It's in the news today, but it was actually on TV Reload the podcast last week Their Life.
Welcome back to TV Reload.
My name's Benjamin Norris and on this podcast I go behind the scenes with the biggest players in television. Each episode you will get a front row seat with content makers like executive producers, writers, editors and casting agents, plus the talent we see on our screens. TV Reload reloads the shows that you're currently watching and gives you a better insight into our television industry and our streaming services.
Today on the podcast to have the first one out of the mass singer Australia on Channel ten, it is Ryan Maloney, Australia's most love soap star, fresh from Neighbors. Sad conclusion, we've been absolutely treated to this fantastic performance by the celebrated actor, well known for his role as Tody in the long running soap Neighbors. He was dressed as an it and slayed an ed sherance song, but
sadly was sent home first in the competition. The show is a lot of fun and we have certainly had some really impressive voices in the first episode and while it was sad to see Ryan go. The first reveal was a truly big shock for audiences and emotional to watch. We will talk about keeping secrets, how the songs get picked, what was planned next for his second performance, and what exactly is next for one of Australia's most recognizable soap stars.
However, let's get started with today's guest. I'd like to welcome Ryan Maloney to TV Reload.
Apparently I've been on the radar for a while for a number of different shows.
The massive back, bigger, better, muskier than ever. It's a lot higher than what I can normally sing.
Will they be able to.
Work out which celebrities behind each mask? One of the nicest comments was like I thought it was James Blunt. Yeah, essentially kind of learning how to sing the whole way.
Obviously, you are so recognizable to everyone as Toadfish Rebeccy.
And when I watched it last night, it was like, oh, well that's not in it. It's a bit of a deleted scene for you.
Hi mate, how are you?
I'm doing all right?
How are you doing very well?
I just want to know how quickly did you get approached for the mass singer after you heard Neighbors was coming to an end.
Yeah, that was their first call after our neighbors got asked was quick, let's get Ryan.
Let's see what he wants to do. Come on, I just.
I'm going somewhere with this. I mean, it's a little bit quick to be getting into it. But you know, i'd wondered, had you been asked to do the show before, or did they go, god, let's get the best of the best from Neighbors.
Oh, the best of the best?
Oh well, Alan Fletcher does like to have a sing, so you know, I'm not sure if they got the best of the best. But you know, they just had to put up with me, so that's good.
Had they asked you to do the show before?
Not necessarily, No, not that one.
I think.
I don't know.
They say that we've been wanting to ask you to do this for ages, but obviously with your.
Film and commitments, it makes it too hard.
You know.
Apparently I've been on the radar for a while for a number of different shows, so I don't know. We'll just see kind of what happens.
Well, I interviewed you on the red carpet at the Logis and I asked you if you had been approached for a celebrity reality show, and I just was wondering, had you already been asked to do the Mar Singer at that point?
Well, yeah, I went and shot it that following week. Yeah, I was already locked in. Mate.
There was this look on your face as I was asking it, and you kind of look towards whoever the publicist that was near you, and I was wondering that was It stayed in my mind. It stayed in my mind, and I have the audio of you and I talking at the logis, which I'm going to put into the interview, which is me asking you would you do the Mas Singer or I'm a Celebrity. There's probably about like ten celebrity reality shows that are happening in the country.
Will you get tempted to doing one?
What was my answer?
No?
No. You were like, no, I'm not going to ever do one of those shows. But then you oddly looked around for your like whoever the publicists that had been set up with you, and I just from that was like, Oh, he's definitely on I'm a Celebrity or Mars Singer, and then I just well that publicists didn't even know either that's amazing.
Yeah, so yeah, I think you might might have been reading too read into the look, but you were correct at the same time.
Look, it looks like I'm really good at this when I'm absolutely terrible.
Now it was a good guess, well done.
Yeah, have you heard from some of the celebrities that the panel thought you were, like maybe Fev.
No, I haven't heard, no, not yet.
I was meant to do an interview with Fev this morning, but maybe he just got a bit shy about that and didn't want to be compared to, you know, to my singing voice.
So unfortunately, Yeah, no, I didn't get to do that interview. And no, the hoff hasn't called me either, you know, bit disappointed.
So disappointed.
I thought you were Tristan McManus from Studio ten when you started singing, and I was saying to the person sitting next around, like, I think Tristan used to be in a boy band, because this person can genuinely sing.
Oh that's nice. It's true.
You have a very good voice. You know, what was the craziest guess that you saw from people online or even on the panel, Like, what do you think the craziest guess was for your voice.
I think probably either to be honest, the half or FEV because I don't know that either of them, either of them can really sing, so I think that's definitely up there.
I think the Honey Badger that was a pretty good one. To be honest.
Well yeah, I mean I didn't put two and two together.
But you know, it's a first episode, so I guess people are fairly fresh with their guesses so to speak.
It's warming up there, are there, They're getting muscles.
Do you get to pick the song? Like?
How is that process? I feel like for me, I would just go straight to karaoke. You know, you go to karaoke song. But were they very specific with the songs that they wanted the celebrities to sing?
Yeah, pretty much to a certain point.
I mean with our first one, they I didn't know that you could kind of have a choice, and from with the following ones that were put to you, it was kind of like oh yeah, and they kind of gave you two choices, so I was like, okay, cool, Yeah, I like that.
Other one, so we'll go with that one.
And I kind of jazz, but oh man, that song is a really high song that ed sheeran song Bad Habits. It's really high. It's a lot higher than what I can normally sing. So I've basically spent you know, the three or four weeks, you know, locked in a cupboard.
Trying to trying to learn how to sing that high?
What were the next song? What was the next song you were going to sing?
The next song was meant to be super Free, which I was really looking forward to doing.
You know, well, it is funny that even you guys don't know who else is underneath these masks, because I'm guessing you watched the show on television last night. Do you have a guess for any of the other masks, seeing as you've now heard their songs?
No, I've got no idea.
I'm actually really bad with actually knowing famous people, so I'm the worst of that.
I'd be useless on that guessing panel, absolutely useless.
And last night I watched it with I want to have some of my brother's house and they've got little kids, so it was quite noisy in that house and they were all very excited, so there was Yeah, I couldn't quite judge who was actually singing.
I guess you know, your friends and family have probably asked you a lot of questions about being on the show. I mean, what's the most common question people have been asking you about being on the series. I feel like it's always did you sing live? But what's the question you've been getting?
I think probably the most asked question is can you see much out of that costume? Or what's the weirdest part about it all? Because it is a very strange experience. Obviously, everything's top secret, so you can't you can't tell anyone, so you've got to try to, you know, sing in private.
So I don't know how.
It's really tough to actually get some you know, to get some rehearsal space to actually do that, and even like to the point where like at work, I was wandering around and then there's some audio recording boots that I thought, oh, yeah, okay, I was just sticking to those and do some rehearsing, And then when I walked in there.
I was like, I can still hear people outside. No, man, come on, how hard is this? So yeah, it was actually that that part was pretty tough.
But you know, like when you're there, you're not allowed to obviously speak to anybody because then you're not letting.
People aren't allowed to hear your voice.
And so you get you get a handler who, you know, it's like this ex sas dude, you know, who comes and picks you up and it's all top secret, and you get kind of put into the back of a car and you get like this kind of big kind of hood thing put over the top of you so that if there's any paparazzi around, no one can see.
And then when you go in, you kind of put into your own little kind of green room where nobody apart from like say, the wardrobe person comes in, so like it's very very limited to the people who you actually can speak to or who are allowed to even see you. So it's a very very funny, weird experience. But it was so cool. I'm pretty bummed actually that I got out so early, because I was really I was starting to really really get into the mojo of it, really enjoy it.
People loved it.
Like I've been online reading, you know, preparing for this interview of course, you know, reading the tweets, reading what people were saying online.
People were loving you on the show.
They loved the sound of your voice, and I'm I must admit, I don't know what let you down to be the first person eliminated. Maybe it was the night costume, but certainly it wasn't the voice.
One of the nicest comments was like I thought it was James Blunt. Like, boy, happy with that.
Now we know what you're doing.
After Neighbors. You're a full time singer and you're taking it on to her.
I'm going to go and do a do an album with James Blunt.
Yeah, if you'll have you, If you'll have you.
Yeah.
He might say no, we sound too similar, we can't do it, and that I'd understand. And sorry, James, I'm gonna have I'm gonna have to take this over from you.
I'm sorry, mate.
Do they have anything in the contract to say how many people you're allowed to tell? Because I'm obviously going to tell people, going to tell their partners or the kids or you know whatever. If you do tell people, do you have to ring say Channel ten and say, by the way, add this name on the list I've accidentally told my uncle or anything? Like how do they how do they keep the amount of people you've told a secret?
Well, you're not allowed to tell anyone, not even your partner, no one, not even your You're not meant yeah, you're not meant to be able to tell anyone. So but you know, obviously there's logistics to that, and you know you're just going to have to say, well, you know, you can't keep it from your wife all of a sudden, I'm just going to disappear, Like how do you do that?
They'll think you're having an affair.
Maybe that's why Fev hasn't been on the show, because he's worried his wife's going to think he's having an affair. So he's like, oh, look, that show's that's problematic for me. I'm going to have to side step it.
Yeah, we've been down this path before and doesn't eny Well.
What was interesting was when you took your head off, I feel like I felt personally I fell in love with your version of that song a little bit more, and reading online I think people did as well. Do you think that's because of our long time affection for you being on neighbors, you know, say as Tody that you know, it was just nice to see your face singing it.
Look, I really don't know. Look, in all honesty, I was just really trying not to suck. So that was that was just my main goal was just don't suck. And because it's a very like, I'm not a singer, so obviously, you know, locking yourself away in a cupboard, you know, like singing against the walls so you can try to hear your voice back, because obviously singing is.
A very audible experience.
You've got to be able to hear yourself and seek a pitch and all that kind of jazz. And not having had any kind of microphone experience with that, and then when you get up to you know, when you get up to Sydney and you do a recording of it, and that's the first time you've actually heard yourself through a microphone and through a head you know, through through headphones, and you're like, oh, right, so that's what I sound like.
Oh okay, well I don't need to sing like that.
And you can change your voice and you can change how much pressure you put on your voice and how you're sing and so I was like, oh my gosh, oh wow. And so that's that was a pretty cool experience.
And then so you kind of only kind of really get that experience once because then the next time you've got a mic on, and then you've got in ears, so the little earbuds, and with that you've got your backing tracks and your click tracks, and you're like, oh, okay, I've never sung with any of this before, and this
all sounds completely weird. And then you're like trying to get the levels right of like how much can you hear of yourself back in your own ears, which is you know, that's a different thing as well, so you're essentially kind of learning how to sing the whole way.
And then so then you go out in the audience, you know when you're doing and you're singing it live, but then you've got you audience sound, and then you've got the fold back and so once again when you go and do it, do it live, that's that's something completely different again, and you're like.
Oh wow, man, this is this is a crazy experience.
And then when you take your head off, then your microphone is a different one, you get a handheld and your earbuds are gone, and so now it all sounds completely different again. So it's like, oh wow, every step along the way is just something that you've never done before unless you're a singer. That is so hats off to it to anybody who actually really kind of takes it on and gives it a crack.
I reckon, I land up.
I mean, I'm surprised that you weren't on the UK version, if I'm honest. So maybe we haven't really put the mask singer to bed for you just yet. I think that there's another audience that would love to be seing you on that show.
Well, I mean I think, yeah, you know, maybe i'd have to change my voice so I didn't sound like James Blunt.
Anyone ever guesses James Blunt in the future, They're like, no, wait, no, no, no, it's right, no, right, Well, this has been a project you've had to keep secret, which would be very hard.
But can we ask, you know, what are you thinking of doing next?
Because there's just been so many people talking about what's going to happen with our favorite actors on Neighbors.
I'm just actually really going to enjoy auditioning because just to get kind of different scripts and different writers through your hands, and you know, different styles again. So I'm really looking forward to auditioning and just seeing it kind of what pops up, you know, where the adventure takes me. So there's that, and I'm not kind of even attached to whether or not is.
Even here or in the UK or wherever. Who knows.
Well, you know, just you know, pop over and do a project, you know, pop back whatever. And then also at the same time, we're building a new house and a new farm, and we're going to be knocking everything down and rebuilding. So I'm going off to do a civil construction course where you know, I get to play with excavators and rollers.
And diggers of all sorts.
And yeah, then I can kind of use those skills while while I'm building the house and kind of doing all that. And then you know, have a bit of a part time job, you know, driving an excavator. I think I think that's going to be a bit of.
Fun, something a little bit different.
Well, when we think of Bussie soap star's sort of careers taking off, people like the Hemsworths and that kind of level of success for shits and giggles, who would be your Marvel character of choice? Is there any chance that we could see a trajectory of Toty to iron Man all time?
Yeah, well, he's got lots of cool toys and you know that's kind of what I'm doing, So yeah, we'll go with iron Man.
Why not what Everyone who joins the podcast gets this last question, what's something from behind the scenes, something that we didn't see that we won't see from behind the scenes, kind of like a deleted scenes from your experience of being on the Marst Singer.
Oh yeah, there was this one, like we had to when we're doing stuff for the audience, like when the audience was kind of choosing and they kind of did the whip around to all the characters for the audience. They I don't know, they had actually made me climb up this flight of stairs at the back of the auditorium which was incredibly hot, and then and then basically they set my head on fire. There was, you know, a heap of smoke pouring out of my head and all that kind of stuff.
And when I watched it last night, it.
Was like, oh, well that's not in it, so yeah, I don't know, that's that's a bit of a deleted scene for you where the night is on fire.
Australia would never forgive the producers of The Mark Singer for setting you on fire. Let me tell you, you know, you're a darling of Australians, you know, entertainment world, so maybe not seeing your head being set on fire, can I just say you were fantastic.
It was a really good first reveal.
I think you did a fantastic job and even though it has come to an end, I think you should be really proud of yourself because it was a fantastic first episode, mainly because we got like a big name being revealed.
Yeah, I think it worked well for the show, so you know, they all seem happy and I'm too. I had a great time and you know I didn't suck, so that's, you know, a tick in the box.
So lovely to chat with you, mate, so lovely.
Good luck with everything, and hopefully I'll get a chance to have you on the podcast again sometime soon.
All right, good on you, Thank you,