March 26, 2025 • 44 mins
In this edition of Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, famed UK comedian and writer joined Francesca Rudkin in studio to talk his New Zealand tour and offer some big opinions on the state of the world.
Francesca also catches up with worldwide writing sensation Jojo Moyes who has just released her latest novel, We All Live Here.
And New Zealand's own and The Veils frontman Finn Andrews came in to celebrate the band's latest album and give a special performance.
Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin brings you the best interviews from Newstalk ZB's The Sunday Session.
Listen on iHeartRadio or wherever you get your podcasts.
LISTEN ABOVE
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks at B. The big names, the fascinating guests,
the thoughtful conversations, bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday Session. This is Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, powered
(00:27):
by News Talks AB.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello and welcome to Great Chats. I'm Francesca bud Ken,
host of the Sunday Session on News Talks It'd be
and in this podcast, we picked some of our favorite
fixed interviews from over the last month for you to enjoy.
Coming Up Global Superstar author Jojo Moyes talks about handling
success in the dangers of AI on creative industries. And
Sin Andrews, singer songwriter from The Veils, it's with us
(00:51):
to talk about his latest album and singers a song
for First Up. The godfather of modern stand up comedy,
and so much more, Ben Elton, I started off by
asking Ben what is it about stand up that keeps
bringing him back for more?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
A writer?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I mean, I've made my entire life writing comedy in
various genrey and musical sitcoms. The theater plays novels, many
novels sixteen novels. But stand up is the only area
of my works as a comic artist for what it's worth.
That's what I am, I guess, which is entirely subjective.
It's where I get to tell, you know what the
new youth phrases to stand in your truth. That's what
(01:28):
I say, stand in your truth and share what you know,
which is I think modern talughtful in my opinion. But
I'm standing in my truth and that's what I do
as a stand up because I think good comedy is
about sort of exploring your own bewilderment, your own your
own fears, your own delights, and that's what I've been
doing for forty five years. But I'm doing it from
a perspective of some venerability now. I mean that's in
(01:52):
a way why I think stand Up's got more more
invigorating for me than it ever.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Was when I was a young man.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Because when I was a young comic, as with all
young people, I'm very sure of myself.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I knew what I thought, I laid down the law.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Young people, that's their job, it's their job to be
the change, to be vigorously forthright about everything they feel
and believe. And I was, and I used that as
part of my comedy. And now forty five years later,
I'm sort of two generations since I was personally the change,
and you know, my bewilderment.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Has been growing ever since.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
And so that's what I lean into these days, my
ongoing bewilderment, and it makes for great stand up And yeah,
I've just found I'm more committed to the art of
stand up comedy than I ever was, even when I
was in my kind of vaguely hip pomp back in
the eighties.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I think we're all a bit bewildered these days, you
know what I mean. I'm not sure it's a generational issue.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Well, I think young people are finding, you know, and
a very difficult wil to negotiats. Things changed very quickly.
I mean, I you know, I had a tour on
My Life. I joke on my last tour where I said,
you know, this is the first tour I've done where
where I'm no longer as clever as my telephone. And now,
of course we've got artificial intelligence, which is a terrifying reality.
Bob Dylan famously said, man has invented his doom. And
(03:06):
I think with artificial intelligence. They're not even lying about it.
They're saying, yeah, yeah, it's going to put everyone out
of work, and it's going to replace people, and people
are going to have to think of something else to do,
which I imagine will be riot because you know, people
aren't going to like the fact that they've been replaced
by machinery for the behest of a few tax avoiding billionaires.
But you know, I think it makes a good comedy
(03:27):
because how stupid are we to allow ourselves to have
this technology foisted upon us by people who clearly have
no thought for the social consequences. They're only concerned with
the short term profit. I mean, look, the iPhone was released.
I mean, if the iPhone had been a drug, which
effectively it is because none of us can keep our
eyes off them, you know, it would have been subjected
to years of government tests and you know, for what
(03:50):
are the social and physical and health repercussions. But no,
they just unleashed it and alar and behold. Now children
don't have a childhood. So look, I'm soundly very serious,
but yes, there's a lot to be bewildered about. But
I think the comics job if he or she is
a good comic is to find the humanity in that
and to share it. And that's what I love about
being a stand up, you said, why I still do
it well, Quite apart from the artistic inspiration, it gives
(04:13):
me to share my humanity and with other people and
get them to share a shared laugh when it's a
real laugh, not a laugh which is laughing at people,
but a laugh which is laughing with people and at yourself.
That's a beautiful thing and it reminds us all that
we have so much more in common than the divides us.
And I think actually comedy is beautiful in that respect.
(04:34):
And I find it invigorating and uplifting to be a
comic and to share my thoughts with the audience and
to find them their laughter saying, Hey, I know what
you mean.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I get that. I feel that too.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You love that the live performance and you don't just
do stand up. I mean over the years you have
performed in Russian musicals and all sorts of things. Is
there something about a live crowd that there's.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Just unquestionably, And I think people are feeling that more
and more themselves as we disappear into our phones and
people are experiencing so much art via a very small
letterbox screen. Not that your younger listeners will remember what
a letter box look like, but it was sort of
the shape of an iPhone, but it was a hole
and you put communication directly through it. The fact is,
(05:17):
I think the fact that now people will go and
see gigs in stadiums. I used to be a bit
not sneery, because I don't sneer at anybody's pleasures, But
I always think, why would anyone want to see a
band in a stadium or a comic and an arena?
But I think what it is actually because I don't
think creatively a comic can ever work in a ten
thousand seater, But I think what And I certainly don't play.
I'm probably sure I couldn't feel one, but i'd certainly
(05:39):
play human sized venues because I'm in it for the
experience I get as a comedian. But I'm not knocking
it because I think when people stand in a crowd
of ten thousand people, they're sharing a mutual love. They're saying, Hey,
we're a community, we're not alone in our rooms. We
actually all love this. We're all celebrating it together. So
there's somebody to be said for those massive gig experiences,
but they wouldn't do for me.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I wouldn't fancy it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
No, No, I think you're absolutely right that whole just
knowing that everybody in the room is experiencing this thing,
but maybe in slightly different ways, and you're all of
those communals. You're having this communal experience. Unfortunately don't have
enough of them.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
No, people feel then it's so great, I must tell
everyone and record it and put it on my phone.
And that, of course, is when we get into an
absurdity loop. And I love the fact that clubs and
gigs are beginning to say no phones. You know, I'd
never ask the audience to lot their phones up because
I'm not important enough for that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
But I do.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I would absolutely lacerate anyone who started recording or looking
into their phone in my gig. No do that outside.
This is where humanity the rubber. You had to listen
and share your imagination or you look at your phone.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
You don't do both.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Imagine sending on a stage and performing to ten thousand phones.
I mean you just feel like saying, people go home
and watch it then on someone else's script, you know,
like it.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
It is a strange thing.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I was doing a chat about, you know, an echo
of people throwing super paintings, you know, And actually I
think just upoil have got a lot of point, although
I'm not necessarily sure that's the best protest, but actually,
you know, people consume great art now by trying to photograph.
Just just buy the postcard in the gift shop. Look
(07:12):
at the thing I went to. My wife and I
were lucky enough to go to the Louver in Paris
and there's just this massive crowd of outstretched arms with iPhones.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It is crazy.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
But look, we're both sounded like grumpy old gifts and
I want to get off that now because I'm not
a grumpy old get.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I'm a passionate old get. I'm still in the game.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And you're not necessary. You don't appear to be the
kind of business comedian who's always like, well in my day,
you know, you don't go back there. I like the
fact you're open about the bewilderment. But actually a lot
of people have said this is a very cross generation hit,
this show. Yes, it comes back to me saying I
think we're all bewildered. I think we can all kind
of relate to a lot of.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Young people have come, and to my great pleasure, I've
got some amazing reviews this time. That's I think because
I'm now sort of old and no longer a threat.
I'm not hip or you know, finally I can sort
of be forgiven for whatever it was I.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Did being authentic.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, but I've always.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Been authentic, and I you know, look, I'm celebrating the
fact that this tour has gone very well.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I've extended it.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I did the London West End season and here adding
dates in New Zealand. It's lovely at sixty five to
have a hit a hit show. I mean, the last
one was hit, but this one seems to be even touching,
even more funny bones and that's and yeah, a lot
of people are bringing their.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Kids, and that is nice.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
I mean, mainly my demographic skews forty five plus.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Of course it does.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I'm sixty five, but and I get lots of really
old people. And I do a big, long set about
euthanasia and voluntary assisted die, which is frankly touching a
near a few knuckles.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's definitely.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
But you know, I've always I've stood in my truth
and I believe strongly in it, and I and so
I find my comedy where my passion lies. And I
believe very strongly that we need an adult attitude to
end of life care and indeed even death. But let's
not get into that now. But I do some very
funny stuff about it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Have you always been passionate?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, I've always I've always been, you know, thrilled to
be alive.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I love being a part of a community.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
That me.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
That's why I love live theater and I love comedy.
You know, I'm a sort of old welfare state social democrat.
I'm not as lefty as you know, the right wing
always said I was, and I'm certainly not as right
wing as zelots on the left want, just because I
you know, I believe in mainstream democracy, you know. But
I do believe in community and I think comedy is
(09:26):
like almost the best art form for community values. I
think we're all better off if we see ourselves as
part of a community. This modern idea, it started with
Thatcher and Reagan that what the world needs is is individuals.
We need to enrich individuals and somehow their success will
trickle down and they will enliven economies. And it's come
into politics now, so we have self styled strong men
like Trump saying only I can fix it. It's insane.
(09:49):
The only good things that ever came about came about
through communities organizing.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Together and.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Not looking to the king or the tech bro to
sort us out. And I'm sadly it seems to be
a return to toxic males again, which we thought we'd
sort of begun to see.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
The end of.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
But yeah, I'm I'm.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
As passionate as I ever was.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
I love to go on a nice crowded bus and
be a part of people and look around and find
some funny and share it with an audience.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
This is a little bit random, but I did learn
something about you, something new about you, And I was
doing a bit of research for this interview, and there
is that you wrote a song for the Wickles I did.
I mean, is there anything you haven't done?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Well, there's a lot of things I haven't done. You know,
there's a great country song.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
There's a whole lot of things that I've never done,
but I haven't never had too much fun, and I
have a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And that was beautiful, right.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I got a film for them too.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Oh well, the script and we never got it over
the line. It was great fun. I worked with them
for a while. I knew them because when my kids
were young, I slept him. I slept him in. I
got good tickets and got them to sit in the
yellow car. I don't mind, I'll you know, I don't
mind having a bit of a bit of celebrity privilege
of it means you can get your kids into the
big red car. Yeah, they sent me. We wrote some
songs together for this script that never happened.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Was good.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Actually, it was years before Barbie, and it was about
kind of cartoon figures going out into the real world
and discovering that it's not as much fun as their
own magic worlds.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
An opportunity there.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Yeah, I know it's a shame. I think it would
have been great. But anyway, we really got on and
they sent me this tune. I didn't write the tune, obviously,
I wish I could. But yeah, I've written a song
called Wiggletown and it was on an ARIA Award winning album.
So yeah, I've got a gold disc for the Young
One single. But yeah, I wrote a wiggle song and
I'm very proud of it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I don't want to spoil too much here about the show,
but I did read somewhere that part of the show
mentions films and how films now are stupid. And look,
I'm a film reviewer, having for many decades. I'd love
to get your take on the modern day film.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, you know, I just point out about the fact
that we appear to be leaning into stupidity, you know,
I mean, it's almost as if the problems of the
world are so intractable and so vast that we're taking
comfort in just being stupid. We're being stupid in politics,
imagining that complex issues can be fixed just because some
idiot like Boris Johnson says, I'll get it done. Will
He didn't get it done, surprise, surprise, surprise. He left
(12:05):
the mess for other people to pick up. And the
same goes in culture. Look, I'm you know, I'm again,
I'm not a grumpy old man. But there's no doubt
about it that, you know, the biggest hit of the
early seventies was The Godfather.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm talking about a popular smash hit, and that was.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
A complex moral tale involving real I mean, you know,
whatever you might think about it, and you know, and
these days we're just basically remaking cartoons, and look, I
have fun with that. I'm not I'm part of the problem.
I'm not the solution. I'm consuming it. I like that
last Batman movie. I've got a lot to say about Barbie.
I do have a word or two to say on
that on stage, because I do not believe it was
(12:39):
a significant satirical critique of the position of women in
twenty first century.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I think it was the opposite. But let's not get
into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, I think at the moment Hollywood is spending far
much too much time looking at IP what they call
intellectual property. Oh, what was popular once? Let's do it
again with a vaguely adult edge. I think, you know,
filmmakers are at their best when they try and produce
new stuff rather than just sort of basically endlessly feed
on the dying carcass of a culture.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
From the last century.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Now, before we finished, we must acknowledge you're going to
turn sixty six during your tour here on the last Yeah,
on the last night. Will you be celebrating in christ Church?
Have you thought about, mate.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
I'm gonna it'll be in midnight, so I'll be sixty
five when I'm on stage. My wife's coming over. We
booked a beautiful holiday. We're going to have a lovely
time in the southern on Suthern Island. I cannot wait.
I've been on the road a long time. This time
she's been with me. Some of the time, she'd been
my wag, her words, not mine, and she's yes, she's
taken over the duties of rinsing out my underpants in
many A hotel basin. Because no matter how successful you are,
(13:44):
when you're doing one night stands and moving on every day,
getting your laundry done is as big a challenge for
me as it is for you. I can assure you,
and I think Madonna would be the same. It's you
know the road, but reminds you of your own humanity.
You still somehow I got to find a way to
get to the launderette. Yeah, we're going to finish the
tour together and have a beautiful holiday in New Zealand.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
We can't wait.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
The biggest name from the Sunday session great chats with
Brad Jeska Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks at B.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
It was really lovely to meet Ben. I can remember
so clearly watching The Young Ones and Blackadder when I
was young, and I mean young, and I wasn't supposed
to be watching those shows, but I used to watch
from the doorway or sneak into the lounge and hide
behind the counch with my brother, who's five years older
than I am, was watching the shows. I just remember thinking,
I haven't seen anything like this before. It was just
(14:37):
so new. Gosh, I wish they'd made the Wiggles movie.
Next up Jojo Moyes. She is a global superstar. She's
sold over fifty seven million books, has hit number one
and twelve different countries. She recently released her seventeenth book,
We All Live Here, sens it around a dysfunctional family
trying to find their feet. I started the conversation but
(14:58):
asking Jojo Moyes if families and their dynamics are endlessly
fascinating to her.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yes. I always say when I giving talks in front
of people, in front of audiences, I could say I
could pluck any single person out of that audience and
get two books out of them, because we all have
you know, the two people who won't speak to each other,
or the great mystery about anti flow up the road
or you know, there's always tension, secrets, people who don't
(15:28):
get on, people who love each other. It's just got
everything you would want as a novelist.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
The traditional the tread wife might be trending at the moment, Joijo,
but when you look around the reality of modern families
is that they look different these days.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, And that was one of the things
that I was thinking about when I came to write
this book, which is I did not grow up in
a traditional family, or I did for a bit, but
my family now, not my personal family, but the family
I grew up in now has kind of grown and blended.
And I have two step brothers, one of whom is
(16:04):
in New Zealand, have half sisters. I have a half brother,
and we'll get on. We all like each other. And
so I just wanted to reflect those different shaped families
that have evolved, whether they're kind of you know, gay, straight,
mixed race, blobby at the edges just a little bit,
(16:24):
you know, not the shape that we grew up perhaps expecting.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Did that least conventional family dynamic allow you to play
around a lot more with the characters and their relationships
and the strains and the things between them.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
The one I came from, or the fictional one.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
The fictional one, the one in the book.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Yeah, oh definitely. I mean I have a great fondness
for the film The Odd Couple, and so I'd always
wanted to do something with two old men because although
they probably didn't think they were older that at the
point it was made, there's just something really funny about
two old men with a grudge against each other. And
(17:04):
I did try to make those characters women at one
point to see how that dynamic would work. I often
kind of play around and see what works best. But
I'm afraid she says making a sweeping generalization, old men
were just funnier. And so once I was able to
kind of think about that dynamic, these the dad and
the biological dad and the stepdad who couldn't forgive each
(17:25):
other after thirty five years, who couldn't let go of
their grudge, everything else just kind of fell into place
around it, and it just made me laugh writing them.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I wanted to talk to you about forgiveness because it
is such an admirable thing to be able to forgive,
and often you hear people forgiving others of terrible things
that they've done, and I think, wow, that is amazing
and it's what we should all do. But it's actually
really hard, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
Yeah. I listened to a really interesting interview recently though,
with a woman who had forgiven one of those terrible crimes.
I'd forgotten which it was, but she said, I decided
that if I couldn't forgive this person, and it was
like an umbilical cord that held me to them because
of the bitterness I felt and the anger I felt,
(18:13):
and so I wanted to cut that cord, and I
wanted to be free of them. So the forgiveness was
a gift to me and not to them. That was
just incidental for them, And I thought, what a brilliant
way of looking at it. But yes, forgiveness, I would say,
is the kind of key emotion in this book because
it's about how all families are full of people messing up.
(18:35):
I mean, all our parents mess up. Is because we
all go into parenthood not having a clue, you know,
how to do it. We've never done it before. It
doesn't come with a rule book. And so Lylah, my
main character, when we meet her at the start of
the book, she's so angry with her two dabts for
various reasons. But why she realized it is halfway through
is that she's in danger of passing that exact same
(18:57):
dynamic onto her own children. But most of us kind
of we're so busy muddling through that we don't look
at the patterns that we're repeating. I mean, I'm fascinated
by all the psychotherapy, and I love it, just I
love watching why we fall into the traps that we do,
and how we sabotage our own happiness. And I think
(19:17):
forgiveness is an absolutely key emotion, as you say, if
you can manage.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
It, because it's interesting you said that because Lila, you know,
she is trying to make sure that she doesn't fall
into the traps of her parents. You know, she doesn't
drink because her father drink and things like that. But
as you say, it's still very easy. You know, the
way we're nurtured has an impact, doesn't it.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Lingers, Yeah, And she just goes on to make a
whole bunch of mistakes of her own, completely fresh ones.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I also really enjoyed this book because it kind of
explores that Sandward generation, that stage where you've got your kids,
you've got a busy work life, and your parents are
elderly and they need you to Why did you want
to write about that sort of period.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I'm sure we write about the things that preoccupy us
as writers, and of course, being that age, I am
preoccupied by a lot of those issues. But also I
feel quite strongly that women of that age get kind
of a raw deal in fiction, because most middle aged
women in fiction, I mean, you know, from fairy Tales onwards,
(20:23):
we were either witches crones, or we were good mothers
who were killed off at the beginning of the book.
And then you know, when you look at things like
Jane Austen, you've got the missus Bennett's and kind of
terrible mothers or the meddling kind of duchesses from the
neighboring village. But they're just very rarely funny, they're very
rarely sexy, they're very rarely good friends with each other.
(20:46):
And as I've got older, my female friends have been
such a support to me. And they're funny and they're goofy,
and they do stupid things. And just because we're in
our fifties doesn't mean, I mean we don't kind of
act like idiots sometimes, but they're also really strong, really capable.
And I did an interview recently where I said that
(21:08):
all these women they're holding up the sky, they're holding
down all these things that you just mentioned, the jobs
and looking after the able to be families and managing
the better appointments, and you know, making sure everybody's got
uniform and it's just all remarked upon labor generally. So
I wanted to celebrate it, but do it in a
way that didn't make women look like martyrs.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's that mental load, isn't it. And we do have
to be careful not to be like Mars, you know,
haven't we all. I had a hilarious conversation with my
partner recently. Our oldest child left to go to university,
and you turn in, look at me, and goes, that's
going to make your mental load better? And I was thinking, no, no, no,
(21:52):
I didn't need to get rid of a child to
reduce the mental load. You just needed to step up
and help more. I just thought that was wonderful. Yeah,
it's a wonderfully warm book. You've got these honest, complex characters,
as you say, they're dealing with a lot of you know,
issues and adversity and pain. But you've balanced these stories
so nicely with humor and grace. Is that something you
(22:15):
like doing, moving your readers but also making us last?
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Definitely? I didn't do it for the first seven books.
I mean, there might have been the odd slight smile
in there, but I didn't use humor until I got
to Me before You. And the reason I did it
then was the subject matter was potentially so bleak. I thought,
I have to leaven this with some laughs, and although
that might sound a bit unlikely, you know, a story
(22:41):
about a man who wants to end his life being
leavened with laughs. I thought about the fact that we
had had two people in my close vicinity who we
had cared for who required twenty four hour care, and
I realized that it's always the emergency services who have
the best jokes, and it's people who you know who
are dealing with the darkest things that often have the
(23:04):
best sense of humor, because that's how we cope as
human beings, or perhaps that's just how the people I
know cope. And so maybe for You suddenly took off
in a way that obviously none of my other books
had even come close to, and I realized I love
making people feel stuff. It's not just making people cry,
although I'm a shave to say I do love making
(23:24):
people cry, but I really love making them laugh. You know,
if someone reads a passage and they start sniggering, I'm like,
what made you laugh? What made you laugh? Because when
I read a book, I love being made to feel something.
If someone can make me laugh in a book, I
will buy that author again and again and again. Like,
if you can make me feel something, I'm coming back
(23:46):
to buy that book every time. So yeah, I love
doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
When you sit down to write, do you have the
whole story planned out? You mentioned before that you did
play around with a couple of the characters, but there
are a lot of characters and a lot of moving
parts here. Do you have sort of a basic structure
in mind?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Yeah? I mean there's a running Joe that writers are
either plotters or panthers, and I am a plotter. I
have a vague idea where I want everything to go.
Sometimes the characters run away with you a bit, and
sometimes things don't go one hundred percent the way they
meant to, but I know basically how I want the
reader to feel. At the end of the book and
(24:25):
what are the things that I want to have really
fallen into place? And then it's just a matter of
how I get there.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I read a piece you writer after the first round
of publicity. There are parallels in this book to your
own life. But this book is not about you. It's just,
you know, it's another book from your imagination. However, a
lot of questions directed at you were very personal, with
the assumption made that this was a personal story turned
into fiction. Did you find that frustrating?
Speaker 5 (24:54):
It did?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Well?
Speaker 5 (24:57):
Yeah, I was a bit naive, I think, because I'd
written sixteen books before this, and nobody had ever assumed
it was anything to do with me, just because I
wrote a book about a middle aged divorced you know
mother who writes books, although she writes nonfiction. Then suddenly,
you know, I did this German interview and the first
thing the guy said was, so you've got divorce. Excuse
my terrible acsent, by the way, you got divorced up
(25:19):
to twenty two years. How come you didn't know the
guy was wrong for you? After ten and I thought
this was going to be about writing, and I literally
I think my jaw must have just hit the floor,
and I can't even remember what I said. I think
I just budged it and said, well, people change or
something really weak. But I slightly wish i'd just poked
(25:40):
him in the eye and gone, wait, that's just none
of your business. And also I get on really well
with my ex not but that's any of anybody's business either.
But I just, yeah, it's not me, None of it's me.
I will never write a book about a middle aged
woman writer again.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I've learned my lesson, I mean, as it had balancing
the public figure in keeping your private life private.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
Only when the pub iblicity mill comes round. Because I
lead a very quiet life, you know. I go to
very few Selibria events. I'm mostly trudging around with my
dogs in the local park or hanging out with my
friends who I've had since I was very young. Yeah,
I've done the odd red carpet, but sure there's always
(26:26):
a point to it. Not very good. I had a
little taste of it with the fame stuff, with the
me before you thing, and it turns out I'm rubbish
at it. I just I look like a rabbit in headlights.
I'm just an introvert who likes to be behind my desk. Basically,
I'm too old to be interesting anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I don't think that's the case, Jojo. I'd love to
talk to you about AI because it's an ever increasing
threat to arts and creative industries. And you said in
an interview recently that you knew that your work had
been scraped by AI, and that probably every successful author's
work had been scraped. Does that just drive you wild?
Speaker 5 (27:04):
It drives me completely mad, because it's theft. It is
theft that you know you're taking something that I've put blood,
sweat and tears into to train your technological devices. And
I also think it's a disaster for the climate. You know,
my own kids have schooled me on the amount of
water it takes to use AI, and it's shocking. It's
a huge amount, and at a time when you know
(27:27):
the planet can really not afford it. I just think,
just use your brains, people. They're really good as a rule,
and you can try them to do all sorts of
amazing things without cost to anybody except you know, you
grow a few but more brain cells. I would love
it if we could be slightly less entrall to the
take bros.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
We've spoken a little bit in this interview about Me
before You, the twenty twelve book, which was huge. How
much did they change your life, Joe?
Speaker 5 (27:57):
It changed everything. It changed everything. I went from being
a kind of a writer who pretty much couldn't get arrest,
I couldn't get another book contract, and that book suddenly
propelled me to a place where the most important thing
was I just had readers. And that's the one thing
(28:18):
that you dream of when you've been writing as long
as I had. You just want people to read your book.
But you know, it gave me financial security. It gave
me access to really amazing other creative people. So I've
got to meet a lot of my heroes and hang
out with them, and I've got to travel to places
I would never have been. I sometimes think my fourteen
(28:42):
year old self would not have believed how my life
turned out, and it's all thanks to that book.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
If you could, what would you go back and tell
your fourteen year old self, Now you have.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
No idea how good this is going to be. I
was quite doomy as a kid, so I think I
would have probably gone, I don't believe you and stuck
my head under the doubt.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Jud Jo Boys It's been an absolute pleasure to talk
to you. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Thank you so much bringing you the best interviews from
the Sunday session. Great chats with Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio
empowered by News Talks at B I.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Could have made a couple and spoken to Jojo Moyes
for ages such a delight. I enjoyed her latest book
as well. It's called We All Live Here and it's
out now. Sad Andrews has an extraordinary voice and his
songwriting talent has been obvious since he was in his teens.
He got his first record deal at age sixteen and
since then, Thin and his band The Veils have released
(29:37):
seven albums. The latest one is called Aspidel's Finn has
spent the last couple of months in the UK and Europe,
and I started by asking how the European tour went.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
It was fantastic. I think we've never had a tourk
quite like it. Actually really really enlivening middle of winter,
which was a shock after we've been living on Waihiki
before that. So it went from sort of high summer
to northern Germany in January and that was Yeah. Genuine
only bracing, but great, great shows.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Did I hear that one of your favorite things almost
tour was trying a Sicilian orange.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
That's got around, that's got around.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
It was towards the end of the tour and we
were all quite malnourished at that point, and we were
playing in Rome and just walked past this little grosser
and got this bag of oranges and we all, yeah,
had this sort of outer body experience with these incredible oranges.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yes, I love it. Let's talk about the album Aspidels.
Where did that title come from?
Speaker 6 (30:45):
It was from a poem that my dad sent me,
and the word just stuck in my head and in
this magical way that seems to happen, a song kind
of bloomed out of that word, and then the album
sort of followed from that. So yeah, I think I
like the idea of it. It's a it's from the sort
(31:07):
of Greek classical mythology, and it's the flower of the underworld,
the flower that lives forever in death. And yeah, it
kind of tied the room together with this record, which
is which is pretty obsessed with sort of matters of
life and death and purpose.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, why is that Where does that come from?
Speaker 6 (31:31):
It's a great question. I don't know. I think I've
always just used songwriting as a way to try and
process these thoughts that are too big for my daily life.
I think, these big questions that elude me and elude everyone,
I suppose. But yeah, so it's sort of songs are
(31:53):
a way of filtering through those thoughts and trying to
make some sense of the kind of chaos of everyday life.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I suppose have those thoughts changed since you've become a father,
You've got a a toddler, yeah in the family now.
Speaker 6 (32:09):
Oh yeah, She's completely reconfigured my world in so many
amazing ways. Yeah, I think it does. It makes you.
It was also I had children a little later than someone.
I'm forty now, and so it's sort of was kind
of paired with a bit of a midlife sort of
questioning as well. I suppose it certainly makes you ponder.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, the midlife come at any time and in many
different shapes.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
Yeah, I seem to be getting intermittient stabs of it.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Is it true that you got chat chpt to write
the blueps about your songs?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (32:45):
Well, yes, that was specifically if the label wanted like,
you know, a breakdown of all of the songs, not
for any human to read, but just to give to
Spotify to put in. So I just got chat GBT
to write it. It did a really good job. It said, yeah,
a lot of things. I didn't realize that the songs
were about, but it was lightning.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
So why didn't you try and sum them up? Was
it just was it? Was it a time issue or
was it just out of curiosity to see how they
pretend to be interpreted.
Speaker 6 (33:15):
I just couldn't think of a worse use of time
than sitting down and having to explain what each of
these songs meant. I don't I really think I'm the
last person that anyone should ask about them as well.
So I'm just like, I'm so close to them. I
don't remember writing them, you know. So it's like I
feel like my interpretation is the least interesting generally, So
(33:37):
I thought, why not use this, you know, use of may.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I when you say you can't remember writing them, is
that because they you can't remember what was on your
mind at that time, or they just sort of come
quite fast and furious and then you're in there and
there it is.
Speaker 6 (33:53):
I think, Yeah, I think like everyone has a thing
they do that they enjoy because they disappear a bit
when they're doing it, and you know, whether it's sort
of going to the more sailing or running or I
don't know, or yeah, playing music, or we kind of
lose yourself, and that's that's. Yeah, when I'm writing songs,
(34:18):
I when I'm writing a song, a good song, I
tend to not really be there anymore. And that's I
think that there's that's where the pleasure lies as well. Yeah,
so it's you know, I don't really remember a lot
of the time what I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
And do you remember recording because I know that that
was a bit of a treat for you. You recorded
at Neil Fin's Roundhead Studios.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful studio here that we're all
very lucky to have where we recorded it in three days,
which was very very quick, and or recorded it like
the records I grew up loving really in the fifties
and sixties, all recorded to tape or recorded live. Yeah,
(35:07):
it was a very sort of old school production. It's
a shame because I love recording and I could easily
spend years in the studio, so doing it in three
days was very restrained, and I instantly regretted it because
I wanted more time in there. It's so fun in there.
But I think it suited these songs. We wanted to
make something really intimate and direct and like like we're
(35:29):
just in the room with you, so that that seemed
like the best way to do it.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Oh, you definitely achieved that.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
This is the Veil seventh album, the first The Runaway
Found turned twenty last year. I hate to say this.
I mean, you did sign. Let's put things into context.
You did sign your first record deal when you were sixteen,
which is very young. But two decades in this music industry.
What have you learned about music and recording albums in
(35:57):
twenty years.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Yeah, I mean I've learned so much. I didn't know
a thing when I started, obviously, it was still just
a child, and I don't know what have I learned.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
I've learned.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
I've learned to relax with myself. I think in the
beginning I was terrified of everything and felt like such
an impost and the whole thing. And now now I'm
just sort of content with being an impostor and it's okay.
You just sort of I think you always feel a
bit like that. You just do what feels right and
try to sort of block out everything else, just carry on,
(36:38):
keep making things for as long as I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Because it's been an extraordinary twenty years. And I thought
of you actually earlier in the year when David Lyunch died,
because of course you worked with him and appeared on
the Twin Peaks series, which must have been one of
the highlights of the last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Oh yeah, that was that was great.
Speaker 6 (36:54):
It was a great weekend. Our keyboardist at the time
was he was very good at, i don't know, sort
of seizing an opportunity, and so he was just like,
we're going to think that's the best weekend of our lives.
And he rented like a Mustang convertible in Los Angeles
and we went to the filming and felt like kind
(37:16):
of decks but awesome as well.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
You know you're going to get the chance to do that.
Speaker 6 (37:22):
Yeah, we thought that was a good time to do it.
But yeah, it was amazing working with him. Just being
in that world for a brief time was a real
privilege and it was very sad to see in pass.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
How much do you love taking an album and then
performing it on stage. You've got a tour coming.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
Up, Yeah we do. Yeah, we're playing all over the country.
It was a beautiful thing on the European Talk so
that the album came out the day before the first show,
so it really was like this introduction to everyone of
the record. And yeah, so I guess it'll feel like
that here as well. People have had a little more
(38:01):
time now to get to grips with the record. And
I think because this was such a such a it's
such an intimate, restrained album, I wasn't really sure what
the reaction to it would be. I was sort of
imagining it would be quite a restrained reaction. But it's
had a very very immediate I'm not just saying this
in promo mode, but sort of like the record before,
(38:23):
it was sort of people liked a few songs on it,
but I didn't feel this sort of immediate people bringing
it into their lives in such a big way so quickly.
This record seems to have had that effect. And so yeah,
it's really obviously the more intense these songs sort of
have have intertwined with people's lives more intensely. They've been
(38:44):
intertwined with people's lives, the more intense the live shows
are as well. And so yeah, we're really looking forward
to taking it on the road, taking it around New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Well, we are very excited because you're going to perform
a number for us, now, aren't you?
Speaker 6 (38:58):
Yes, yes, we are.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
What are we going to? What are you? You've got
Dave here on violin. What are you two going to perform?
Speaker 6 (39:02):
We're going to play a song called Oh Fortune Teller,
which was kind of inspired. I think we made a
few records in Los Angeles over the years, and they
have this fantastic Fortune Tellers sort of shops, stores, storefronts there.
They always have this sort of the palmistry hands and
the neon and.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah, we sort of I've visited a few over the years.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
I've always found the idea of sort of wanting to
know the future is an odd thing when that when
the prisoner is so overwhelming. I don't know, the idea
of knowing the future, maybe that's too much. Yeah, so
it's kind of a song about that, a song about
longing for the to know the future, but being afraid
of too much information, terrifying information.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Right, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Here we go.
Speaker 7 (39:53):
Ful to tell the down, tell me too, We cross save.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
With silk with silver, We.
Speaker 7 (40:17):
Talked to.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Have been.
Speaker 7 (40:39):
Out with no love to show you tell me all
love about and I don't die.
Speaker 8 (41:01):
I just left it grow w row you saidside.
Speaker 9 (41:12):
Inside, Oh you say inside inside, oh Oo, you counted
(41:52):
on my things and.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
The nightly.
Speaker 7 (42:00):
Then blows.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Scury.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
He didn't well.
Speaker 9 (42:09):
Too so much.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
So it just grows.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Fa grows and.
Speaker 8 (42:18):
Grow, sayside inside, Oh say isside andside.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
The best guest from the Sunday session Great Chatz with
Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks I'd Be.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
That was Finn Andrews accompanied by Dave on Violin singing
the veil song Oh Fortune Taler off the album Acidel's
Oh My Gosh that voice. There is also a video
of him performing in the studio. You can find it
on our Facebook page, the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin.
The album is hauntingly beautiful, definitely worth a listen. Hey,
(43:48):
thanks for joining me on this news Talk There'd Be podcast.
Please feel free to share these chats and if you
like the podcast, make sure you follow us on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget we released
a new episode of Great Chats on the last Thursday
of every month.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to Use Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
You're listening to the Sunday Session podcast with Francesca Rudkin
from News Talks at B. The big names, the fascinating guests,
the thoughtful conversations, bringing you the best interviews from the
Sunday Session. This is Great Chats with Francesca Rudkin, powered
(00:27):
by News Talks AB.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Hello and welcome to Great Chats. I'm Francesca bud Ken,
host of the Sunday Session on News Talks It'd be
and in this podcast, we picked some of our favorite
fixed interviews from over the last month for you to enjoy.
Coming Up Global Superstar author Jojo Moyes talks about handling
success in the dangers of AI on creative industries. And
Sin Andrews, singer songwriter from The Veils, it's with us
(00:51):
to talk about his latest album and singers a song
for First Up. The godfather of modern stand up comedy,
and so much more, Ben Elton, I started off by
asking Ben what is it about stand up that keeps
bringing him back for more?
Speaker 3 (01:06):
A writer?
Speaker 4 (01:06):
I mean, I've made my entire life writing comedy in
various genrey and musical sitcoms. The theater plays novels, many
novels sixteen novels. But stand up is the only area
of my works as a comic artist for what it's worth.
That's what I am, I guess, which is entirely subjective.
It's where I get to tell, you know what the
new youth phrases to stand in your truth. That's what
(01:28):
I say, stand in your truth and share what you know,
which is I think modern talughtful in my opinion. But
I'm standing in my truth and that's what I do
as a stand up because I think good comedy is
about sort of exploring your own bewilderment, your own your
own fears, your own delights, and that's what I've been
doing for forty five years. But I'm doing it from
a perspective of some venerability now. I mean that's in
(01:52):
a way why I think stand Up's got more more
invigorating for me than it ever.
Speaker 3 (01:56):
Was when I was a young man.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Because when I was a young comic, as with all
young people, I'm very sure of myself.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I knew what I thought, I laid down the law.
Speaker 4 (02:03):
Young people, that's their job, it's their job to be
the change, to be vigorously forthright about everything they feel
and believe. And I was, and I used that as
part of my comedy. And now forty five years later,
I'm sort of two generations since I was personally the change,
and you know, my bewilderment.
Speaker 3 (02:18):
Has been growing ever since.
Speaker 4 (02:20):
And so that's what I lean into these days, my
ongoing bewilderment, and it makes for great stand up And yeah,
I've just found I'm more committed to the art of
stand up comedy than I ever was, even when I
was in my kind of vaguely hip pomp back in
the eighties.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
I think we're all a bit bewildered these days, you
know what I mean. I'm not sure it's a generational issue.
Speaker 4 (02:43):
Well, I think young people are finding, you know, and
a very difficult wil to negotiats. Things changed very quickly.
I mean, I you know, I had a tour on
My Life. I joke on my last tour where I said,
you know, this is the first tour I've done where
where I'm no longer as clever as my telephone. And now,
of course we've got artificial intelligence, which is a terrifying reality.
Bob Dylan famously said, man has invented his doom. And
(03:06):
I think with artificial intelligence. They're not even lying about it.
They're saying, yeah, yeah, it's going to put everyone out
of work, and it's going to replace people, and people
are going to have to think of something else to do,
which I imagine will be riot because you know, people
aren't going to like the fact that they've been replaced
by machinery for the behest of a few tax avoiding billionaires.
But you know, I think it makes a good comedy
(03:27):
because how stupid are we to allow ourselves to have
this technology foisted upon us by people who clearly have
no thought for the social consequences. They're only concerned with
the short term profit. I mean, look, the iPhone was released.
I mean, if the iPhone had been a drug, which
effectively it is because none of us can keep our
eyes off them, you know, it would have been subjected
to years of government tests and you know, for what
(03:50):
are the social and physical and health repercussions. But no,
they just unleashed it and alar and behold. Now children
don't have a childhood. So look, I'm soundly very serious,
but yes, there's a lot to be bewildered about. But
I think the comics job if he or she is
a good comic is to find the humanity in that
and to share it. And that's what I love about
being a stand up, you said, why I still do
it well, Quite apart from the artistic inspiration, it gives
(04:13):
me to share my humanity and with other people and
get them to share a shared laugh when it's a
real laugh, not a laugh which is laughing at people,
but a laugh which is laughing with people and at yourself.
That's a beautiful thing and it reminds us all that
we have so much more in common than the divides us.
And I think actually comedy is beautiful in that respect.
(04:34):
And I find it invigorating and uplifting to be a
comic and to share my thoughts with the audience and
to find them their laughter saying, Hey, I know what
you mean.
Speaker 3 (04:42):
I get that. I feel that too.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
You love that the live performance and you don't just
do stand up. I mean over the years you have
performed in Russian musicals and all sorts of things. Is
there something about a live crowd that there's.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
Just unquestionably, And I think people are feeling that more
and more themselves as we disappear into our phones and
people are experiencing so much art via a very small
letterbox screen. Not that your younger listeners will remember what
a letter box look like, but it was sort of
the shape of an iPhone, but it was a hole
and you put communication directly through it. The fact is,
(05:17):
I think the fact that now people will go and
see gigs in stadiums. I used to be a bit
not sneery, because I don't sneer at anybody's pleasures, But
I always think, why would anyone want to see a
band in a stadium or a comic and an arena?
But I think what it is actually because I don't
think creatively a comic can ever work in a ten
thousand seater, But I think what And I certainly don't play.
I'm probably sure I couldn't feel one, but i'd certainly
(05:39):
play human sized venues because I'm in it for the
experience I get as a comedian. But I'm not knocking
it because I think when people stand in a crowd
of ten thousand people, they're sharing a mutual love. They're saying, Hey,
we're a community, we're not alone in our rooms. We
actually all love this. We're all celebrating it together. So
there's somebody to be said for those massive gig experiences,
but they wouldn't do for me.
Speaker 3 (06:00):
I wouldn't fancy it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
No, No, I think you're absolutely right that whole just
knowing that everybody in the room is experiencing this thing,
but maybe in slightly different ways, and you're all of
those communals. You're having this communal experience. Unfortunately don't have
enough of them.
Speaker 4 (06:12):
No, people feel then it's so great, I must tell
everyone and record it and put it on my phone.
And that, of course, is when we get into an
absurdity loop. And I love the fact that clubs and
gigs are beginning to say no phones. You know, I'd
never ask the audience to lot their phones up because
I'm not important enough for that.
Speaker 3 (06:28):
But I do.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
I would absolutely lacerate anyone who started recording or looking
into their phone in my gig. No do that outside.
This is where humanity the rubber. You had to listen
and share your imagination or you look at your phone.
Speaker 3 (06:42):
You don't do both.
Speaker 2 (06:43):
Imagine sending on a stage and performing to ten thousand phones.
I mean you just feel like saying, people go home
and watch it then on someone else's script, you know,
like it.
Speaker 3 (06:50):
It is a strange thing.
Speaker 4 (06:51):
I was doing a chat about, you know, an echo
of people throwing super paintings, you know, And actually I
think just upoil have got a lot of point, although
I'm not necessarily sure that's the best protest, but actually,
you know, people consume great art now by trying to photograph.
Just just buy the postcard in the gift shop. Look
(07:12):
at the thing I went to. My wife and I
were lucky enough to go to the Louver in Paris
and there's just this massive crowd of outstretched arms with iPhones.
Speaker 3 (07:19):
It is crazy.
Speaker 4 (07:20):
But look, we're both sounded like grumpy old gifts and
I want to get off that now because I'm not
a grumpy old get.
Speaker 3 (07:25):
I'm a passionate old get. I'm still in the game.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
And you're not necessary. You don't appear to be the
kind of business comedian who's always like, well in my day,
you know, you don't go back there. I like the
fact you're open about the bewilderment. But actually a lot
of people have said this is a very cross generation hit,
this show. Yes, it comes back to me saying I
think we're all bewildered. I think we can all kind
of relate to a lot of.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
Young people have come, and to my great pleasure, I've
got some amazing reviews this time. That's I think because
I'm now sort of old and no longer a threat.
I'm not hip or you know, finally I can sort
of be forgiven for whatever it was I.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Did being authentic.
Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, but I've always.
Speaker 4 (08:04):
Been authentic, and I you know, look, I'm celebrating the
fact that this tour has gone very well.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
I've extended it.
Speaker 4 (08:10):
I did the London West End season and here adding
dates in New Zealand. It's lovely at sixty five to
have a hit a hit show. I mean, the last
one was hit, but this one seems to be even touching,
even more funny bones and that's and yeah, a lot
of people are bringing their.
Speaker 3 (08:24):
Kids, and that is nice.
Speaker 4 (08:25):
I mean, mainly my demographic skews forty five plus.
Speaker 3 (08:28):
Of course it does.
Speaker 4 (08:29):
I'm sixty five, but and I get lots of really
old people. And I do a big, long set about
euthanasia and voluntary assisted die, which is frankly touching a
near a few knuckles.
Speaker 3 (08:39):
It's definitely.
Speaker 4 (08:41):
But you know, I've always I've stood in my truth
and I believe strongly in it, and I and so
I find my comedy where my passion lies. And I
believe very strongly that we need an adult attitude to
end of life care and indeed even death. But let's
not get into that now. But I do some very
funny stuff about it.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
Have you always been passionate?
Speaker 4 (09:00):
Yeah, I've always I've always been, you know, thrilled to
be alive.
Speaker 3 (09:04):
I love being a part of a community.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
That me.
Speaker 4 (09:06):
That's why I love live theater and I love comedy.
You know, I'm a sort of old welfare state social democrat.
I'm not as lefty as you know, the right wing
always said I was, and I'm certainly not as right
wing as zelots on the left want, just because I
you know, I believe in mainstream democracy, you know. But
I do believe in community and I think comedy is
(09:26):
like almost the best art form for community values. I
think we're all better off if we see ourselves as
part of a community. This modern idea, it started with
Thatcher and Reagan that what the world needs is is individuals.
We need to enrich individuals and somehow their success will
trickle down and they will enliven economies. And it's come
into politics now, so we have self styled strong men
like Trump saying only I can fix it. It's insane.
(09:49):
The only good things that ever came about came about
through communities organizing.
Speaker 3 (09:53):
Together and.
Speaker 4 (09:55):
Not looking to the king or the tech bro to
sort us out. And I'm sadly it seems to be
a return to toxic males again, which we thought we'd
sort of begun to see.
Speaker 3 (10:05):
The end of.
Speaker 4 (10:05):
But yeah, I'm I'm.
Speaker 3 (10:08):
As passionate as I ever was.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
I love to go on a nice crowded bus and
be a part of people and look around and find
some funny and share it with an audience.
Speaker 2 (10:17):
This is a little bit random, but I did learn
something about you, something new about you, And I was
doing a bit of research for this interview, and there
is that you wrote a song for the Wickles I did.
I mean, is there anything you haven't done?
Speaker 3 (10:27):
Well, there's a lot of things I haven't done. You know,
there's a great country song.
Speaker 4 (10:30):
There's a whole lot of things that I've never done,
but I haven't never had too much fun, and I
have a lot of fun.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
And that was beautiful, right.
Speaker 2 (10:36):
I got a film for them too.
Speaker 4 (10:37):
Oh well, the script and we never got it over
the line. It was great fun. I worked with them
for a while. I knew them because when my kids
were young, I slept him. I slept him in. I
got good tickets and got them to sit in the
yellow car. I don't mind, I'll you know, I don't
mind having a bit of a bit of celebrity privilege
of it means you can get your kids into the
big red car. Yeah, they sent me. We wrote some
songs together for this script that never happened.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Was good.
Speaker 4 (11:00):
Actually, it was years before Barbie, and it was about
kind of cartoon figures going out into the real world
and discovering that it's not as much fun as their
own magic worlds.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
An opportunity there.
Speaker 4 (11:10):
Yeah, I know it's a shame. I think it would
have been great. But anyway, we really got on and
they sent me this tune. I didn't write the tune, obviously,
I wish I could. But yeah, I've written a song
called Wiggletown and it was on an ARIA Award winning album.
So yeah, I've got a gold disc for the Young
One single. But yeah, I wrote a wiggle song and
I'm very proud of it.
Speaker 2 (11:28):
I don't want to spoil too much here about the show,
but I did read somewhere that part of the show
mentions films and how films now are stupid. And look,
I'm a film reviewer, having for many decades. I'd love
to get your take on the modern day film.
Speaker 4 (11:43):
Well, you know, I just point out about the fact
that we appear to be leaning into stupidity, you know,
I mean, it's almost as if the problems of the
world are so intractable and so vast that we're taking
comfort in just being stupid. We're being stupid in politics,
imagining that complex issues can be fixed just because some
idiot like Boris Johnson says, I'll get it done. Will
He didn't get it done, surprise, surprise, surprise. He left
(12:05):
the mess for other people to pick up. And the
same goes in culture. Look, I'm you know, I'm again,
I'm not a grumpy old man. But there's no doubt
about it that, you know, the biggest hit of the
early seventies was The Godfather.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm talking about a popular smash hit, and that was.
Speaker 4 (12:17):
A complex moral tale involving real I mean, you know,
whatever you might think about it, and you know, and
these days we're just basically remaking cartoons, and look, I
have fun with that. I'm not I'm part of the problem.
I'm not the solution. I'm consuming it. I like that
last Batman movie. I've got a lot to say about Barbie.
I do have a word or two to say on
that on stage, because I do not believe it was
(12:39):
a significant satirical critique of the position of women in
twenty first century.
Speaker 3 (12:43):
I think it was the opposite. But let's not get
into the nitty gritty.
Speaker 4 (12:47):
Yeah, I think at the moment Hollywood is spending far
much too much time looking at IP what they call
intellectual property. Oh, what was popular once? Let's do it
again with a vaguely adult edge. I think, you know,
filmmakers are at their best when they try and produce
new stuff rather than just sort of basically endlessly feed
on the dying carcass of a culture.
Speaker 3 (13:08):
From the last century.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Now, before we finished, we must acknowledge you're going to
turn sixty six during your tour here on the last Yeah,
on the last night. Will you be celebrating in christ Church?
Have you thought about, mate.
Speaker 4 (13:21):
I'm gonna it'll be in midnight, so I'll be sixty
five when I'm on stage. My wife's coming over. We
booked a beautiful holiday. We're going to have a lovely
time in the southern on Suthern Island. I cannot wait.
I've been on the road a long time. This time
she's been with me. Some of the time, she'd been
my wag, her words, not mine, and she's yes, she's
taken over the duties of rinsing out my underpants in
many A hotel basin. Because no matter how successful you are,
(13:44):
when you're doing one night stands and moving on every day,
getting your laundry done is as big a challenge for
me as it is for you. I can assure you,
and I think Madonna would be the same. It's you
know the road, but reminds you of your own humanity.
You still somehow I got to find a way to
get to the launderette. Yeah, we're going to finish the
tour together and have a beautiful holiday in New Zealand.
Speaker 6 (14:04):
We can't wait.
Speaker 1 (14:05):
The biggest name from the Sunday session great chats with
Brad Jeska Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks at B.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
It was really lovely to meet Ben. I can remember
so clearly watching The Young Ones and Blackadder when I
was young, and I mean young, and I wasn't supposed
to be watching those shows, but I used to watch
from the doorway or sneak into the lounge and hide
behind the counch with my brother, who's five years older
than I am, was watching the shows. I just remember thinking,
I haven't seen anything like this before. It was just
(14:37):
so new. Gosh, I wish they'd made the Wiggles movie.
Next up Jojo Moyes. She is a global superstar. She's
sold over fifty seven million books, has hit number one
and twelve different countries. She recently released her seventeenth book,
We All Live Here, sens it around a dysfunctional family
trying to find their feet. I started the conversation but
(14:58):
asking Jojo Moyes if families and their dynamics are endlessly
fascinating to her.
Speaker 5 (15:04):
Yes. I always say when I giving talks in front
of people, in front of audiences, I could say I
could pluck any single person out of that audience and
get two books out of them, because we all have
you know, the two people who won't speak to each other,
or the great mystery about anti flow up the road
or you know, there's always tension, secrets, people who don't
(15:28):
get on, people who love each other. It's just got
everything you would want as a novelist.
Speaker 2 (15:34):
The traditional the tread wife might be trending at the moment, Joijo,
but when you look around the reality of modern families
is that they look different these days.
Speaker 5 (15:43):
Right, Yeah, absolutely, And that was one of the things
that I was thinking about when I came to write
this book, which is I did not grow up in
a traditional family, or I did for a bit, but
my family now, not my personal family, but the family
I grew up in now has kind of grown and blended.
And I have two step brothers, one of whom is
(16:04):
in New Zealand, have half sisters. I have a half brother,
and we'll get on. We all like each other. And
so I just wanted to reflect those different shaped families
that have evolved, whether they're kind of you know, gay, straight,
mixed race, blobby at the edges just a little bit,
(16:24):
you know, not the shape that we grew up perhaps expecting.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
Did that least conventional family dynamic allow you to play
around a lot more with the characters and their relationships
and the strains and the things between them.
Speaker 5 (16:38):
The one I came from, or the fictional one.
Speaker 2 (16:40):
The fictional one, the one in the book.
Speaker 5 (16:42):
Yeah, oh definitely. I mean I have a great fondness
for the film The Odd Couple, and so I'd always
wanted to do something with two old men because although
they probably didn't think they were older that at the
point it was made, there's just something really funny about
two old men with a grudge against each other. And
(17:04):
I did try to make those characters women at one
point to see how that dynamic would work. I often
kind of play around and see what works best. But
I'm afraid she says making a sweeping generalization, old men
were just funnier. And so once I was able to
kind of think about that dynamic, these the dad and
the biological dad and the stepdad who couldn't forgive each
(17:25):
other after thirty five years, who couldn't let go of
their grudge, everything else just kind of fell into place
around it, and it just made me laugh writing them.
Speaker 2 (17:35):
I wanted to talk to you about forgiveness because it
is such an admirable thing to be able to forgive,
and often you hear people forgiving others of terrible things
that they've done, and I think, wow, that is amazing
and it's what we should all do. But it's actually
really hard, isn't it.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
Yeah. I listened to a really interesting interview recently though,
with a woman who had forgiven one of those terrible crimes.
I'd forgotten which it was, but she said, I decided
that if I couldn't forgive this person, and it was
like an umbilical cord that held me to them because
of the bitterness I felt and the anger I felt,
(18:13):
and so I wanted to cut that cord, and I
wanted to be free of them. So the forgiveness was
a gift to me and not to them. That was
just incidental for them, And I thought, what a brilliant
way of looking at it. But yes, forgiveness, I would say,
is the kind of key emotion in this book because
it's about how all families are full of people messing up.
(18:35):
I mean, all our parents mess up. Is because we
all go into parenthood not having a clue, you know,
how to do it. We've never done it before. It
doesn't come with a rule book. And so Lylah, my
main character, when we meet her at the start of
the book, she's so angry with her two dabts for
various reasons. But why she realized it is halfway through
is that she's in danger of passing that exact same
(18:57):
dynamic onto her own children. But most of us kind
of we're so busy muddling through that we don't look
at the patterns that we're repeating. I mean, I'm fascinated
by all the psychotherapy, and I love it, just I
love watching why we fall into the traps that we do,
and how we sabotage our own happiness. And I think
(19:17):
forgiveness is an absolutely key emotion, as you say, if
you can manage.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
It, because it's interesting you said that because Lila, you know,
she is trying to make sure that she doesn't fall
into the traps of her parents. You know, she doesn't
drink because her father drink and things like that. But
as you say, it's still very easy. You know, the
way we're nurtured has an impact, doesn't it.
Speaker 5 (19:39):
Lingers, Yeah, And she just goes on to make a
whole bunch of mistakes of her own, completely fresh ones.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
I also really enjoyed this book because it kind of
explores that Sandward generation, that stage where you've got your kids,
you've got a busy work life, and your parents are
elderly and they need you to Why did you want
to write about that sort of period.
Speaker 5 (20:03):
I'm sure we write about the things that preoccupy us
as writers, and of course, being that age, I am
preoccupied by a lot of those issues. But also I
feel quite strongly that women of that age get kind
of a raw deal in fiction, because most middle aged
women in fiction, I mean, you know, from fairy Tales onwards,
(20:23):
we were either witches crones, or we were good mothers
who were killed off at the beginning of the book.
And then you know, when you look at things like
Jane Austen, you've got the missus Bennett's and kind of
terrible mothers or the meddling kind of duchesses from the
neighboring village. But they're just very rarely funny, they're very
rarely sexy, they're very rarely good friends with each other.
(20:46):
And as I've got older, my female friends have been
such a support to me. And they're funny and they're goofy,
and they do stupid things. And just because we're in
our fifties doesn't mean, I mean we don't kind of
act like idiots sometimes, but they're also really strong, really capable.
And I did an interview recently where I said that
(21:08):
all these women they're holding up the sky, they're holding
down all these things that you just mentioned, the jobs
and looking after the able to be families and managing
the better appointments, and you know, making sure everybody's got
uniform and it's just all remarked upon labor generally. So
I wanted to celebrate it, but do it in a
way that didn't make women look like martyrs.
Speaker 2 (21:31):
It's that mental load, isn't it. And we do have
to be careful not to be like Mars, you know,
haven't we all. I had a hilarious conversation with my
partner recently. Our oldest child left to go to university,
and you turn in, look at me, and goes, that's
going to make your mental load better? And I was thinking, no, no, no,
(21:52):
I didn't need to get rid of a child to
reduce the mental load. You just needed to step up
and help more. I just thought that was wonderful. Yeah,
it's a wonderfully warm book. You've got these honest, complex characters,
as you say, they're dealing with a lot of you know,
issues and adversity and pain. But you've balanced these stories
so nicely with humor and grace. Is that something you
(22:15):
like doing, moving your readers but also making us last?
Speaker 5 (22:20):
Definitely? I didn't do it for the first seven books.
I mean, there might have been the odd slight smile
in there, but I didn't use humor until I got
to Me before You. And the reason I did it
then was the subject matter was potentially so bleak. I thought,
I have to leaven this with some laughs, and although
that might sound a bit unlikely, you know, a story
(22:41):
about a man who wants to end his life being
leavened with laughs. I thought about the fact that we
had had two people in my close vicinity who we
had cared for who required twenty four hour care, and
I realized that it's always the emergency services who have
the best jokes, and it's people who you know who
are dealing with the darkest things that often have the
(23:04):
best sense of humor, because that's how we cope as
human beings, or perhaps that's just how the people I
know cope. And so maybe for You suddenly took off
in a way that obviously none of my other books
had even come close to, and I realized I love
making people feel stuff. It's not just making people cry,
although I'm a shave to say I do love making
(23:24):
people cry, but I really love making them laugh. You know,
if someone reads a passage and they start sniggering, I'm like,
what made you laugh? What made you laugh? Because when
I read a book, I love being made to feel something.
If someone can make me laugh in a book, I
will buy that author again and again and again. Like,
if you can make me feel something, I'm coming back
(23:46):
to buy that book every time. So yeah, I love
doing it.
Speaker 2 (23:50):
When you sit down to write, do you have the
whole story planned out? You mentioned before that you did
play around with a couple of the characters, but there
are a lot of characters and a lot of moving
parts here. Do you have sort of a basic structure
in mind?
Speaker 5 (24:03):
Yeah? I mean there's a running Joe that writers are
either plotters or panthers, and I am a plotter. I
have a vague idea where I want everything to go.
Sometimes the characters run away with you a bit, and
sometimes things don't go one hundred percent the way they
meant to, but I know basically how I want the
reader to feel. At the end of the book and
(24:25):
what are the things that I want to have really
fallen into place? And then it's just a matter of
how I get there.
Speaker 2 (24:33):
I read a piece you writer after the first round
of publicity. There are parallels in this book to your
own life. But this book is not about you. It's just,
you know, it's another book from your imagination. However, a
lot of questions directed at you were very personal, with
the assumption made that this was a personal story turned
into fiction. Did you find that frustrating?
Speaker 5 (24:54):
It did?
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Well?
Speaker 5 (24:57):
Yeah, I was a bit naive, I think, because I'd
written sixteen books before this, and nobody had ever assumed
it was anything to do with me, just because I
wrote a book about a middle aged divorced you know
mother who writes books, although she writes nonfiction. Then suddenly,
you know, I did this German interview and the first
thing the guy said was, so you've got divorce. Excuse
my terrible acsent, by the way, you got divorced up
(25:19):
to twenty two years. How come you didn't know the
guy was wrong for you? After ten and I thought
this was going to be about writing, and I literally
I think my jaw must have just hit the floor,
and I can't even remember what I said. I think
I just budged it and said, well, people change or
something really weak. But I slightly wish i'd just poked
(25:40):
him in the eye and gone, wait, that's just none
of your business. And also I get on really well
with my ex not but that's any of anybody's business either.
But I just, yeah, it's not me, None of it's me.
I will never write a book about a middle aged
woman writer again.
Speaker 2 (25:55):
I've learned my lesson, I mean, as it had balancing
the public figure in keeping your private life private.
Speaker 5 (26:04):
Only when the pub iblicity mill comes round. Because I
lead a very quiet life, you know. I go to
very few Selibria events. I'm mostly trudging around with my
dogs in the local park or hanging out with my
friends who I've had since I was very young. Yeah,
I've done the odd red carpet, but sure there's always
(26:26):
a point to it. Not very good. I had a
little taste of it with the fame stuff, with the
me before you thing, and it turns out I'm rubbish
at it. I just I look like a rabbit in headlights.
I'm just an introvert who likes to be behind my desk. Basically,
I'm too old to be interesting anyway.
Speaker 2 (26:46):
I don't think that's the case, Jojo. I'd love to
talk to you about AI because it's an ever increasing
threat to arts and creative industries. And you said in
an interview recently that you knew that your work had
been scraped by AI, and that probably every successful author's
work had been scraped. Does that just drive you wild?
Speaker 5 (27:04):
It drives me completely mad, because it's theft. It is
theft that you know you're taking something that I've put blood,
sweat and tears into to train your technological devices. And
I also think it's a disaster for the climate. You know,
my own kids have schooled me on the amount of
water it takes to use AI, and it's shocking. It's
a huge amount, and at a time when you know
(27:27):
the planet can really not afford it. I just think,
just use your brains, people. They're really good as a rule,
and you can try them to do all sorts of
amazing things without cost to anybody except you know, you
grow a few but more brain cells. I would love
it if we could be slightly less entrall to the
take bros.
Speaker 2 (27:47):
We've spoken a little bit in this interview about Me
before You, the twenty twelve book, which was huge. How
much did they change your life, Joe?
Speaker 5 (27:57):
It changed everything. It changed everything. I went from being
a kind of a writer who pretty much couldn't get arrest,
I couldn't get another book contract, and that book suddenly
propelled me to a place where the most important thing
was I just had readers. And that's the one thing
(28:18):
that you dream of when you've been writing as long
as I had. You just want people to read your book.
But you know, it gave me financial security. It gave
me access to really amazing other creative people. So I've
got to meet a lot of my heroes and hang
out with them, and I've got to travel to places
I would never have been. I sometimes think my fourteen
(28:42):
year old self would not have believed how my life
turned out, and it's all thanks to that book.
Speaker 2 (28:48):
If you could, what would you go back and tell
your fourteen year old self, Now you have.
Speaker 5 (28:52):
No idea how good this is going to be. I
was quite doomy as a kid, so I think I
would have probably gone, I don't believe you and stuck
my head under the doubt.
Speaker 2 (29:01):
Jud Jo Boys It's been an absolute pleasure to talk
to you. Thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Thank you so much bringing you the best interviews from
the Sunday session. Great chats with Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio
empowered by News Talks at B I.
Speaker 2 (29:17):
Could have made a couple and spoken to Jojo Moyes
for ages such a delight. I enjoyed her latest book
as well. It's called We All Live Here and it's
out now. Sad Andrews has an extraordinary voice and his
songwriting talent has been obvious since he was in his teens.
He got his first record deal at age sixteen and
since then, Thin and his band The Veils have released
(29:37):
seven albums. The latest one is called Aspidel's Finn has
spent the last couple of months in the UK and Europe,
and I started by asking how the European tour went.
Speaker 6 (29:47):
It was fantastic. I think we've never had a tourk
quite like it. Actually really really enlivening middle of winter,
which was a shock after we've been living on Waihiki
before that. So it went from sort of high summer
to northern Germany in January and that was Yeah. Genuine
only bracing, but great, great shows.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
Did I hear that one of your favorite things almost
tour was trying a Sicilian orange.
Speaker 6 (30:14):
That's got around, that's got around.
Speaker 3 (30:17):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (30:17):
It was towards the end of the tour and we
were all quite malnourished at that point, and we were
playing in Rome and just walked past this little grosser
and got this bag of oranges and we all, yeah,
had this sort of outer body experience with these incredible oranges.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
Yes, I love it. Let's talk about the album Aspidels.
Where did that title come from?
Speaker 6 (30:45):
It was from a poem that my dad sent me,
and the word just stuck in my head and in
this magical way that seems to happen, a song kind
of bloomed out of that word, and then the album
sort of followed from that. So yeah, I think I
like the idea of it. It's a it's from the sort
(31:07):
of Greek classical mythology, and it's the flower of the underworld,
the flower that lives forever in death. And yeah, it
kind of tied the room together with this record, which
is which is pretty obsessed with sort of matters of
life and death and purpose.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
Yeah, why is that Where does that come from?
Speaker 6 (31:31):
It's a great question. I don't know. I think I've
always just used songwriting as a way to try and
process these thoughts that are too big for my daily life.
I think, these big questions that elude me and elude everyone,
I suppose. But yeah, so it's sort of songs are
(31:53):
a way of filtering through those thoughts and trying to
make some sense of the kind of chaos of everyday life.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
I suppose have those thoughts changed since you've become a father,
You've got a a toddler, yeah in the family now.
Speaker 6 (32:09):
Oh yeah, She's completely reconfigured my world in so many
amazing ways. Yeah, I think it does. It makes you.
It was also I had children a little later than someone.
I'm forty now, and so it's sort of was kind
of paired with a bit of a midlife sort of
questioning as well. I suppose it certainly makes you ponder.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, the midlife come at any time and in many
different shapes.
Speaker 6 (32:35):
Yeah, I seem to be getting intermittient stabs of it.
Speaker 2 (32:40):
Is it true that you got chat chpt to write
the blueps about your songs?
Speaker 3 (32:45):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (32:45):
Well, yes, that was specifically if the label wanted like,
you know, a breakdown of all of the songs, not
for any human to read, but just to give to
Spotify to put in. So I just got chat GBT
to write it. It did a really good job. It said, yeah,
a lot of things. I didn't realize that the songs
were about, but it was lightning.
Speaker 2 (33:07):
So why didn't you try and sum them up? Was
it just was it? Was it a time issue or
was it just out of curiosity to see how they
pretend to be interpreted.
Speaker 6 (33:15):
I just couldn't think of a worse use of time
than sitting down and having to explain what each of
these songs meant. I don't I really think I'm the
last person that anyone should ask about them as well.
So I'm just like, I'm so close to them. I
don't remember writing them, you know. So it's like I
feel like my interpretation is the least interesting generally, So
(33:37):
I thought, why not use this, you know, use of may.
Speaker 2 (33:41):
I when you say you can't remember writing them, is
that because they you can't remember what was on your
mind at that time, or they just sort of come
quite fast and furious and then you're in there and
there it is.
Speaker 6 (33:53):
I think, Yeah, I think like everyone has a thing
they do that they enjoy because they disappear a bit
when they're doing it, and you know, whether it's sort
of going to the more sailing or running or I
don't know, or yeah, playing music, or we kind of
lose yourself, and that's that's. Yeah, when I'm writing songs,
(34:18):
I when I'm writing a song, a good song, I
tend to not really be there anymore. And that's I
think that there's that's where the pleasure lies as well. Yeah,
so it's you know, I don't really remember a lot
of the time what I was thinking.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
And do you remember recording because I know that that
was a bit of a treat for you. You recorded
at Neil Fin's Roundhead Studios.
Speaker 6 (34:42):
Yeah, yeah, it's a beautiful studio here that we're all
very lucky to have where we recorded it in three days,
which was very very quick, and or recorded it like
the records I grew up loving really in the fifties
and sixties, all recorded to tape or recorded live. Yeah,
(35:07):
it was a very sort of old school production. It's
a shame because I love recording and I could easily
spend years in the studio, so doing it in three
days was very restrained, and I instantly regretted it because
I wanted more time in there. It's so fun in there.
But I think it suited these songs. We wanted to
make something really intimate and direct and like like we're
(35:29):
just in the room with you, so that that seemed
like the best way to do it.
Speaker 2 (35:33):
Oh, you definitely achieved that.
Speaker 3 (35:34):
Sure.
Speaker 2 (35:35):
This is the Veil seventh album, the first The Runaway
Found turned twenty last year. I hate to say this.
I mean, you did sign. Let's put things into context.
You did sign your first record deal when you were sixteen,
which is very young. But two decades in this music industry.
What have you learned about music and recording albums in
(35:57):
twenty years.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Yeah, I mean I've learned so much. I didn't know
a thing when I started, obviously, it was still just
a child, and I don't know what have I learned.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
I've learned.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
I've learned to relax with myself. I think in the
beginning I was terrified of everything and felt like such
an impost and the whole thing. And now now I'm
just sort of content with being an impostor and it's okay.
You just sort of I think you always feel a
bit like that. You just do what feels right and
try to sort of block out everything else, just carry on,
(36:38):
keep making things for as long as I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (36:41):
Because it's been an extraordinary twenty years. And I thought
of you actually earlier in the year when David Lyunch died,
because of course you worked with him and appeared on
the Twin Peaks series, which must have been one of
the highlights of the last twenty years.
Speaker 3 (36:51):
Oh yeah, that was that was great.
Speaker 6 (36:54):
It was a great weekend. Our keyboardist at the time
was he was very good at, i don't know, sort
of seizing an opportunity, and so he was just like,
we're going to think that's the best weekend of our lives.
And he rented like a Mustang convertible in Los Angeles
and we went to the filming and felt like kind
(37:16):
of decks but awesome as well.
Speaker 2 (37:20):
You know you're going to get the chance to do that.
Speaker 6 (37:22):
Yeah, we thought that was a good time to do it.
But yeah, it was amazing working with him. Just being
in that world for a brief time was a real
privilege and it was very sad to see in pass.
Speaker 2 (37:36):
How much do you love taking an album and then
performing it on stage. You've got a tour coming.
Speaker 6 (37:40):
Up, Yeah we do. Yeah, we're playing all over the country.
It was a beautiful thing on the European Talk so
that the album came out the day before the first show,
so it really was like this introduction to everyone of
the record. And yeah, so I guess it'll feel like
that here as well. People have had a little more
(38:01):
time now to get to grips with the record. And
I think because this was such a such a it's
such an intimate, restrained album, I wasn't really sure what
the reaction to it would be. I was sort of
imagining it would be quite a restrained reaction. But it's
had a very very immediate I'm not just saying this
in promo mode, but sort of like the record before,
(38:23):
it was sort of people liked a few songs on it,
but I didn't feel this sort of immediate people bringing
it into their lives in such a big way so quickly.
This record seems to have had that effect. And so yeah,
it's really obviously the more intense these songs sort of
have have intertwined with people's lives more intensely. They've been
(38:44):
intertwined with people's lives, the more intense the live shows
are as well. And so yeah, we're really looking forward
to taking it on the road, taking it around New Zealand.
Speaker 2 (38:54):
Well, we are very excited because you're going to perform
a number for us, now, aren't you?
Speaker 6 (38:58):
Yes, yes, we are.
Speaker 2 (38:58):
What are we going to? What are you? You've got
Dave here on violin. What are you two going to perform?
Speaker 6 (39:02):
We're going to play a song called Oh Fortune Teller,
which was kind of inspired. I think we made a
few records in Los Angeles over the years, and they
have this fantastic Fortune Tellers sort of shops, stores, storefronts there.
They always have this sort of the palmistry hands and
the neon and.
Speaker 3 (39:23):
Yeah, we sort of I've visited a few over the years.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
I've always found the idea of sort of wanting to
know the future is an odd thing when that when
the prisoner is so overwhelming. I don't know, the idea
of knowing the future, maybe that's too much. Yeah, so
it's kind of a song about that, a song about
longing for the to know the future, but being afraid
of too much information, terrifying information.
Speaker 2 (39:48):
Right, let's do it.
Speaker 3 (39:50):
Here we go.
Speaker 7 (39:53):
Ful to tell the down, tell me too, We cross save.
Speaker 2 (40:09):
With silk with silver, We.
Speaker 7 (40:17):
Talked to.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
Have been.
Speaker 7 (40:39):
Out with no love to show you tell me all
love about and I don't die.
Speaker 8 (41:01):
I just left it grow w row you saidside.
Speaker 9 (41:12):
Inside, Oh you say inside inside, oh Oo, you counted
(41:52):
on my things and.
Speaker 2 (41:56):
The nightly.
Speaker 7 (42:00):
Then blows.
Speaker 1 (42:05):
Scury.
Speaker 2 (42:06):
He didn't well.
Speaker 9 (42:09):
Too so much.
Speaker 1 (42:12):
So it just grows.
Speaker 3 (42:16):
Fa grows and.
Speaker 8 (42:18):
Grow, sayside inside, Oh say isside andside.
Speaker 1 (43:19):
The best guest from the Sunday session Great Chatz with
Francesca Rudkin on iHeartRadio powered by News Talks I'd Be.
Speaker 2 (43:28):
That was Finn Andrews accompanied by Dave on Violin singing
the veil song Oh Fortune Taler off the album Acidel's
Oh My Gosh that voice. There is also a video
of him performing in the studio. You can find it
on our Facebook page, the Sunday Session with Francesca Rudkin.
The album is hauntingly beautiful, definitely worth a listen. Hey,
(43:48):
thanks for joining me on this news Talk There'd Be podcast.
Please feel free to share these chats and if you
like the podcast, make sure you follow us on iHeartRadio
or wherever you get your podcasts. Don't forget we released
a new episode of Great Chats on the last Thursday
of every month.
Speaker 1 (44:03):
For more from the Sunday session with Francesca Rudkin, listen
live to Use Talks a B from nine am Sunday,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio.
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com