Subscribe

Havin’ a Laugh with Chris Wainhouse

March 23rd, 2012 by Emily | 1 Comment | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

Chris Wainhouse on stage and doin' his thang


With a slew of shows coming up at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, BLUNT tapped into their funny bone and tracked down comedian Chris Wainhouse for a quick chat about his place in the politically incorrect shows and what it’s like to battle drunken hecklers and play to a crowd of seven angry tradesmen in the back of a ute. Needless to say when the man revealed his skater past and penchant for the heavier side of music, we were stoked.


Chris, what have we interrupted you doing?
My wife’s just started a new job so I’m at home babysitting and playing dad right now. You know, pulling play dough out of the DVD player and doing those sorts of things.


Now at what point did you stop and think, “You know, I’m funny, and people may just pay to see me do this”. Was being a comedian a childhood desire for you?
Not at all. Look, I always loved comedy. I was in Brisbane when I first started, and I didn’t even realise it was a thing. A friend of mine who I was working with at the time asked me to come and see a gig and I just assumed he was a musician, as I was before I started, and I turned up and it was a comedy club and I just loved it. So I signed up for two weeks time from the date I saw it and it was my birthday, so that was my birthday present to myself: open mic, die-in-the-ass in front of a couple hundred strangers.


You’re from New Zealand, but I’ve watched you… Well, you openly poke fun at yourself. Does this flip to paying out Aussies when you do shows over there?
Absolutely. Australians and New Zealanders are quite cool with laughing at themselves, as are the English which is quite nice, the Americans not so much (in my experience, anyway). Aussies don’t mind having the piss taken out of them and nor do the Kiwis.


With playing shows overseas, do certain audiences tend to react differently? How’s the Aussie sense of humour received abroad? I’m guessing not too well in America then…
I don’t really do that many shows in America because they don’t really pay that much unless you’ve really cracked it, so it’s a lot of free work and I tend not to go there, but the UK is great fun and they’re all very much based in irony and word play and they love that sort of stuff and you can get quite subtle over there. They’re very switched on, comedy-savvy crowds.


I’ve actually read that you’re considered to be a “comedian’s comedian” so that’s gotta mean that you’re doing something right, but what comedians inspire you personally?
I never really know if that’s an insulting reference [laughs], but I tend not to watch comedy all that much. I would never sit at home and pop on a comedy CD or DVD, I see enough comedy when I’m performing on the night and I sort of leave it at that, but every now and then someone will come along like Doug Stanhope. I saw his show when he came back a few years ago and he was excellent.


I remember watching an interview Andrew Denton was doing with Billy Crystal, and Billy was saying how he actually gave up stand-up for about 20 years as he hated waking up and thinking, “At eight o’clock tonight, I have to be really funny”. How do you deal with that sort of pressure?
I really love the stage, I love getting out there. I almost dread waking up and not having a gig that night. I could work seven nights a week, 365 days a year, it doesn’t worry me. I never get tired, I can do it sick, drunk, whatever. I’m very comfortable jumping up on stage.


That seems like the toughest part. The ‘getting up in front of people’ and not knowing how the audience will be.
I’ve got a few tester jokes to see where their heads are at, so if they don’t get those, I know where to go and if they do get those, I continue along that track. Festivals are a different story of course, I kind of dread festivals. Getting out there fliering is a tough slog, but this one’s kind of nice because I’m not putting on my own show, I’m just part of another show, so I don’t have to flier. That’s really soul destroying [laughs]. Checking how many tickets I’ve sold for the night, don’t have to worry about that, so that’ll be nice and of course to just enjoy Melbourne for what it is. Catch a few shows, catch up with my friends… comics where we cross paths only once or twice a year, it’ll be good to catch up with them.


I’ve always wanted to know this about comedians. How do you combat heckling? Is that the sort of thing you learn in “Stand-Up 101”? Or does everyone react differently to it.
It depends on the heckle. I mean, some punters will give you a really funny heckle and that kind of adds to the show, but if they’re drunk assholes just yelling out the first thing that comes to their mind, it gets kind of annoying and if that’s the case, just give them a pair of smoking shoes and it sort of stops the next guy from wanting to try it.


What’s the marker of a good show for you?
Oh, there’s sort of a roll of laughter that you can get and if you can get that at the beginning and just keep that going the whole way, just by the sound when you’ve wrapped it up and if they’re just going crazy then you know you’ve done a good show. I really like big theatres though, I don’t often get to play them, but there’s something about a 1,500 seat theatre that’s a lot of fun. Most gigs I do are only to a couple hundred people; comedy is not overly “big”, the clubs are all quite small, so I like big shows.


And where would playing in the back of a ute to seven angry workmen slot in?
[Laughs] Oh that was horrible. I’d just started and some genius, they weren’t gonna pay these tradesmen for some reason, so they thought that a comedy show might be a nice way to break it to them, so I was stuck up at the back of the theatre, I was really new to comedy too, and these guys were just… They were very furious as you can imagine, not getting paid, and they just wanted to know so they just kept asking me how much I was getting paid for this, so it was terrible. Needless to say I never worked with the guy who booked that one again.


With these Politically Incorrect shows you’ve got coming up at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival, it’s all about the Aussie tradition of taking the piss. How did the whole Politically Incorrect movement come about?
I guess comedy has started to get a bit wowzery and everyone has started watching their Ps and Qs and all that sort of thing, and there’s a few topics you don’t touch, it’s not gonna be politically incorrect as in totally racist or anything like that, we’re just gonna hit any topic we wanna hit and you know, there’s a rule in comedy that’s: the darker you go, the funnier it has to be, to get away with that of course.


With shows like this, is there anything that’s “off-limits” material-wise?
I really don’t know many racist people in the comedy industry, most of them are very free-thinking cats and kittens so there’s not a lot of that that comes up. Obviously there are jokes that can be racist, I think you can say a racist thing, but if the joke is on you or your ignorance, like you might not understand something, that sort of thing… But I tend to steer clear of it. It’s like the old mother-in-law jokes and the old Irish jokes, they’re all very dated. Stereotyping different cultures, it’s all been done a billion times. That being said, a joke’s a joke. I have the feeling that you should be able to go anywhere with it, comedy’s kind of the last avenue of free speech. People will be offended in this show, but I have a feeling some people just go to shows to complain. I’ve had people telling me I was drunk on stage. I’m just standing there talking, it’s not like I’m gonna kill anybody [laughs]. I got a bit slurry and that’s normally because of the free alcohol that you get at a club. If you’re on at the end and you’ve gotta wait like four hours, you’re just steadily drinking as soon as you get there and it catches up with you.


With gathering material, what’s your biggest inspiration? Do you tend to draw from past experiences? Or do you make an effort to keep on top of current events.
I’m big on the news, I like keeping up to date with what’s happening, but to be honest, I don’t really give a fuck about actors or pop stars. The kind of music I like doesn’t really get to radio and I don’t follow the Kardashians and things like that. I used to be a skater back in the day, so I got into a lot of sort of heavy and punk style music, so I like that and I follow that still.


(Catching us completely off guard, BLUNT excitedly filled Chris in on the mag. He has a soft spot for Marilyn Manson and we have a new fan)


Do you ever think you’ll have one of those moments of doubt where you think, “Am I still funny? Do people still ‘get’ me?”. Is that what wakes comedians up in the middle of the night in a cold sweat?
I’m sure it wakes some of them up [laughs]. I’m sure there’s quite a few of them waiting for something to pop their bubble. I think if you just keep rotating your material and you keep coming out with new stuff, it’ll be fine. But then again, I have jokes that I’ve been using for quite a while. If I have trouble writing, I will just add to old jokes and just fill them out a bit and explore them, so you turn these little one-liners into ten minute bits with about 20 to 30 jokes sprinkled through it. That’s what I do, it doesn’t always work and some jokes take longer and longer to sort of nail; I’ve got a few jokes at the moment that are just taking it in the ass, they’re just not working, but I know there’s something funny there. It’s just sticking with it and seeing where you can go. Sometimes it gets a bit dark and it can sort of stop becoming funny, but if you just keep pushing it, it gets there and becomes funny again.


Featuring Chris Wainhouse, Chris Franklin and Steady Eddy


Catch Chris and a world of other politically incorrect comedians as part of the Melbourne International Comedy Festival:


Venue: The Evelyn Hotel (18+) – 351 Brunswick Street, Fitzroy
Tickets: $30.00 Full │ $25.00 Concession │ $25.00 Thursday Laugh Pack
Time: 6.30pm
Bookings: Ticketmaster.com.au 1300 660 013 │ Comedyfestival.com.au
Dates: Thu-Sun, 29th Mar-15th Apr


By Emily Swanson.

Tags: , , , ,

Blunt #108 is on sale now!

March 16th, 2012 by Emily | 1 Comment | Filed in Issues


See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. This month’s cover is graced by the likes of Soundwave frontmen Jeremy McKinnon, Bert McCracken and Josh Franceschi aka the revolution in noise! Speaking of noise, we’ve also gathered the hottest and heaviest tracks to give you a bonus Ear Bleeders sampler CD featuring the likes of Chimaira, Sienna Skies, Hearts Like Wolves, Delawarewolves and more. Get that up ya!


Filling the pages of Blunt this month we’ve got:

- Soulfly: We quiz Max Cavalera on his musical juggling act.
- Meshuggah are wiping out entire cities in a groovy sort of way. Just don’t call them djent!
- Every Time I Die prove they’re just as sarcastic as ever.
- A Day To Remember: Get a load of our photo montage tour diary!
- Sleigh Bells‘ Derek Miller tell us why he ditched the metalcore scene to play alongside DJs.
- You Me At Six frontmen Josh Franceschi and Max Helyer open up about the dark side of pop-punk.
- The Used: A new record? A new label? Cookbooks?! Bert McCracken isn’t fucking around this time.


Plus The Menzingers, Napalm Death, In Trenches, Say Anything, Psycroptic, a live poster of hair metal revivalists Steel Panther and all the usual BLUNT good bits!

Young, Wild and Dangerous!

March 13th, 2012 by Emily | 2 Comments | Filed in Interviews, Tour News

Dangerous! frontman Tommy Lofts is gearing up for the band's upcoming national tour.


Holding the title of the first ever Australian act to be signed to a worldwide deal with Epitaph, days of scrubbing dishes and boxing Big Macs are long behind the boys of Dangerous! who, after a 2011 international debut at Download Festival, are on their way back home for a run of national shows in support of their debut album, Teenage Rampage. Frontman Tommy Lofts runs BLUNT through how the band stumbled across producer Ulrich Wild’s home phone number online and why he thinks when it comes to band members, Slipknot have got it right.


The Dangerous! sound is like old-school rock ‘n’ roll. What made you want to bring that back to the public interest?
Nothing was really intentional, we just all grew up on different types of music and then we got together and started writing songs. We’d all been playing in bands around Adelaide for a bunch of years and we kind of just met each other and formed a supergroup, like a super boy-band male group. It wasn’t really preconceived or anything like that, it just kind of happened and we love it. We love the record and we love it when other people love it; it’s a good feeling. You know, it’s not for everyone, but the people that do like it are really supportive and dedicated to us, and that’s really good, so we’re happy.


It makes you want to party. Is that what you guys were going for with it?
I don’t know, you say that the record makes you wanna party, if you come hang out with me you might not wanna party, it might just be the record. We’re not necessarily a party band, but we make happy, good-sounding music that inspires people and if it makes them want to get off their chairs and start jumping up and down and dance and have a good time and sing a long, then that’s wicked. We dabble in a good time, but I wouldn’t say that we’re a party band. We’ve had a lot of good times and we were lucky enough to go over to the UK last year and do a bunch of touring over there and play some really big festivals and it was just a really, really good time and we got to meet a lot of great people and play to a whole new different style of fans over there and a different culture and different type of people, and that’s kind of opened up our minds and broadened our horizons in regards to the way we look at the band. We were very lucky to do that and it’s just really cool to be amongst other great bands that you’ve grown up with and then you know, being able to share the stage with bands that you kind of idolised when you were growing up, so it was just a really great experience.


How do these national tours that you’re about to do here shape up to festivals?
This tour that we’re about to embark on is the first tour we’ve done since the album’s been out, so we don’t know what to expect. You know, we’re really excited. We’re excited to do stuff in our home town, in our home country, and finally have the album out. It’s gonna be a really strong, rewarding feeling to be back home and playing on your home turf, playing to your home crowds and celebrating what you’ve done, which is the CD and the songs and just enjoying it, you know?


You guys were the first ever Australian act to be signed to a worldwide deal with Epitaph, do you find it weird being so well-received overseas?
We’ve always been well-received here, this is our home town and this is where we come from, but the Australian music industry is 2% of the world’s market, so there’s gonna be more opportunities overseas to do this and to do that, but that’s a whole other side of things, you know? In regards to being received, we have great, loyal fans down here and it’s always a real pleasure to tour in Australia and be playing to your home town crowd.


So many Australian bands struggle to crack the international market, but you guys seem to have done it.
I think the market over there is very, very different and a lot bigger, so I guess in a way it’s hard to crack, but there’s a lot more people over there, so there’s a lot more fans to be made, so if you think of it in that sense it should be easy for anybody to do that because you’ve got more of an opportunity. It’s always going to be very similar to how you’re received in Australia. If people like you in your backyard playing in your shed and your friends are like, “I like that song, I like your band”, that’s cool, other people are gonna like it too, so I think generally it just starts at that level. If you’re onto something good, I think it’s gonna be well-received anywhere.


Saying how you were starting off small, you worked with Ulrich Wild (Deftones, Pantera) on this album. How did that come about?
That’s a funny story because we had a whole bunch of producers that we could’ve worked with on the album. We had a whole lot of Australian producers we wanted to work with, and the label was forwarding producers for us to work with on the album and it just came to it that we found Ulrich on the back of one of our CDs. We went through our CD collection, we picked up the Pantera album and were like “Ulrich Wild”, and then we picked up a Deftones album and we were like, “Ulrich Wild. This name keeps popping up”, and then we found him on the Internet. It didn’t come from the label, it didn’t come from management or a booking agency or anything like that, we got on the net and looked him up and got his email and emailed him saying how we wanted him to do our album. We sent him tracks and stuff and he wasn’t replying to our emails, and somehow, somewhere along the line, we got his home phone number off the net and our drummer Jarrad (Lee) just called his home phone and was like, “Dude, what’s up? It’s Dangerous! from Australia” and he was like, “What?” and we were like, “Do our album dude, what’s going on? Write back to our emails.” And we made it happen from there and I just think that’s cool as shit. It’s something for kids out there and younger bands to take on board because if you want something to happen, you can make it happen. You’ve got the Internet which is the strongest tool in the world, so get out there and find out what you want to do and do it because it’s possible.


Yeah, if at first you don’t succeed, ring the bastard’s home phone.
I thought it was “pick yourself up and try again”? I like that one though.


Since the release of Teenage Rampage, have you had the chance to start working on any new material yet?
There’s always stuff lying around because when we got signed, we all quit our jobs, so we’ve got all this time on our hands and naturally, you just pick up a guitar and start writing, so there’s always stuff in the works. But you know, the album’s come out, this is the first Australian tour we’re doing in support of it, so we’re focusing everything on that at this point.


What kind of jobs did you guys used to have?
Well, think of all the shit jobs you could ever do, and we’ve done them all. Actually, what’s the first shit job that comes to mind?


I’d have to say the Golden Arches: Maccas.
Done it. Done it! Our drummer Jarrad worked at McDonald’s for a couple of years I think. But washing cars, scrubbing dishes, we’ve done it all. I think as we got older though we kind of moved up to the more respectable jobs like retail [laughs]. We’ve always dedicated ourselves to the band and having a job was always a second option for us, it was never a fallback plan, we always wanted this to happen, so it was never a big deal for us to move up the ranks and get a good job and get paid well. It was always the band and we’ve always kind of focused our energy on that and managing ourselves and managing our careers and just trying to get the most out of it.


So many bands always seem to put the band second.
That was never the vibe for us. It was always put the band first and no side projects or girlfriends on tour [laughs]. In all honesty, we’re not really that anal about things, but it’s good to have four like-minded individuals and it’s good to have everyone on the same page, because if you’ve got four people all working for the same idea, you’re gonna get there four times as fast. In saying that, it took us fucking ages to get to where we are, so maybe we should have formed a band like Slipknot and had more people involved. I think that’s probably a good word of wisdom: if you wanna start a band, the more people, the merrier, because it’s hard work and it’s a long slog, so get as many people as you can working for you.


Catch Dangerous! at a venue near you on their upcoming tour dates:


Thu Mar 15th – Next Nightclub, Melbourne
Fri Mar 16th – The Patch, Wollongong
Sat Mar 17th – Spectrum, Sydney
Wed Mar 21st – Afends Warehouse Party, Byron Bay
Fri Mar 23rd – Monster Madness, Surfers Paradise
Sat Mar 24th – Kings Beach, Caloundra
Thu Mar 29th – Snitch Club, Brisbane
Sat Mar 31st – Spotted Cow, Toowoomba
Thu Apr 5th – Gee Whizz (Central Club), Gosford
Sat Apr 7th – Northern Star, Newcastle


By Emily Swanson.


Tags: , , , , ,