Alright Sydney, come on, let's make some noise.
So, I got rid of my beard in February 2015. Well, the truth of the matter is that there
is a very good reason for why I got rid of my beard.
And a very, very good reason why it is never, ever coming back. And that reason is that
I am transgender.
No ****.
I've seen you talk about your concern about returning to the stage with the band and having
****heads in the audience. You've done a few shows now. Have ****heads reared their ****heads yet?
Umm, not in the shows. I think the shows have been pretty cool. People have been coming
out - there's been a lot of support from longtime fans who are like a little bit relieved when
they come to the show and go
"Oh, thank God. I thought the show would be completely different. I thought your sense
of humour would have changed. I thought this would have changed."
"I was like, not really, my hormones have changed but that's about it."
So there's a sense of relief that just the comedy is still the same.
And there's a lot of support. We've also got in the audience a lot of people from the LGBTQIA+
community coming out.
A lot of trans kids; trans young people. And a lot of parents with trans kids coming up
and saying how wonderful it is for their kids to already be fans of our work and then to
see me come out and then have that connection.
And to have, kind of, what they've said, a role model in someone that they've looked
up to already.
That's really gratifying to me. I'm really keen to do that if I can be there. Because
I do realise and I see that there aren't a lot of trans people with profile in Australia.
There's a few but not really many in comedy or entertainment, or a bit younger, or anything
like that.
So I think that's good and I want to be a part of there being more, and
making sure there is opportunity for gender and sexuality diverse people to have opportunities
in comedy, because it's traditionally a bit of a boys' club and very cis and white and
we should work at changing that.
You've been opening some of the shows with "The Elephant in the Room". Can you talk a
bit about the inspiration for that song.
Yeah, so when we were writing this show. I hadn't come out publicly yet, and we were
like, "Well we need to address the change in the show."
And we didn't know if the news would reach very far before we'd actually start touring;
whether we'd have to explain it at the start of the show.
But we also had to do it in a way that was funny and in a way that our audience would enjoy.
But also in a way that people didn't think it was a joke. Because I think if we
came out and it was a very real possibility that people would think I was just wearing
a dress as a joke.
So it's time to address the rumour, do it with a sense of humour, so there's no mistaking
identity for a costume, we think it's best to point out the elephant in the room.
So Lee had the idea of, "Why don't we just do a song about how I'm bald, and we just
talk about that being the change?" And then we took it a step further of going, "Well,
what if we ask you all the questions that I've been asked in the last six months, but
make it about you being bald?"
How long's it gonna take before you're fully bald?
Great question, and you know what, I'm not even sure, but I lost a few more hairs this
morning, so this isn't even my final form.
It's been a really good way for people to engage with the issue as well; it kind of
deals with those awkward questions that people have and they're hard to hear over and over
again when people ask you about surgery or ask you about private things.
But it was a way for us to actually answer them without putting myself in an awkward
position, or making it funny.
A diverse audience have really liked the song, so I think when you do comedy about trans
stuff, there is a tendency for mainstream people to switch off and go, "I don't care
what you do with your body; just don't talk about it."
Right.
"Don't bother me with it." Which we've gotten a little bit of. But with this, it's "oh,
yo totally talked about it and I could totally engage with it because you made the
song about a cisgender white heterosexual man". I'm like, "Okay, yeah, cool."
That's what we've got to work on next, but I'm glad that you enjoyed it.
And queer people as well have also been like, "Oh that song was great. It dealt with the
issue and I didn't feel uncomfortable and I don't think you put us in a bad light."
So I think we did a good job. I think we kind of... we nailed it.
Yeah for sure. Well that song aside, I'm curious because you've got a new album, or a recent
album, Viva La Vida Loca Las Vegas.
Nailed it.
Thank you. Practiced that.
But when you are making spoof songs or parody songs or just comedy songs in general, what
are you looking for? Are you looking for things that would be fun to do live? Songs that are
timeless? Songs that are of the moment?
To be honest, it's about being open to all of those things. Kind of inspiration
hits you in many different ways.
I mean, sometimes it's hearing a song on the radio. Sometimes it's a thing that happens
during your day.
Sometimes it's someone that you observe on the street, or the way that people behave when they
listen to music.
So it's all of those things. We do a lot of genre parody, so we kind of, rather than spoofing
specific songs, we write a new song that's in the genre, or in the spirit of those songs.
So we have a new song called "We Are So Young, You Are So Inspired" which is kind of a take
on Imagine Dragons, and fun and Bastille, and those sorts of bands which are kind of,
very young performers exclaiming about how wise and youthful they are.
And we're like, okay, that's a genre that we can do.
We could have very easily just taken a Bastille song and changed the words but we want to
write our own song.
But when people hear it, they're like, "Oh, it's kind of like Bastille, isn't it?"
That's kind of where our proudest stuff is. It's kind of writing original songs that kind
of jog people's memories about stuff they know.
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