- Hello. Wait, I just waved.
- I always wave. [laughs]
- Hello, I'm Amelia Dimoldenberg, comedian, journalist,
creator of "Chicken Shop Date,"
and I'm here with radio DJ, presenter,
broadcasting legend Lauren Laverne.
- In this "Vogue Visionaries" session,
we're going to be talking about our different journeys
in the industry, finding your voice as an interviewer,
how you can turn a passion into a long term career,
and hopefully sharing a few of the lessons
that we've learned along the way.
- I'm excited.
- Me too.
[contemplative music]
- So, Lauren, you started out as a teenager in a band.
- Yes.
- And now you've been in broadcasting for over 20 years.
Talk to me a bit about that evolution
of how you've come to where you are now.
- Started band in the summer holidays
after finished my GCSEs
and then things took off pretty quickly for us.
I think we got a bit of a reputation,
it's being quite funny.
So the TV stuff that I did first came out of that really.
I was a guest on things like "Never Mind the Buzzcocks"
and then actually got into radio.
But as soon as I got behind the mic,
I just knew I'd found my thing.
I always say it's like showing off but in private.
And for me that was perfect
because I didn't feel overexposed
but it just had this brilliant kind of intimacy, you know,
almost like you're sharing a secret with a mate.
So tell me about the series then.
Obviously, everybody loves "Chicken Shop Date"
and it's been going for a while now.
How did you come up with the idea?
- The YouTube series started eight years ago
and before that, it was a written column
in a youth run publication
which is a great way to test a format actually,
is through writing it out first.
Every Wednesday after school,
I would go to this youth club in Northwest London
and everyone there was really into UK rap and grime
and I was into McFly.
[Lauren laughs]
I then thought I'd love to interview these musicians
that everyone's talking about.
And so, thought of a format and I thought a great way
to do an interview would be a date.
And I also wanted to go on a date
'cause I'd never been in one.
[Lauren laughs]
So it was killing two birds with one stone
and someone said, "You should go on a date
where you would never usually go on a date
to make it funny."
So that's how the chicken shop element happened.
And then I just found a friend of a friend of the magazine
who had released a mix tape, it's called "It's Nate."
Asked him if he'd meet me at his local chicken shop.
- Did he immediately say yes?
- He actually did, which I don't know why.
And then while I was doing the interviews,
I think I did about 10, I thought,
"Wow, it'd be great if people could actually see this."
So it was going on 'cause it was awkward, it was funny.
I was playing the character from, like, the very beginning
but the issue was I didn't know anyone with a camera
and I didn't know anything about video production.
So that was what was holding me back.
And then my first year of uni, I met a camera operator
and I said, "I've got this idea.
I've got this column in this magazine where I go on dates.
Can you please come and film it?"
And he was like, "Mm. Okay, sure."
- And was that your first episode then?
So would that be "Ghetts?"
- The first episode was "Ghetts," yeah.
Which is such a great first episode to have.
If your music was a type of chicken-
- [Ghetts] Yeah. - or part of the chicken,
what would it be?
- It'd be a fire.
- You mentioned playing the character
and the person that you are on "Chicken Shop Date"
is not quite you.
- It's kind of an exaggeration of who I am.
And so, I just kind of played on that
and actually kind of inverted it.
So it was almost uninterested,
which is kind of what you are taught not to be
when you're interviewing someone.
- Yeah, and on dates, right?
- Yeah, exactly.
It's like the anti-date and interview.
- It also struck me
that actually I think a lot of the time,
people want women on screen to be likable.
And obviously, because you're emphasizing
the kind of awkwardness of the setup,
you've completely gone against that
with the kind of format that you've created.
And I find that, like, a really interesting and quite...
There's something quite powerful
about choosing to do that.
You're doing all of the things
that you're not supposed to do.
- What connects with you most about interviewing someone?
- For me, I would say it's about, you know,
the ability to be the first listener
to just the most extraordinary stories.
So definitely, like, that natural curiosity thing.
But also "Desert Island Discs," you really get,
sometimes get quite deep with someone
and actually, the conversation is right there.
You're listening to it in your ear.
There's something really magical about that.
- For me, it's about showing a different side
to that guest personality.
So I will watch kind of all the interviews they've done
or if they've been on "Desert Island Discs"
to try and get a sense of what they've been asked before.
And kind of what they're sort of know now.
And then just figure out what kind of person
I want to show them as.
And then obviously, that changes when I'm sat opposite them.
But that's what I really love about it.
And I also feel, like, for me being weird,
like asking a weird question, or myself being weird,
they are then more relaxed.
- [Lauren] Yeah.
- Because they're like,
"Well, at least I'm not as weird as her,"
[contemplative music]
- "Chicken Shop Date" started out in a magazine,
but was YouTube always gonna be the platform for you?
- I think YouTube was always gonna be the platform
because it's so accessible which is why it's so appealing
because I could kind of connect
with a whole range of different people
and just get it out there to the masses.
And the fact that you can be so creative with it
but also, the fact that you can connect with your fans
so intimately in the sense that people can comment.
And actually, YouTube comments
is where I also do a lot of my research.
And I'll look at the comments
and I'll get a sense of what people think about that person
or kind of get into the mind of the fan.
- Yeah.
- And I think that's a great way to carve questions.
- It's interesting that you say that
'cause I completely agree.
I always start with my listener.
So in radio, we would never say, "My listeners,"
it's always the audience of one.
I think George Orwell came up with that phrase
when he was working at the BBC.
And he wrote about this essay called,
"Poetry and the Microphone."
So can you make art on this new fangled medium,
which is radio?
And if you put them first,
I think, editorially, probably won't go too far wrong.
We've had a couple of people crossing over actually
because one of my castaways, Louis Theroux.
[Amelia gasps]
- Yes. - One of your big heroes.
Who've some of your favorite dates been?
Would you choose one
or would that feel unfair to the other exes?
- Exactly, and no, I can't put one on a pedestal.
Because I'm in creative control and I choose the guests,
I wouldn't approach a guest if I wasn't already a fan
but Louis Theroux for sure was one of my favorite episodes
because he is such a hero of mine.
A lot of my awkward interview style comes directly from him.
And then what happened as a...
Like consequently-
- This is the thing. - It's crazy.
- So your conversation with him, you invite him to rap,
and then the rap that he does is then endlessly remixed,
it becomes this kind of anthem.
- Can you remember any of the rap that you did?
♪ My money don't jiggle, jiggle, it folds ♪
♪ I like to see you wiggle, wiggle, for sure ♪
♪ It makes me wanna dribble, dribble, you know ♪
♪ Riding in my Fiat, you really have to see it ♪
♪ Six feet two in a compact, no slack ♪
♪ But luckily the seats go back ♪
♪ I got a knack to relax in my mind ♪
♪ I'm sipping some red, red wine ♪
- But, yeah, I guess if I wasn't such a fan
or didn't do that kind of, sort of in depth research
into people then I wouldn't have known about the fact
that he did that rap in one of his documentaries
over 20 years ago.
- So you run your own shop, a production company.
- As a content creator on YouTube,
essentially, you kind of have your own production company
from the beginning but it's just never formalized.
Then I formalized it two years ago, called Dimz Inc.
and yeah, I make "Chicken Shop Date,"
I have my cooking show on my YouTube channel as well,
"Amelia's Cooking Show," interesting title.
And then I had a series with Dave on their YouTube channel
called "Who Cares?" which was, like, a vox pop series
where I was speaking to the public
about different current affairs subjects.
And I wanted to sort of look at that subject
through speaking to other people
and using that as kind of, like,
a democratic way of broaching a subject
through just what other people had to say.
And then the plan is to kind of make content
for other people in the future
and kind of broaden out how many formats I can have
on YouTube.
- You must have gone from feeling
that it was this very much, this DIY thing,
and that you were a bit of, kind of lone wolf,
even an outsider to this big kind of media or industry.
And actually to choose to then, you know,
have your own production company
and kind of formalize that,
you must have seen the value in being different.
- I feel like the best thing that's ever happened to me
is, like, to just make "Chicken Shop Date"
and make it on my own terms,
and just be in creative control
because I don't think that "Chicken Shop Date" would exist
if it went any other way
or if it was part of, like, a big media company.
To have the freedom, especially as a woman,
to create your own show and have it to be your own vision
is kind of amazing.
I'm interested to know, like,
working with some of the biggest broadcasters,
like, how do you work in tandem with your production?
- It varies production to production.
I mean ultimately, you know,
when you're presenting, you're the person
whose job it is to articulate
this whole team of people's vision.
But obviously, one of the great things about radio
is that you just have a lot more autonomy as a broadcaster.
You know, often when I do my "6Music Breakfast Show,"
that's just me, a couple of team members and a mic
and that's it.
And we just...
Our editorial guideline in the studio,
"Is it pleasing?
If it is pleasing, it goes in the show.
If it's not pleasing, it doesn't."
- Do you think that it helps that "Desert Island Discs"
isn't filmed and you don't see that kind of visual side?
- I do. - Do you think it makes
people open up more?
- Definitely.
You know, there's just the two of you in a room
having a conversation.
It's something very intimate.
And also, I think that that changes the quality
of the experience for the listener
because of the way that they consume that content,
you know, they're listening to it
and it's part of their day.
It might be part of their weekend ritual
or they might have grown up listening to the program,
it's 80 years old.
So all of these things kind of combined
to make it unlike other programs and very special,
and we're quite mindful of that among the team.
We all care about it as much as everybody
who listens to it at home.
- Yeah.
As a listener of "Desert Island Discs"
and just the radio and watching things,
I really appreciate this sincerity in programs.
And actually, funnily enough,
I immediately take that out of "Chicken Shop Date."
If somebody is sincere- - If it gets real,
you just- - I delete.
- The "Chicken Shop Date" is not the place for deep chats.
- No, it's not.
So what makes an ideal interviewee?
- For me, the ideal interviewee
is they kind of have nothing to prove.
It's always lovely to get people when,
you know, they've had the success that they want to have
and they can just kind of enjoy it at this point.
- For me, the best kind of interviewee
is someone who's never done an interview before or somebody-
- Yes. - that doesn't do interviews.
- Yes.
- Like, if they are very, very particular
and have done, like, one or just refuse to kind of meet
any kind of journalist, like, "Wow, that just really,
just makes me go." - But it makes the research
a nightmare.
I mean, I was lucky enough to interview Kate Moss
for "Desert Island Discs-" - Yes.
Love that episode. - which was obviously
a complete dream come true
but you go looking for source material
and there's none there.
- That was such a joy to listen to.
- Thank you.
- She also has the most amazing voice
as well. - Yes.
[contemplative music]
So "Chicken Shop Date" is huge now,
I mean, you regularly get a million views.
How has it become so successful?
Do you think...
Can you drill down into the factors?
- I think that maybe the fact that it's a different way
of interviewing someone.
The fact that it's a date,
the fact that I play this awkward character.
The guests that I have on,
I try and make it so that the guests
are people that are of the moment
or people that my audience are really interested in.
I also think in terms of, like, the success of something.
What both our shows do well is this,
they have such a clear format and I think that as a viewer,
people can really connect with something that's so simple
in the way that it's presented.
- And they can play along.
- So has an interviewee ever given you
a brilliant piece of life advice
or made you think differently about something?
- My favorite piece of advice that I ever got from an artist
was a member of the band Songhoy Blues.
He said to me that there's a saying in Marley
which is, "Everybody hears when the tree falls down
but you never hear the forest growing."
And I thought that was such a brilliantly insightful way
of expressing what culture is.
But I think that helped me crystallize
that actually my job as a broadcaster
is about the forest growing.
It's about culture and being constructive.
- So what's been the most valuable lesson you've learned
as an interviewer and a broadcaster?
- Really listen, to completely be in the conversation,
focus on the person, do all of your prep
and all of your work beforehand
so that you can then put it in the hinterland.
That's how someone described it to me.
You know, you have all of your knowledge
and all of the stuff that you wanna know and you wanna ask
but that's kind of on this outside circle.
You're in the moment in the conversation,
reacting to the person as they are
and prepared to kind of go where they take you.
If you wouldn't tap someone on the shoulder
and interrupt what they were doing to say it,
why put it in your program?
Why write it?
You know, it has to be good enough
to kind of disrail somebody's day.
- I remember listening to Graham Norton being interviewed
and he said something that's always stuck with me which is,
"If it's not funny or if it's not entertaining,
it's not going in."
And I think that's definitely something
that I've always tried to stick by.
And if they're gonna sit there with a straight face then...
Only me can do that.
[Lauren laughs]
I'm the one with a straight face,
everyone else needs to be laughing.
- [Lauren] Yeah.
- It's my greatest talent maybe that I have.
- And, Amelia, if you could give your younger self
a piece of career advice, what would it be?
- Well, I was like a very ambitious child.
So I would give myself some advice
but I would also just say,
"Well done for being persistent."
Because I think that's how I've got to where I am today,
is just by, you know, sending so many emails,
by being in every single afterschool club,
by carrying on with something
when it wasn't getting any views.
So I would say a hundred percent believe in your idea
and be persistent and kind of annoy people
to the point where they end up saying yes.
I would also say I owe so much to my friends,
people that I met when I was at this youth club
in Northwest London.
If it wasn't for me collaborating with them,
I wouldn't be where I am today.
So I think use your friends.
- Yeah.
Well, thanks for today.
It's been so much fun.
- Thank you, Laura.
It's been great to meet you.
- Do I get a second date or what?
- Absolutely.
We have to go to the chicken shop though.
[gentle music]