. We had a laugh, and Marter's like, you're horrible. You still got that poison blah blah blah. So she's hilarious. I was like, I don't know, because I asked that too.

When they first said hey, we're doing this, I said what about the other judges and they said no, like you know, we're thinking. I think they came to me first. If I'd have said no, they might have gone to Marsha and then down the line, down the line. And Marsha does come back to the top fifty, which is fabulous, and I have a great time with her because her and I get on very well. Yeah you know, yeah, like it could have been reborn with all the original judges.

You know.

What was a really funny story was that when Meghan and Harry arrived in Perth, I think that's what they first flew into. Someone at the airline reported that Meghan and Harry had arrived in Perth, and the confusion was that it was the royals, you know, and ah, all of these paparazzi turned up at Perth airport thinking that we're going to get a photo.

Who disappointed from thousands of dollars of photos to twenty dollars a photo me But.

Did any of that happen? Did you put two and two together? And was there any jokes?

One?

I did that at one stage, I'm not sure where we were that someone bought me like a little plastic crown and a little cheap cape and I threw it on and said, oh, we've got.

Our own Meghan and Harry here And they were like.

Oh, because that was right around all that. They were really on the press when we were filming the auditions. They were in the press all the time. But yeah, very different ow Meghan and Harry are very different than those.

Two, very different. And then Amy Shark. I thought she was a really interesting choice. I'm a huge fan of her music. I've actually interviewed her a few times on radio, and I found her to be so what's the word for it, Like, there's just she's just who she is, you know. And sometimes yes.

She's not at all putting on any show.

You know, she is right there on the panel exactly the same as she is, you know, if she's if she's just sitting in a restaurant having a chat with here, which is really refreshing. And Amy said to me, like, I don't even feel like I should be here. I said, that'd be ridiculous. But you've done it the hard way. You've done the van tours through the States to all

Kill it up and up straight and start.

I think what's interesting about this format is that they're leaving stuff in that I thought would get cut away, that people would be nervous to see on television. And Amy had a real conversation, has a real conversation the first week with an artist who sounds amazing, he is phenomenal, and she says, do you want to be here?

Like do you want to win Australian Idol? Because she was worried.

We'd all seen headlines from Matt Corby saying, you know, idle ruined his life and he needed therapy and he found Jesus all the rest of it. But she was honest with this person and I thought that was fucking great television.

Yeah, it is. And that is what she brings to the table. She's been there, She's felt the pain, she's felt the rejection. She knows the negative and the positive. And I think a lot of young eys just see, you know, the dream. They don't realize that there's some uggliness that comes with this, like every job, but it's a bit on steroids because you know, people think they know you and they start commenting and you know, and the narrative can be completely off how you are.

And I think that she's experienced that and she's got through it very well. And everyone loves Amy. Who doesn't have Amy Shark, you know, from Triple J to the biggest pop station. They're all playing her shit, so she's invaluable and just she's lovely that she is who she is twenty four to seven.

I think the reason why this show, though, works is because we are getting to see the warts at all. We are seeing the diluted. We are seeing the best singers in the country, and we all have this thing inside of ourselves that thinks we can sing. I mean, I can't sing.

I'd love to. I think that would be.

I'd be I'd love to be.

I wouldn't want to be over your bloody Freddie Mercury, who wouldn't want to be that?

Like, you know, you'd.

Probably be dead by now if you were singing like that, I think that you would have finished it like.

You would have been in the twenty seven class.

I'd be in the ground dead for at least ten years.

But I think that's the commodity of ivital. I think that we can watch people. We all think we can sing, we all think we can get up there and we can do it, and we can't. And this show's happy to show that. Like The Voice and other shows, they're only showing the best of the best, and they're all highly edited. And I think even some of the voices have been stylized or put an auto tune through it.

Where this I wouldn't be surprised what guy has done to make tell anything can be.

But this is raw.

And the good thing is we have pianos and we have guitars on standby if that's what someone needs.

So it made it easier to audition, to show your best.

But even on your like even some of these people that a proper singers can have.

A bad, bad day and a bad audition. You know, it's just the lack of the drawer.

And as you said, it is just like it is in everyday life show bus stuff.

I have to say before you go as well, congratulations on your radio show. You know, I've been in your audience for as long as you've been in the media, and you've always been someone I've looked up to. And I think that I think this show like even moving radio stations and making the contents as rich and as interactive as you guys have both been able to do

Yeah, they still got this mentality of we need that that reality show, but you don't like I'm not against the reality show of people getting on like I know there was a lot of people bit like anyone with a profile is good.

But the friendship and the chemistry is the part that is hard, and sometimes you can't do that on a chart like it's It's just lucky that JACKI and I be became very friendly and I was a fan of hers bride a starting with her, so I knew all about her and she just knew I was some clown from Brisbane dressed in Colorado that didn't know any of the current songs on the Hot thirty. But the friendship is important and that is the main key to the success over the years.

I feel absolutely you know I would listen to your show. I was working for a Southern Cross Hysteria breakfast show for three years in Queensland and I would leave the show in the in the morning after I'd do it. It was four and a half hours. We did it based five days a week. Even you know, you know OB's

It's ridiculous because they're like, and then I know that that's sort of I did exactly the same, made like I just balked against I was rolling the dice. Really when like when the program directors would scream at me every day, you don't do this, you only talk about one thing at a time. You don't say that, you start that, you get the news on the hour, and I just went, I think that's really that important. So I gambled it. I could have screwed this whole thing up, but luckily worked out.

Well.

Well, you defy all of the people in that industry and then still manage to get the ratings. It's just the mind boggles that they haven't looked at that recipe and have been able to replicate it in some way like no one's come close. So is there anyone that you think though that could ever Is there anyone in your mind that you think, hopefully they don't think of this person doing breakfast radio and going up against me.

There's no one that I'm really worried about. There's some young people out there that I think have the ability and the showmanship to turn themselves into something. There's no one out there that I think, Oh, I'm glad they haven't got that person. I feel like if they we're confident with their own shit. But they've got the great talent out there. But I don't think our listeners would ever leave unless something, you know, catastrophic happens.

I've listened to I mean, I've listened to you guys for so many years. And Howard Stern I was listening to from a teenager. I think I was fourteen listening to that show us to download it like people downloaded music on nap staff Like, I've just been obsessed with radio.

My whole my whole life.

And you know, he's very similar and it is quite similar to your style at times, but you know, he also has that unbelievable cut through. I think of that Chatfield had a relationship like a best friend kind of that relationship that you have with Jackie.

I think Abby is great, by the way, Like I think a lot of people have been trying to stir up something between Abby and I think even Abby's trying to stir sit up every now and then for me.

To buy it.

But I actually think she's actually got something. She just needs to just calm the farm every now and then. You don't have to fly the flag at every single thing that shows up.

But I remember what that was like.

I was that age, and I was that hungry and that opinionated, and fuck what everyone else thinks, and you know I know better than everyone else. So I get I get her thing, and she could that she could turn to something given the rights environment, and it's a survival thing for you know, some of these young especially these young out there influences not just Abs, but you know we've got you know, Laura and Brittany, and we've got like there's many many young powerful women out there

If you do it well, you can you can make.

A lot of You can make more money than their brain shurgeon doing this shit and you're just talking shit.

Got to be the right ingredients.

It's still very hard. I saw Karl Stepanovic last week at an event and I was chatting to him. You know, there was a lot of media speculation about, you know, him being in this fight with you know, I'm gay, so sports not interesting to me.

So some some cricketer Sky is that guy's name, just for the clarky there you go.

And I just was like I just said to him, I was like, people like you for being real and they don't mind you being a little bit rough and involved in this sort of stuff. It's not ideal, but I think it shows us that you are a real person, and that's totally that's great for us to see. I don't think it is something for him to be that, you know, worried about no.

No, I just I just think everyone involved in that situation and was you know, like there's friends, there's girlfriends, as wives, as sisters, there's like long life friendships, you know, like no one like it's like you know that party we've all been to, where we've all done someone's been like this.

This just happens to be out in the press. And I made it quite clear.

I said, imagine the worst fight you've ever had with any of your friends or your partner being filmed and put in the newspaper. We'd all die horrible. No one wants that. So it's just like, I think everyone knew it was an ugly situation, and everyone's just happy that it's sort of peetered out and dribbled off and everyone's got their own opinions. It'll be just one of those things we barely remember down the track.

It's relatable content.

Again, you know, I don't think it's going to be damaging for him because we've all been as you said, we've all been in those situations.

You know, I'm going to let you go. I just want to say thank you for coming on.

Something I ask everyone who joins the podcast is this last question, which is what is something from behind the scenes, something that we won't see, kind of like a behind the scenes secret from filming Australian idol.

Behind the scenes secrets. There's no this isn't a secret.

But like and when we were in Perth, because I had to get up and do the radio show at three am live back to Sydney at six, I insisted on getting the presidential suite with a wrap around balcony. And then I said to Amy, said to me at some stage and where all the judges were together.

She goes, how are you finding it having to go all the way downstairs and outside the smoke And I went, I'm just smoking on the balcony. And they all gave each other that. They all gave each other.

The grace team side eye what. She goes, what balcony? We didn't have balconies.

I was ah, and then ah, that could cast some ship.

Oh well yeah, so I'm doing two jobs at once, so you know. And I asked for things they may not ask. They might be happy with the standard threat.

She's probably in a box. She's at a cardboard box downstairs.

But none of them had balcony. It's only me. There was only one doing with the balcony and I had it first and best dressed.

Have you signed on for more seasons?

Do you know?

If you have, you got like a three year deal, are going to be doing.

And there's there's years of options, but you know this one has to work, no doubt. You know that'll figure it out. But they can say no and I can say no in any stage. But if it works then and I loved doing it. It was it was a real pleasure this year. I hope you know it runs from other ten years.

Absolutely, I really do as well. I think it will. It's I mean, I was so nervous about this coming back. We saw other very tried and tested shows to be brought back that have not done well, and this has stayed very true to its ingredients. And I think audiences are going to love it. When the live episode starts, I guarantee you you're going to bust a million.

So I hope that because there's different TV because people watch it live then they recorded and other Fox must want to record everything.

Fox help, so go on to the days you have to rush home and watch it live.

But this is the sort of show you want to watch live because people are talking on social media about it.

It's sort of like if you.

Record it, you know, record maps and there survivor, because you don't have to be live watching that, but you want to be involved.

When it happens.

It's a sense time sensitive that he called.

The others wats mine lit.

I just want to say thank you both, Bruno as well, who's there. I just want to say thank you for coming and having this time. It's very generous of the two of you.

Bruno.

I have to tell you, I was at a shop the other day and people came up to me and were like, I saw you on this internet show a couple of years ago, and they were like, what's Bruno really like?

And they were obsessed with you.

I think you were on like an episode a week on that, but the people are still out there talking about it.

I can tell you what he's like. He's a freaking lunatic. He's exactly what you see. Look at what he's wearing. This is this is my representative list shorts.

I think these are underpants.

They're underpants.

They're underpants. That was very good for me. He can wear whatever he wants.

Well, seriously, it was such an honor and so amazing to be able to have this chat with you. Good luck with Australian Idol and good luck with the radio show. You know, I don't think you need it, but I'll be in your audience.

Thank you so I appreciate that. I'll look forward to talk to me again