Between Two Beers Podcast: Guy Williams: The wild world of Kiwi comedy

Steven Holloway Steven Holloway 3/5/23 - Episode Page - 1h 50m - PDF Transcript

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On this episode of Between Two Beers, we talk to Guy Williams.

Guy is one of New Zealand's best known comedians, who has worked on many of New Zealand's biggest

TV shows.

He was a co-host on Jono and Ben, a radio DJ at the edge.

He featured on shows like Come Dine With Me, The Extra Factor and Taskmaster, and for the

last four years, has been working on his critically acclaimed show, New Zealand Today.

In this one, we talk about bad names for podcasts, why he was the worst ever contestant on Taskmaster,

what it's really like to be the gag man at serious sport press conferences, his complicated

relationship with Sonny Bill Williams, interviewing the mongrel mob, Patrick and Roy, why New

Zealand Today has been so popular and much, much more.

Guy is a tornado of energy, noise and good chat.

This was really fun, so many entertaining stories mixed with moments of real introspection.

You'll love this one.

Listen on iHeart or revigate your podcast from or watch the video on YouTube.

A huge thanks to those supporting the show on Patreon for the cost of a cup of coffee

a month to get involved, head to www.betweentwobeers.com.

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recaps of each episode.

This episode was brought to you from the export beer garden studio.

Enjoy.

Go Williams.

Welcome to Between Two Beers.

That was very cool.

Yeah, it's underwhelming.

Yeah.

We need cans back.

Just use a sound effect like the future, you don't have to actually open a beer on the

ear.

Yeah, that's kind of a thing.

Also, can I say that Between Two Beers is a shocking name for a podcast?

Can.

Shocking.

I don't know.

Just leaning into like, I don't know, beers with the boys, the boys beer, it's just such

like weird New Zealand part of, it's not a culture.

I think just drinking beers, I think, I may be wrong.

As he sips on his sparkling water, I think, I don't know, I think it's done quite well.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, I love the podcast.

I'm just saying it's a shitty name, but a lot of things that have shitty names, like

the Beatles is a shitty name, and that's one of the most popular bands of all time,

you know, like a lot of things have shit names, Pink is a shit name, Crusader is a shit

name.

New Zealand today.

Blues is a shit name.

I think New Zealand today is a good name, but my brother over, over the summer period

told me it was a bad name, you know, so because it's forgettable and a lot of people, you

know, we go, how's your show going today in New Zealand, you know, and I feel bad.

So yeah, I guess, I guess, I guess, hey, who am I to talk with it?

The gag we most often get is we should call it Between Two Beards.

That's, that's not really a gag, but yeah, it's a common people name.

What about this?

What about this, like, Between Two, like, are you kind of parroting like there's an American

podcast called Two Beards in the Woods or something?

No, Between Two Ferns, or Zach Galifianakis.

Oh yeah!

Remember that one?

Classic web series?

No, this is dark, because like New Zealand has a bad history, and I'll point to my ex-colleague

Ben Boyce for doing parodies of things that are already comedy.

So Between Two Ferns is a comedy.

Between Two Beards, you're just taking like a funny joke, and you've, you've killed it.

And Ben did that so often, and I had to tell him not to do it.

Like, remember they did, you know, T-Pain and Loan the Lion released I'm on a Boat, very

famous comedy song, and Ben Boyce released I'm on a Goat, about fucking goats, you know,

like that horrific song.

And I was like, yeah, it's all, the joke's already done, and I guess you've done a new

joke, a joke on top of it, but like, you know, like, it's, it's, it's a weird New Zealand

history and we've got to stop it now.

It's meta.

It's meta.

Yeah, because I love Between Two Ferns, and this is not that, but this is good, this is

good.

But you didn't make the reference there.

So.

So you're in the clear.

You're in the clear.

You're in the clear.

You're okay.

Because this is, because what can I say, I've started too negatively, and I do think this

is an awesome podcast, and it is an honor to be on it.

So thank you.

Oh, thanks, Guy.

Thank you very much.

And can I just say Guy is our favorite type of guest, because he's a great talker, and

he front-foots the yarns.

So the long-time listeners of the show, you might remember episode nine, where Joey Edwards,

a football-playing, high-ranking lawyer, wrote us out a two-page dossier on his greatest

tips.

Who could forget Joey Edwards?

I always listen back to that every new year as I get the podcast on.

So Guy hasn't quite gone that far, but he's given us some bullet points, and I love it.

He's basically said, look, every interview I do, people want to talk about Paul Henry,

the mongrel mob, Sunny Bill, but I've got other good stories, and it made me laugh because

in the email to you, I was like, I tell you what, I'd love to get you on and talk about

your side of the Paul Henry story.

Well, I'll say this, I'll say this, I don't think you're quoting me directly there, because

not once did I say I've got other, quote, good stories.

I don't have any good stories, but I've got different stories of a similar low-calibre.

Put it that way.

We get it.

You're sick of the same old chair, and we'll try and mix it up.

No, no, no, no, it's totally fine.

It's just a lot of these stories, and a lot of them are not that interesting, but I can

definitely talk about the Paul Henry.

I can, hey, I'll talk about whatever you want.

I'm just saying you might get something that 12 other podcasts have.

Yeah.

If we work our way through it, we're going to highlight the stories you've given us,

just to put a little bit more pressure on the delivery.

I was loving your guys' Mark Ellis podcast, but it did feel a little bit like you guys

already knew the stories or the answers to your questions before you art.

You guys were like superfans.

Yes.

I love how Kiwi males love going, oh, these kids who love Harry Styles or Kim Kardashian.

That's what middle-aged men are to frickin' Mark Ellis, who's like, ah, God, for some

weird reason.

And we're like, tell us about when you were 19 and you got a fire truck and you sculled

the Yardee or some shit like that.

It's really fucking weird.

It's weird, guys.

Yeah.

It's a subculture.

And you're not looking at me embarrassed at all.

You're like, yeah, that was the best day of our lives.

No, no, no.

Would it surprise you to know that we know everything you're about to say with every podcast you've

ever done?

We know all your best stories.

And speaking of that, I know that you were a Mark Ellis fan.

You liked Mark Ellis and Matthew Ridge grown up.

You watched Sports Cafe.

You were a fan.

I wasn't really Sports Cafe.

I know that's New Zealand called New Zealand's Golden Standard.

I was a fan.

Me and my dad watched Game of Two Harps, and that was just amazing to me because I love

Trivia as well.

And I love New Zealand sports at the time.

And that was the perfect show.

And it's actually New Zealand today I want to do, which is my theory, which is the curse

of Game of Two Harps.

And I recently ran into Legendary New Zealand TV creator Julie Christie and asked her.

And she didn't seem that keen on, but I was like, if I could get a bit of the footage and

just a couple of the characters.

And that's what I was going to ask you.

Do you have Mark Ellis' emails at MarketMarkEllis.co.nz or something?

Because I would love to get them together because that cast has like, it's dark, right?

There's like seven or eight people who are on that show regularly.

And I just recently interviewed Mike King about crashing his motorbike on cocaine.

Tony Veatch, obviously New Zealand's most famous domestic abuse story.

Martin Devlin's had a hell of a year.

I just saw him, but he's come out of hospital after shivers, you know, and there's Mark

and Matthew and their hijinks and stuff like that.

I also, it's about Mark.

Did you talk to Matt?

I didn't get through all the way through your podcast because I had to come here.

Bloody to the podcast.

With Mark Ellis, did you talk about his celebrity drug ring?

Were you guys too scared to ask him about that?

We did talk about that.

There were some parts which we decided for a number of reasons that we were going to

leave out of the episode.

Because I feel bad for him about that because then didn't he only have like five pills of

ecstasy?

And I'm like, it's kind of great because it went in Nelson Grant at the time, celebrity

drug ring.

I was thinking of like, you know, like, you know, like American drug barons or it's like

a Tony Soprano type situation.

It seemed like he literally just built, bought some recreational drugs for him and his friends

at a wedding, a very common New Zealand behavior.

I don't endorse it.

I'm not a big drug man, but like, you know, like he got like murdered for that.

Like really was amazing.

Like I was like, yeah, kind of shocked.

Yeah.

So we talked about like ecstasy being used as a tool for marriages where people can,

you know, create empathy and say things that they wouldn't otherwise.

And he sort of like used as a way of saying, you know, this is actually a thing that makes

people feel better.

You know, it gets used for.

Well, I use it like marriage counseling or something.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Back in the day, or was it, but that's not he was using it for, he was just trying to

get on.

He was just trying to get on the razzmatazz.

Yeah, I, I, in the research, I look back and I was, I was underwhelmed as well thinking

same thing.

I was thinking like, like bricks and bricks of cocaine have come into the country, but

it was like, yeah, five pills, $80 fines and crazy like that.

And to be fair, to be fair, like maybe, you know, sometimes you hear stories and maybe

that was all the police could get him on or something like that.

But it didn't sound like, I don't think he was a very successful businessman doing Charlie's

or whatever.

I don't think he was running an import export business.

I could be wrong, but you know, like it was, yeah, it was rough for his reputation.

But to be fair, like his crowd already wouldn't have given a shit about that.

So maybe it helped his reputation.

Who knows?

It is funny how you, you reframe things that happened a long time ago.

Like we had Dion Nash on and talked about the, the drugs, the pot scandal in South

Africa in 96.

Oh, I'm glad you talked about that because people have been gaslighting me pretending

like it's not a thing.

And I said, I said on the project and everyone else in the project, Mark Richardson, Frickin,

Jesse Mulligan, everyone kind of went like dead silent, like, oh, don't talk about that.

And then they made a joke.

Like you'll be hearing from the lawyers tomorrow and I was like, well, I thought it was a well

known thing that New Zealand, you know, the, the New Zealand creative of the nineties was

a, you know, a bunch of, a bunch of cheeky rascals, you know, they were crazy.

Yeah.

So we went there and we weren't sure how much he was going to tell us.

Go back and listen to that episode.

He gives us 20, he tells the whole story.

Yeah.

Yeah.

We were smoking pot.

The whole team was doing it.

Yeah.

A few of us got, took the rap for it.

Yeah.

So that's, that's high on my list.

Like New Zealand cricket stories.

I want to do an interview about Daryl Tuffy's sex tape as well.

I want to find out about that.

I don't know about that one.

What do you mean you don't know about that one?

Is it the milkshake?

Yeah, the milkshake.

I don't even know.

Here's the funny thing.

Everyone always says the milkshake.

I don't even know what the milkshake is.

What's the milkshake?

I don't know.

You know the milkshake.

No, totally.

I'm the same.

You've heard about it.

You vaguely know it.

But when I remember, I actually get confused with Shane Warn's sex tape as well.

Yeah.

Photos.

You've seen it.

I've seen photos.

I don't know if you've actually seen the footage.

I've seen the footage.

We've watched it together.

I think.

But these are like legendary New Zealand stories.

And I don't think they're that bad.

Like if it's a consensual sex tape and stuff, like it sucks for Dale Tuffy.

But I just love his name's Dale Tuffy.

He's famous for bit balling the worst over in cricket history and stuff like that.

And he has the sex tape.

It's just awesome.

And I just love to meet that guy one day.

It's a dream.

It's on the bucket list.

Nice.

Bit more sport on New Zealand today.

Speaking of sport, we started as a sport podcast.

I just heard that.

And we moved on to entertainment.

But you've actually, you've got your own sporting tale to tell, right?

Wellington Saints.

Yeah, yeah.

How far did you go?

Well, not that far.

I, people always talk it up.

It's really cool actually going through the thing.

So I played just ret basketball for Wellington, basically.

But the way every interview hypes you up, because that's what you need to do.

You can't be like, here's Guy and he's shit.

You know, you've got to be like, here's Guy.

He's an unbelievable, he always sees one.

The other line was, were you actually as shit as your teammates described you?

Good.

Good.

I'm great.

Did you actually interview some teammates?

I wish I did.

I wish I did.

I feel like it is weird how like every time they build it up and then the next interview

will read the previous interview and top that one, you know.

And it comes more and more.

I was a real fringe player.

Like what I should have done if I wanted to play was moved to back to Nelson or moved

to a small town because New Zealand basketball teams don't have much money.

So they basically have five players on the court, which will be like three good Kiwis

and two Americans.

You know, that's the team.

And then they'll fill up the benches with chumps like me, you know.

But I went to Wellington, which is like the richest and most winningest team pretty much

mine.

Maybe a bunch of Auckland teams that all went bankrupt and Wellington was stacked when

I was there.

So I was like struggling at the end of the bench.

Nelson Giants were stacked for a while though as well.

Ed Book.

Nelson Giants were at a legendary franchise in New Zealand sport and Ed Book is a deep

card.

I just love to list like legendary New Zealand basketball players.

Ed Book.

Peter Pokai.

Yeah.

You can go all day.

But Steven, Steven, Steven.

You can't name one more.

Ralph Lattimore.

I was going to go like, no, I'm out.

Phil Jones.

The Reefton kids.

Double L on the front.

Brendan Pongia went on to be a New Zealand broadcaster.

We actually messaged him.

Glen Joe, a pioneer of Asian New Zealand sports.

Glen Joe, I played with Glen Joe at the end of his career and he was one of his athletic

dudes.

Chris Simpson.

Oh, you got me.

You got me there.

I've never heard of Chris Simpson in my life.

He's making up now.

No, no.

Very famous sports administrator now.

New Zealand basketball.

The Tiger Nuggets prior to.

New Zealand basketball is just amazing.

Like at the moment, like the GM of the breakers, Simon Edwards is his last name.

He started as the floor boy who mopped the floors.

He graduated to being the mascot for five years.

Shiki the Kia.

Won the mascot race, the legendary Ellersley mascot race, destroying everyone.

He's fast.

And then he, now he is the GM of the team, but he's kept his job as the stadium announcer

on the mic.

So the general manager, which is the highest role that we're going to play in person now

also.

And the Americans must come in and go, what is this rinky dick?

The guy who just signed my contract is now on the mic, he is break dancing in the middle

of the court in front of 10,000 people.

And that's like legendry New Zealand sports right there.

And how do you pronounce that?

Just so I get it right on the microphone.

When Peter Pokai played for the New Zealand, for the Nelson Giants, he had like paint on

his shoes because he'd come from literally working his job as a painter onto the court.

And he'd just go out there and just dominate.

Hey, he's a legend.

Were you paid to play for the Saints?

No, I just, I got like a weekly like petrol allowance to get to training and that was

it.

And I never got to the status of like a professional.

I wasn't that good.

As I said, people just remember me.

I was just very passionate, reliable to training, big body to bang up against and you know,

the older I get, the better I was.

So I've got a basketball story.

Yeah, give me a name.

So I reached out to a former colleague, I don't know if I can call him a friend, but

former colleague, Hayden.

And I said, what stories have you got about guy, you used to play a bit of basketball

with him.

Is this Hayden's now?

Yeah.

Yes.

And he just replied back, he's so tall.

I thought that was all it was.

And then a few minutes later, he said, I was playing basketball with him one time and he

elbowed the top of my head and my teeth came down and my tongue and it cut my tongue in

half and then he had to take me to hospital.

Great research.

I didn't have to take him to hospital.

Normally I'd go get your own way to hospital, but I'm a good guy and I drove him to hospital

and I sat there in A and E while we waited.

What a legend.

That is, yeah.

Did you administer any primary care after the tongue was severed?

Well, it's just a tongue in your mouth, like what sort of primary care do you want me to

do?

You want me to get some duct tape and take it back together?

I don't know.

I get it.

The reason I'm talking about this horrific injury in a jovial way is because I don't

think it was my fault.

Like, if you play with Hayden, he's a mad dog and he, it was like literally off a jump

shot.

Like it wasn't even an aggressive play and just like my follow through came down on

his head because he got into my shooting circle, you know, like I do, I do feel bad

about the accident.

I feel bad to split his toe, but I tongue and I've done a lot of injuries to a lot of

people that I feel really bad about, but that's not one of them.

Just for clarity and to round the story out, social basketball or was this very competitive

basketball?

No, it was very social.

It was Duncan Greve from the spinoff runs like a morning.

They wake up at 6am and play at the YMCA every morning.

It's quite intense.

And yeah, I think I smacked him in the face in the morning and yeah, went to aspect the

rest of the day in A&E.

Weekday warriors.

Absolutely.

So anyway, listen, we want to start with a story that one of our incredibly well-placed

sources has suggested, um, you, uh, is it true you were the worst contestant in Taskmaster

history?

Well, a lot of people get, I just thought that might be an interesting story.

It's something that I have to deal with every day, but literally friends go, go and you're

on Taskmaster, were you like trying, you know, like, and it was just like, I don't know if

you guys have seen Taskmaster season one, but I've been very hated, very hated for my

performance from Taskmaster Twitter and maybe a bit of Taskmaster Reddit.

And I had no idea, I was like, I'm out there, I'm doing a good job, trying my best, did

come last.

And it's been a little bit demoralizing to put up with because it's obviously a style

of comedy that I'm not used to doing.

And I didn't really know the show, like I'd seen a little bit of it because Kiwi comedian

Rose Madafoe was on the British version.

So I watched a little bit of that to support her, but I kind of didn't really know the

show and went on it.

My brother was on it.

I was trying to support him, you know, it's made by the same production company as New

Zealand today and just went on there and just sucked shit.

And I did worse than Lee Hart, which is pretty amazing because he had never seen, I'd seen

a couple of episodes, he'd seen no episodes.

He wasn't aware of what show he was on while we were filming it.

He seemed to have a good time, but yeah, we were in like, I think sometimes, you know,

when you watch the British Premier League, the relegation battles are a lot more interesting

than top.

Who gives a fuck about Liverpool?

Who gives a fuck about Manchester City and Manchester United?

The real excitement is down the bottom.

You know, with the battlers and it's so exciting, like Everton, West Ham are in the relegation

battle this year.

It's what I watched the Premier League for.

Have you got a team?

I know you're a football fan.

West Ham.

No, I'm not really a football fan.

I was about to say West Ham.

I got my team wrong.

Who supports West Ham?

What the fuck?

A lot of weirdos in New Zealand.

Sorry to all of our West Ham listeners.

No, fuck you, West Ham.

Fucking, that's a rank team.

West Ham is shit.

West Ham is like the racist team because their rivals like, is it like Tottenham who's

like the Jewish team?

So West Ham is like, this is football banter and this is idiot football culture at its

best day.

They're like, okay, so our opposition is the Jewish team.

So that means we're the Nazi team.

And that's what they are.

Like West Ham is famous for their anti-semitism and stuff.

I've got a friend who's a West Ham supporter, but that is a scumbag of a team.

But I did enjoy it when they got to the top briefly for like a year and now they're back

down in the dirt where they belong.

We'll be right back after this short break.

Just back to Taskmaster.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Brother's the assistant Taskmaster.

Yeah, yeah.

Is that a weird dynamic?

Like when you're sucking shit, is he like a guy, mate, you need to kind of just pull

it together a little bit?

It really gave me like an extra level of stress because not only did I want the show to be

a success for his, it obviously had nothing to do with me and it is a success regardless

of me.

But, and yeah, just embarrassing yourself in front of your brother.

Like the way comedy works is that you do, it's quantity over quality, right?

Stand up, you write 100 jokes, you do one that works on stage, you know, I've got that

and now I've got to do 100 more to get to the next joke, right?

It's basically how it works.

Are you guys looking at me like that's confusing?

Okay, for more talent, it's like podcasting.

You've got to do 100 until you get your Mark Ellis, I mean you nail it and you've got to

do 100 more.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well, yeah.

Well, for more talented comedians, it might be easier, but for me, it's a slog.

And I think from what I've read, that's generally the rule.

It's like, it's hard, yeah, here.

And, and, and normally when we film New Zealand today or any show Taskmaster, you film a lot

and you edit out all the horrific shit you did.

So it's just the good stuff.

It was my brother there just like witnessing me and full flight the whole time was dark

and the darkest moment was, it was, let me, let me task this on you guys right now.

You open the envelope, you're there, there's cameras on you, there's a clock ticking and

they go, make this tree sexy.

What do you do?

What's the first thing that comes to your mind?

What?

Make, make this tree, have you, you've never seen Taskmaster yourself, you're Leah Ellison

right now.

Make this tree sexy.

I would strip and then use the tree as a pole.

Yes.

Yes.

That was exactly my idea.

That was exactly my idea.

You got a thought now?

You've never seen Taskmaster.

You're not aware of this shot.

No, no, I have.

I just.

They just give you bizarre things you've got to do.

You've got to be able to train out of eggs.

Is that what you did?

Basically.

Basically.

So, so the first thing that came to my mind.

That was horrific in the darkest moment.

No, no, no, no, shit.

That was my best idea.

No.

So I had the idea.

I was make this tree sexy and that goes into your head.

Make this tree sexy.

Right.

And then you're like, I can come up saying better.

So obviously you got an hour to do it already.

I'm like, I can think of something better than that.

So you start walking around the house.

You start thinking of ideas.

But for some reason you get like this writer's block where that's your only idea.

You've got 15 minutes left.

I've got to make this funny.

It's so hard.

Make this tree sexy.

And I like, I just could not fit.

You know, someone tried to write a trot.

Someone like might have like printed out some pornography and put it on the tree.

Someone would have like written a song or something like that.

But all I could get in my head was just get naked.

That was my only idea.

That's my go to as well.

And it's like an easy laugh.

Like, I don't know if some of you will remember my.

There's one year in John on Ben where it was just my only gag was just getting naked.

I did it nonstop.

I actually went for sexiest man in New Zealand on TV because that was just like all I had

that year.

How'd you go on that?

I won.

But like, but you know, I didn't win because I was sexy.

I won because I was New Zealand's best at making fake emails and voting for myself thousands

of times.

But I, yeah.

So I, so I got naked and you can see why this is dark now because if you got naked, great

joke done.

Oh yeah.

My brother is there.

Everyone I know is there.

Like these are people I've worked with all through John on Ben and stuff like that.

And it was just like, so, and I'm like, I got to my undies and I was like, that's not funny.

You know, like, it's not a challenge.

I had to go for it.

And then I was like, I've got to get in the tree.

I don't want to just like go around it.

It's not, I've got to come back.

So climbing into a tree naked.

I think I end up, I think I climbed in with my underwear on and then two of my underwear

and my, so they decided to protect the woman and stuff in the crew.

They decided that everyone would look away while I did this, but and only my brother would

look away.

My brother is there at the bottom of the tree looking right up my red alley.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And it was, it was, it was honestly, because the weird thing is with Taskmaster is you

finished that.

You know, the crew, Paul doesn't really laugh.

No one really gives you a response.

And then you just, you know, the whole point of comedy is you share it with a group of

people.

You just walk this sober walk of shame with my, most of my clothes in my hand back to

this green room where I just sat there by myself and thought about the consequences of

my actions for the next hour.

It was, did you keep your undies at the top of the tree or did you throw them down?

I handed them to my own brother.

It was just, yeah, it was dark, man.

It was dark.

So you climbed down nude.

I think so.

Yeah.

Look, man, it's like one of those bleep memories where you block it out.

We can do that, but out of here.

No, it's totally fine.

It stays in.

Everything stays in.

It stays in.

All right.

I'm keen to, so we spoke about your brother, but your sister's a comedian as well.

Yeah.

And so I'm kind of keen to talk about your dad because I feel like when you have, when

you produce three comedians in a family, I'm really interested in the parenting dynamic.

And I heard a story that he's a bit of a hard case and he owned a McDonald's in Nelson.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

My dad owned a McDonald's.

I'm a very privileged white guy and my dad's just like your average Kiwi battler, you know,

like he got told during COVID lockdown that he's not allowed to swim again and he's been

talking like he's like Martin Luther King, like he's the victim of police brutality or something,

you know, because he got told once he wasn't allowed to go in the water at a rich Auckland

beach.

You know, like he's just this absolute Kiwi, you know, he voted for Wayne Brown.

You know, like that just sums him up.

He's a huge Leo Malloy supporter.

Like there's that type of Kiwi man from back in the day who's just like his bit, he hates

bike lanes.

He, you ride a bike, Gary.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, like it's just, it's just fine.

I think everyone is really hypocritical, but my parents are just so funny like that.

You know, my mum will complain about British people moving over here and putting up the

price of house prices.

Mum, you're Canadian.

What are you, what are you talking about?

You know, like it's just like, it's so, it's so funny as you get old and you just complain

about shit.

And yeah, I'm like, dad's like furious about the bike lane.

And I was like, you're going to be the beneficiary of that bike lane.

You are a cyclist that makes you safer.

But you know, he's just, he's just getting on with his life and living his best life.

And I think he almost, yeah, it's kind of a want to be performer, want to be comedian kind

of thing.

He's joined you a few times, isn't he?

I've put him into things.

Some have gone well, some have gone very poorly.

One time we got him to do Gary Williams Acting Academy.

And we just fed him, we just fed him lines and stuff.

We're like, give your best, you know, like we started with like British accent, American

accent, and then we're like Chinese accent, you know, like we really like throw him in

it.

And but he actually went home and like, he was quite like not happy about that.

So I've, I realized that my dad's just not this cartoon character who can just do anything

too.

You got to, you know, make sure he's okay.

And he's, you know, he's ahead on what he's doing and stuff like that.

Cause he is, he's a very funny guy and a very, um, a very, uh, you know, he's up for anything

sort of dude.

Was, was there, was he at one point in charge of the New Zealand Table Tennis team?

Was there some saga with a flag which went AWOL?

You guys, you guys research is impressive.

Like I don't know if I think your research is more impressive than what the story is,

to be honest.

But it was the peak of Jono and Ben time.

My dad was in charge of the New Zealand Table Tennis team.

He's going to India.

My dad is not a cultured man.

He's from Mosgill, New Zealand, and he's, he's been told that you get, he's heard from

New Zealand legendary cricketers made it used to be a cricket he played for a target.

He loves talking about that.

He, um, he, he was told that you go to India and you shit yourself and the way they, you

know, and the way they told those stories, you know, for some reason back in the day,

they only took like the number of players on a cricket team, 11 to the game.

So if you were shitting yourself, you just had to stay on the pitch shitting yourself.

You know, that's the story, right?

So he was there.

He heard that story and my dad didn't bother doing like one Google search or a modicum

of research.

He's just like, all right, that's what I've heard from old man's.

That's what I'm going to do.

So he went to India.

All he ate was rice and cabri chocolate.

He boy, the Singapore airport, okay.

The New Zealand Table Tennis team is there and this must be like the sea division because

New Zealand, you know, it was pretty low on the table tennis rankings and they got to

the opening ceremony and the local organizers came out with the New Zealand flag.

It was at the peak of the flag referendum and they'd gotten our flag wrong.

It wasn't quite lazy Kiwi disappointing, but it was like one of the, it was like the one

that John Ki wanted, but it was the red version of that.

And they just thought it was a laugh and just, you know, march proudly behind the New Zealand

flag.

Who gives a flag?

You know, our flag sucks anyway.

Like it might as well march behind that.

But then of course, stuff.co.nz got ahold of it and then they found out that Gary was

connected to me and then the head of New Zealand Table Tennis was afraid that it was some sort

of Jono and Ben conspiracy and I was like, what sort of, imagine if that was our prank

for that week.

Okay, we're going to get one of the flags.

We're going to fly it with my dad who's too afraid to eat any food in India because he's

a little bit racist all the way to India and he's going to like fly the flag in front of

the opening ceremony and what a payoff that will be.

Like it's not even filmed, you know, like it's not like it's getting on at the Olympics

or something like that.

And yeah, so that was the story of Gary.

I shouldn't have said that my dad was a little bit racist by the way.

When I say that it's in the context of I believe everyone is like a little bit racist

and stuff like that.

What I should have said is my dad's not culturally, you know, he's not sensitive.

He's not.

Yeah, he's not.

He's not up with the play.

You know, like it's racist to go to India and go, all this food is going to make me

sick and split us.

Researching the water is what makes you sick because you're not used to what's in it and

stuff like that.

It's okay to have a narrow pellet.

Yeah.

It's okay to have a narrow pellet.

Even does.

It's.

But what about a chicken?

What about a chicken over here?

That's what I like.

What I'm saying is when you go to India though, like the food is unbelievable, don't eat street

food or don't eat anything that's not cooked like straight away, don't eat anything that's

being prepared in fresh water because the water is going to make you sick.

But as long as you stick the bottle of water, even when you're brushing your teeth, don't

drink any water when you're in the shower.

I know that sounds obvious, but these are guys' tips for being less of a dick in India.

I hope you're taking notes.

We'll clip that out.

Speaking of water, do you need to top up on that little bad boy?

I got more water down there.

I'm just smashing it back.

I get quite nervous talking about myself.

I enjoy it.

It's like a weird therapy session.

Yeah.

Because you know, these are dark corners.

Get naked in front of my brother.

These are dark corners in my life.

Yeah.

You've never been naked in front of my brother.

Have you not?

Oh, you've never lived?

While we're all sharing.

I know you would have.

Yeah, there's a lot of nudity in the Holloway house.

A big hollywood, yeah.

A big nudity in the Holloway household.

Anyway that's a story for another day.

I'm keen to start sort of charting the journey of Guy Williams and

It's not an interesting journey.

No, it is.

To you.

I want people to interview me though because with a story, with a movie you want it to

be like someone's overcome some adversity or overcome nothing.

Nothing.

I just started.

I go, I want to be a comedian and started doing a comedy career.

And despite overcoming nothing, you've been incredibly successful.

It's amazing.

Yeah, but that's the low bar,

and that made me cringe a little bit listening to Mark Ellis,

you know, like, his like,

fuck he talks himself up, and it's good,

because he sells his own legacy.

But like, you know, like, as I'm saying, it's like,

I can just let the story about my Basel career

just like take its wings, and like, boy, does it fly.

Like, I've gone from being like a way down the bench warmer

to being the starting lineup guy

who was shutting down Stephen Adams back in the day,

you know, like the way it's,

the way the tables have turned,

and you know, the way Mark Ellis tells his story is like,

you know, we just started a little company,

and then I got my dad to talk to the head

of Progressive Supermarkets,

and I was like, that's a pretty good hookup.

That's not just, you know,

that's like the most important connection you can have

in any food industry is knowing the head

of a supermarket chain.

But you know, we just, you know,

like I've had every opportunity,

so like, yeah, I have been reasonably successful,

but there's a lot more talented people than me

that have missed out because they haven't had it as,

you know, easy as I have.

And I always thought comedy was a meritocracy,

but I now kind of realize it's not, you know,

you gotta be, sadly, you gotta be rich to get into comedy,

you know, like, you gotta have the ability to work

for no money, you gotta have the ability

to live in Central Auckland or Wellington, realistically.

You know, like, it's like, it's like dark,

but I like wrote a column one time,

which is like, it's interesting that like,

every famous comedian in New Zealand,

like all of our biggest comedians are moldy,

yet there's so few moldy comedians out there now

who are successful.

You look at like, I mean,

Mike King was at the time the biggest comedian in New Zealand,

Billy T. James was almost legendary comedian,

Jermaine Clement, Tyker YTT,

like everyone who has had the opportunity

has like blown us away, but there's so few.

I do comedy on Rounder all the time.

And yeah, it's just an interesting thing,

but like, unfortunately in New Zealand

and everywhere in the world,

like every sort of like art form

is becoming the domain of rich people.

And it's what one of the things New Zealand today brings out

is like that comedy is everywhere in New Zealand,

but it's just, it's not easy to get to Central Auckland

and like give up your career and your job and stuff

to live the life of a clown.

It's a real fascinating take, real fascinating take.

I think so, I think it's good, eh?

I think it's good.

Well, you know, every time you see a British celebrity,

that's when I first noticed it.

I was like, every British celebrity's name,

like Benedict Cumberbatch or something like that.

Like everyone when you read the Wikipedia, they go back,

you know, like I felt like Julia Louis,

Louise Dreyfus, you know,

from like Seinfeld and Veep and stuff,

one of the greatest comedians.

She, not, she's a great,

like these people are talented by the way.

I don't know about Benedict Cumberbatch.

I think he just gets by because he's got a weird name.

But like Julia Louise Dreyfus is amazingly talented,

but I didn't know she's from like the French aristocracy,

you know, like literally billionaires.

And yeah, she's, I'll give comedy a go,

got an SNL, you know, got, you know, like,

it's just an E, it's just,

it's not saying that no one can make it.

And there's always stories of people who come from nothing.

And there's New Zealand comedians

who have come from like humble beginnings,

like, you know, Jermaine Clements,

probably a perfect example of this from fucking Marciton.

Like who even knew, who remembers that even as a place,

you know, it's quite amazing.

But like, for every Jermaine Clements

who maybe came from slightly more modest beginnings,

yeah, it's mainly an opportunity of the privilege.

Same with music, same with acting,

same with sport to an extent, you know, like,

when you really think about it,

like I did well in sport because my dad

really pushed me to go to sports.

He didn't want me to go to uni.

He wanted me to continue to play sport

because he's like, he knows that like,

by the time you get to 30, you can't do it anymore.

So like chase it while you're young, you know,

there's always, you know, he, my dad was that supporting

that he was like, you know, go take this advantage stuff.

And I wanted to go to uni and want it

because I knew I wasn't going to make it as an athlete.

But like, you know, same with sport,

like think of all the best athletes you knew when you were 14.

They all would have been the poor kids who had to drop out

because, you know, they weren't doing well at school or whatever.

It's just, unfortunately, in every aspect of our society now,

that's only the entertainment and fun jobs,

but it's obviously the same for,

it's probably even more so for like jobs

that need university degree or something like that, yeah.

I think people might be surprised.

You're so confident and full of opinion and life

that people always assume that you were the class clown in school,

but you weren't, but then you popped out the other side

and then you got into stand-up, right, after you'd left school.

And I was wondering if you could link us up when you won

the Dye's Prodigé Award, right?

Like, so you're not a class clown, you're not in the comedy,

and then you decide that, actually, I am going to get into this

and take us to there.

Why the weird upbringing?

Because like, I listened to a lot of comedy,

but it was old Jerry Seinfeld and Bill Cosby.

We don't talk about the Bill Cosby so much anymore.

We're more focused on the Jerry Seinfeld part of it.

I actually wasn't allowed, like, you know, grew up,

like my mum was quite religious, so like,

we weren't allowed to watch South Park of the Simpsons

until I was about 14, 15.

So I more had like a comedy epiphany, which is good.

Like, I got all the comedy when I got to about 15 or 16,

became obsessed, you know, Monty Python,

the British office was out there, you know,

it was all the rage, Napoleon Dynamite and stuff.

And then, yeah, I've told the story a million times,

but I was at uni, Flutter Concords were king,

you know, Dave Chappelle, Chris Rock.

And I got, there was a girl that I thought I was dating

at the time or like, thought we were like kind of like,

you know, like almost like, we're like kind of best friends.

And I made the mistake of going like,

I need a girlfriend,

so I might as well make it my best friend.

And that's, you know, that's a recipe for fact, you know,

like it's obviously already a platonic relationship,

but you don't realize that when you're 18, 19.

So I was like, I thought I was getting invited on a date.

And thank God I didn't bring flowers

because it was, she was bringing people along,

like a bringer gig to bring people along,

to support her brother doing stand-up for the first time.

So I went there, Chris Fowlin, like I was a little bit,

you know, sad about the whole thing,

embarrassed as hell, lucky I didn't dress up.

There's a good thing about being a Kiwi male,

if you put no effort into a date,

then it can't be embarrassing.

So I was just in pretty much normal town clothes.

So I was sweet, town clothes being-

Town clothes as well.

Yeah.

Nice shoes.

Yeah, Mark Wellington, pointy black shoes,

tight jeans, a bad oversized,

halon-sized, Steins shirt that's supposed to be

for like a suit, but you're wearing it as like a town,

you know, embarrassing as hell, looking back on it now.

And we're in there and I'm like feeling down,

feeling like a bit sick about how awkward the situation is.

And then the show starts and I just laughed so hard,

it hurt me, like I had a stitch.

And I was like, this is amazing.

I got to come back next week.

It was like a drug.

And I was kept on going back

to the Wellington Comedy Club before, you know,

you're like, I might as well get on stage, you know,

cause it was that thing where,

it's like a gateway almost like where they're like,

you know, people always go in New Zealand,

go, I could do better than Guy or whatever.

We'll fucking do it, you know, like it's like a low,

okay, you've got to have the privilege

to move to Auckland and stuff like that.

But, you know, like, like,

if you are thinking about it, get into it.

At no point in history have there been like,

there's too many hilarious videos out there,

too much funny content to watch, you know, it's hard.

And so, but I saw the comedians on stage

and was like, I can at least be as good as them.

I didn't think I'd be good,

but I was like, I can at least hold my own with them.

And I couldn't, I got up there and sucked shit.

But especially cause I was inspired by Chris Rock.

So I was doing a bunch of stuff like,

what am I, what are so many Indian people I'm dearies?

You know, I'm from Nelson.

I'm not a very cultured person, all right?

And yeah, I sucked shit, but I got one good laugh.

And then I was like, I was addicted, you know,

like you gotta do comedy more and more.

And just like, yeah, just absolutely fell in love.

I was obsessed, which is the kind of the story

for every comedian.

So Dai is a hero of ours.

We had him on our show, an amazing episode.

Go back and listen to that.

He's lived such a great life.

Everyone loves Dai.

I was wondering if you could reflect on when he,

cause this winning his Prodigy Award

was like a big break, right?

Like a lot came with it.

And can you reflect on him taking you under his wing

and what you learned from Dai?

Yeah, well, the first thing I learned,

it's interesting you immediately said the sentence,

everyone loves him, which is not necessarily true.

I think he's a very beloved,

and for a comedian is about as beloved as you got,

but that's when I first learned

that how divisive comedy is.

Because straight away, I'd say to my friends,

and half of them would be like,

that's so amazing, Dai Henwood, he's the funniest dude.

Other people would be like,

I just don't find him funny, you know?

Like, and I quickly realized there how hard comedy is.

Cause you, comedy is so subjective,

like even more than music.

Like you might go to a event

and hear some music and be like,

oh, this is not my jam.

But you don't get angry about it,

but there's nothing worse than being in a bar

with a comedian you don't like,

or someone putting on a clip that you're not into.

It's painful as hell.

And worse yet, you might be offended

or you might be disgusted by what you hear.

You know, like, there's all that.

And I thought Dai was just like,

universally loved, you know,

like he was a Richie McCaw type character.

And you realize that in comedy,

that doesn't really exist.

And he is, you're right.

He's like, you can say that cause he's 90%,

but I was just talking to Dai last night.

And he was like, he was saying,

I can't say what people were saying to him.

A really horrific word.

People were calling him the Lego.

And it's something I don't want to say.

But yeah, it's very funny.

But yeah, it was like, it was like crazy

that like even someone is beloved

and as legendry as him can, you know,

have some people out there who don't like him

for whatever reason.

And so that's when I learned,

that was the first valuable lesson I learned

that you just like the way he dealt with it

and the way he approached it was really cool.

And the other thing I learned is that

from him and Jono and Ben,

be a nice person.

I quickly realized when I got into

the New Zealand TV industry,

cause my whole brand was kind of like,

you know, a little bit toxic,

a little bit aggressive,

a little bit like, kind of, I'm very cynical.

And all these people were so,

like that, and that can be your character on air

or whatever, or like when you're doing stand-up.

But it's like important that like,

off here they were like the nicest people to work with.

And I realized Dai was just so easy.

He didn't let anything phase him.

He was just lovely to everyone,

respected everyone.

And he didn't have any of that cause you know,

you hear stories of comedians being like the,

I'm not going on if I can't go on last or something like that,

or if I don't get my ride,

or like big egos from America.

And in New Zealand, I just love it,

that like 90% of our celebrities,

there might be a few big egos like back in the day,

back in the cocaine days,

I think Mike King admits that he was a big ego,

you know, before he got sober or whatever.

But all the New Zealand comedians and celebrities

that I've met have just been so fantastic

that I've just like,

that was probably the biggest thing that took away

that I had to be less of a knob.

Otherwise I wasn't going to, you know,

get anywhere cause no one want to work with me.

Were you a knob naturally?

Yeah, I think so.

I think so cause I think I'm like a natural like contrarian,

like I love to hate.

That's why I kind of understand like the Twitter trolls

and the Facebook trolls and those strange people out there

because I was like, I kind of was that person

and I could have easily been that person

just because I don't like most popular things, you know,

like, you know, like I'm not a Marvel movie fan

and I watch most things and go, ah, yuck.

And sometimes I'm like, am I just upset

cause it's making other people happy?

But like, it's just kind of like

the New Zealand male culture as well.

Like, do you like Ed Sheeran?

Ed Sheeran's fucking shit, Matt.

You know, like that's kind of the vibe and it always was.

I was like, I didn't have a musical awakening

until I got to Wellington

and I could finally be like fricking,

what would I, what would I've got into then?

I was like, black eyed peas go hard, you know?

Like Jason Derulo is awesome, you know?

You know, like it's like that great up in Nelson.

It was like, there's only two bands you're allowed to like,

Nirvana and Smashing Pumpkins

and everything else was fucking shit.

You know, it's that toxic masculinity mentality.

And yeah, it was called a break free and go,

look, you don't have to hate on things.

And just cause, just cause you don't like it as well

doesn't mean that it's still not good, you know?

We'll be right back after this short break.

I want to ask you about Die

and we can cut this out if need be, but-

Nah, leave it, we've got to leave it in now.

Yeah.

You have toxic to me in to get all in this.

I just wanted to know.

I mean, once his news came out about a month ago now,

it was a shock to us.

I'm assuming those that knew him well had known for a while.

But I sort of wondered how the New Zealand comedy scene

has come around him or bonded

or if it's changed the relationship in any way.

You'd have to ask Die,

but I think it's like such a nice scene.

I could be wrong, like there's always people

who live in like Christchurch and stuff

and like the New Zealand comedy scene,

just a bunch of Auckland fucking liberal lefties

or whatever they want to say.

And we are, and we're proud of that.

But like, man, I was the only one who laughed at that joke.

Fuck you.

I'll be laughing now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, my bad, my bad.

Okay, nah, yeah, it's like a really nice scene.

I do like to think we support our own,

whether it be, I just can't believe I've used that phrase

in a sentence, support our own.

Like I cringe when I'll listen back to this interview

and I go like, fuck I'm a loser.

But yeah, we like got behind Scott Blanks in the classic

when that's in struggle or the basement theater

or our friends and yeah, we go and support Laura Daniels,

which is on Dancing with the Stars and stuff like that.

It's no different for Dai.

Like I'm sure he's at an outpouring of love.

I know I have and it's been really important to reflect

and it made me also reflect on my life in general.

I was like, man, if I was coming up

with some big health news and stuff like that,

I was like, would I be as loved as Dai was?

And I was like, probably not.

And I was like, man, I gotta be a better friend

to a lot of people because it's like a testament

to what a top person he is

that like everyone loves him so much.

And he's so, as we said, he's not universally loved.

There's always gonna be some haters out there,

but generally he's like one of the most beloved

New Zealand comedians you can get.

You aren't quite like a contradiction, aren't you?

Yeah, I think so.

Yeah, I'm like, I thought I've surprised this interview's gone

as normally as it has so far because like just recently

I've been like, I'm fucking insane.

And I'm like really enjoying like,

cause I'm doing a lot of stand up and stuff

and you can just say whatever the fuck you want on stage.

And like, I'm doing some bits and I like,

I'll let you have to go like,

I have to explain to audience that I'm like doing all right

or like, this is okay.

I've been doing a lot of,

I shouldn't even say it out loud.

I've been doing a lot of like,

no, I won't even say all my jokes.

No, I've been doing a lot of pro 9-11 material.

And it's been, it's obviously a joke.

It's supposed to be a satire of the way

that we write these fucking narratives

around like top gun Maverick where Americans

and the West are the good guys

when we're clearly the bad guys.

And it's supposed to be satirical,

but when you're doing like a hipster Gray Lynn bar

on a Sunday night, the audience is going to go dead on you.

I was going to say, how have some of those gags hit?

I mean, it's gone, it's gone as well as it should.

Cause can I just say it's wrong to do pro 9-11 material,

but I'm trying to do irony.

I'm like, this is, this is supposed to be layered man,

but like the audience so far is going,

no, that's just psychotic.

Yeah, yeah.

But your take, your takes on friendships

and you're like, you're a genuine character.

You are who you are.

Like I enjoy that about you.

Yeah, I'm still, it's hard not to be on here.

Like it's hard to be normal.

Like even just we're on a stool in a studio,

there's lights on and stuff like that.

It's hard to be normal.

And I just thought that listening to Mark Ellis,

I was like, I don't know.

I didn't listen to all your interview,

but I was like, I feel like you never really got

to the real Mark Ellis.

Not that that's, I don't know if anyone can,

but like you're interviewing like a character there.

You know how like, you know, like it's just the same

as Rhys Darby, you know, like Rhys Darby is a normal guy.

He doesn't always talk like that.

But when he gets on stage, you know, he has a persona

and that's who Rhys Darby is.

And it's hilarious.

I genuinely believe, because Rhys Darby's a comedian

in New Zealand that gets a bit of a stick.

And I'm like, I think he's a comedy genius

and one of our best comedians ever.

I mean, I mean, most people think that he's very,

he's a fucking incredibly successful.

But what I was saying is that like, you know,

Rhys Darby, you meet him off stage.

He's a completely different person, you know?

Well, not completely different,

but you know, like he's, you know, doing character

of himself and I obviously do a character of myself

when I'm doing stand up in New Zealand today.

It's a heightened version.

And it's really hard to get normal.

And that's interesting thing about the New Zealand male psyche

where I'm like, you know, like Mark Ellis is just like,

get a mates, how are you?

Schlock a few slangers.

You know how like New Zealanders have all these

like this weird honey banjo like old timey lingo that we use.

We're going down to the guardies to get a few nine inches.

I'm like, what the fuck is this?

Is this like a, is this like a like an improv show

or something like that?

Had I find it so weird and I'd like to go like,

cause I've heard so many interesting stories

about Mark Ellis or like various characters.

And I'm like, I want to hear about the darkness inside.

I want to hear about that.

So I was so called interview mark, Mike King,

where he's just totally honest about like, you know,

like going to a place of deep depression and, you know,

taking cocaine to get up and then feeling the toxic pressure

to go on a motorcycle trip with his mates

and then smoking some weed to take the edge off

and then crashing into a power pole and almost dying

when his brain hemorrhaged

at the Aussie millions poker tournament.

You're like, that's, have you had Mike King on by the way?

Not yet.

Yeah. I mean, strap in.

I'm sorry to preempt his stories,

but I'm just like, wow, what a guy.

And it's good.

I mean, shit, there's a lot of criticism

that I can make of him as well.

And he would make those criticisms as well,

but like it's a high level of honesty to get to that point

where you can talk about real shit.

And I'd love to get there,

but I'm still, you know, a bit of a character sometimes.

And I don't know if we're,

whether a podcast between two bears with the lads

is really one to do it.

It is.

We're here for it, guys.

We're gonna break you down.

I would love to hear Mark Ellis talking

about the darkness inside.

I don't know if you're aware of that.

So last 10 minutes,

we asked some more big picture questions.

And he did.

And he talked about family and friendships

and what was important.

And it did get, he got vulnerable.

He got, he got sort of relatively emotional towards the end.

So go back and finish it.

Cause it's one of the contradictions of comedians

where, you know, like the whole brand is like

pretend everything's all good all the time.

And, you know, like it's, it's like,

it's definitely an act cause you know,

like comedians are just as, you know,

like I'm trying to use gendered sexist words,

but bitchy is a good word to use.

Like, you know, comedians are bitchy, you know, people,

like so many comedians feel slighted

and so many comedians like love complaining about shit.

And not saying they're bad people.

I'm just saying, you know,

that's the natural way of a competitive industry.

And yeah, it's like, you never see that on screen.

We're all like, so good to be here.

And I'm, I'm for one feeling laid back, you know,

like that's the whole, and I guess that works,

but I'm playing with that with my stand up at the moment.

I'm like, can you make people feel bad during a comedy set

and, you know, bring it back, you know, in a good way?

I don't know.

You are so right though.

We've done 120 of these.

One of the most reflective episodes we keep getting quoted

back is Daniel Kiriopa.

Do you remember him surfer from the nineties?

He had the world at his feet.

Sorry, I don't recognize the name, no.

And his story was all about losing it all.

He, he had a six figure surfing contract.

He was a big brands around the world.

Global recession hit, marriage break up,

lost his kids went with his partner,

had a really horrible tragic event.

And he lost everything.

And then he was so open about the whole ordeal

and then his build back up, you know,

and then he ended up winning this waterman competition.

And now he coaches kids out at Raglan and in Auckland.

And his whole thing now is about helping people.

And man, like when you get that rawness,

like you get that raw vulnerability

of someone who's sharing the,

the absolute worst part of their life, it's, it's, it hurts.

So I'm obsessed with the moment.

I haven't had a worst part of my life.

Like I don't do drugs or alcohol.

I've had a, my career has been like a constant,

like little step up every year.

I've been so blessed, man.

And you know, like I get to make my own show at the moment,

but like I'm basically about, you know,

as good as it gets for New Zealand,

like not many people get the privilege of making their own

comedy show in an original format.

Like it's crazy.

And I'm like, I'm constantly wondering, I'm like,

eventually I'm going to get dumped.

You know, like eventually the wheels are going to fall off.

I'm going to have massive career setbacks.

New Zealand's a tiny country and a tiny market.

You're like in fullback on stand up.

But that, you know, how long can you tour New Zealand

without like, you know, other streams of revenue

and stuff like that.

And I'm like, I think I've built my whole personality

and my whole happiness on my career.

And like, you know, slowly moving forward

and doing new and challenging work.

And I'm like, when that dries up, what am I left with?

So I'm like quite terrified of that like challenge

that comes forward.

And the flip side and what's even more scary,

and this kind of makes me a little bit depressed,

but every successful comedian you hear of,

it never seems to end well for them, you know?

Like most comedians and most famous people in general,

they seem to go off a cliff at some point or another.

And I, you know, I'm a little bit haunted

by like the story of Robin Williams

or, you know, Richard Pryor sitting on himself.

Not that I'm in the league of those guys,

but you know, like there is that thing where like,

it can be bad if your career falls apart,

but it seems almost worse if your career

keeps on getting better, you know?

Like, you get, you know, like all successful comedians

seem to go to a weird place.

And I just hear these stories of these very famous

comedians who tore theaters and stadiums and stuff

and how unusual their lifestyle becomes.

And, you know, or how dependent they become on, you know,

like drugs and alcohol.

And I was like, it's something I'm weirdly afraid of.

I don't know why.

So how do you protect yourself against that?

Is it by having more than your career,

building other things around your career?

So if your career gets derailed,

you've still got these other foundations.

One thing that really helped is just hanging out

with more normal people, because as a comedian,

you kind of like, all your friend group

is normally other, as I said, we're tight knit, you know,

like that's kind of, cause you see each other all the time

and it's fun, you know, it's not like a normal work

where you're like, you have your work friends,

but you're like, fuck, if I go, you know,

you don't like to see them outside of work

because you're like, you know, like it's fun

for work standards, but like, you know, like work still work.

Whereas comedy, like it's like every gig

is like a good night and a good time.

And so like, yeah, you've got these really good friends,

but we live bizarre lives and it's like a weird life

where you've got so much to spare time

and so little going on.

It's very competitive, like, you know,

like you constantly get rejected and stuff like that.

And so it really helped just like,

even just dating people who are normal people

who have different jobs, really helps because

when you date another comedian,

you're both in that weird vortex.

And when you get out, you're like, comedy is not important.

It doesn't matter, you know,

other people do much more important things

and other people live normal lives.

The least you can do is get up on stage

and do 35 minutes of shitty jet-star

and Hamilton material, you know?

That dating is really one of the only ways.

Like it's, how hard is it to make genuine new friends

after a certain age?

Like, you know, to make real connection

with people that you haven't known your whole life.

So dating is kind of your out there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, right.

It's a good way just to make new friends.

Yeah, that's a really good point.

And I was like, people do it on Tinder,

but it must be a little bit weird.

But I was like, there needs to be.

The tenders should just like make another app,

which is the exact same format,

but it's just like for mates.

You put your hobbies in there.

And you know, like, you know, like,

we're obviously, it must be of a similar age.

And you guys like my vintage shirts.

Because like, we're all, yeah,

we're all huge fans of like 90s New Zealand sport.

Our God is fucking Mark Alice for some reason.

What else, what else do we love?

Yeah, we love like Canterbury rugby jerseys.

Yeah, ugly ones.

Yeah, and we're on Instagram trying to buy

like vintage Waikato and what's another good one?

I grew up with Sky One.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Emmanuelle and Retro Diaries.

Fuck, that is taking me back.

Yeah.

Sky One.

Shit, that was, that was crazy.

Queen of the Galaxy, the click was another one.

And then you had the remote,

and you could pause as soon as the invisible guy,

butterscotch.

I think, is that a porno film?

Yeah, it was all those.

It was all those ones.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Because I remember Emmanuelle.

Yeah, Queen of the Galaxy.

That was one of my favourites.

I don't remember Queen of the Galaxy.

No, that was the second part of the title.

Oh!

Ha, ha, ha!

Emmanuelle, clean it, yeah.

Fuck, that's good, man.

Yeah.

This is great.

This is, this is.

Traps as well, just in case people

were coming down the hallway,

like put a football by the hallway door

so you could hear it bang and quickly change it over

to Sky One outing myself here.

So good, so good.

Right, look, on the path, Chalice,

I'm gonna continue us on our journey.

And I wanted to get into Jono and Ben.

We had them on, love those guys.

But I heard the story that you got involved with them.

You were out one night, I don't know,

after dinner or something,

and you were chatting to someone critiquing

the Jono project.

Slagging it off.

Yeah, slagging it off.

And then it turned out, and you were like,

oh, so what do you do for a job?

And the guy's like, oh, I'm the producer

on the Jono project.

How sexist are you that you thought that was a guy

and was a woman?

I knew that, I knew that.

It was, shout out to Charlotte Hobson.

And yeah, and I was kind of like

just talking shit about the show.

Cause I was a hipster Wellington hipster, you know,

like the only real comedy was writing a new set every week

and performing in front of six people in a karaoke bar.

You know, where as soon as you get your set finishes,

they pull down the screen, push you off stage

and start the karaoke kind of thing.

And yeah, it was like a, it was like a weird thing where I just

like, you know, like when you're 19, you're like,

no one's a good offender.

You can say whatever you want kind of thing.

And then it weirdly has worked out well for me.

Cause I talked shit about the show.

I should have guessed that these people obviously worked

on the show because we're out, you know,

celebrating the dies protege thing,

which was part of the show.

And I talked shit and then, you know,

just I was like, guy, you got to stop talking

cause I talked too much.

So I was like, I got to ask her, you know,

like what is your job?

And she said, I'm the producer.

I'm like, holy shit.

And okay, so that happened.

And I got, I got hired the next year.

So it works.

I was obviously memorable cause I'm this weird,

like I like nicked her into a job basically.

And it works, you know, like if someone talks shit about me,

if someone sends me a DM guy, I'm a big fan, you know,

or something, I'll just generally try and ignore it.

But if someone goes like, your shit, I'll like log on

and try and like, you know, like prove that I'm not,

you know, like it's like nicking really works.

Unfortunately.

Okay.

So fast forward to five or six years down the track.

And I've been working on the Jono project.

I like weaseled my way from a production person

into on screen and stuff like that.

I was slowly, you know, getting my face out there

and stuff like that on the show.

And we're working in the office one day.

Big open plan office is actually like an ex church.

So it's just this big hall

and it's literally called the church.

And I'm watching a show called MTV pick me.

It's a New Zealand show.

And I'm there watching this.

I'm going, what the fuck is this?

This is the worst show I've ever seen in my life.

This is so grim.

And as I'm watching it, a woman comes up behind me

and goes, oh, what are you watching?

I'm like, MTV pick me.

And she's like, what do you think?

And I'm like, oh, this show is so bleak.

And I'm the producer.

Yes, it's exact thing that happened.

That is exactly what happened.

Yes.

And that is my producer to this day, Bronwyn Becker.

Amazing.

Yeah.

And she still remembers that story.

And I'm like, so yeah, I've negged my way to two jobs.

And yeah, it's been the secret to my success,

but I wouldn't recommend it.

Like I'm trying to be more of a nice guy

and a team player now.

Cause like saying what you really think can be grim.

Was it always the goal to get in front of camera

once you started on the Jono project?

Yeah. Well, I've always just want to be a comedian, right?

The goal is just to perform stand up to an audience.

And the easiest way to do that

is to have some sort of recognition.

So you got to do social media or TV.

And I was before social media a little bit older.

So just get on TV, get a name for yourself.

So you can do stand up and make money.

And that was the dream.

And so that's what I've been chasing ever since really.

And then just like once you get into TV,

you're like, obviously I'd like to be in charge

of what I do as opposed to being told what you're doing.

So not that Jono and Ben was restrictive

or anything like that.

They were awesome.

And also we had to make so much material

that like it was fucking brutal.

You know, like just anything like, you got an idea?

Yeah. Okay. That's going in.

You know, like, yeah.

You know, like there was no,

there was not much thought about it,

which is the, which was the strength

and the weakness of the show at the same time.

And, but yeah, like it's just the ultimate dream, obviously,

is to be in charge of your own show.

And that's, you know, the fantasy

that I get to live right now.

Touch wood.

There's two bits I'm really keen to talk about

in the Jono and Ben show.

Yeah. I'm not sure how this charts

with your experience as a stand up comedian.

Yeah.

But brutal, like amazing watch, brutal clips

is the one where they obviously go in before

you've sold out a stand up comedy show.

Yeah.

And they go and they tell, don't laugh at the folks.

No matter what he says, don't laugh at his jokes.

Yeah. Yeah.

And oh my God, like what amazing TV.

Yeah.

But you can see yourself just absolutely losing

the will to live.

And it just is like one joke after another.

And it's just, it's, it's like a train wreck.

Yeah.

You cannot turn away.

Yeah, bro. Yeah.

So I'm going to be honest with you that like,

I think I've revision history to,

because I get asked about that quite a lot.

And I'm like, it wasn't that bad because, you know,

because like as a young comedian,

you used to bombing anyway.

So it's like, it's just something you,

your first gig goes like that basically.

So you're like, you just go, I've done it many times.

I've opened for Ray Bonkhan in front of 200 people

and just like, you know,

had just no one laugh for the whole 10 minutes.

You know, like it's brutal, but you get used to it.

But I must admit, like you think you're used to it

when it starts bad.

And then like, yeah, it does your life.

You can, and you can see in the footage.

Yeah.

The life drains from your body.

Even if you think you're like tough,

because I think that now I'm not,

I can deal with anything.

But like when you get no laughs for a while,

it just becomes so tense that yeah,

yeah, it's pretty, pretty demoralizing.

And yeah, that's a solid, as a solid prank.

Was that one worse than the one

where you thought you were performing to a sold out show

and it was just them in the audience?

Yeah, way worse.

Yeah, that one's great.

That was a dream.

Was it?

Because the annual like sort of amping yourself up

for the stand up the whole day and sort of,

you've banked the money.

Yeah, yeah, I've got the money and I get to go home.

That was a time when we used to live these crazy lifestyles

where we worked in radio, television

and I was doing stand up in the night.

So that was like insane.

So you'd wake up,

film Jono and Ben sketches for like four or five hours,

then go to radio for four or five hours

and then do a stand up show

and that takes about two or three hours in the night.

And like that was a crazy lifestyle.

And that night I was like,

all right, you got the footage,

all right, I'm fucking out of here.

Like that was like, that was a real,

there's a few times like that

where like the prank was actually awesome, you know?

Like there was another time when they flew me

all the way to Australia to interview Hamish and Andy

and I got there and they just,

Hamish and Andy Flower can't in me in the face

and there was actually Jono and Ben's interview

and they're like, we pranked you.

And I was like, no, you fucking did it.

You guys got to keep on working.

I went to Luna Park and went on a roller coaster.

It was fucking sick.

Same thing when you went to Japan, right?

Oh, I went to Japan to interview Sunny.

That was like one of the perks, you know?

Like that was like one of the greatest moments of my life.

We went to Japan to stalk Sunny Bill.

We got a five day ticket

because it's gonna take a while to find him,

find out what the hotel is and stuff like that.

And then we found out the horrible news,

like as we're leaving at the airport,

we're like, Sunny Bill has been selected

for the European tour

and they actually split the All Blacks in half in Japan

and the top team goes to Europe early

while the rest of them, the B team kind of

hangs around to play Japan.

And so we're like, fuck, he's leaving tomorrow.

So we've got 24 hours.

So we like, you know, I text every journalist's friend

I've got until we found out their hotel

and just like, ensconned it ourselves.

But turns out we only had to be there for like,

isn't scondered a word?

You guys didn't call me up on that.

No, we never did.

I think you're okay.

I think you're all right.

I think it plays.

I think it plays.

I'm not sure.

I was just engrossed in the story.

But it sounded all right.

So we're like, fuck it.

We're not going to sleep.

You know, we're like, we just land.

We're like, we go into this fucking hotel.

I think it was the Sheraton and we just got there

and we're just like, we're just in the lobby.

No one can make us leave

and we know Sunny Bill has got to come out

of those elevators and through that thing.

And we were there for like five hours,

but we got him, you know,

like he couldn't get away from me.

And then the next five days we had for stalking,

he's gone.

We couldn't even get him a fishing turn if we could

and we had the five days in Japan

just live into Vidaloka.

And my director and cameraman will tell you

that like the whole time I was there,

I got pissed off and we had to film anything else.

You know, they're like, hey, God,

do you want to like, you know,

like film a little bit of Japan?

No, not keen.

Didn't want to do anything.

Went to Disneyland, didn't get the camera out once.

It was just like, just went on the roller coasters,

had a blast.

Will you actually wait in there five hours

for him to come through?

No, I've done a bit of a Mark Alice there.

I've used hyperbole, but it was very,

no, those are very, I hated doing that

because it was what I did a lot on John and Ben

is like waiting on sports teams.

And we never had an official press pass or anything.

We never even had the run sheet

because you know, like the proper journalists

get told when the press conferences.

So we had to like blatantly text

like every rugby journalist we knew.

And then you'd piece together the details

and be on Google Maps trying to figure out where it was

for everything.

We didn't even know where the Waikato Chiefs trained

the time I had to sing to Sonny Bill Williams.

And that was quite nerve-racking

because we're also turning up like non-consensually,

you know, like the head of the All Blacks media,

Joe Locke would always show up and go, oh, fuck.

Because it must have been quite funny for him

because I showed up in the randomest places, you know,

there'd been Hamilton on shop there,

there'd been Christchurch in need of.

Hamilton's on the random, by the way.

I would show up. Come on, mate.

Well, you know, you know, but you expect,

you expect me to pop up in Auckland, you know,

but like, you know, like, you know,

expect me to, sort of, need in.

And then when he saw me in Japan,

he must be like, how the fuck did you get a plane

to get here?

And that was like part of this, you know,

just the shock on Sonny's face and stuff like that,

just like so satisfying.

And yeah, and I always say to people,

I love Sonny Bill Williams.

A little bit dark on him recently,

he's like been retreating some transphobes

and stuff like that.

Fuck, Sonny, pull your head in, mate.

But like, generally, I always want to say

nice things about Sonny

because he honestly made my career.

He's the best guy.

There was two All Blacks who,

because I go along to his press conferences

and I think all the All Blacks pray out for a laugh,

but the most of them are really nervous.

Think about like how toxic the All Black culture is.

Like, any time, like, remember Ali Williams laughing at the,

and Sonny Bill laughing at the press conference in 2011?

What's going on in each other's ear?

Yeah, and everyone fucking lost their mind.

Yeah, it's just like, it's just crazy

how like scrutinized the top athletes are

and it really drains the fun out of them,

like that kind of Mark Ellis Larican.

Mark Ellis is good at like, he knows where the line is,

he's very smart and he can walk the line

and he's like, you know, like listening to the podcast

and he's like, fuck, this guy's still like onto it,

you know, like he's not like washed yet

or something like that.

But like, it is hard as an All Black,

you know, I won't know where the line is and what you can say.

So as a result, they say nothing.

I totally understand Bill, all the players are boring.

I totally understand that,

that's your livelihood, it makes sense.

And when I went to these press conferences,

everyone was so scared, I'd ask a comedy question

and they'd be just giving me a straight answer.

But there's two players, it was Sonny Bill

and Israel Dag, who now has a media career

probably because of it, who just were like great every time.

Sonny Bill, like, even went above and beyond.

Like, I'd be talking to the guys from Crowd Goes Wild

and he came and put me in a chokehold

and dragged me out of the interview.

And I was like, fuck, this is gold, thank you so much,

you know, like, and just every time he gave me heaps

and, you know, like, I went, took them five times,

you know, everyone who'd yell at me in the car would yell,

I was best known for just being like,

I wasn't even known as Guy Williams,

I was just the Sonny Bill Williams guy, you know,

like it kind of like helped build my career.

And I was like, yeah, I owe him a lot and he was so funny.

When you turn up to these press conferences

and it's the Guy Williams show, are you nervous?

Is there any fear of- So nervous.

The other person I want to thank, yes, so nervous,

I'm shitting myself, like, even,

even if it's just that the shitty chiefs training,

you know, the first time I-

It's the second time you've had a go,

one at Hamilton and two at the chiefs, come on, man.

What's going on?

Can I say I love the chiefs, they're actually my team.

You need to say that.

I had to abandon the Crusaders

because I think they got the worst name

in New Zealand sports.

The Blues, I just couldn't quite,

even though I live in Auckland,

I kind of just couldn't get on board with for whatever reason.

You know, ever since Kent Carlos has gone,

just hasn't been the same.

Good episode too, Carlos Benson.

Oh, I'm listening back to that one.

I'm a fan, so I'll be interested, I heard he was quite

a boring chat, so is he good in real life?

Sorry, you guys froze up there.

You guys froze up?

No, he was a good chat.

Yeah, I thought you were referring to the episode,

I thought that you do.

No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no,

I'm not criticizing you.

No, no, no, no, I heard Carlos Benson was like,

you know, he's like one of those guys

who maybe has a reputation,

but again, it's probably just because of the,

you know, like, you know, early in his career,

he says one thing that's a bit off

and, you know, he gets killed for it,

so he just decides to play it straight from there.

I feel like with this podcast, the majority of the time,

and it surprised me a lot, the guests you get on

and you think, I had that impression of a lot of people,

not Carlos, but others,

you think they're gonna be a boring guest,

and once you get into it,

once you get behind the surface level chat,

they're all really interesting,

people that have risen to the top of their field,

they're all got an incredible story to tell.

Yeah, I wouldn't say I'm at the top,

would say people who are milling around in the middle,

people who are giving it a good go.

I think you're upper middle.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, thank you,

but yeah, it's a thing where, yeah, I don't know why,

but like, maybe people don't take podcasts seriously

and attribute to you guys

for getting that out of people, you know?

Thank you.

But back to the fear, the nerves, like,

when you're doing these, and to reflect on Juno and Ben as well,

a lot of times you're doing these crazy stunts,

but like, does it, over time,

does it become more natural and do you get used to it?

Now, what I hate is one shot, one opportunity, you know,

that M&M thing where like, stand up,

you do the comedy gala, you know,

here in Auckland, it's the biggest gig

every year, pretty much, and then, you know,

there's, in comedy, normally there's flexible,

and normally you embrace mistakes and stuff like that,

with the gala, it's like, for TV, you've got four minutes,

you're not allowed to go over, and you know,

that's nerve-wracking, because you wanna nail this

and get it down, there's no second take.

Like, you know, if you film like a comedy special,

you normally do two shows,

and you edit the best bits together and stuff,

but like, I hate that, that makes me really nervous,

and then, yeah, just with those rugby things,

it's like, you're there, most people don't want you there,

and they're like, you're not funny, mate, kind of thing,

so you're already doing something that's cringe,

you know, like rugby journalists and rugby people

often don't have much of a sense of humour as well,

so that's tense, you know, like rugby community

is very small, and they take it very seriously.

Like, I've tried to interview other journalists,

and they're just like, so dark on me, eh?

And so, yeah, it was like, it's always really nerve-wracking,

and knowing I've got one or two questions

before the media person shuts me down,

so like, that's the pressure of just getting it

right the first time, because as you've probably noticed,

I'm by means of making up words and stuff,

I'm a very, like, floppy person,

like, I'm very, I'm not very precise with my words,

I'm not, I'm not, I'm not word-perfect.

Don't take that into the dating scene.

Yeah.

Does that kind of, does that

trepidation manifest itself in any way?

Like, for me, if I got, no, I've got a speaking gig that night,

I'm terrible for the whole day,

even sometimes for the whole week,

knowing I've got something on a Friday.

Yeah. Does that consume your thoughts?

Yeah, yeah, a bad speaking gig,

absolutely will do that too, yeah,

so I totally understand what you're coming from there.

I'll give the head one, just to be very clear.

I, yeah, it's just, yeah, you know,

you get sweaty and stressed,

and I always get like a cold or a croaky voice

before I've got to do something big,

and yeah, I get a lot of nerves and a lot of anxiety,

it gets better as you get more successful,

you get more stable in yourself,

so you only get nervous for the big things,

but like, there's always a next big thing

that you're nervous about, you know,

like the dream, it just keeps on the bar,

keeps on getting higher,

now I'm going to Melbourne to do the Melbourne Comedy Festival,

and I'm just terrified of that,

because it's so many tickets to sell,

you've got to do 22 gigs in a row,

it's like a weird marathon style comedy endurance event,

and just like, yeah, just impressing.

In New Zealand for 10 years I've been coasting,

because I'm a known name, it's, it is a lot,

people go, it's not easy, it is so much easier,

you know, you can sell tickets instantly,

and everyone knows who you are and knows what to expect,

you know, and so Melbourne and Australia

is just a whole new task that I've been kind of,

you know, afraid of for a few years,

and also ducking because of COVID and stuff,

and now I've got to go do it,

I've got an Australian agent, like everything,

I've got a good venue, everything's ready for me,

and now the only one to fuck it up is me,

and so that is a real pressure,

and I've been really dealing with,

the big one's procrastination,

right now I'm just like putting off,

because you know your standards are so high,

that you're like, same with New Zealand today,

like you're like, this has got to be as good as this,

or it's got to be better than this,

or it's got to be as good as something I've seen on YouTube,

or something like that, and that's, that's really,

that's tough, yeah, that's where procrastination comes from.

We'll be right back after this short break.

The period of your life when you're working on The Edge,

and you're doing The Edge,

and you're doing the John Owen Ben show,

and I think you were doing a column,

and I think you were doing something else,

like when you reflect on that, was that too much?

Yeah, it was, yeah, yeah, I went insane,

and that's why I was like,

my main joke was just getting naked,

because I was like this weird like,

I don't understand, I don't drink,

so that might really help,

like you know, I live a reasonably healthy lifestyle,

and you know, because if you're partying,

and stuff like that,

like I had no social life,

so it was a disaster as a radio host,

because you're supposed to mine your life,

but like you can't be like,

hey, call in if you filmed a wacky John Owen Ben sketch

this morning, call it,

have your mates ever bought all your tickets

to your comedy show,

and you've got a lot of money from that, call in,

you know, like-

I wasn't a relate guy.

It wasn't relatable, it wasn't relatable,

and that was my weird life,

and like in the negative point

where you're making up stories,

and stuff like that,

and it just becomes kind of psychotic,

and so yeah, I had to step away,

and just chill out a bit more,

it was never like a breakdown,

because I got away, you know, lucky,

but yeah, I just did realise

that was an insane way to live your life,

but I think everyone does that,

like even if you're an accountant,

or a builder, or something,

you're like, when you're in your 20s,

you work too much, and go a bit insane, you know?

I'm gonna work away to New Zealand today,

because I wanna spend a bit of time there,

but after you left The Edge,

I think the reason you said was,

because you wanted to focus on your stand-up,

and I'm keen to talk about stand-up,

like stand-up in New Zealand,

does the same material work as well in every,

like you've played some really tiny towns,

or something like that.

Yeah, yeah, no, no, there's a huge divide,

and that's what New Zealand today is about as well,

like it's, you know,

they always call it a New Zealand comedy circuit,

but it's not, it's just an airplane,

and it goes between Auckland and Wellington,

and it's a straight line, you know?

Like it really is, and it's just,

I think that's what New Zealand today is about.

I'm definitely a city slicker,

like I'm from small town, and I'm from Nelson,

but I grew up in central Nelson, you know, well off,

we had holidays to Fiji, you know, like,

you know, I lived a life of like, you know,

like understanding, went to Australia,

got a pencil case made out of wetsuit material

in the school holidays, you know?

Yeah, I remember those ones.

Who can forget the wetsuit material pencil cases,

and you know, because I lived like a privileged life,

I kind of always lived a city life,

and you know, like New Zealand today,

the comedy comes from like a city slicker,

you know, like a woke inner city green supporter

going into the country and meeting hunters,

and like, you know, like what they claim

in real New Zealanders and reality it's ridiculous,

but you know, like meeting like the other side

of New Zealand that you don't see,

because all our media,

you guys drive here for this, right?

From Hamilton, like, you know, like, that's ridiculous.

Like, do you not own microphones in Hamilton?

Like, come on guys, you can-

I didn't think you'd be keen to come down to Hamilton.

Would you have come to Hamilton?

There's a website called,

I fucking would, I love Hamilton.

There's a website called www.zoom.news.

You don't get this.

Yeah, you don't get this.

You don't get this.

That's true.

Yeah, you do.

You could do this podcast.

No, I'm giving you bad habits

because I'm really impressed

by the work you guys put into this.

So like, shout out to that.

But yeah, it's like,

media, unfortunately,

because it's been, you know,

the money's come out of it,

or everything's gone to online.

The media companies have shrunk.

It's all in central Auckland.

It's very sad.

And as a result, no one gets out there

and New Zealand today is lucky

through the help of New Zealand Air.

God bless them to go out

and see what the fuck's going on in Opinoni

or Gore or all these places

because the answer is,

it's pretty amazing out there.

And it's also, yeah, there's a real divide.

And back to your question.

Yeah, there's a huge different,

like inner city Auckland is like snappy.

They know what comedy is.

Like when you go to,

where was I just where it was fucking sucked?

Carditon.

No, was it Carditon?

Yeah, Carditon.

I love Carditon.

Sorry to allow Carditon listening to that.

No, no, stop saying sorry.

Fuck him.

They'll love it.

You're lucky to get mentioned

from an Auckland God that is me, Guy.

And yes, like the guy on the radio,

when I went to radio, they gave me feedback.

They're like, you think you're better than the listeners?

I'm like, I am better than the listeners.

All right.

I got Spotify premium.

These motherfuckers are still listening

to commercial radio in 2017.

Wake up.

People would call up and be like,

can you play Bruno Mars?

Fucking Google it, you fucking Timidoo, fuck.

Just play it on your phone anytime you want.

Anytime you want.

It's so ridiculous.

And I love that.

It's amazing.

I love that so much.

And so, yeah, it was like, no, I can I say,

I don't think I'm better than any of these people,

but like, there is a different thing.

It's like, what you talk about in your day to days.

It's like, I was having that chat with Dai last night.

It was like, he's getting, someone's yelling at him

a word that like, we would never use.

And like, in small town New Zealand,

still regularly use.

I get in New Zealand today.

I meet people who've got Nazi swastikas on their jacket.

I meet people who call me a faggot

and think it's an okay thing to say.

You know, like they just don't know.

I mean, the homophobia is built into it,

but they haven't, you know, they're just like,

there's like a time gap.

I don't know why that is.

But yeah, that's the gap.

And that's where the New Zealand today comedy comes from.

And it's a stand up.

Yeah, it makes gigs in the country harder.

It's fine, but you just got to adapt.

You know, it's not necessarily what I want to do.

I got to go to more like, you know, yarns and stuff like that.

And I naturally weirdly overcompensate

by swearing more or something like that, you know,

cause I'm nervous.

And what else?

What else?

What else about small town New Zealand?

I've decided that I don't play small town New Zealand

on a Friday or Saturday night.

Cause the crowds are so pissed.

It's so punishing.

And people just yell out at me like,

they won't even yell out like the catchphrase.

They'll yell out like mongrel mob or just like vague things.

Or I'll go like, I'm sick of it.

Commercial whaling.

Yeah, exactly that.

Exactly that.

I'll like, where's Jono and Ben?

And just like, it's just so incredibly tedious.

You can't do a gig cause there's so many heckles.

And I like heckling, but like none of the heckles are good.

And so yeah, the rule is you just got to avoid

small town New Zealand, fine.

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday,

cause they can't drink to Thursday

and they can't drink as much.

But Friday, Saturday, absolute nightmare

and the worst two places, Cardeton and Oamadu.

I love saying that.

Fuck those places.

I'm going to come back to Oamadu

for New Zealand today, season four,

because there's something about that place

that's not right, eh?

Yeah.

And it's one of the reasons I want to come on this podcast

cause is one of you guys from Waimati

or something like that?

No.

No, I've got the wrong podcast.

Wrong podcast.

Yeah.

Which podcast are you talking about?

What's the podcast that's obsessed with Waimati?

Okay.

It's not ours.

Ah, fuck, that's annoying.

I do, so I'm a fan.

I think I was at one of your very early standup shows

and I've watched you through Jono and Ben.

And I feel like New Zealand today is the perfect fit

for what you do.

Like the rest of it was kind of like,

it worked and it was good,

but this seems like it's just such a perfect fit.

But when did you realize you were on to gold?

Cause it started off as a segment on the Jono and Ben show,

right?

Yeah, so lucky.

Did you know straight away that this was a perfect fit for you?

I think what works is what like I,

there's a gap in comedy where there's like kind of like,

there's comedy comedy and then there's like,

you know, people talk about comedians, comedians.

Like there's comedians out there,

like maybe Maria Bamford or Sam Campbell in Australia,

who are very successful,

but they're especially known for like making comedians laugh

cause you watch so much comedy that you become this weird.

It's like a alcoholic or a druggy developing a tolerance

to drugs, right?

It's like, you need more and more

to maintain that same sort of buzz.

This is embarrassing to say out loud,

but comedies like that as well.

I was just meeting, talking to the guy who makes

the TAVLOVA Instagram account.

And he's like, I just find so little things funny now

or something like that.

And it's like, yeah, it's cause you overdose on comedy

and then you're like, you just don't want to hear

Hamilton jokes or Jetstar jokes anymore, you know,

like it becomes punishing.

And so I think the way New Zealand today works perfectly

is it's what I want to do and what I found interesting

cause I drive it, but it's also the,

it combines that with like voxies

and like man on the street appeal

and like just like good old fashioned New Zealand laughs

and motherfuckers are pulling my pants down

and stuff like that.

And I just have to deal with that.

And you know, like it's, it's something for everyone,

you know, it gives it broad appeal.

Whereas if I just made a show that I wanted to make,

it would probably last two episodes

because I think my natural, what I am is,

is probably a bit more, a bit more niche or a bit different.

And that's kind of another reason for going to Australia

where there's a bigger market and, you know, yeah.

Did it, did it evolve?

Like they cut out the little clips from Jono and Ben

and they put it on YouTube and it had huge audiences there

and they realize that these parts of the show

were incredibly successful and popular.

And then like, and how did they give you

your own show after that?

Yeah, well, I mean, I didn't give me,

I like, you have to hustle for it, right?

But like, yeah, I was just lucky that Jono and Ben

were coming to an end at the exact same time

that I had a, you know, a segment that was really working

and could obviously translate into a full format.

Cause it's coming, you know, as I said,

the media market is getting way smaller

and pretty much everything they buy now

is a format from overseas.

So pitching an original concept is very hard,

especially when you can't see it.

Cause it's hard to explain.

You're like, guys, I need some money.

What's going to happen is I'm going to go to Dunedin

and talk to some people on the street.

And it's going to be hilarious.

And they're like, no one's going to pay for that.

But like, we have footage of it.

And then you're like, oh, this is actually quite decent.

And so yeah, so that was, I was just so lucky

that we got to make a pilot on Jono and Ben.

And it was what I did.

It's actually what I started with, to be honest.

Cause back when I was on the Jono project,

I did similar thing like fake journalism,

which is worrying cause a lot of people say

I'm their favorite journalist.

And I'm like, oh fuck, we're in a dark area now.

If you think I'm journalist, you know,

they think Joe Rogan is a fucking scientist

and we're heading to a dark reality.

But just for the record, I'm not a journalist.

I'm definitely a comedian.

And if I'm where you're getting your news from,

you're in big trouble.

But there is a whole generation

that have grown up with you consistently

that probably view you as that reference.

It's dark, man.

Like the level of media savvy amongst the average person

is grim.

And the funny thing is, and I'm going to get more on camera,

it does work to my advantage.

You know, sometimes when people think I'm a journalist,

I don't correct them because, you know,

when I'm in Tokidor and people yelling at me on the street,

that I'm part of the mainstream media

that's covering up the vaccine scam,

I'm like, that's very funny that like, you know,

like I'm credible and that like, you know,

like they think I'm the person that like Bill Gates

is giving the information to, you know, like that was,

I was just doing, you know, in lockdown,

I was doing some pushes in Nelson.

I was living in Nelson at the time

and to get people to come to a vaccine drive in Nelson

to get the where to low vaccination rate

because it's quite a hippie area, you know?

And, you know, dudes on Instagram would be like,

oh, you're just being paid by the news mainstream media.

You know, as if that's Bill Gates and the Illuminati

and the Pope's big plan, they're like,

who should we get to get this vaccine

that we're gonna mill to the word with?

Should we get Beyonce or The Rock or Brad Pitt?

No, we'll get Guy from Nelson, that'll do it.

He's got 60,000 Instagram followers

that'll really get the message out there, it's ridiculous.

Yeah.

The good Instagram numbers.

Yeah, yeah, man, yeah, that's gonna do it.

I feel like part of New Zealand's today's success

is how hard the clips go online.

Like me and Shay were scrolling through TikTok last night.

You said so much stuff.

So lucky, yeah.

And such huge numbers.

And thanks to everyone who shared that, man.

That's literally saved me every time.

It's like, you know, you look at the TV numbers

and they're pretty good, but, you know,

TV is struggling and on the way down, obviously.

People love saying, oh, I don't even own a TV.

What you do, you work on TV?

I don't even own a TV.

You fuck you, you have a phone,

you're watching fucking TikToks.

It's even worse.

That's worse than TV, you know?

Like you're not some enlightened person

who goes home at night and is reading Noam Chomsky.

No, you're fucking taking the piss.

And it's like, yeah, unfortunately TV numbers,

you know, every year are gonna get smaller and smaller.

And I'm lucky that the internet numbers can boost.

And I mean, that's really, you know,

where the future is, where the people are.

I think one of the stories

which perhaps captured New Zealand today

as a whole more than any is Patrick and Roy.

Oh, yeah.

And I watched that clip last night, Shay,

I watched it on the way up today.

Such a wholesome story, like the ending was so wholesome.

It made me feel really good at the end.

And there's these two characters from small town New Zealand

and the storyline is there.

And it's just such a perfect story.

I love it.

Like my director mocks me

because I want to finish every episode with me

and whoever's there having a hug.

That's my solution.

And you know, as most stories finish with that

and we're all friends in the end.

And I love it if I could get two people apart

and bring them together.

It's like a dream New Zealand today story.

You know, like it was the dream

for talking to Karen and stuff like that.

It's like, you want to get your $20 back

and meet the lady who you're yelling at down the phone

and get them to hug.

Karen's one became a bit complicated

because I might still do it

but the lady was actually the mum of the person

she was doing and the person she was yelling at

was actually going through a real tough mental health time.

So I decided to walk away from that idea particularly.

But like, if that's the gold standard for me

to bring two people together and have them hug

and like, it happens because they hadn't seen each other.

He literally was ducking his mate.

So for me to be able to do that was quite sweet.

And to, you know, we've all got like little beasts

with people, they don't want to be major.

But you know, like you've all got to see all you're like,

oh, I'm going to this thing.

I hope this person's not there.

You know, like-

So there'll be people who have got no idea

what we're talking about.

So there's two guys and they're driving home one night

and-

That's incredible.

They crash a car into,

one guy's driving the other guy's car

and they crash it into a-

Roy crashes the car.

It's one of those great moments

where he's filming for Instagram or content or whatever.

Just filming, he's on the person.

He's just filming his mate.

Like, you know, it's funny that his mate,

he's going to send it to his mates,

that his mate Roy is driving.

And he didn't know that Roy has never driven

an automobile before.

And he can't take just like a simple right hand corner

and like a 50K zone.

He doesn't slow down at all.

And it's so good.

Cause if you go to the intersection in the daytime,

it's a field.

It's literally a paddock.

There is one pole, which is the light,

which lights up the intersection.

And that is the pole they hit and totaled the car.

And that is so amazing.

And just the quotes.

It's like, I quote every time a-

One ounce, bro.

One ounce, bro.

One ounce.

Nah.

Sorry, Roy.

Sorry, Patrick.

Sorry, Patrick.

Nah.

Not okay.

You owe me a car, bro.

You owe me a car.

And I was like, look at the t-shirts made.

That's so good.

It was under sober.

Yeah.

You said you could drive.

What the fuck is this?

What the fuck is this?

You said you were sober.

I was under sober.

Yeah.

So good.

Was there a yam there about getting kicked off a scrap yard

and topo?

Yeah.

You've got to get this right, man.

Topo.

There you go.

Topo, yeah.

I know it, though.

As a white guy, you come into those ones nervous, I say.

Yeah, man.

But this isn't so well.

Someone called us out on the Mark Ellis one.

Yeah.

Topo?

Yeah.

Topo, man.

Cause I've so used to saying topo.

Topo is the gateway drug, right?

Cause it's topo.

And then poor, like being, having no money.

So it's like two Pakiha words you can pronounce correctly.

So that's what you get into.

And then you move on to more ambitious words,

like fangare, fuckatane,

and I'm not even probably getting that quite right.

But I love this.

Yes.

Yes, so much getting those words right.

But what I think is that we are scared.

Like, I think it's an honest thing that we get,

white people, we get so scared of getting it wrong

that then we go,

well, I don't even need to say it right anyway.

And then you become defensive.

You become like, fight me, bro, kind of attitude.

It's like, it doesn't need to be like that.

No one's going to call you out.

You can do it.

The good thing about what I learned about being a comedian,

which is so good, is that like,

the more it goes wrong, the better.

You know, like people always go, oh, how good,

how bad was it when this went wrong?

When David Till was going to punch you in the face.

And he was like, that made my career.

That was like one of my biggest,

that was what made John on Bingo.

We've got to put this going every week.

And it's cause I was such a fuckwit, you know?

And it always worked out.

Like the number of times where the comedy

hasn't even been intentional.

It's been like just like,

and so like, it's been so enlightening to be a comedian

who you just embrace the fuckups, enjoy the laugh,

and let everyone laugh at you and be okay to laugh at yourself.

And then move on.

It's so much nicer than the classic Kiwi way of going,

like being like, oh, it's fucking PC gone mad.

And we can't even say anymore and stuff like that, you know?

Like it's fun to make mistakes and to, you know,

learn with friends along the way.

Yeah, I would much rather make mistake.

We've had a number of guests on

that have been really inspirational this area.

Petra, Mike Minogue talking about their, you know,

white moldy journey and how, you know,

you only get better by making mistakes.

And Topor, I've messed it up a few times,

but look, I've got it now.

You never mess it up in everyday conversation.

No, I do this too, bro.

I do this too.

Is when you're being broadcast, you see it coming.

And you're like, okay, this is in a location.

The location is, oh, Amaru, right?

And you're like, you're there and you,

but you can see it coming in the distance.

And you're like a pilot trying to land a plane

who doesn't know how to fly the plane.

And the more you think about it,

you're Roy driving home.

Yeah, you're, yes, perfect analogy.

You get more and more nervous and it just,

I do it every time, especially with names.

And I just recently finally interviewed the guy

from the moldy bombscare video.

I don't know if you know that guy.

Oh, smoking some dots.

Smoking some dots.

Have you interviewed him?

I don't want to, I don't want to let the cat

out the bag too early.

And yeah, but like, I finally, I finally tracked him down.

That clip went hard and now I bring it in.

It's one of those dots.

I was just at home smoking some dots

and the police came and knocked on the door.

Fuck, that is good.

You know his voice so good.

And I was like, oh shit,

I must be overseas or something.

Yes, yes.

Looked outside and there's the bomb squad.

Fuck, you've got every word.

Must be pretty serious though.

Fuck, that is good, bro.

That is not the video playing,

that's him just talking right there.

Good show.

And also, you need to stand up comedy

because your timing there was perfect.

Thank you.

And I was at me being a terrible comedian.

I was like going to finish it for,

I was like, does he not know what he's,

what the next line is?

And I know he knows.

He knows.

Yeah.

I got to give a shout out to our good friend,

Byron Harris, who introduced me to that clip

and he does it better than I do.

I've been trying to find that guy for like five or six years.

So it's like, I'm so proud of it.

And that's exciting thing coming up in season four.

But I don't want to tell people

because now every radio station will be harassing,

you know, like every, but anyway, anyway.

A little secret.

If he wants to do it,

if he wants to do it and it's his life, you know,

he can, he can talk to whoever the fuck he wants.

But do you, sorry to jump in,

but do you sometimes like see something

come across your desk and just go, fuck, yeah,

this is going to be amazing.

All the time.

What's the vetting process?

Patrick vs Roy was definitely that.

And yeah, it's just about tracking down both the peel.

It's just seeing if the people are available

and keen basically.

And yeah, you just feel it in your bones.

It's like writing a joke

or picking someone to interview on a podcast, you know,

you just like, this seems like it's got all the ingredients.

But in New Zealand today, it's people who are up for a laugh.

A small town New Zealand and a weird story.

And ideally, if it can be redeemed and if it can't,

if there's not something to resolve,

can I crowbar in some sort of narrative

that I'm chasing and either in my mind?

And normally it's just,

the rule for my director, Matt,

is even something even slimmer.

It's just like, am I passionate about it?

Like they're like, yeah, guy wants to do a story on,

fucking, and some of these haven't even worked out,

but like, blackface and hard water.

And they're like, this doesn't even seem funny.

It just seems like racist and shit.

It was like, no, I want to lean into it.

And it's like, comedy is about tension and release.

And it's like, that's one of my favorite stories

I've ever done.

Cause it has like, genuine meaning.

You genuinely kind of learn something from it.

And it's also like, showing that like, you know,

like it is redeemable.

Like you don't have to go into a cave about these things.

It's like, we make mistakes, we can learn and move forward.

Like I just, I think that I realized that story.

And it was actually the season one episode one, I think.

So yeah.

I'm not sure there was a lot of meaning in this one,

but one of my favorite ones was the barbecue noodle house

in Mount Albert, next to each other

with the exact same name.

And then one guy said they were brothers

and the other didn't.

And fucking amazing place to live in Mount Albert.

I was like, what the fuck is going on with those places?

No, I think there is meaning in that one,

but it's less, it's different than you think.

What I kind of learned from that one,

and I was definitely skating a line racially,

but like, you know, just like,

I just showing that side of, you know,

cause it's like, it's not something that would often pop up

in New Zealand today.

Like some guys who run a barbecue noodle house

on New Zealand comedy shows, that's for sure.

And also, I don't know, maybe the audience didn't learn,

but I learned a lot about like,

I don't know, just like the,

maybe the experience of a Chinese immigrant in New Zealand.

Like, I kind of learned that like one of the reasons,

you know, like people always go,

like my first hack stand up joke was why the,

Indians own dairies or whatever,

it was like, you know, borderline racist material.

And, but what I learned from it was that like,

Indians own dairies because, you know, like,

often there was hard for them to get jobs.

So like, you know, you've got to, you want to be,

you own your own business

and it's like a good small business you can own.

And same with Chinese restaurants and stuff like that.

I learned about like living in New Zealand

and not speaking English.

Yeah, and just like, yeah, like just how like interesting,

the interesting world of like,

imagine living in a country

and not really speaking the language.

Like how interesting that must be

and how isolating that must be.

I, maybe I'm reading too much into it.

It was mainly just two brothers or two cousins

who have had a falling out.

But like, yeah, for me,

it had like a deeper meaning and stuff like that.

Like the two countdowns in Napier.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Well, that has meaning.

Cause, you know, like New Zealand has a supermarket duopoly

and you've got to keep the opposition out.

So if that means owning fucking two supermarkets

next to each other, that's how ruthless it is.

It's fucking crazy, you know?

Tell about Granity.

Oh, Granity is amazing.

You know, there's so many small towns in New Zealand.

And this is why I want to be the face.

And I don't think anyone would ever sponsor me.

But New Zealand today,

we need to be the face of Air New Zealand

or Tourism New Zealand

because I think this will be a trend as well.

You know how like, it's not good,

but like if you go to a big city that has a reputation,

there'll be like poverty tourism, you know?

Like in Mumbai, they'll do slum tours

or something like that.

Or in LA, they'll do Compton tours,

which leave from the,

I'm embarrassed to say I've actually done them

from the, you know, I've done like the hip hop tour of LA

and stuff like that.

And you always, the driver of the bus

is always claims to be the game's uncle

or something like that, you know?

Fucking cool though.

I'd recommend doing the Compton tour

with the game's uncle, fucking sick.

It's a good experience.

Church's chicken that Kendrick Lamar talks about

and they've got like plate glass windows

in the church's chicken, which is kind of crazy.

But that's how ruthless it is.

And that you realize that that's unfortunately

where New Zealand dairies and stuff are heading

because they get robbed so often you need.

If you're in a liquor store,

you don't have a plate glass window

like what the fuck are you doing, you know?

But it's sad that New Zealand's going that way,

but it's the reality.

What was my point going to be?

I phrased that wrong.

I'm not saying that New Zealand should do poverty tours.

But tours of just like, I think more Kiwis

should just go to random places.

Yeah, places that used to be burgeoning,

bubbling, community.

But not even that, go to Caramea.

I don't even know how to say that name, probably.

Caramea?

Caramea, probably.

Tokoro, just like all these towns

you'd never go to, Gore, I reckon is a good time.

Like as a like a 90s TV fan,

you guys obviously be there

for the Mikey Havoc Newsboy Gay Old Gore sketch,

you know, that's iconic.

But just you see the big trout, see the golden guitar,

see the beautiful heritage buildings

of a place that used to be like a metropolis, you know,

or something like that.

They're all fascinating in their own right.

Like, I guess like not everyone has as much spare time

as me to go check these places out.

And then rather go to like somewhere nice.

We've got Queenstown.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But Queenstown is boring as shit.

There's, unless you want to like go see the mansions

of billionaires who live in underground bunkers,

Queenstown is just a nice time with some Instagram photos.

But if you go to, where was the place I went?

Haast.

Holy fuck, it's so interesting.

You know, I got to learn about the raw.

And they're like, it's the fucking raw.

What the fuck's the raw?

They're like, the raw is like,

for them it's like the Superbowl or something.

The raw is the night when they get

to go shoot the deer in the face.

Stags, yeah.

And I was like, I didn't know idea what this was,

but they are just amping for it.

You know, like it's like the biggest day of their night.

And like, yeah, go to Haast.

And it's so beautiful.

Like, everywhere else is as beautiful as Queenstown as well.

It just doesn't have like an Auckland restaurant there

or an expensive hotel, but so good.

Did you do a lecture in Haast about the dangers of cell phones?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I love this so much.

Cause New Zealand today I think is magic.

Like, I don't know why, but just shit works out for me.

You know, like it's kind of a weird thing

where you just hope for the best, have a good attitude

and small town New Zealand just delivers the goods.

And like the number of times we've gone there,

it's like one of my best known stories

is Martin with Josh and Isaac.

And we were going to do a completely different story.

The story fell over instantly.

The guy didn't want to talk to me,

slammed the door in my face.

And I was like, well, we've at least got that footage.

That's kind of funny.

We'll build around that.

But I went into town and met two way more interesting people

and met the amazing town of Martin.

And it just came alive for me.

I was like, they got a fucking Captain Cooks statue

on the main street.

Like what the fuck are you doing?

It's not even a good statue.

It's like, how is someone not baseball batted

that down by now?

You know, it's like, but it's just still there.

And that's just Martin for you.

You know, we went there, we went to Martin

the second time to ghost hunt.

The first guy we talked to was like, I'm a ghost hunter.

What, what Martin?

What the fuck is going on?

You're like, is this real?

Like the number of times I look at the camera and go,

I don't know what this is, but I love it.

You know, you never meet anyone in Auckland.

Everyone's Auckland's like, I work in marketing.

This motherfucker's a ghost hunter.

So much better.

And didn't you have a background of like different ghost

sort of spooky ordeals that you turn into business?

No, he was like, he was like, it's too dark to talk about, bro.

You know, like it was scary.

It was like scary.

The mayor of Martin pulled the footage

because like you can't talk about the shit.

I was like, is there real ghosts here?

What is going on in fucking Martin?

I always need to do a three.

It's so interesting.

And Haas was the same.

It was like every person I talked to was just like,

so funny, so interesting.

And it fucked.

Like I interviewed a guy who put on his jacket

and had a swastika on his jacket.

I'm like, what the fuck?

And he was like, don't worry, bro.

I'm calm.

I'm like, I'm not what the fuck?

The Nazis are back, terrifying.

Oh, it was, yeah, it was just, yeah, weird.

And then of course, you know,

I interviewed like there was two like German tourists

who like had come to the pub for the Wi-Fi.

And you're like, they must be like, where am I?

What is, like I'm a Kiwi.

And I was like, where am I?

So these guys must be like,

we're not in France, Joseph Grace, Glacier anymore, right?

This is a traumatic experience.

No cell phone reception is why I went there.

And so what we decided is we draw,

unfortunately, New Zealand's fucking annoying to get around

and we don't have a helicopter.

So we're going to drive everywhere.

It's beautiful because you get to see the beautiful New Zealand

while we're on the clock and TV's expensive, right?

Like you've got to pay people

whether you're filming or in the van.

So we get there and you're like,

as soon as you get there,

you're like, pull out the cameras and start filming.

So we film a Friday night in the pub

and we talked to everyone about not having a cell phone.

And then we've got to, you know,

we've got to go, go, go to a motel, have a sleep.

And then the next, I say motel is it's hard.

So it's like a, you know,

shack out the back of a place, Airbnb or something, you know?

But, you know, have the worst night's sleep of our lives.

And the next morning,

we've got to start filming again at 8am

and no one's around and it's the night of the raw mate.

No one's in fucking haste.

But the night, that night,

we had the weird experience of when we're leaving the pub,

which was quite a terrifying experience,

especially when we met a Nazi.

And we're kind of like a little bit sketched out.

We're sitting in the van waiting to leave.

We're getting like the production persons

getting a release form signed for the pub or whatever.

We're sitting in the van

and we see a man stumble out of the bar like so hammered.

It looks like,

because the way the light was so beautiful,

it looked like it was like a drink driving commercial.

You know, like it's really nicely lit.

And you're like, this can't be real.

We're in small town New Zealand.

And when you see a drink driving commercial,

you're like, who does that?

And we're like, this is funny.

Like watch this guy, watch this bat like having to go.

And then he gets in the car,

his fucking Holden VA and just starts revving the engine.

And we're like, what the fuck?

And I'm like, we're going to do something.

So me being like, you know, the greeny crusader that I am,

get out of the car, power over there.

I'm like, man, you're not good to drive, man.

Don't worry, bro, I'm here for you.

I'll drive you home, mate.

And he's like, no, no, I'm fine to drive.

I'm like, you are not, you can barely walk.

And he's like, that's just how I walk.

And then, you know, I've actually had that problem

with hecklers before where you think they're drunk

and they're actually like, they have a disability.

And you're like, oh, fuck, I'm so sorry.

I'm so sorry, I didn't have to check that.

So we had to, you know, we had to like ask someone else

and they're like, yeah, he's wasted.

And you know, just reeked of alcohol.

You know, we found out it wasn't

because he had arthritis in his knees.

This guy was like smashed.

So his next excuse was, oh, I just live around the corner.

And we're like, no, bro, we've heard this shit.

Come with me, we're gonna save your life here.

We took his keys off him, you know,

and we shut that, we locked the car

and we put him in our van.

And we, he actually did live around the corner.

He lived like, he lived like literally 25 meters

from the pub, like so close.

And that was like, it was kind of embarrassing,

but also, again, he had a fucking Confederate flag

in his window and you're like,

what is going on in small town New Zealand?

Like, why would you go out of the way to hang up anyway?

That's for another time, I guess.

But anyway, the next day, I told everyone in the pub,

meet me at 8 a.m. in the pub for the next part of the story,

which is a seminar on using cell phones,

you know, a bit of a comedy sketch.

And everyone goes, yeah, so keen, keen, keen.

And of course, no one shows up the next day,

except for the drunk guy who we dropped off that night

because we took his fucking keys off him.

And so, you know, the joke was that Ha Ha

only one person showed up to guy's seminar.

No, zero people showed up to my seminar

and we blackmailed this motherfucker with his keys.

He couldn't get his car back until he did the seminar.

And that was, yeah, that was kind of cool.

And that was the magic of New Zealand today

because he was such a funny, lovely dude as well.

And yeah, shout out to Ha Ha, shout out to, yeah,

that guy, I can't remember his name, legend.

Have there been times where you've been really fearful?

And maybe we can reference the mongrel mob bit here

with one of the great lines

where you're interviewing this guy

and he's got the swastikas on his cheeks.

And I don't want to ruin your punchline for you,

but, you know, he's saying every tattoo on my body

is reflective of one part of my life.

And you say, yeah, what time was that?

You fucked up already.

You've got to say, every tattoo on my body

is from a different time in my life.

And then I say, what time was that?

Was it World War II?

Oh, I guess I could say what part was that?

Was it World War II?

Maybe I fucked up the joke, but sorry.

Yes, that was the joke.

Yeah, I'm very proud of that joke.

Ironically, I've met so many Nazis

that I'd pre-written that joke

because I had the same joke about

when I was in Nelson being a cherry picker

and the guy who was in charge of the cherry picking

had a swastika on his arm as well.

And he was good.

He was a reformed swastika guy, Nazi,

I guess you know what you call it.

But yeah, yeah.

So I had that one in the whole store already

from like stand-up or whatever.

But yeah, I was very proud of that.

And I did worry about how it was going.

Yeah, I guess I was terrified.

But I learned a wholesome and not so funny message from that

is that he was so similar to me,

like shout to Co-East,

another story that really helped my career

and stuff like that.

And it was amazing.

And I think it was important

because people gave me a lot of shit

for humanizing the mongrel mob,

but they are humans at the end of the day.

And that's what he said as well.

He's very well-spoken, same age as me.

And me and him had just had a completely different trajectory.

I've had every opportunity to where my dad

was encouraging me to become a professional athlete,

even though I have no real aptitude for it,

just follow your dreams, do whatever you want,

become a comedian, shit yeah.

And whereas he had so little opportunities,

and he'd been to jail for eight years

for chopping off the thumb of a black power member

and stuff like that.

And I got on with him on fire.

And I still think he's a hell of a good guy.

And I hope he's staying out of trouble

because I don't support a lot of things

that the mongrel mob does.

But I wanted to humanize them a little bit,

and I was kind of proud of that.

But your question was like, were you scared?

Yeah, definitely, because it's an experience

I'm not used to being in.

But I'm the kind of guy that gets,

I get scared of any interview.

So I get scared of interviewing Ali Golding

on the edge as well.

Like it's just like, yeah, it's just the anxiety.

And it's part of the,

I think of that as a positive thing, you know?

Like, I like the adrenaline.

I'll be sad when that goes away,

when you don't care anymore.

Like, you get addicted to that doing stand-up comedy,

that rush, and you need bigger and bigger crowds

to keep on, you know, sustaining that thrill.

You know, that's why Melbourne is the next, like,

you know, feel the fear and do it anyway.

But yeah, I'm like an inspirational speaker.

This is inspirational shit.

I've made notes.

You've actually made several very inspirational thoughts.

When you actually weren't trying to make

inspirational comments,

I feel like some of the stuff

that you've come through has been awesome.

Well, when you just talk as much bullshit as I do,

occasionally you'll say something that,

it's kind of right.

Yeah, exactly, exactly that.

You know, like, most of it garbage.

But occasionally you're like, hey, that wasn't,

that wasn't completely terrible.

You know, it wasn't completely terrible.

Yeah.

Is the gold in that stuff, like,

when he first opens the door,

he's like, you fucking big bastard or something.

Like, that's all the most important shots.

Like, you're not going beforehand and saying,

hey, we're here, we're about to film,

is it a right if we come in?

Like.

Yeah, yeah.

I mean, I don't want to spoil too much of the magic,

but we'd met him before the liners,

and it's kind of haunted me to the rest of my life.

Fuck your tour, ugly cunt.

Yeah.

And it's so good, and so many,

but it gets dodgy because like little kids

will quote it to me and stuff on it.

Uh-oh.

Should age block that one maybe,

or something like that.

And, oh, we're not on a date a couple of years ago.

And I got so excited,

because she's like, she didn't know who I was

or anything like that.

I didn't know any of my work.

So, you know, that makes it a little bit harder.

She didn't know, she'd never heard of you.

She'd never seen you.

Maybe, but like, and it wasn't really aware.

I know, I know you guys think I'm the next Mark Ellis,

but like, no, but in a lot of it,

she wouldn't have heard of Mark Ellis either.

You know, like, we are in a bubble,

and like, so for like, you know,

we're in a bubble of like, you know,

New Zealand today is a thing and stuff like that,

but for like, it doesn't, wouldn't hit huge.

I mean, if there's any TV companies

or marketing companies out there,

or anything like that,

it's huge with all demographics,

and it goes well,

80 year old woman, love it, you know,

but like, you know, there's a lot of people out there

who haven't seen it.

It doesn't maybe, it's mainly a male show for,

you know, just that's where it hurts,

because that's what I am, comedy reflects who you are.

And yeah, I was on a date,

and she was very vaguely aware,

but I think she'd lived in Australia for a while,

something like that.

And she'd just come back and she was like,

oh, my mate, show me one of your videos.

And I'm like, oh, sick, okay, cool.

This is like a good, like, she was like,

you know, low, help me in the relationship field.

And the video she'd seen was a guy with swastikas

on his face, calling me an ugly guy.

And so I don't think that helped me at all.

I didn't go very well.

Yeah.

I'm fascinated by the, this whole fame thing.

Like, like, I put a note in there about Patty Gower.

Like, is there, you know, Patty Gower is,

this is the fucking news,

like he's the, this is the fucking news guy.

Is it the same for you when you do turn up in New Zealand,

that people just fucking shout quote stuff back to you,

shout it out at you?

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

And Patty, make sure, did he explain

that that video wasn't actually on the news?

It was a sketch?

Yes.

Yeah, good, I'm glad,

because it's funny how people go like,

oh, I remember when I was watching What Now one day

and thingie lost his eye and I was like, no, that was never,

that was using an adjacent gun always explains,

that was an outtake and stuff like that.

And isn't it true that the best things are always example,

like, you know, but there's a lot of people out there

who will think that was a news break

and that's what happens in New Zealand

or something like that.

But yeah, I mean, the fame in New Zealand

is a pretty low level of fame.

It's more just like drunk people just yelling shit at you

most of the time.

And it can be a bit punishing.

It makes live sport less fun,

but most of the time it's pretty good.

But yeah, it's not a hard thing.

It's not a hard thing to deal with.

What was the question?

Like, is it just yelling shit?

Basically, yeah, there wasn't really a question.

It was more an observation on, I guess on,

you made a point earlier about wanting to hang around

with more normal people.

And I wonder whether that's actually quite hard

because normal people want to be close to not normal people.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And whether you have filters up to kind of protect yourself

from people that are just wanting to fame whore.

Yeah, no, I'm not, I'm not,

a lot of gendered sexist words in this conversation.

Can I say, I don't condone the use of whore, bitch.

Can't, whatever, but they come out,

they come out, it's part of New Zealand.

But I get what you're saying.

What I hate about that, sorry, is that like,

the only words for some of these things,

like in whore's a good one, is like, there's no other word.

It's like bitch and the C word are such good words.

Like, you know, like, like,

can't is like different to anything else and so,

but it is, I'm trying to say it less,

but I'm trying to at least not explain to people

why it's not ideal.

They're all femal, femal words.

Like there's no male, like there's like dickhead and stuff,

but those are like quite lovable.

I know cunt can be lovable too, anyway.

I'm digging myself into a hole I can't get out of.

Ball bag, yeah, but they're all,

none of them are like, the C word is really bad.

The B word is really bad.

If someone calls you a ball bag or a dickhead,

it's not as bad, nearly, I feel.

Especially, yeah, like, I know, I mean,

but the C word can also be good as well.

So I guess, I mean, it can be,

I mean, the B word can be good.

Anyway.

Only when it's prefits with good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's the only time I think it is

if it generally considered to be good.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Um, I can't even remember what the question was.

There wasn't really one.

What's your relationship like?

That's what he does with social media these days.

I remember you used to be very vocal on Twitter.

Yeah.

You were sort of all over the place

commenting on things and maybe not so much anymore.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

That's obviously a conscious decision.

Like, how do you use social media these days?

Oh, I just decided it was bad for me to look at.

So I shouldn't also be producing too much for it.

You know, I just think like social media,

I don't have an original take on this.

I just think it's, I think it's my,

oh, no, this is quite hot.

This is hot.

I think in the way the previous generation

ruined themselves on alcohol.

Wait, as I said that,

you literally pulled out a sponsored beer

and put it in your mouth.

I don't know, this is a good take.

The way, the, the, the comedian,

one of my success, I've said I don't drink

and I sound like a weird like cult member there,

but like it has been like a big part of my success

because like the number of times I've got opportunities

cause someone's been too pissed or whatever to do it

or something like that has been quite amazing.

I think early in my career I was seen as reliable,

especially when there was shoots at like, you know,

early in the morning on a Friday,

or Saturday morning or something.

I'll be one of the few that they could call last minute

and go, that guy's gonna,

that guy's got fuck all gone on in his life.

But yeah, so it was like quite a,

it was, it was quite a major thing.

We're just recently, I've kind of seen friends

have a tough time on social media

cause it will come back and smash in the face eventually.

It catches up on everyone.

It is just a bad environment.

And yeah, I think my generation,

I think I'm addicted to my phone.

It's embarrassing to talk about, you know,

nothing rock and roll about that.

You know, I have an unhealthy cult connection

with the internet.

And so like, you know, my New Year's resolution

for the last two years has been to kind of try

and wean myself off a little bit.

So that's been the goal.

And I gen, my prediction now,

which might sound stupid, but I hope is,

I'm doing that Mark Allison, you know,

Mark Allison in his interview, he was like,

he would, he would say like,

people might not talk me for this

and then say the most obvious thing of all time.

He'll be like, you, you might not,

people might not agree with me

and the haters might come after me for this.

So I'm just going to come out and say it

cause I'm going to say what I believe.

Family and friends are important.

I said it, come at me haters.

I'm going to come out and say it.

Social media is bad, but I think more than bad.

I'm like, I think we're going to be like,

and I've already lost friends to, you know,

social media, you know, to, whether it be

they've gone down to conspirator or rabbit hole

or they've become like massively anxious or, you know,

like it's going to be the same way as that.

Like you're going to get, you've got people

who've got to check into like drug rehab.

They're going to have to check into social media rehab.

I think I could be wrong.

I need to use less social media.

What are your strategies?

You delete the apps off your phone.

I bought a small phone.

I smashed my previous phone and I bought a small phone.

I've made it black and white and that's it so far.

Who heard that to hack?

The black and white thing.

I don't know if it works, but yeah,

the phone is very attractive.

Talk to me about that.

Put it on a gray scale.

Just make it gray scale.

Everything is just less appealing

and you're not attracted to it.

Yeah, it's for blind people.

I think or some other color blind people probably

that everything's in gray and yeah, yeah.

Yeah, that's, I don't have many good tips.

I'm still addicted so I can't tell you

because I just get rid of my phone

and just go on my computer and then I'm still fucked.

This has been amazing.

I feel like we could talk for many more hours,

but I understand you've got a-

We should be friends.

A hot date at Dave Chappelle.

Can we be friends?

Pardon?

Can we be friends?

We're normies.

Yeah, we can try.

I don't think you're normals.

You're normies, you're like media freaks.

No.

What do you guys do for normal jobs?

I work in cricket.

Oh, that's cool, doing what?

I sell sponsorship and hospitality.

Oh, that's kind of interesting.

That's quite normal.

What do you do?

I'm a sports journalist.

Oh, yeah.

So that's not normal?

Yeah, I'm a media guy.

Oh, so you're from Auckland?

No, Hamilton.

Wait, you work upstairs and you commute every day?

I work remotely most of the week

and then I come up one or two days.

Most of the media now is all sort of Auckland-centric.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was like, I just said that to you and I'm like,

I'm explaining to you, but I'm explaining it to you guys,

but there's people out in the world

who are like kind of interested in that.

Anyway, let me wrap us up.

Thank you so much for coming and sharing your time.

Like, it's been a wild ride.

There's been so much good stuff in there.

Love your journey.

Love what you're doing.

Love New Zealand today.

You're being too nice.

Thank you.

I enjoy the sound of my own voice, obviously,

and it was a privilege to come on and talk, so thank you.

I'm not the outro guy.

So I'm going to line Shane up.

Shane, Shane, now, just every time.

Shane doesn't look ready for this as well.

No, he's ready.

We looked at Shane and Shane looked confused.

No, he's ready.

I never am ready for this.

Hey, I'm going to say something.

I probably wasn't a massive guy.

William fans, fans, fan for a long time.

However, your work on New Zealand today

has really changed my perspective.

You think this is original take?

This is what everyone says to me.

Every interview I ever do.

Really?

Thank you, yeah.

OK, well, I'm going to try and say something else.

I haven't proved, though.

So it's fair enough.

I have gone better.

I don't think there was anything probably wrong with you.

It was just my take on what I liked.

I'm pretty annoying.

But you speak to your privilege.

But I like that you go out of your way to educate,

to hunt out, to seek different stories,

and to educate yourself.

I'm very punishing.

You're not.

You're incredibly well-rounded.

Oh, thank you.

You disguise it in a beautiful way.

Too kind.

But I could, and I hope we do become friends,

I could sit down for hours and just listen to your talk

and pick your brain on New Zealand,

on your thoughts on the world and how things are.

I'm an expert on nothing, but I definitely

enjoy chilling the fat.

So yeah, I'd love to hang out with you guys again.

And I come to Hamilton a lot because I

genuinely like Hamilton.

And yeah, I use it as a punchline just because I'm not

very good at comedy and I'm desperate.

We'll see it refueled Joe's.

See it refueled Joe's, yes.

Cheers, guy.

Thank you so much, guys.

I really had fun.

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.

On this episode of Between Two Beers we talk to Guy Williams. 

Guy is one of New Zealand’s best-known comedians who has worked on many of New Zealand’s biggest TV shows. 

He was a co-host on Jono and Ben, a radio DJ at The Edge, featured on shows like Come Dine With Me, The Extra Factor and Taskmaster and for the last four years has been working on his critically acclaimed show New Zealand Today. 

In this one we talk about bad names for podcasts, why he was the worst ever contestant on Taskmaster, what its really like to be the gag-man at serious sport press conferences, his complicated relationship with Sonny Bill Williams, interviewing the Mongrol Mob, Patrick and Roy, why New Zealand Today has been so popular and much, much more. 

Guy is a tornado of energy, noise and good chat. This was really fun, so many entertaining stories mixed with moments of real introspection. You’ll love this one. 

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.