Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Stevenson Experience, Oh Brother, Where art? They was in
town for fringe Lynott's Lounge in Northbridge from tonight until Sunday.
Tickets are available through fringeworld dot com at dot au.
Ben and James Stephenson join us this morning.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Hello, good a, thanks for having us.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
So are you touch of the Cohen Brothers about the name?
What's going on there? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (00:21):
Well, we thought obviously brothers.
Speaker 3 (00:23):
I guess radio is our best medium for our joke
because we're identical twins, and that's kind of what the
whole the whole show is about. And it's really coming
across right now, isn't it. I just saw all the
listeners know where identical twins and there's a mild into
notion difference in our voice. So I'm James and that's
Ben that just talked. But the full title is the
Stevens Experience. That's what we're called. But the full title
of the show is oh Brother, where aren't thou? And
(00:44):
then in brackets on stage right next to me, So
that's sort of like and we wrote that and then
we thought that's pretty funny. And I just want to
guarantee everyone that the title's not the funniest part of
the show. The show's better than the title, but the
title still.
Speaker 4 (00:58):
There's some other clever stuff works into it.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah exactly. I mean, it's it's up there. It's one
of the better jokes.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
I mean, when you sit down to write a show
and you go, Okay, what's the title, and then you
spend four weeks on the title, and then you come
up with it and you go, am taking a week off.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
Now we've got that.
Speaker 3 (01:14):
If we spent four weeks on the title, imagine how
many weeks we spent on each of the jokes.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
You know, yeah, seventeen years exactly.
Speaker 1 (01:21):
I would have thought that the title would come after
the show, am I right?
Speaker 3 (01:25):
God?
Speaker 2 (01:26):
No, you know the fringe guy. They come up with
the title, and then you know, the fringe guy little
with the little blurbs and come see the show.
Speaker 3 (01:33):
Everybody writes their blurb before they even start writing. Will
you get the email from the festivals and they say,
what's the show about? And you say, it's about pirates,
and it's about ghosts, and it's about this and this
and this, and then you put it in the print
guide and then you write the show and you're like,
there's no pirates in this show.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Print every comedian.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
I just mentioned what a terrible improv for what a
show might be about it it's about pirates. I'm just
not assure everyone our show is not about pirates. There
is actually a joke about ghost. There is a ghost
and I've got a house recently in it. I think
it's haunted. Yeah, And so the thing with hauntings is
you know how to get rid of the ghost. And
somebody told me that you have to have a lot
(02:16):
of positive energy, which you are definitely not which and
the way to fix that is if you host a
child's birthday party, then the positive energy of a children's
birthday party will vanquish your ghost. Somebody told me that
that is a really difficult party to organize when you
don't have kids like it.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
It's difficult.
Speaker 3 (02:33):
You can have to steal some Yeah, I'm handing out
invitations down the primary school.
Speaker 2 (02:38):
It's on Saturday. You should can't. It's just a hard sell.
Even the ghost like I'm living.
Speaker 4 (02:44):
Can you be haunted by twins? Wouldn't that be bizarre?
There are two of them in the.
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Spirit would be good. I think the premise is unfinished business.
So yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1 (02:54):
Well, the Beauty about the Stevenson Experience as a title,
it leaves you open to pretty much fill in the
blanks with anything. So what is this show, this one about?
Speaker 3 (03:04):
Well, we are what we a blurb where what was
on our blurb? I'll tell you what the show is
actually about, as opposed to it the blob. I thinks
about pirates. It's about tirrants and ghosts, you know, all
that good stuff. Where musical comedians. We're identical twins. We
did musical comedy. So but those you haven't seen this before.
We sing funny songs, banter between siblings, family sibling rivalry,
(03:26):
and lots of standup comedy. But this year, what actually
happened was we were sitting in a pub and we.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
We decided that we were going to take it seriously.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
And we were wondered if we could become like a
publicly listed company for the Stevenson Experience. And I sold
Benjamin one percent of my share, so he owns fifty
one percent of the Stevens Experience for one beer. And
so now he's my boss and I'm an employee formerly
and so he sort of, to put it delicately, owns me.
Speaker 2 (03:54):
I own the band.
Speaker 3 (03:55):
I owned fifty one percent controlling stake of the board.
James also lives in a apartment I own, so I'm
also his landline. So I really just yeah, I didn't know.
Speaker 2 (04:07):
Yeah, I think he is.
Speaker 3 (04:09):
I'm just going to say it just because I didn't
know who he was about. But I am your bitch.
That's what the show is about.
Speaker 4 (04:14):
So you pretty much chairman of the board, You're everything.
Speaker 3 (04:16):
Yeah, So I own him, and the show's about exploring that.
And also just I know it's explorational radio. I know
it's radio, but you own me right, yeah tomorrow. Yeah,
I'm waiting for my boss to give me my page. Yeah,
that's the hurry payment. So yeah, that show is just
sort of about that sibling rivalry. And then there's a
bunch of songs about things that we we find funny,
(04:37):
competition with each other, certain laws, and things that are
happening in the United States at the moment.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
They get a little bit of a mention and yeah,
what we should teach kids, we know, the.
Speaker 1 (04:48):
Beauty of being the employee with forty nine percent is
you at least get some holiday.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Absolutely, here's what we think about as well. Absolutely, a
lot of things that we have figured this out.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
If I was a full time employee and I worked
a thirty eight hour week, I'd be getting two point
six hours of annual leave per week. Right, So I
work for one hour a night, which means every hour
that I work, I'm entitled to four point five minutes
of annually and I will be taking that leave during
the show, so exactly, so that four minutes I have
(05:24):
to do by myself officially, And I would answer the
next question guys, but I'm on stress lead at the moment,
so I can't.
Speaker 1 (05:32):
Well, then let me take the opportunity in that case
to just quickly ask Ben about the because as we know,
Ben's written some books, all of which I love. Everyone
in my family has killed someone was incredible, and that's
the one that's been picked up.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Is it by HBO? Yeah, we're making a TV show
with HBO.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
I love how you we're making a TV Yeah? You
know how many books are out there? How many books
get written and then how many get made into series
by HBO or Netflix or something?
Speaker 2 (06:00):
It is just yeah, it was crazy.
Speaker 1 (06:02):
Do you pinch yourself every other minute?
Speaker 4 (06:04):
It's just Leanne Murriaty and you.
Speaker 2 (06:07):
Every day every day. I pinched myself.
Speaker 3 (06:09):
I mean it was crazy, the kind of the flurry
of activity and suddenly you're on zooms with all of
these people that you're excited by to meet. I met
with this one director and he said I was a
big fan of the stuff that he'd made. And I'm
sitting on the zoom and he just goes. At the
end of the call, he goes and may I say,
Benjamin that you are a very composed young man. And
I said that's because I am crapping my pants. And
(06:33):
as I said it, his assistant hung up the zoom call.
And I'm like, that is the last thing I said
to an OSCAR nominated director, Like I am just and.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
I'm just sitting there mortified.
Speaker 3 (06:43):
Age it was like, it's okay, we all do it,
but it was it's really cool to.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
Maybe don't take zoom meetings on the toilet.
Speaker 4 (06:53):
I can think of someone who could be you know,
like you're leading male. Yeah, but he will go missing
for four and a half minutes every hour on set.
Speaker 3 (06:59):
Yeah, actually catering van With all respect, James, you're not
getting a roll on the TV show.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Sorry.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Dead body maybe dead body maybe dead body in the diamond.
There's a scene in the first book where there's a
rave and there's a raver in a big unicorn hat.
There's no face in the role, and I think that
would be a perfect cameo.
Speaker 2 (07:19):
That's a good start to be raver in a big gun.
Speaker 3 (07:21):
Yet I've chosen my I've chosen my can.
Speaker 4 (07:24):
It doesn't show you the triple that you are.
Speaker 3 (07:26):
But the difficulty is I mean, unfortunately, the difficulty is
that it may be filmed, you know, with professionals, it may.
Speaker 2 (07:35):
Be filmed overseas. I don't know if your boss will
give you the leads to go over because you've used
it all during the show.
Speaker 3 (07:43):
So unfortunately you can't take part in the TV shot
harassment boss exactly how I'm a tough I'm a whip cracker.
Speaker 4 (07:52):
Got it's just on a fundamental level. How many times
in a week do you get the which one's with? Yeah?
Is that a really regular thing?
Speaker 2 (07:58):
Well? Yeah, all the time.
Speaker 3 (08:00):
We sort of have parted back to a will turn
around for either name like I'll turn around. In fact,
I reckon I'll turn around at anything. People in the
shopping center will be like Jessica, and I'm like, it's probably.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
Me, I just have a look. And then we also
have downgraded.
Speaker 3 (08:14):
People have figured out that, you know, they're no hope
and they can't figure it out, and so they'll just
yell Stevo's and we both James, you will turn around
at any name. But what you turn around for is tone.
So if somebody sounds mad at you, James will turn.
Speaker 2 (08:27):
That was probably me, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3 (08:29):
But the thing is because we we you know, identical twins,
you don't look identical all of the time. You go,
you know, you go up and down, different way.
Speaker 2 (08:38):
Gets a bit better and lazy.
Speaker 3 (08:40):
One last year, last year we're at fringe, or two
years ago, we're at fringe.
Speaker 2 (08:45):
We're doing all this.
Speaker 3 (08:46):
You know, one of us is fat, one of us
is skinny jokes, and then this year we're the same
and we can't use any of those jokes, and people
are getting us way confused.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
So it's annoying.
Speaker 3 (08:55):
It's annoying when we're like, we write all these jokes
about the differences between us, and then you know, I
put on a bit James losers a bit, and I'm like,
damn it, we can't use anything we do deliberately go
to like a barber and get the same haircut. Give
but when we're just about to start it to off
because it is I mean, it's an image based guys.
We're on the stage, so we do try and we
(09:16):
do try and look similar, but we're not wearing the
same clothes or anything weird.
Speaker 1 (09:19):
It's the easy, slightest different shade in your T shirts today.
Speaker 3 (09:24):
Yes, yeah, but when we got out of our bunks
in the morning and we put our hats on the
stool and we ate our porridge together and we got
the double couple shower, you know together. We've even got
the same grape patch a whole week.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
You take that off.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
What's going on probably a court, you could take that
to the absolutely harassment.
Speaker 2 (09:47):
Look, it's fringe. Anything can happen, you know.
Speaker 3 (09:49):
If we've got the same gray patch in our beard,
so it's in the same spot on the which grows
during a festival season, I would suggest the grades grow.
But the other the thing is it's the easiest haircut
to get in the world because James goes in, sits
in the chair, gets a haircut, and then I sit
down and say what do you want?
Speaker 2 (10:05):
And I'm like that guy, yeah.
Speaker 4 (10:09):
And don't like about the shower. You get the hot shower,
he gets the cold water tap outside, doesn't it yea, yes.
Speaker 2 (10:13):
Exact the hose.
Speaker 3 (10:14):
And there's also a bit of a kind of you know,
a Mexican standoff really with kind.
Speaker 2 (10:18):
So we both have kind of light beards.
Speaker 3 (10:20):
So if one of us wants to shave, they can't
because we both have to have the same facial hit.
But if they shave, the other one has no choice
but to shave. So James showed up one day to
a show with a mohawk. Good luck, probably have to happen.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
It was pretty awkward when I got that Brazilian last year.
He's got a match, you know, the integrity of the show.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
I can't shave, though, you're not at risk because I shave,
I look like fourteen like I have. You know, I
don't get id'd in an emirated film. That's sort of
the level I need this bid for gravit tasks and authority.
You look like Homer Simpson when he when he.
Speaker 2 (10:56):
Shaves his bit. That's what you look like. There's just
no definite we'll get to complete with beards.
Speaker 1 (11:03):
The Stevenson experience.
Speaker 2 (11:05):
Our brother.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
We're out there on stage beside me, is at Lenotts Slander,
Northbridge from tonight until Sunday. Tickets through Fringe world dot
com dot are you lovely as always to see you
both having thanks so much.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Have you seen those two in the same room at
the same time?
Speaker 2 (11:18):
We just have.
Speaker 3 (11:19):
He's a hologram. Actually, James is a hologram.