April 21, 2025 • 49 mins
Neil sits down with Andrew, a former uni student turned mushroom dealer turned stand-up comic. They chat about growing up, selling drugs, getting arrested, and doing time — plus how Andrew turned prison life into punchlines. From public vs private prisons to performing behind bars, this raw and revealing convo is full of laughs, lessons, and second chances.
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Speaker 1 (00:05):
Approache Production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to Secrets of the Underworld. I am Neil the
Muscle Comments and in this episode I speak to former
drug dealer turned star comedian Andrew Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I said, there's got to be a better way to
get these mushrooms into your system, so I cannot with
the idea of his putting them into capsules.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, that turned out to be a really good business idea.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
For about a decade, it was just mushrooms, and then
I expanded into MDMA, ketamine, cocaine and as I got
a rest of that same weekend and that happened. So
a lot of guys in jail I thought I was
a lot bigger than I was, because I thought I
was part of this animal thing and I'm just a
friendly neighborhood mushroom the.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Letter from Sarry Hills.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
But it wasn't until I was in jail where I
just asked myself, all right, well your life, if you
could just start over, what would you do?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
And the only answer in my head was stand up corner.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Andrew, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Out of all the guests, you have been the biggest
effort to get on my podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Well let's be eventually I've got you.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's because you've been messaging.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
With like, hey, are you available tomorrow, and I'm like, no,
I don't get people much notice.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Broken.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm glad we've done it. I've done it, and so
here we are. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Now it's a pleasure, man.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So what we'll do is we'll start off before all
a nitty gritty of you becoming a stand up comedian
and your time inside growing up and how you got
to the well you know, eventually got to where you
are now.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Sure, man, I grew up in Hornsby, which is like
on the north Shore of Sydney. Or I grew up
in Hornsby Heights, which is like the even shitter version
of Hornsby. It's like you get to Hornsby and then
you've got to get another bus for like fucking twenty
minutes from Hornsby, so it's out in the sticks.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And I grew up one of five kids.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I got three sisters and a brother, pretty average middle
class upbringing.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
My parents sent me to a private school when I
was like thirteen.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So I went to a private school in Lane Cove
in Sydney called Riverview Saty Nation's College.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Which is like a pretty prestigious.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
School, and I had a great growing up. You know,
I had a lot of friends. I played sport. But
then I think, yeah, I kind of never knew what
I wanted to do with my life when I kind
of hit UNI, and so I went to Union in
Bathist and just try to study Camarthist. Yeah. Yeah, So
I went there and spent most of the time just
doing drugs and drinking and fucking.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Not really doing much work, so mostly just partying, partying
all the time.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, and then leon know what, I had to spa
a moment, I'd try and do a little bit of
study for half an hour before I went back to
the party. So, you know, it was a miracle that
I got any kind of past marks in anything there.
But most of the time I was at UNI, I
was also like selling ecstasy to my mates and other people.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's unied, just to like make a bit of money.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Just to hold you then so old you then when
you start I was like nineteen, and what made you
start selling?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I just knew people that I was that shit. Yeah,
it was just people had trouble.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Finding it, and I knew heaps of people from growing
up that could get me cheap pills. So I just
wanted to help out everyone and be like this is
done in Baffist the life of the party.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, so I would do that because.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I've been to a buffers, like I've been down there
for a while, Like I've lived victually down there, and
I know what it's like in a newcomer.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
You're not fucking usually welcome if they know you're a
city boy.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Well it's yeah, that's true when you're downtown, but when
you're living on campus, it's like a very different environment.
It's mostly people from Sydney living on campus, right, and
so it's like a completely different universe to the townies.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's what we would call them, which was people.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
That live downtown that when you're at the local park.
They kind of resented UNI students for some reason. They
thought that we thought we were better than them. You know,
if you're at the wrong part, they were trying for
you all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
You always not discussed. So it's strength in numbers.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So you would only go to the bars where other
UNI students were, so you're always kind of protected by
being in a large group. And so I never had
any issues because I was only selling extacy to other
UNI students.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So you got to know the dealers in Baffist or
you come back back to Sydney together.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I'd get back to Sydney and just drive back with
like two hundred and thirty out of pills.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
And yet back then you didn't your ship driving with nothing.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I was never thought like what happens if I get caught?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
No, man, I was just like what I'm a UNI
student with in a ship card with pea plates. Some
I'm a white private school kid. I didn't think anyone
was particularly looking for me. Nah, it didn't occur to
me at all. And so it was just no big thing.
And like even if you get pulled over for what
an r B T, I never thought any point they're
going to be like, can we check your cart for draft?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Maybe maybe it's different for me because I'm used to
getting pulled over and fucking It's like, get out the car, you.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Look dodgy, You look dodgy, You know, you look you
look like you're gonna have drugs on it.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It's true, my dad Now, so that nova was a
crossed my mind.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And so I just did that just to help pay
the bills when I was so to help me to
keep drinking and partying and gambling and whatever. And then
I went to Thailand and with a bunch of mates
in like my second year at UNI, so would have
been like around like two thousand.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And eight, I think.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And I tried magic mushrooms in Copenyang at a place
called Mushroom Mountain, and a bunch.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Of us just fell in love with mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
We had such an amazing time, and so when I
came back, I told my mate how good they were,
and he started researching how to grow them. He was like, fuck,
can't be that hard, And so for me it would
be very hard. I don't have the kind of brain
to be a scientist, so I can't figure out how
to fuck you grow mushroom. But he has quite an
analytical brain, and so audibly sport prints from Amsterdam. The
next thing you know, we were growing different strains and
I'd just be there with my mates at UNI eating
(05:41):
like different fat, wet mushrooms that tasted like fucking ass,
and we just were eating like half a jar of peanut.
But I just to get these mushrooms down. And then
I said, there's got to be a better way to
get these mushrooms into your system. So I came up
with the idea of his dehydrating the mushrooms, lending them
up into a powder, and then putting them in capsules
like jelas and capsules like large one gram capsules. Yeah,
(06:03):
and so that old everything because they got past taste problem,
and it helped you with dos because you knew exactly
what a graham of mushrooms was.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And so that tended to be a really good business idea.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And so then I would just be selling them to
friends and friends and friends. And over the course of
many years that went from like just me being a
side hustle and helping me pay rent to being like
a very big fucking business.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Over the course of fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We are we talking like big business? Will we talking
about mushrooms? Well, I've never tried mushrooms something I've never tried.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, what a surprise, I have some here for us.
I believe that I meant to do this.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
We put some psychedelicts on the screens, just a trip
out to.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Bag for one help of a podcast. They're like, why
is this one episode of Secrets in the Other World?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So long?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
The first time Neil tries so man, there's so much fun.
Like they just if you have on the right dosage.
They're so user friendly. You just laugh with your friends.
The colors are accentuated. You feel like you're in touch
with nature. But is it like pot like pot or No,
it's different. And I couldn't move off the off the
(07:19):
chair for hours. Yeah, it's it's it's a very different
body feeling. I think I'm a bit of a bitch
on weed. I've got like little bitch lungs. I can't
really inhale anything, but I can swallow or snort ship
days and weeks, you know. So yeah, mushrooms always worked
for me. But people would have like really cool kind
(07:39):
of spiritual existential experiences on mushrooms, you know, sit with
their mates as the sun is rising and just talk
about the meaning of life and that kind of stuff.
Or I used to help out mushrooms people that would
have them to microdose, so they have like a tenth
of a mushroom cap during their normal day just to
help them like with their mood and focus and stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Because I'm trying to picture like like a mushroom, what
I'm going to focus because I swear i'd never, you
know what. Actually, back when I was a kid, I
used to see a lot of my mates picking mushrooms
from the parks and they're when fucking they were going
up then. Yeah, but I've never really gone into depth
to try one. I'll probably you know, because I was
never into possible. I just tried a couple of times,
you know what I mean. But ye, mushrooms, I haven't
got a clue what I would do for you. Yeah,
(08:16):
so it just chills you. It's how do I describe it.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
It feels like a strong pill, Like your body feels
very relaxed. But then if you're in the right movie
with the right amount of friends, it's you're also very
gigly's you find more social that when when I'm on
a ping and if I'm on pills, I kind of
feel good, but I'm sure my face off, I'm not
really like involved in the moment as much, you know.
Whereas this is, I still feel like I'm very present,
(08:40):
but I have a very euphoric high. And then colors
you have if you close your eyes, you should have
some kind of like psychedelic kaleidoscope going on in your eyes,
and yeah, you just it's just good man, and then
when it wears off, you don't have that same scatteredness
for days like you do from chemicals, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
But also it's something I could, I could take if
I was going.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Out, well, I would not recommend you taking on your first, second, third,
or fourth time out. I would recommend having it with friends,
you know, in a private environment, just because you may
wig out. If you're out in a public environment and
you're trying a new drug you've never tried before, I
certainly wouldn't recommend trying mushrooms out around strangers. You want
to be around people that you feel safe with in
(09:23):
a familiar setting. So whether that's if you're on a
camping trip with friends, you just want to familiar faces
around you. Yeah, you don't want to be in a
nightclub tribune in to mushrooms for the first time, fucking
just seeing a whole lot of strangers wigging out, Like fuck,
can they tell that I'm free and I'm off my head?
You know, you get in your head too much. So yeah,
I had to advise people all the time, and I
was selling mushrooms about all these kind of things. They'd
(09:44):
be like, what's the correct docy you end all this
kind of stuff, and I'd always recommend them having a
smaller amount and then building up because you can always
have more mushrooms if you're having a good time, but
if you have too many, you can't have less.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Once it's already in you, it's too late.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
So my job was always to try and make people
have a positive mushroom experience, so they told their friends
and they came back, you know, not repeat business, you know,
or someone to be one and done with any drug
you're selling. Otherwise that you've got a pretty shit business model.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
So you were the big seller of mushrooms in fucking.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, it wasn't until I really came back to Sydney
that the mushroom business really started to blow up, and
even that it took years. So it would be like
I would sell a heap during summer when people going
away on camping trips and going to.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Music festivals and that kind of stuff, and then.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
It would be really quiet around winter because no one
really wanted to have mushrooms, and then there'd be a
huge spike when the Vivid Light Festival was on.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know, when it's okay, so they'd be like that,
I reckon for vivid.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
It's either families, tourists, people on a first date, or
a whole bunch of people on psychedelic drugs walking around
looking at the lights on the wall.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So well, why else did you fucking do it? Now?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Like, it's just it's so shit. Unless you're on drugs,
it's just lights on the wall. So I think there
were quite a few years where I single handedly kept
that stupid festival alive by selling chilos and kilos of psychedelics.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
For because I'm thinking, fucking like, you have to go
down to the to markets to get mushrooms.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
To do this?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, no, I mean people think you need to go picking,
and like some people would sometimes walk at the price
of my mushrooms and be like, oh, I can go
pick them.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I'm like, great, But it's also seasonal.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And you've got to go add in the time of
you going around looking looking for them, and then you
might only find enough for a couple of doses.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
But I can give you as many as you want,
whenever you want, all year round. So how long did
you do that? For? Sixteen years?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Sixteen years?
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Yeah, just mushrooms, nothing else.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
No, No, it started as mushrooms and then over the
course of years, it escalated.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
So it started the mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
For about a decade it was just mushrooms, and then
I expanded into MDMA, ketamine, cocaine and.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Acid as well. Fucking hell, it was a one stop
shop for a while. But yeah, yeah, I didn't put
away People's tired. You know, they come they want to
go to a music festival.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I want to go on to like a party on
like a Bucks party or a camping trip. They don't
want to be dicking around going to five different locations
to get all their drugs.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
If they can go to one stop and get everything,
it just makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
How did you distribute it all? Like, you know where
the main dealers is runners, What did you want?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I had me at my house and people would come over.
Really yeah for fifteen years, and you.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Didn't fucking flinch about people.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Know.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm like nah, because I had a system where it
was just it was a referral based system. I treated
everyone great. I saw good drugs at good prices and
made sure that everyone was happy. If they were unhappy,
I'd refund them. And neighbors didn't talk no, because I
was I lived in a big house on a very
busy street, and so I just look at a party
house and so nah.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Chinese whispers, Oh this is the dr dealer's house. No,
I don't think so fucking fifteen sixteen years. Well, I
moved around.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I wasn't in the one I wasn't in one location
for more than like two years at a time.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Wow. So it was a good little run.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
So everything was stored in your house. Everything.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I had a second house where I would store stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
But when I was unfortunately but whin my house did
get raided, I was so coked up that I was
I just got to be complacent, you know when you
just like usually I would have only a little bit
of my house at any one time, and I'd just
go back and forth, back and forth. But if I'm
too high on coke times, I get lazy and just
be like, oh fuck it, I'll have more at the house.
So it just saved me having to go back and forth.
And so the day that they got raided, I probably
(13:12):
had a medium amount of like what I could have
been caught with, Like it wasn't the worst, but I
could have been better as well.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
But you didn't even think like like it sounds like
you didn't even flinch about other dealer's trying to take
your ships or nothing like that, or anyone coming around
or rivals.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Nah nah, you sound like that. That helps and lockstock
and battle.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
The weed out. Yeah. I guess it was probably like that.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But like the thing is, because I was selling mainly,
like I was known mainly for mushrooms and acid. Anytime
I'm bumped into any bigger players that I try to
sell mushrooms too. They were also focused on ice or
coke that I'd say mushrooms and they go, oh, it's
too trippy, bro, like that I was irrelevant to them,
you know, so I did. I just meant that I
was able to operate almost invisible as my own little fiefdom.
(13:57):
And so it ended up being pretty good at Learner.
Just what got you caught in the end, My fiance
had a mental breakdown on cocaine and ran off with
a bunch of cash and drugs and got picked up
and told the cops that I was a massive drug
deal that and that was a problem for these and yeah,
so the house got righted and what do you do ship? Yeah,
so anyway, it was a good run. But you know,
(14:19):
it's like any of these cliche movies at some point,
got a good woman brings you down?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Wow, I'm going to go back and be because I
had to look up what you know, you on on
everything that I could find so I could get some
nitty gritty ship on you so young.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
The pizza restaurant, Yeah, were you showing from that?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
No? No, I kept the business and the pleasure.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Because I was thinking, in fact, this is like a
fucking new but thing this, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Ye?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Did I just get the three hundred dollars special pizza?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Do you want to cope with that?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah? Yeah, bottles of magic mushroom pizza.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
So that that was kept separate?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Was it? That was kept sever Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:59):
So everything was just from the house. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Okay, So your mistresses get like gone out and she's
kind of like told everyone you know in a fifth
of state. Did that happen because you hadn't agent? Or
did she just flip out on the drugs?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And now she had too much coke, I think, and
not enough sleep and she had some psychosists sought the
mafia were trying to kill her or something, and ran
off and got picked up by the cops, and uh, yeah,
just told him that I was a dealer and got
the house raided.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
But she just went to a cop shopped.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
She got picked up in a park in like Cronulla somewhere,
freaking out and they just came across her.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
So where were you living it at this time? Surry Hills,
out of townhouse. So she's gone all the way from
sort of Hills to Cranola. Yeah, flipped out. Yeah, and
then the coppers have believed don't come to old brought
her back and then they've searched you or you didn't
even know they were coming.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
Yeah, well, yeah, they waited a little while, and so
I like laid low for ages, and then for that
probably like six months, I laid low, and then I
was like fuck, if I was going to ray, they
would have done it by now.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And then eventually I just got back into it, and
then they eventually raided it.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Okay, And were you still with your missus when that happened.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't look. I knew she'd sucked up.
I know she didn't mean to, so I was happy
to stay with her, but then she bailed on me.
When I was in jail, I really had like two
weeks into jail.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
She bailed on me. So what do you do?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Fucking hell, So, tell me about when you got raided, Like,
what did they find that at the house when you.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
They found like I think about four hundred grams about
half a kilo of magic mushrooms. They found about three
hundred acid tabs about ounce or so, with a bit
more of MD, about half an oca of cat and
of coke. And yeah, so it was a crash. Yeah,
but I think like fifteen twenty grand maybe of cash.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
So what's going through your head that this time?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I thought it was an idea I was so I
was high. Yeah, I hadn't slept in like three days.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I was on coke and I hadn't slept, And when
they started raiding, the house was all pretty hectic, and
so I don't know, I didn't really have time to
think about it too much other than thinking like, fuck,
all right, I'll get pinched, I'll get bail, I'll fucking
i'll go to the backup house and fucking sell gear
from there and fucking just sort the situation out. And
I know, at no point in my head did I
(17:12):
think I was going to get refused bail and said
straight to prison.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah, you know, I think I was just in my
head deluded that I just get bail that day.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I didn't know that you could go.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I mean, I guess I didn't know, but I didn't
think it could happen to me that I can just
get set straight to prison and your first defense, first
drug offense. Yeah, I had an assult charge from like
twenty years ago, but it was my first drug offense.
And yeah, so look, you know, you wake up twenty
four hours after that, I'm in a mass of security prison.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Wow, it's okay, So you refuse bail, You're taken.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
To the prison. What was it was that feeling?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Like, well, it was a weird feeling because it was
during COVID, So like I was, I was in Parkley Prison.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
You're like, you got a fucking me. Yeah, so you
got a strip naked.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
You're getting used to fucking just being a slab of meat,
having a lift your ball sack and fucking flick your
ears and whatever, and you know, changed out of your
clothes into green clothes and getting processed and like I'm
still fucking like recovering from a from.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
A OAP bender.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
So it's all a bit of a blur and you're
getting tested for COVID and then you're putting quarantine for
two weeks, and so it was kind of like a
weird way of getting used to jail because like the
first two weeks, you can hear the sound of a prison,
but you're in your own cell for like, so you're
like you're in your head going like, what the fuck's
are going to be like out there?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So that made it harder because for the first two.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Weeks I was in quarantine and I had no TV
or books for the first ten days, and so you
just did a cell for twenty three and a half
hours a day with nothing to do other than stare
at the ceiling try and sleep or just be stuck
in your own fucked thoughts, which are only negative for
that point because you've just been pinched, right, So it
was pretty That was probably the hardest part of the
whole thing, was just particularly in my businesses, no visitors, nothing,
(18:48):
like I hadn't figured out to add numbers to the
phone yet, so like it was just you're just stuck
in a cell for twenty three and a half hours
a day, just pacing around, just doing nothing, trying to
break up the day in any way you can.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
What about you?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Finally, did they know about it all this? Did they
have a clue what you were doing?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Nah?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I don't think they hadn't known a club I was doing.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
But I did have a phone call with him when
I was in there for about five days to just
to I was able to speak with him, and they
said that they thought Joe was probably gonna be the
best thing for me, which wasn't really helpful. They ended
up being right, but it's like, you know, what has
just happened. You're like, shut up, You're probably right, But
I said, not the time. Yeah, yeah, you're not ready
(19:27):
for that. Yeah. So you get through the quarantine part,
which was fucked, and then.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Who's the first person that you spoke to in there?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
The first person I spoke to was my Seally, the
guy who I traveled in the truck with from park
to park lay and he and I ended up becoming
very good friends and we ended up being cell mates.
And form he was in there because.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
He'd worked at the docks and he was just a
guy that passed on information.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
If the AFP were looking in certain containers, then he
would just like just give him a tip off.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And so he got arrested for that.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
When when the animal takedown went down, when you know
they had that app that was created by the FBI
and they took the hands of people. I got the
rest of that same weekend did that happened. So a
lot of guys in jail thought I was a lot
bigger than I was because they thought I was part
of this animal thing and I'm just I'm just a
friendly I'm just a friendly neighborhood mushroom d level from
(20:19):
Sarry Hill, so it doesn't know anyone.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Body. So yeah, he was the first guy I spoke.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So we ended up being being Selly's and their four
different prison wings, and he was great.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
He helped me through a lot of didn't been in
there before.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
No, there was probably the reason we connected was because
we're both in there for the first time and we're
both figuring it out together, having no idea what the
fuck the systems are for everything from like from buy
up to fucking like just yard politics to fucking making
the phone work, to get the phone working, to just
get anything. We were all figuring it out together, so
it was good to have someone who was as clueless
(20:55):
as I was.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So when when you eventually got to be a normal
person inside there, Did you get any bothered? Did anybody
come over to ask you who you were or anything
like that, or they just left you along?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Did you just I didn't really have anyone particularly hass me.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Sometimes guys would would would try and like test you
in like the phone line, try and push in front
of you or something like that. Or there was one
guy who pinched me on the ass a couple of times,
and I thought, fuck, this could be a problem because
it was pretty it was pretty big, and I was like,
I'm gonna have to fucking fight this guy, because you
know it's going to be hard.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But likely part of it.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Is that I'm also I'm not small, so I think
like and it looked like I always stand up for myself,
So they usually go for whoever's the weakest target. You know,
any guys look like you can go steal their buy
up and they won't even say anything, or if they do,
you can just punch them in the hand. I'll go
for those guys much much before anyone who they think
can actually like probably give them a fair fight. But
I made some mates in the yard and just tried
(21:50):
to if you're not wracking up drug debts, and you're
not involved in the drug trade in there, and you're
not talking shit you're involved in any kind of gang beefs.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
You can kind of find a way to face you
out out of trouble, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And so that's what I did, was just try and
not get into any arguments with anyone and just mind
my own business and just get through my days.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
What the prison goes with you?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
With you? All right? With you? I found that park Lee,
they were pretty putrid. Like it was just something I
think about the culture. It's a private prison, right, so
I think there's just something about the way a private
prison is run which seems to run through the entire
culture of the way that they're trained and taught is
to treat you as subhuman, just like that you're not
even there. And I think that also happens to permeate
(22:32):
into the nursing group there, which is some Saint Vincent's hospital,
because the same way I ask him every day, I said,
I have asthma. I'm asking for evenuland Inhaler and every
day just look at you like they have never spoken
to you. Before they go, We'll have to check and
I'm like, I've asked you this seventeen days in a row,
like what are we doing here? And so it just
(22:53):
drives you insane because you feel like you're having Groundhog
Day every day.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And I remember I.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Asked them for pananole because I had a cold, and
my Sally told me, don't fucking ask him for pananole
because you're going to fucking get us locked away for COVID.
And I was like, I was like, they're decent people.
They're going to give me a fucking panalole, that's all right.
So I asked them for panadole. We both got locked
away for COVID, and he was like, I fucking told you,
and I'm all right, I'm sorry. So I'd lay there
(23:17):
in a bed for like three days with throbbing cold
and all I wanted was a fucking panadole. And we
had to wait in there for three days pending a
COVID test. And when we got out, one of the
other inmates come to me and goes, mate, here's some panadole.
Next time you need help, don't ask the screws, don't
ask the nurses. They'll never help you. The other boys
will help you. And that showed me everything I needed
to know, right, which is like, but Parkley, they were
(23:38):
never there to help you in any way. And that's
why I wrote a letter to the governor and was like,
this is a culture you've created, and that's why if
anyone does have COVID, the whole place is going to
erupt into a fucking COVID outbreak because no one would
ever speak because you know, guys can help them.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Four weeks later, Parkley Prison had the biggest COVID outbreak
in any prison in the country. Yeah, so fucking I
fucking told you so. Anyway, it's now there's changing. It's
now be coming back present a couple of months or
something like that. It's going back to being public prison
because and that's a good thing, because private prisons is
just something wrong. Because I've got sent to Long Bay
soon after I sent that letter. I don't know if
it's connected, but I don't know if they thought it
(24:14):
was a nuisance or whether I got sent to Long
Bay for any other reason. But I went there and
it's public prison. Got treated great straight away, straight away.
If you give them respect, they'll give it back to you.
They'll treat you like a human being, and that just
showed me night and day that Parkley had these amazing
facilities make much better than Long Bay. But it's riding
on the inside. It's treated they don't treat you like
(24:36):
human beings. And then you go to Long Bay and
it's like the place is falling apart. It's like rat infested,
fucking shithole. But at less you get treated nice enough.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You know, how long, how long you have your sentence
were you're in Long before?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
So I was in Parkley for two months and then
I got sent to Long Bay for two months, and
then I got bail, and then I was under house
arrests for about six months. And then I got sentenced
to an ICO, which is an intensive corrections order. And
I got put on a two and a half year ICO,
which is like a prison sentence. You doing community yea yeah,
and that finished in December last year.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I finished in December last year. Yeah, so it's all,
oh wow, so now I'm allowed to travel again.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Oh you know?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh shit, Yeah, so it's all pretty recent.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I knew it was back in twenty twenty one,
but I didn't realize.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
It just ended recently year December.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Oh shit, So it was quite funny because I got
invited by Silverwater Prison to perform up to do stand
up comedy in there last year, but then I failed
their own background check because I was still on an ICI.
They didn't even know though, no, no, not until I
started the background check and I was like, well you
(25:45):
invited me, but like anyway, So we did that about
what was eight weeks six weeks ago I did. I
did a performance at Silverwater which was pretty crazy, and
I've just been invited to perform at another prison out
west soon, so you know, I might be sart of
my own stand up comedy circuit around business last prison, Well,
I like to do it.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
That's different.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Yeah, I like to do it because it's just it's
so boring in there, and there's just every day is
the same. So if I can do anything just to
provide a bit of laughter to the boys and just
give them a bit of hope, it's worthwhile. Because I
know from my own perspective that anytime I laughed in jail,
it made me just remember that there's there's something beyond this.
You know, I can turn my life around and that
(26:26):
it's not all going to be doom and gloom.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
So how many how many did you perform to when
you're in the jail when you recent.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Them, it was about one hundred inmates.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
I'm just sitting there watching it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah, there's about one hundred inmates in maxim security at MWRC,
which is the Romand Center at Silver Water, surrounded by
about maybe like thirty or forty prison guards and about
twenty support stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And so I think it was half because no, no,
I said I would do it for free, but it was.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
It was kind of fun because in the middle of
all the conditions on which comedy normally work, which is
like a it's enclosed space with low ceilings and it's
dark and it's cool. There's like a hot room. It's
one of the afternoon. No one's drinking because it's obviously
in jail, and it's giant kind of barn. And then
all the boys that I'm performing for surrounded by forty
prison guards who are watched, you know, because I'm doing
(27:12):
drug jokes and.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Jokes about crime, and so some of them I could tell.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
We're like a bit self conscious about laughing because I
didn't want to give themselves away, or they didn't want
to make themselves targets.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
So the first thing I said when I got in there,
because I thought would be funny for the boys.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I'm like, what about these fucking SCREWSA boys get a
real job? Bombs so hard no one laughed, and I
was like, okay, because they don't want to, Like, they
don't want to laugh to hard? Are they going to
get their cell toss? But yeah, in my head, I'm
like this, this would be great and it did not
go great at all.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Fuck.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Now you say that while you were inside the best
thing to do was laugh So you never thought about
stand up comedian before you went inside.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I had thought about it, but I never made any active.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Plan to do it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So when you're going to retire from drug dealer, you're
going to be a standard comedian.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, personctally, well, I mean I never thought about that
on the outside world, because if I hadn't really wanted
to do it, I would have done it while I
was a dealer. I would have still done comedy if
I was ever going to do it. But it wasn't
until I was in jail where I just asked myself,
all right, well, you fucked your life. Now if you
could just start over, what would you do? And the
only answer in my head was comedy, stand up comedy,
(28:20):
and so I was like, all right, well, if it's
that clear, if it's that simple, then let's just do it.
And so as soon as I got out and I
was able to get my bail rules slightly like my
bail rules were, I wasn't allowed to leave the house
unless I was.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
In a company of my mum and dad.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, And so my first few gigs, I had to
bring my mum along to the.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Show because yeah, I had to have her there.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
And then I would just put my name in a
bucket with a whole bunch of other guys that were
doing comedy, and you name drawn out randomly, and I'd
have to ask them can I go on early? Because
I have a bail curfew. I've got to be home
by nine. And I was like, what, who the fuck
is this guy? Is he a seventy five year old mum?
And I'm to be I've gotta be home by nine,
I'm asking to a stand.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Up early And then like what the like? You better
be funny, you know. So I luckily it went pretty well.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Everyone was very support and soon after I was able
to get my bail rules relaxed enough to be able
to go and work a job and then also do
stand up at night.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And so I just started doing it every single night,
like just every single night.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
How did you get like you not have to practice this?
Or you're like, oh, is you practice yourself? Me thought,
what would you do?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Like, I mean, the only way to really practice properly
is by going to an open mic.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You can't really practice too much.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
But you've never done anything inffronts of anybody before.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah, Well I had worked in public relations, so I'd
been a media trainer and taught people on how to
communicate and how to kind of develop all that's out.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
So I think that certainly helped.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
And then I just had this whole list of yarns
from from drug dealing and my house getting arrested and
the Raptor squad telling me that I had a tiny
cock and fucking and from Long Bay jail and all
this stuff. So I had this whole list of stories,
and so I just got on stage and started telling them.
But people laugh and I just would go home and
I'd work on you know, Okay, how.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Do I shorten that? How do I make that funny?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
How do I move the punchline to the end of
the story, and so you just do that every night.
But the only way to really test if it works
if I sit at home and just read it out
to myself. I think everything I say is funny, So
you know that's not going to work. You're got to
go and say it to an audience. And the problem
is when you go to open mics, it's mostly other
comedians that are doing the same shit gigs as you,
and it's like.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Barely any audience for most of them. When you really start,
it's mostly other comedians.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
So I'd see the same fucking twenty dickheads at five
shows a week, and so I can't say the same
jokes to them every night because they've heard it, They've
heard it five times in a row. So I had
to start writing a new five minutes of jokes every
night or every second night.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And so that made me have to like really hustle.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Harder on writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, performing writing, performing writing, And.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Then that I think really helped me to accelerate very quickly.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Do you think it helped you get out there more
because of what happened to you?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I think it did because I.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Just because it's very unique what you're talking about. Yeah,
that's a comedian.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Totally, totally. I think that certainly helped because people the
jokes worked.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
But then also I'm talking at present, so people want
to listen because they're interested, right, and so those two things,
but it's still gonna be funny, yeah right.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
And so yeah, I do.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Gigs at like loud pubs where, like, you know, there's
people that are there, but they're not really there for comedy, right,
They're just there playing pool or having beers with their mates,
and so they can tune in or tune out to
the comedy as much as they want. And so that
was a pretty good test because then you know, you're
trying to grab people's attention. So as soon as I
said I want to jol for drugs, We're gonna do
some jokes about it, people would usually shut up, We're
gonna want to listen to you know, So that definitely
(31:33):
helped me.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
What was your major one that you talking about, Like,
what was the major thing you bring up to try
and get the crowd to talk to you or to
listen to you.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Well, I think I would just start in the same
way I started my book.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Was I start with the most interesting thing that I had,
which was the Raptor squad started smashing through my front
door with a battering ram and I ran upstairs started
flushing drugs down the toilet. And so my first, one
of the first jokes I ever wrote, was like, the
time it takes for the big flush on your toilet
to recharge will never seem longer than when the cops
are raiding your house.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And so like you say something.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Like that, they go, all right, I'm in you know,
but those kind of insights only come from fucking have
a visit, you know, having the nightmare I was sitting
there with a fucking toilet for mushrooms and cocaine and being.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Like, go, you stupid cut go.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
So, you know, I would start with that, and then
people like that, and I was like, Okay, well what
else can I write about?
Speaker 1 (32:25):
And so I wrote and I wrote and I wrote
and I wrote.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
And when I got sentenced, part of the reason I
got an ico instead of more jail time was that
the judge liked that I was rehabilitating through comedy. Okay,
you know, he thought that was a really positive sign.
And so as soon as I found out that I
wasn't going back. When I got centers, I was in
court with like three pairs of underwear on and three
pairs of socks, because I was like, all right, if
I'm going back, I'm going back with a few bits
(32:49):
of extra kit, because you know, the jail unders are
fucking gross and the jail socks fucking sucks. So and
when I got sentence, my dad was like, sorry, Andrew,
I know how badly you wanted to go back to
get more joke ideas.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
So, because once I got used to it, jail wasn't
was fine.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
I was already once I demystified what the experience was
going to be, and I was in maximum security. If
I got sentence, I would have gone to minimum right,
and it would have been easier. So I kind of
made peace for the fact that I was going to
go back, so that when I didn't, I was like, well, fuck,
I guess we're just going to continue on with this
comedy thing. And so yeah, I wrote as many jokes
I could, and I went to Melbourne Comedy Festival the
(33:26):
following year, and so I'd been doing comedy for like
fourteen months at that point, and I did a show
called Jokes about the time I went to prison, and
the festival they offer people like you've got to apply
for a room, right the festival itself runs room, and
then other people run rooms around the festival as well,
and I got rejected by virtually all of them.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Except for one room.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
They gave me a space at like ten forty at
night in this tiny cocktail bar, and I just took
it because I wanted to be there. I thought I
believed that, like I was meant to do this. I
believe that there had to be a reason why. When
I was sitting a long way, a voice told me,
do stand up and all change your life. And so
I took that room and I did the show. And
it was at ten forty at night every night. I
(34:08):
had the latest show on the entire festival by about
like two hours most nights. And so I did it
and people came and I started getting reviewers in and
they gave me some really good reviews, and I ended
up getting nominated for Best Newcomer at the festival, and
out of that I got an agent and a book deal,
and it changed my life for now. I get the
tour as a stand up, But.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
You didn't have a get insimilated by the big comedians
who are there, the sundup comedians. You know, like you
know that they've been doing it for years and you're
a newcomer in even though you're confident in yourself, it
didn't kind of put you off in a little way,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Not really, because like there, who cares if they're in
a nine hundred seat theater or a two thousand seat room.
I'm at a tiny cocktail bar that can fit forty people.
I only need ten twenty people every night to choose me,
and they're on at primetime. Those guys are on at
seven or eight pm. I'm the only person that's on
at ten forty at night. I'm asking for a few
people that had a few beers and go, hey, do
(34:59):
you want to hear some idiot talk about prison?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
And then go, actually, yeah, that sounds pretty funny. Right.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
So it's like I wasn't beeting with them, and still
now I'm not. Because every comedian can succeed. It's not
like because you because you're popular, it doesn't mean that
they can't see both, right, It's it's not a zero
some game.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
And I think a lot of time I attract my
own audience.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I'll attract people who don't go to see any comedy,
and that's what I love.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
It's like a lot of the time that a lot
of the guys.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
That I'm a trying to track to go see stand
up think comedy is gay. Right, They're like, they think
comedy is stupid. They're like, they're like, I don't get it.
They've never gone to a stand up in their life,
and then suddenly they come to, oh, bro, look to
stand up was like that, you know, just me joking
about drugs and cocaine on my ass with a straw
and fucking all kinds of shit like that, And so that's,
you know, that's what I think about it. It's like
(35:50):
you can carve out your own audience and it doesn't
have to be in competition with anyone.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Have you Have you ever done comedy and it's been
hard and you didn't get the reaction that you wanted.
And it's like, you know when you said before, like
you try to do a joke with the at the prison,
but no one laughed? Is it ever on it before?
Besides that? And you've just gone shit? And then what
you do is you try and switch it to or
what do you do?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oh, totally. I did a corporate gig a little while ago.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I got paid to like do a comedy for about
twenty minutes at this rich person's dinner party, and.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Like they're in the middle of dinner, and then suddenly
I say, all right, Andrew's going to do some jokes.
And so I'm saying, that's not a vibe, there's no
there's no laughter already build up, and I'm doing jokes
and I do this pedophile.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Joke and it fucking and it did not go and
it did not go well, and it bubbs so hard,
and then like, so what do you do? You just
I just crack on. I'm like, all right, well, I
know my job. My jokes are funny. I just crack
on with the next one. I'm like, all right, well
I missed you on that one.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
I'll get it on the next one.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So I just there are some comedians that will react
if a commit if a joke doesn't go well, they'll
go like, fuck you, that's a good joke. But I
do know there's obviously a reason why certain jokes are
work in certain circumstances. So I just like, I know,
on a numbers game that most of my jokes work
most of the time, so if one doesn't work, I'll
go right, let's get it on the next one, next one,
next one. Let's just work through this until we fucking
get some momentum.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Gun. Yeah, Now, did you ever do a police Christmas Fine?
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I actually got invited what was it like, over a
year ago to perform for a police station in Melbourne
for their Christmas party, and then my management trying to
negotiate it, and they didn't have any money.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
They were like barely going to cover my flight to
go there, and I thought, why the funk would I go?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Like, you know, I hope to do it if you're
paying me, but I'm not doing any fucking favor, you know,
Yeah I would have been if I would probably.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Just give it to Haz So yeah, I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
I think that a lot of the time, the bad
gigs are few and far between for me fortunately at
the moment. So I think that when something doesn't go well,
I usually have enough tools and the toolkit to turn around, Like,
I have enough jokes that work most of the time
that if something takes a dep I'm like, all right,
(38:05):
let's dig ourselves out of this.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Whole, you know, like going back to when you come out,
you didn't think of going back to what you were doing.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
It never crossed your mind.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
No, I didn't. I think at first. I did.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
When I first got arrested, absolutely, I thought I was
going to get bail, I'm going to go out. I'm
just going to fucking get into the second house and
start dealing again. But there was at some point about
maybe like six or eight weeks in where things just
changed for me. I think my fiance left me, my
friends had bowed on me, you know, my pizza store
had gone under because I rent out of money, and
like it was just everything was just a mess. And
(38:40):
the other people were sticking by me, were like my
a handful of friends and my parents and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I just it was like I just got bored of it.
Just I did the math.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I think when I was in jail, I've probably done
over fifty thousand drug deals when I was active, and
like that means I've had to have small talk with
fifty thousand people and that what they're up to for
their weekend.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
And at some point, Neil, it's just enough enough. I
don't care what you're up to, you know.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
So I think when you were inside you came out,
you're just a different person.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I definitely think I was a different person.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
I don't know if it's if I would shure it,
but I definitely did change what I wanted to get
out of life changed. I think I had a greater
appreciation for just the simple things.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I think because.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
When I had all this money, I didn't particularly do
anything good with it. I just fucking gamble, snort cocaine,
fuck and just like spend fortunes on fucking fancy restaurants.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
I didn't like. It was just dumb shit, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
And I'd make forty grand a week and somehow spend
fifty and I was just an idiot. So, you know,
I think that when I was in jail and I
started to exercise and get some sun and just get
off drugs, I.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Just totally off when you came out.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah, I mean I still drink, but I don't do
drugs anymore. But I yeah, I didn't do any drugs
in jail, and I think that just having that time,
it was a rehab for me. I got off drugs,
and I just like I started to feel like shit
in like a way, which was good because I used
to escape whenever I felt like shit, I'd gamble, snort
fucking drink just to escape that feeling. And just like
(40:10):
my whole life, I was just anetheesized And so I
think feeling like shit in jail where I was like,
hold on, this is a good feeling because it's telling
me something's wrong. What are you going to do about it?
And so for me it was like, okay, let's do
something completely different. And so, yeah, I don't know how
to extrab but maybe it was God. Just something spoke
to me and said do stand up and it'll change
your life. And like it might sound strange to people now,
(40:32):
but like I'm still I'm a poor comedian living with
my parents, and I am happier now than I've ever
been in my entire life.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Poor comedian, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Most of us are poor now. Yeah, and we don't
make much money out of comedy.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Your poor comedian. Don't think you're a poor comedian.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
No, I mean like I've got no money. Like I'm
a good comedian with no money and I live with
my parents, is what I mean. You know, I'm a
very good comedian. I'm pretty good for three years in
things are going all right, but I mean I'm a
comedian with no money living with my parents.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
So what would Okay, what would so? What would and
you like to do?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Then?
Speaker 4 (41:03):
What's this goal for twenty twenty five to build this game?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Well, now that I'm allowed out of Australia, Neil's World
Domination Baby, we're working on my US visa, so hopefully
I can do the UK US.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
You could get into the US, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, my innovation, I hope they want to allow me in.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Well, it's because I'm an inspiration to the community now now, yeah,
it's going to work on that. So now that I'm
doing these jail shows and like all this kind of stuff,
my turnaround story, it inspires millions around the world. I
don't know if you've checked the news now, I can
see I'm inspiring you right now. So I think my
podcast so yeah, I think we'll see what happens. But
(41:43):
my immigration lawyer thinks that I have a pretty good
case and we have some people in the New South
Swaler's justice system that are willing to support me in that.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
So yeah, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
To do stand up in America, that's right.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
So a big chunk of my audience on social media
is US and UK, so I think it just makes
sense to go there and New Zealand. All I know is,
ever since I've been on this path, more and more
opportunities keep presenting themselves.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
So I'm not trying to overthink it.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I'm just trying to become better at stand up and
just seeing where this ride takes me. But it's changed
my life in such an amazing way. And now I
get to go to places in Australia that I've never
even dreamed of going and have like two hundred people
turn up to a show and have an amazing time.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
It is very humbling. So it's very cool.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Is that you do a lot of stuff's like it
that the Comedy Clip down and at More Park.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so that the Comedy Store.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Those kind of venues are great and yeah, I'll do
The main way that comedians make money out of comedy
in Australia is through the comedy festival circuit, so we
have that's the one in Melbourne. We have the Melbourne
Comedy Festival, which is the biggest comedy festival in the
Southern Hemisphere. We have Sydney Comedy Festival, but we also
in January they have the Perth Fringe Festival, which is
the Performing Arts Festival, which where there's a lot of comedy.
(42:59):
And then we have Adelaide Fringe which is in kind
of like mid.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Feb and that's only invice on.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Well, any of these ones are not really invite you
just you apply, you pay the registration fee and you
just find a room. You find a room that'll have
you and a time slot, and then they take a
fucking fair chunky of profits to do the show. But
yeah you can. They'll let basically anyone that signs up
get a room if you can find the space. But yeah,
(43:26):
so that's that's how most comedians will make money is
by doing the comedy festival circuit. And then they've got
to write a new hour every year to make money
out of it, which is crazy because we're such a
small market, because we have so few people in Australia
and it's so spread out, you've got to write a
new fucking hour show every year, whereas in the States
you'll have comics that can tour around all the clubs
with like the same half an hour and make an
(43:49):
absolute fucking fortune for years during the same thirty minutes.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
You know, we just don't have that. We don't have
that kind of stuff. You Wow, So what do you do?
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Done? Is difficult?
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Yeah, got to write comedy like where Louis c k
every fucking single comedian and it just shows because there's
very few comedians that can do a really, really.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Good show every single year. It's just not possible to
do that much good jokes in one year. Is just
very very difficult. Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I thought it was such like seeing like even you
advertising yourself, like doing a lot of stuff, and even
the Olva comedians that I know, I thought, oh wow, well,
you know you must be busy what you do?
Speaker 4 (44:24):
You know what I mean? Like, but it's not that.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Well, some of us are more busy than others. I'm
very fortunate that I can, like I'll do the comedy
festial Circuit. Then I can go regionally in the middle
of fucking nowhere. You can send me to fucking baler
At or Buddy Esperance WA or Bunbury and I can
sell tickets there whereas a lot of comedians that can't.
But I think, luckily because of my presidence on social media,
and also the show.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Did you functions or that kind of stuff like or not.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Not really, I've done the most of the corporate gigs
I've done so far have been for the new South
Wales justice system, they said to him, because there's this
big thing called lived experience, right with people that have
been through the criminal justice to them and then turn
their life around. They want to hear their stories. So
they're kind of the main clients that I have so
far for corporates, But there's any Is there any banks
(45:12):
with heaps of money I want to hire me for
a I.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Can do a comedy, I can do a keynote speech,
whatever you.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Want, so God, yeah, I will see what happens with
that kind of stuff. But it's still early days with it.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah. I mean I've only been in comedy for three
years and it.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Was the way you act is like you're being in
it for years more than that.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yeah, I think I'm very lucky that I started comedy
at the right time. I think if I had to
start up when I was younger, when I was twenty two,
I would have talked about wanking and come for five
minutes and bombed and be like, right, I suck I'm
awful and quit.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I would, I wouldn't give it up.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
But look, I started at thirty six, was a thirty five,
and I talked about prison and drugs and people laughs,
and immediately gave me the encouragement I needed to go
on with it.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
That.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, I just think I was just fortunate that I
started late, because.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
It's like it's like Sushi Mango when they started through COVID,
and that's how they got their reputation.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
It builds up, built up, built up totally. And now
look at them there fucking killing it. You know, they're
selling out fucking massive theaters everywhere they go.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Should be on there, on the card for them.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I'm happy to be involved with them anytime. Those boys
got me, but yeah, they're amazing. But yeah, that shows it.
Like the same with like Andrew Schultz in the States.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
He just started.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Posting stand up clips during COVID and he blew up
so hard and now he's selling out the ICC when
he came here. And so the power of social media
is an absolute game changer. I'm not competing with anyone,
but I have the thirteenth highest Instagram following of any
sand up comedian in Australia.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
I have a list.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
But but it helps, man, It helps to sell tickets
to show us because when people will see an ad
for you and they go, I know this idiot, he's
made me laugh before. That's all you need is if
I've made him laugh before, they'll hopefully give me permission
to make him laugh like how to show and that's
all you need. Whereas so many comedians great stand ups,
(46:58):
but no one's heard of them. Yeah, they putting a
social media add up that's just like the name of
their show is called Daffidil or whatever, and people like that,
The fuck is this?
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Why would I go to that?
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Because it's not only your costing, but it's also I've
got to choose to spend an hour of my time
with you once I buy that ticket, And so if
you don't know anything about them, it's like it's does
too much risk?
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Twenty bucks? Fine, but if I do want to spend
an hour with you, I need to know more about you. Wow.
So it's a weird game.
Speaker 4 (47:23):
Any regrets.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
I regret having so many drugs in the house when
I got raided out of.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Probably that's kine of it. Regrets, but not.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Really because I think you've got to be pretty philosophical
about it. I'm so happy with the life I live
now that if I hadn't gone through all that shit,
I would wouldn't have led to here, correct, you know,
So No, I'm pretty happy with it because, Yeah, I
now I get paid to travel the country saying dick
jokes in your microphone and I have the best time
(48:01):
doing it.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Describe you in one word, too, if you need.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
To optimistic and chaotic, probably, Yeah, I'm definitely optimistic because
I think that certainly helps you when you're in jail
or when your luck is down, is just to be like,
all right, we can come back from this. And that's
something that I've had my whole life, and so I
think that's probably the thing that's carried me the most. Yeah,
(48:28):
probably my optimism and my sense of humor other things
that were my two biggest assets when I was locked
up and when I went through my toughest times.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Well, thanks Andrew for coming on. It's been worth the weight.
I've got to meet that my pleasure mate.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
It's fun.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
So I did, and I'm very grateful for you coming on.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
If anyone wants to check me in on social media's
Andrew Hamilton comedy. I haven't got any more Sydney to
a date's locked in for the moment, but I'm hoping
to film my prison show sometime in Sydney later in
the year, but otherwise I'll be traveling Australia, New Zealand, UK,
the US later this year, so keep an eye on planks.
Bro
Approache Production.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Welcome to Secrets of the Underworld. I am Neil the
Muscle Comments and in this episode I speak to former
drug dealer turned star comedian Andrew Hamilton.
Speaker 3 (00:21):
I said, there's got to be a better way to
get these mushrooms into your system, so I cannot with
the idea of his putting them into capsules.
Speaker 1 (00:27):
Yeah, that turned out to be a really good business idea.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
For about a decade, it was just mushrooms, and then
I expanded into MDMA, ketamine, cocaine and as I got
a rest of that same weekend and that happened. So
a lot of guys in jail I thought I was
a lot bigger than I was, because I thought I
was part of this animal thing and I'm just a
friendly neighborhood mushroom the.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Letter from Sarry Hills.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
But it wasn't until I was in jail where I
just asked myself, all right, well your life, if you
could just start over, what would you do?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
And the only answer in my head was stand up corner.
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Andrew, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2 (00:59):
Out of all the guests, you have been the biggest
effort to get on my podcast.
Speaker 4 (01:04):
Well let's be eventually I've got you.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
It's because you've been messaging.
Speaker 2 (01:07):
With like, hey, are you available tomorrow, and I'm like, no,
I don't get people much notice.
Speaker 4 (01:12):
Broken.
Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm glad we've done it. I've done it, and so
here we are. Thank you very much.
Speaker 4 (01:17):
Now it's a pleasure, man.
Speaker 2 (01:18):
So what we'll do is we'll start off before all
a nitty gritty of you becoming a stand up comedian
and your time inside growing up and how you got
to the well you know, eventually got to where you
are now.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Sure, man, I grew up in Hornsby, which is like
on the north Shore of Sydney. Or I grew up
in Hornsby Heights, which is like the even shitter version
of Hornsby. It's like you get to Hornsby and then
you've got to get another bus for like fucking twenty
minutes from Hornsby, so it's out in the sticks.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
And I grew up one of five kids.
Speaker 3 (01:47):
I got three sisters and a brother, pretty average middle
class upbringing.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
My parents sent me to a private school when I
was like thirteen.
Speaker 3 (01:53):
So I went to a private school in Lane Cove
in Sydney called Riverview Saty Nation's College.
Speaker 1 (01:58):
Which is like a pretty prestigious.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
School, and I had a great growing up. You know,
I had a lot of friends. I played sport. But
then I think, yeah, I kind of never knew what
I wanted to do with my life when I kind
of hit UNI, and so I went to Union in
Bathist and just try to study Camarthist. Yeah. Yeah, So
I went there and spent most of the time just
doing drugs and drinking and fucking.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Not really doing much work, so mostly just partying, partying
all the time.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Yeah, and then leon know what, I had to spa
a moment, I'd try and do a little bit of
study for half an hour before I went back to
the party. So, you know, it was a miracle that
I got any kind of past marks in anything there.
But most of the time I was at UNI, I
was also like selling ecstasy to my mates and other people.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's unied, just to like make a bit of money.
Speaker 2 (02:46):
Just to hold you then so old you then when
you start I was like nineteen, and what made you
start selling?
Speaker 1 (02:51):
I just knew people that I was that shit. Yeah,
it was just people had trouble.
Speaker 3 (02:56):
Finding it, and I knew heaps of people from growing
up that could get me cheap pills. So I just
wanted to help out everyone and be like this is
done in Baffist the life of the party.
Speaker 1 (03:04):
Yeah, so I would do that because.
Speaker 2 (03:06):
I've been to a buffers, like I've been down there
for a while, Like I've lived victually down there, and
I know what it's like in a newcomer.
Speaker 4 (03:13):
You're not fucking usually welcome if they know you're a
city boy.
Speaker 3 (03:15):
Well it's yeah, that's true when you're downtown, but when
you're living on campus, it's like a very different environment.
It's mostly people from Sydney living on campus, right, and
so it's like a completely different universe to the townies.
Speaker 1 (03:29):
That's what we would call them, which was people.
Speaker 3 (03:31):
That live downtown that when you're at the local park.
They kind of resented UNI students for some reason. They
thought that we thought we were better than them. You know,
if you're at the wrong part, they were trying for
you all the time.
Speaker 1 (03:42):
You always not discussed. So it's strength in numbers.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
So you would only go to the bars where other
UNI students were, so you're always kind of protected by
being in a large group. And so I never had
any issues because I was only selling extacy to other
UNI students.
Speaker 2 (03:56):
So you got to know the dealers in Baffist or
you come back back to Sydney together.
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I'd get back to Sydney and just drive back with
like two hundred and thirty out of pills.
Speaker 4 (04:04):
And yet back then you didn't your ship driving with nothing.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
No.
Speaker 2 (04:08):
I was never thought like what happens if I get caught?
Speaker 3 (04:11):
No, man, I was just like what I'm a UNI
student with in a ship card with pea plates. Some
I'm a white private school kid. I didn't think anyone
was particularly looking for me. Nah, it didn't occur to
me at all. And so it was just no big thing.
And like even if you get pulled over for what
an r B T, I never thought any point they're
going to be like, can we check your cart for draft?
Speaker 2 (04:32):
Maybe maybe it's different for me because I'm used to
getting pulled over and fucking It's like, get out the car, you.
Speaker 5 (04:37):
Look dodgy, You look dodgy, You know, you look you
look like you're gonna have drugs on it.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
It's true, my dad Now, so that nova was a
crossed my mind.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
And so I just did that just to help pay
the bills when I was so to help me to
keep drinking and partying and gambling and whatever. And then
I went to Thailand and with a bunch of mates
in like my second year at UNI, so would have
been like around like two thousand.
Speaker 1 (05:10):
And eight, I think.
Speaker 3 (05:13):
And I tried magic mushrooms in Copenyang at a place
called Mushroom Mountain, and a bunch.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
Of us just fell in love with mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
We had such an amazing time, and so when I
came back, I told my mate how good they were,
and he started researching how to grow them. He was like, fuck,
can't be that hard, And so for me it would
be very hard. I don't have the kind of brain
to be a scientist, so I can't figure out how
to fuck you grow mushroom. But he has quite an
analytical brain, and so audibly sport prints from Amsterdam. The
next thing you know, we were growing different strains and
I'd just be there with my mates at UNI eating
(05:41):
like different fat, wet mushrooms that tasted like fucking ass,
and we just were eating like half a jar of peanut.
But I just to get these mushrooms down. And then
I said, there's got to be a better way to
get these mushrooms into your system. So I came up
with the idea of his dehydrating the mushrooms, lending them
up into a powder, and then putting them in capsules
like jelas and capsules like large one gram capsules. Yeah,
(06:03):
and so that old everything because they got past taste problem,
and it helped you with dos because you knew exactly
what a graham of mushrooms was.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
And so that tended to be a really good business idea.
Speaker 3 (06:13):
And so then I would just be selling them to
friends and friends and friends. And over the course of
many years that went from like just me being a
side hustle and helping me pay rent to being like
a very big fucking business.
Speaker 1 (06:23):
Over the course of fifteen years.
Speaker 4 (06:25):
We are we talking like big business? Will we talking
about mushrooms? Well, I've never tried mushrooms something I've never tried.
Speaker 1 (06:33):
Well, what a surprise, I have some here for us.
I believe that I meant to do this.
Speaker 3 (06:44):
We put some psychedelicts on the screens, just a trip
out to.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Bag for one help of a podcast. They're like, why
is this one episode of Secrets in the Other World?
Speaker 4 (06:56):
So long?
Speaker 2 (06:56):
Ah?
Speaker 1 (06:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (06:57):
The first time Neil tries so man, there's so much fun.
Like they just if you have on the right dosage.
They're so user friendly. You just laugh with your friends.
The colors are accentuated. You feel like you're in touch
with nature. But is it like pot like pot or No,
it's different. And I couldn't move off the off the
(07:19):
chair for hours. Yeah, it's it's it's a very different
body feeling. I think I'm a bit of a bitch
on weed. I've got like little bitch lungs. I can't
really inhale anything, but I can swallow or snort ship
days and weeks, you know. So yeah, mushrooms always worked
for me. But people would have like really cool kind
(07:39):
of spiritual existential experiences on mushrooms, you know, sit with
their mates as the sun is rising and just talk
about the meaning of life and that kind of stuff.
Or I used to help out mushrooms people that would
have them to microdose, so they have like a tenth
of a mushroom cap during their normal day just to
help them like with their mood and focus and stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Because I'm trying to picture like like a mushroom, what
I'm going to focus because I swear i'd never, you
know what. Actually, back when I was a kid, I
used to see a lot of my mates picking mushrooms
from the parks and they're when fucking they were going
up then. Yeah, but I've never really gone into depth
to try one. I'll probably you know, because I was
never into possible. I just tried a couple of times,
you know what I mean. But ye, mushrooms, I haven't
got a clue what I would do for you. Yeah,
(08:16):
so it just chills you. It's how do I describe it.
Speaker 3 (08:19):
It feels like a strong pill, Like your body feels
very relaxed. But then if you're in the right movie
with the right amount of friends, it's you're also very
gigly's you find more social that when when I'm on
a ping and if I'm on pills, I kind of
feel good, but I'm sure my face off, I'm not
really like involved in the moment as much, you know.
Whereas this is, I still feel like I'm very present,
(08:40):
but I have a very euphoric high. And then colors
you have if you close your eyes, you should have
some kind of like psychedelic kaleidoscope going on in your eyes,
and yeah, you just it's just good man, and then
when it wears off, you don't have that same scatteredness
for days like you do from chemicals, you know.
Speaker 2 (08:59):
But also it's something I could, I could take if
I was going.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Out, well, I would not recommend you taking on your first, second, third,
or fourth time out. I would recommend having it with friends,
you know, in a private environment, just because you may
wig out. If you're out in a public environment and
you're trying a new drug you've never tried before, I
certainly wouldn't recommend trying mushrooms out around strangers. You want
to be around people that you feel safe with in
(09:23):
a familiar setting. So whether that's if you're on a
camping trip with friends, you just want to familiar faces
around you. Yeah, you don't want to be in a
nightclub tribune in to mushrooms for the first time, fucking
just seeing a whole lot of strangers wigging out, Like fuck,
can they tell that I'm free and I'm off my head?
You know, you get in your head too much. So yeah,
I had to advise people all the time, and I
was selling mushrooms about all these kind of things. They'd
(09:44):
be like, what's the correct docy you end all this
kind of stuff, and I'd always recommend them having a
smaller amount and then building up because you can always
have more mushrooms if you're having a good time, but
if you have too many, you can't have less.
Speaker 1 (09:54):
Once it's already in you, it's too late.
Speaker 3 (09:57):
So my job was always to try and make people
have a positive mushroom experience, so they told their friends
and they came back, you know, not repeat business, you know,
or someone to be one and done with any drug
you're selling. Otherwise that you've got a pretty shit business model.
Speaker 4 (10:10):
So you were the big seller of mushrooms in fucking.
Speaker 3 (10:13):
Well, it wasn't until I really came back to Sydney
that the mushroom business really started to blow up, and
even that it took years. So it would be like
I would sell a heap during summer when people going
away on camping trips and going to.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Music festivals and that kind of stuff, and then.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
It would be really quiet around winter because no one
really wanted to have mushrooms, and then there'd be a
huge spike when the Vivid Light Festival was on.
Speaker 1 (10:35):
You know, when it's okay, so they'd be like that,
I reckon for vivid.
Speaker 3 (10:39):
It's either families, tourists, people on a first date, or
a whole bunch of people on psychedelic drugs walking around
looking at the lights on the wall.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
So well, why else did you fucking do it? Now?
Speaker 3 (10:47):
Like, it's just it's so shit. Unless you're on drugs,
it's just lights on the wall. So I think there
were quite a few years where I single handedly kept
that stupid festival alive by selling chilos and kilos of psychedelics.
Speaker 2 (11:01):
For because I'm thinking, fucking like, you have to go
down to the to markets to get mushrooms.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
To do this?
Speaker 3 (11:07):
Well, no, I mean people think you need to go picking,
and like some people would sometimes walk at the price
of my mushrooms and be like, oh, I can go
pick them.
Speaker 1 (11:13):
I'm like, great, But it's also seasonal.
Speaker 3 (11:15):
And you've got to go add in the time of
you going around looking looking for them, and then you
might only find enough for a couple of doses.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
But I can give you as many as you want,
whenever you want, all year round. So how long did
you do that? For? Sixteen years?
Speaker 2 (11:28):
Sixteen years?
Speaker 4 (11:30):
Yeah, just mushrooms, nothing else.
Speaker 3 (11:32):
No, No, it started as mushrooms and then over the
course of years, it escalated.
Speaker 1 (11:37):
So it started the mushrooms.
Speaker 3 (11:38):
For about a decade it was just mushrooms, and then
I expanded into MDMA, ketamine, cocaine and.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Acid as well. Fucking hell, it was a one stop
shop for a while. But yeah, yeah, I didn't put
away People's tired. You know, they come they want to
go to a music festival.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I want to go on to like a party on
like a Bucks party or a camping trip. They don't
want to be dicking around going to five different locations
to get all their drugs.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
If they can go to one stop and get everything,
it just makes sense.
Speaker 2 (12:03):
How did you distribute it all? Like, you know where
the main dealers is runners, What did you want?
Speaker 1 (12:08):
I had me at my house and people would come over.
Really yeah for fifteen years, and you.
Speaker 2 (12:13):
Didn't fucking flinch about people.
Speaker 5 (12:15):
Know.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm like nah, because I had a system where it
was just it was a referral based system. I treated
everyone great. I saw good drugs at good prices and
made sure that everyone was happy. If they were unhappy,
I'd refund them. And neighbors didn't talk no, because I
was I lived in a big house on a very
busy street, and so I just look at a party
house and so nah.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Chinese whispers, Oh this is the dr dealer's house. No,
I don't think so fucking fifteen sixteen years. Well, I
moved around.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
I wasn't in the one I wasn't in one location
for more than like two years at a time.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
Wow. So it was a good little run.
Speaker 4 (12:45):
So everything was stored in your house. Everything.
Speaker 1 (12:48):
I had a second house where I would store stuff.
Speaker 3 (12:51):
But when I was unfortunately but whin my house did
get raided, I was so coked up that I was
I just got to be complacent, you know when you
just like usually I would have only a little bit
of my house at any one time, and I'd just
go back and forth, back and forth. But if I'm
too high on coke times, I get lazy and just
be like, oh fuck it, I'll have more at the house.
So it just saved me having to go back and forth.
And so the day that they got raided, I probably
(13:12):
had a medium amount of like what I could have
been caught with, Like it wasn't the worst, but I
could have been better as well.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
But you didn't even think like like it sounds like
you didn't even flinch about other dealer's trying to take
your ships or nothing like that, or anyone coming around
or rivals.
Speaker 4 (13:27):
Nah nah, you sound like that. That helps and lockstock
and battle.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
The weed out. Yeah. I guess it was probably like that.
Speaker 3 (13:36):
But like the thing is, because I was selling mainly,
like I was known mainly for mushrooms and acid. Anytime
I'm bumped into any bigger players that I try to
sell mushrooms too. They were also focused on ice or
coke that I'd say mushrooms and they go, oh, it's
too trippy, bro, like that I was irrelevant to them,
you know, so I did. I just meant that I
was able to operate almost invisible as my own little fiefdom.
(13:57):
And so it ended up being pretty good at Learner.
Just what got you caught in the end, My fiance
had a mental breakdown on cocaine and ran off with
a bunch of cash and drugs and got picked up
and told the cops that I was a massive drug
deal that and that was a problem for these and yeah,
so the house got righted and what do you do ship? Yeah,
so anyway, it was a good run. But you know,
(14:19):
it's like any of these cliche movies at some point,
got a good woman brings you down?
Speaker 1 (14:26):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:27):
Wow, I'm going to go back and be because I
had to look up what you know, you on on
everything that I could find so I could get some
nitty gritty ship on you so young.
Speaker 4 (14:37):
The pizza restaurant, Yeah, were you showing from that?
Speaker 1 (14:40):
No? No, I kept the business and the pleasure.
Speaker 2 (14:43):
Because I was thinking, in fact, this is like a
fucking new but thing this, you know what I mean?
Speaker 3 (14:47):
Ye?
Speaker 1 (14:48):
Did I just get the three hundred dollars special pizza?
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Do you want to cope with that?
Speaker 3 (14:51):
Yeah? Yeah, bottles of magic mushroom pizza.
Speaker 4 (14:56):
So that that was kept separate?
Speaker 1 (14:57):
Was it? That was kept sever Yeah?
Speaker 4 (14:59):
So everything was just from the house. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:00):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
Okay, So your mistresses get like gone out and she's
kind of like told everyone you know in a fifth
of state. Did that happen because you hadn't agent? Or
did she just flip out on the drugs?
Speaker 3 (15:12):
And now she had too much coke, I think, and
not enough sleep and she had some psychosists sought the
mafia were trying to kill her or something, and ran
off and got picked up by the cops, and uh, yeah,
just told him that I was a dealer and got
the house raided.
Speaker 4 (15:24):
But she just went to a cop shopped.
Speaker 1 (15:26):
You know.
Speaker 3 (15:27):
She got picked up in a park in like Cronulla somewhere,
freaking out and they just came across her.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
So where were you living it at this time? Surry Hills,
out of townhouse. So she's gone all the way from
sort of Hills to Cranola. Yeah, flipped out. Yeah, and
then the coppers have believed don't come to old brought
her back and then they've searched you or you didn't
even know they were coming.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
Yeah, well, yeah, they waited a little while, and so
I like laid low for ages, and then for that
probably like six months, I laid low, and then I
was like fuck, if I was going to ray, they
would have done it by now.
Speaker 3 (15:57):
And then eventually I just got back into it, and
then they eventually raided it.
Speaker 4 (16:01):
Okay, And were you still with your missus when that happened.
Speaker 3 (16:04):
Yeah, yeah, I didn't look. I knew she'd sucked up.
I know she didn't mean to, so I was happy
to stay with her, but then she bailed on me.
When I was in jail, I really had like two
weeks into jail.
Speaker 1 (16:12):
She bailed on me. So what do you do?
Speaker 2 (16:14):
Fucking hell, So, tell me about when you got raided, Like,
what did they find that at the house when you.
Speaker 3 (16:21):
They found like I think about four hundred grams about
half a kilo of magic mushrooms. They found about three
hundred acid tabs about ounce or so, with a bit
more of MD, about half an oca of cat and
of coke. And yeah, so it was a crash. Yeah,
but I think like fifteen twenty grand maybe of cash.
Speaker 4 (16:44):
So what's going through your head that this time?
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I thought it was an idea I was so I
was high. Yeah, I hadn't slept in like three days.
Speaker 3 (16:52):
I was on coke and I hadn't slept, And when
they started raiding, the house was all pretty hectic, and
so I don't know, I didn't really have time to
think about it too much other than thinking like, fuck,
all right, I'll get pinched, I'll get bail, I'll fucking
i'll go to the backup house and fucking sell gear
from there and fucking just sort the situation out. And
I know, at no point in my head did I
(17:12):
think I was going to get refused bail and said
straight to prison.
Speaker 1 (17:15):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (17:15):
Yeah, you know, I think I was just in my
head deluded that I just get bail that day.
Speaker 1 (17:20):
I didn't know that you could go.
Speaker 3 (17:21):
I mean, I guess I didn't know, but I didn't
think it could happen to me that I can just
get set straight to prison and your first defense, first
drug offense. Yeah, I had an assult charge from like
twenty years ago, but it was my first drug offense.
And yeah, so look, you know, you wake up twenty
four hours after that, I'm in a mass of security prison.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Wow, it's okay, So you refuse bail, You're taken.
Speaker 4 (17:42):
To the prison. What was it was that feeling?
Speaker 3 (17:44):
Like, well, it was a weird feeling because it was
during COVID, So like I was, I was in Parkley Prison.
Speaker 1 (17:49):
You're like, you got a fucking me. Yeah, so you
got a strip naked.
Speaker 3 (17:53):
You're getting used to fucking just being a slab of meat,
having a lift your ball sack and fucking flick your
ears and whatever, and you know, changed out of your
clothes into green clothes and getting processed and like I'm
still fucking like recovering from a from.
Speaker 1 (18:04):
A OAP bender.
Speaker 3 (18:05):
So it's all a bit of a blur and you're
getting tested for COVID and then you're putting quarantine for
two weeks, and so it was kind of like a
weird way of getting used to jail because like the
first two weeks, you can hear the sound of a prison,
but you're in your own cell for like, so you're
like you're in your head going like, what the fuck's
are going to be like out there?
Speaker 1 (18:23):
So that made it harder because for the first two.
Speaker 3 (18:25):
Weeks I was in quarantine and I had no TV
or books for the first ten days, and so you
just did a cell for twenty three and a half
hours a day with nothing to do other than stare
at the ceiling try and sleep or just be stuck
in your own fucked thoughts, which are only negative for
that point because you've just been pinched, right, So it
was pretty That was probably the hardest part of the
whole thing, was just particularly in my businesses, no visitors, nothing,
(18:48):
like I hadn't figured out to add numbers to the
phone yet, so like it was just you're just stuck
in a cell for twenty three and a half hours
a day, just pacing around, just doing nothing, trying to
break up the day in any way you can.
Speaker 4 (18:59):
What about you?
Speaker 2 (19:00):
Finally, did they know about it all this? Did they
have a clue what you were doing?
Speaker 3 (19:03):
Nah?
Speaker 1 (19:03):
I don't think they hadn't known a club I was doing.
Speaker 3 (19:05):
But I did have a phone call with him when
I was in there for about five days to just
to I was able to speak with him, and they
said that they thought Joe was probably gonna be the
best thing for me, which wasn't really helpful. They ended
up being right, but it's like, you know, what has
just happened. You're like, shut up, You're probably right, But
I said, not the time. Yeah, yeah, you're not ready
(19:27):
for that. Yeah. So you get through the quarantine part,
which was fucked, and then.
Speaker 1 (19:33):
Who's the first person that you spoke to in there?
Speaker 3 (19:35):
The first person I spoke to was my Seally, the
guy who I traveled in the truck with from park
to park lay and he and I ended up becoming
very good friends and we ended up being cell mates.
And form he was in there because.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
He'd worked at the docks and he was just a
guy that passed on information.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
If the AFP were looking in certain containers, then he
would just like just give him a tip off.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
And so he got arrested for that.
Speaker 3 (19:58):
When when the animal takedown went down, when you know
they had that app that was created by the FBI
and they took the hands of people. I got the
rest of that same weekend did that happened. So a
lot of guys in jail thought I was a lot
bigger than I was because they thought I was part
of this animal thing and I'm just I'm just a
friendly I'm just a friendly neighborhood mushroom d level from
(20:19):
Sarry Hill, so it doesn't know anyone.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
Body. So yeah, he was the first guy I spoke.
Speaker 3 (20:27):
So we ended up being being Selly's and their four
different prison wings, and he was great.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
He helped me through a lot of didn't been in
there before.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
No, there was probably the reason we connected was because
we're both in there for the first time and we're
both figuring it out together, having no idea what the
fuck the systems are for everything from like from buy
up to fucking like just yard politics to fucking making
the phone work, to get the phone working, to just
get anything. We were all figuring it out together, so
it was good to have someone who was as clueless
(20:55):
as I was.
Speaker 2 (20:56):
So when when you eventually got to be a normal
person inside there, Did you get any bothered? Did anybody
come over to ask you who you were or anything
like that, or they just left you along?
Speaker 1 (21:05):
Did you just I didn't really have anyone particularly hass me.
Speaker 3 (21:09):
Sometimes guys would would would try and like test you
in like the phone line, try and push in front
of you or something like that. Or there was one
guy who pinched me on the ass a couple of times,
and I thought, fuck, this could be a problem because
it was pretty it was pretty big, and I was like,
I'm gonna have to fucking fight this guy, because you
know it's going to be hard.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
But likely part of it.
Speaker 3 (21:28):
Is that I'm also I'm not small, so I think
like and it looked like I always stand up for myself,
So they usually go for whoever's the weakest target. You know,
any guys look like you can go steal their buy
up and they won't even say anything, or if they do,
you can just punch them in the hand. I'll go
for those guys much much before anyone who they think
can actually like probably give them a fair fight. But
I made some mates in the yard and just tried
(21:50):
to if you're not wracking up drug debts, and you're
not involved in the drug trade in there, and you're
not talking shit you're involved in any kind of gang beefs.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
You can kind of find a way to face you
out out of trouble, you know.
Speaker 3 (22:02):
And so that's what I did, was just try and
not get into any arguments with anyone and just mind
my own business and just get through my days.
Speaker 4 (22:08):
What the prison goes with you?
Speaker 3 (22:10):
With you? All right? With you? I found that park Lee,
they were pretty putrid. Like it was just something I
think about the culture. It's a private prison, right, so
I think there's just something about the way a private
prison is run which seems to run through the entire
culture of the way that they're trained and taught is
to treat you as subhuman, just like that you're not
even there. And I think that also happens to permeate
(22:32):
into the nursing group there, which is some Saint Vincent's hospital,
because the same way I ask him every day, I said,
I have asthma. I'm asking for evenuland Inhaler and every
day just look at you like they have never spoken
to you. Before they go, We'll have to check and
I'm like, I've asked you this seventeen days in a row,
like what are we doing here? And so it just
(22:53):
drives you insane because you feel like you're having Groundhog
Day every day.
Speaker 1 (22:56):
And I remember I.
Speaker 3 (22:57):
Asked them for pananole because I had a cold, and
my Sally told me, don't fucking ask him for pananole
because you're going to fucking get us locked away for COVID.
And I was like, I was like, they're decent people.
They're going to give me a fucking panalole, that's all right.
So I asked them for panadole. We both got locked
away for COVID, and he was like, I fucking told you,
and I'm all right, I'm sorry. So I'd lay there
(23:17):
in a bed for like three days with throbbing cold
and all I wanted was a fucking panadole. And we
had to wait in there for three days pending a
COVID test. And when we got out, one of the
other inmates come to me and goes, mate, here's some panadole.
Next time you need help, don't ask the screws, don't
ask the nurses. They'll never help you. The other boys
will help you. And that showed me everything I needed
to know, right, which is like, but Parkley, they were
(23:38):
never there to help you in any way. And that's
why I wrote a letter to the governor and was like,
this is a culture you've created, and that's why if
anyone does have COVID, the whole place is going to
erupt into a fucking COVID outbreak because no one would
ever speak because you know, guys can help them.
Speaker 4 (23:52):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:53):
Four weeks later, Parkley Prison had the biggest COVID outbreak
in any prison in the country. Yeah, so fucking I
fucking told you so. Anyway, it's now there's changing. It's
now be coming back present a couple of months or
something like that. It's going back to being public prison
because and that's a good thing, because private prisons is
just something wrong. Because I've got sent to Long Bay
soon after I sent that letter. I don't know if
it's connected, but I don't know if they thought it
(24:14):
was a nuisance or whether I got sent to Long
Bay for any other reason. But I went there and
it's public prison. Got treated great straight away, straight away.
If you give them respect, they'll give it back to you.
They'll treat you like a human being, and that just
showed me night and day that Parkley had these amazing
facilities make much better than Long Bay. But it's riding
on the inside. It's treated they don't treat you like
(24:36):
human beings. And then you go to Long Bay and
it's like the place is falling apart. It's like rat infested,
fucking shithole. But at less you get treated nice enough.
Speaker 2 (24:44):
You know, how long, how long you have your sentence
were you're in Long before?
Speaker 3 (24:47):
So I was in Parkley for two months and then
I got sent to Long Bay for two months, and
then I got bail, and then I was under house
arrests for about six months. And then I got sentenced
to an ICO, which is an intensive corrections order. And
I got put on a two and a half year ICO,
which is like a prison sentence. You doing community yea yeah,
and that finished in December last year.
Speaker 1 (25:08):
I finished in December last year. Yeah, so it's all,
oh wow, so now I'm allowed to travel again.
Speaker 4 (25:14):
Oh you know?
Speaker 1 (25:16):
Oh shit, Yeah, so it's all pretty recent.
Speaker 4 (25:19):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I knew it was back in twenty twenty one,
but I didn't realize.
Speaker 4 (25:22):
It just ended recently year December.
Speaker 3 (25:25):
Oh shit, So it was quite funny because I got
invited by Silverwater Prison to perform up to do stand
up comedy in there last year, but then I failed
their own background check because I was still on an ICI.
They didn't even know though, no, no, not until I
started the background check and I was like, well you
(25:45):
invited me, but like anyway, So we did that about
what was eight weeks six weeks ago I did. I
did a performance at Silverwater which was pretty crazy, and
I've just been invited to perform at another prison out
west soon, so you know, I might be sart of
my own stand up comedy circuit around business last prison, Well,
I like to do it.
Speaker 1 (26:03):
That's different.
Speaker 3 (26:04):
Yeah, I like to do it because it's just it's
so boring in there, and there's just every day is
the same. So if I can do anything just to
provide a bit of laughter to the boys and just
give them a bit of hope, it's worthwhile. Because I
know from my own perspective that anytime I laughed in jail,
it made me just remember that there's there's something beyond this.
You know, I can turn my life around and that
(26:26):
it's not all going to be doom and gloom.
Speaker 4 (26:28):
So how many how many did you perform to when
you're in the jail when you recent.
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Them, it was about one hundred inmates.
Speaker 4 (26:33):
I'm just sitting there watching it.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Yeah, there's about one hundred inmates in maxim security at MWRC,
which is the Romand Center at Silver Water, surrounded by
about maybe like thirty or forty prison guards and about
twenty support stuff.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
And so I think it was half because no, no,
I said I would do it for free, but it was.
Speaker 3 (26:50):
It was kind of fun because in the middle of
all the conditions on which comedy normally work, which is
like a it's enclosed space with low ceilings and it's
dark and it's cool. There's like a hot room. It's
one of the afternoon. No one's drinking because it's obviously
in jail, and it's giant kind of barn. And then
all the boys that I'm performing for surrounded by forty
prison guards who are watched, you know, because I'm doing
(27:12):
drug jokes and.
Speaker 1 (27:13):
Jokes about crime, and so some of them I could tell.
Speaker 3 (27:16):
We're like a bit self conscious about laughing because I
didn't want to give themselves away, or they didn't want
to make themselves targets.
Speaker 1 (27:20):
So the first thing I said when I got in there,
because I thought would be funny for the boys.
Speaker 3 (27:24):
I'm like, what about these fucking SCREWSA boys get a
real job? Bombs so hard no one laughed, and I
was like, okay, because they don't want to, Like, they
don't want to laugh to hard? Are they going to
get their cell toss? But yeah, in my head, I'm
like this, this would be great and it did not
go great at all.
Speaker 4 (27:39):
Fuck.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
Now you say that while you were inside the best
thing to do was laugh So you never thought about
stand up comedian before you went inside.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
I had thought about it, but I never made any active.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
Plan to do it.
Speaker 2 (27:54):
So when you're going to retire from drug dealer, you're
going to be a standard comedian.
Speaker 3 (27:58):
Yeah, personctally, well, I mean I never thought about that
on the outside world, because if I hadn't really wanted
to do it, I would have done it while I
was a dealer. I would have still done comedy if
I was ever going to do it. But it wasn't
until I was in jail where I just asked myself,
all right, well, you fucked your life. Now if you
could just start over, what would you do? And the
only answer in my head was comedy, stand up comedy,
(28:20):
and so I was like, all right, well, if it's
that clear, if it's that simple, then let's just do it.
And so as soon as I got out and I
was able to get my bail rules slightly like my
bail rules were, I wasn't allowed to leave the house
unless I was.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
In a company of my mum and dad.
Speaker 3 (28:34):
Yeah, And so my first few gigs, I had to
bring my mum along to the.
Speaker 1 (28:37):
Show because yeah, I had to have her there.
Speaker 3 (28:39):
And then I would just put my name in a
bucket with a whole bunch of other guys that were
doing comedy, and you name drawn out randomly, and I'd
have to ask them can I go on early? Because
I have a bail curfew. I've got to be home
by nine. And I was like, what, who the fuck
is this guy? Is he a seventy five year old mum?
And I'm to be I've gotta be home by nine,
I'm asking to a stand.
Speaker 1 (28:57):
Up early And then like what the like? You better
be funny, you know. So I luckily it went pretty well.
Speaker 3 (29:04):
Everyone was very support and soon after I was able
to get my bail rules relaxed enough to be able
to go and work a job and then also do
stand up at night.
Speaker 1 (29:12):
And so I just started doing it every single night,
like just every single night.
Speaker 2 (29:15):
How did you get like you not have to practice this?
Or you're like, oh, is you practice yourself? Me thought,
what would you do?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
Like, I mean, the only way to really practice properly
is by going to an open mic.
Speaker 1 (29:26):
You can't really practice too much.
Speaker 4 (29:28):
But you've never done anything inffronts of anybody before.
Speaker 3 (29:30):
Yeah, Well I had worked in public relations, so I'd
been a media trainer and taught people on how to
communicate and how to kind of develop all that's out.
Speaker 1 (29:38):
So I think that certainly helped.
Speaker 3 (29:39):
And then I just had this whole list of yarns
from from drug dealing and my house getting arrested and
the Raptor squad telling me that I had a tiny
cock and fucking and from Long Bay jail and all
this stuff. So I had this whole list of stories,
and so I just got on stage and started telling them.
But people laugh and I just would go home and
I'd work on you know, Okay, how.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Do I shorten that? How do I make that funny?
Speaker 3 (29:59):
How do I move the punchline to the end of
the story, and so you just do that every night.
But the only way to really test if it works
if I sit at home and just read it out
to myself. I think everything I say is funny, So
you know that's not going to work. You're got to
go and say it to an audience. And the problem
is when you go to open mics, it's mostly other
comedians that are doing the same shit gigs as you,
and it's like.
Speaker 1 (30:18):
Barely any audience for most of them. When you really start,
it's mostly other comedians.
Speaker 3 (30:23):
So I'd see the same fucking twenty dickheads at five
shows a week, and so I can't say the same
jokes to them every night because they've heard it, They've
heard it five times in a row. So I had
to start writing a new five minutes of jokes every
night or every second night.
Speaker 1 (30:38):
And so that made me have to like really hustle.
Speaker 3 (30:40):
Harder on writing, writing, writing, writing, writing, performing writing, performing writing, And.
Speaker 1 (30:44):
Then that I think really helped me to accelerate very quickly.
Speaker 4 (30:48):
Do you think it helped you get out there more
because of what happened to you?
Speaker 3 (30:52):
I think it did because I.
Speaker 4 (30:56):
Just because it's very unique what you're talking about. Yeah,
that's a comedian.
Speaker 1 (31:00):
Totally, totally. I think that certainly helped because people the
jokes worked.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
But then also I'm talking at present, so people want
to listen because they're interested, right, and so those two things,
but it's still gonna be funny, yeah right.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
And so yeah, I do.
Speaker 3 (31:11):
Gigs at like loud pubs where, like, you know, there's
people that are there, but they're not really there for comedy, right,
They're just there playing pool or having beers with their mates,
and so they can tune in or tune out to
the comedy as much as they want. And so that
was a pretty good test because then you know, you're
trying to grab people's attention. So as soon as I
said I want to jol for drugs, We're gonna do
some jokes about it, people would usually shut up, We're
gonna want to listen to you know, So that definitely
(31:33):
helped me.
Speaker 2 (31:34):
What was your major one that you talking about, Like,
what was the major thing you bring up to try
and get the crowd to talk to you or to
listen to you.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Well, I think I would just start in the same
way I started my book.
Speaker 3 (31:43):
Was I start with the most interesting thing that I had,
which was the Raptor squad started smashing through my front
door with a battering ram and I ran upstairs started
flushing drugs down the toilet. And so my first, one
of the first jokes I ever wrote, was like, the
time it takes for the big flush on your toilet
to recharge will never seem longer than when the cops
are raiding your house.
Speaker 1 (31:59):
And so like you say something.
Speaker 7 (32:00):
Like that, they go, all right, I'm in you know,
but those kind of insights only come from fucking have
a visit, you know, having the nightmare I was sitting
there with a fucking toilet for mushrooms and cocaine and being.
Speaker 1 (32:15):
Like, go, you stupid cut go.
Speaker 3 (32:19):
So, you know, I would start with that, and then
people like that, and I was like, Okay, well what
else can I write about?
Speaker 1 (32:25):
And so I wrote and I wrote and I wrote
and I wrote.
Speaker 3 (32:28):
And when I got sentenced, part of the reason I
got an ico instead of more jail time was that
the judge liked that I was rehabilitating through comedy. Okay,
you know, he thought that was a really positive sign.
And so as soon as I found out that I
wasn't going back. When I got centers, I was in
court with like three pairs of underwear on and three
pairs of socks, because I was like, all right, if
I'm going back, I'm going back with a few bits
(32:49):
of extra kit, because you know, the jail unders are
fucking gross and the jail socks fucking sucks. So and
when I got sentence, my dad was like, sorry, Andrew,
I know how badly you wanted to go back to
get more joke ideas.
Speaker 1 (33:01):
So, because once I got used to it, jail wasn't
was fine.
Speaker 3 (33:04):
I was already once I demystified what the experience was
going to be, and I was in maximum security. If
I got sentence, I would have gone to minimum right,
and it would have been easier. So I kind of
made peace for the fact that I was going to
go back, so that when I didn't, I was like, well, fuck,
I guess we're just going to continue on with this
comedy thing. And so yeah, I wrote as many jokes
I could, and I went to Melbourne Comedy Festival the
(33:26):
following year, and so I'd been doing comedy for like
fourteen months at that point, and I did a show
called Jokes about the time I went to prison, and
the festival they offer people like you've got to apply
for a room, right the festival itself runs room, and
then other people run rooms around the festival as well,
and I got rejected by virtually all of them.
Speaker 1 (33:47):
Except for one room.
Speaker 3 (33:48):
They gave me a space at like ten forty at
night in this tiny cocktail bar, and I just took
it because I wanted to be there. I thought I
believed that, like I was meant to do this. I
believe that there had to be a reason why. When
I was sitting a long way, a voice told me,
do stand up and all change your life. And so
I took that room and I did the show. And
it was at ten forty at night every night. I
(34:08):
had the latest show on the entire festival by about
like two hours most nights. And so I did it
and people came and I started getting reviewers in and
they gave me some really good reviews, and I ended
up getting nominated for Best Newcomer at the festival, and
out of that I got an agent and a book deal,
and it changed my life for now. I get the
tour as a stand up, But.
Speaker 2 (34:25):
You didn't have a get insimilated by the big comedians
who are there, the sundup comedians. You know, like you
know that they've been doing it for years and you're
a newcomer in even though you're confident in yourself, it
didn't kind of put you off in a little way,
you know what I mean.
Speaker 3 (34:37):
Not really, because like there, who cares if they're in
a nine hundred seat theater or a two thousand seat room.
I'm at a tiny cocktail bar that can fit forty people.
I only need ten twenty people every night to choose me,
and they're on at primetime. Those guys are on at
seven or eight pm. I'm the only person that's on
at ten forty at night. I'm asking for a few
people that had a few beers and go, hey, do
(34:59):
you want to hear some idiot talk about prison?
Speaker 1 (35:00):
And then go, actually, yeah, that sounds pretty funny. Right.
Speaker 3 (35:03):
So it's like I wasn't beeting with them, and still
now I'm not. Because every comedian can succeed. It's not
like because you because you're popular, it doesn't mean that
they can't see both, right, It's it's not a zero
some game.
Speaker 1 (35:18):
And I think a lot of time I attract my
own audience.
Speaker 3 (35:20):
I'll attract people who don't go to see any comedy,
and that's what I love.
Speaker 1 (35:23):
It's like a lot of the time that a lot
of the guys.
Speaker 3 (35:29):
That I'm a trying to track to go see stand
up think comedy is gay. Right, They're like, they think
comedy is stupid. They're like, they're like, I don't get it.
They've never gone to a stand up in their life,
and then suddenly they come to, oh, bro, look to
stand up was like that, you know, just me joking
about drugs and cocaine on my ass with a straw
and fucking all kinds of shit like that, And so that's,
you know, that's what I think about it. It's like
(35:50):
you can carve out your own audience and it doesn't
have to be in competition with anyone.
Speaker 2 (35:53):
Have you Have you ever done comedy and it's been
hard and you didn't get the reaction that you wanted.
And it's like, you know when you said before, like
you try to do a joke with the at the prison,
but no one laughed? Is it ever on it before?
Besides that? And you've just gone shit? And then what
you do is you try and switch it to or
what do you do?
Speaker 1 (36:11):
Oh, totally. I did a corporate gig a little while ago.
Speaker 3 (36:14):
I got paid to like do a comedy for about
twenty minutes at this rich person's dinner party, and.
Speaker 1 (36:20):
Like they're in the middle of dinner, and then suddenly
I say, all right, Andrew's going to do some jokes.
And so I'm saying, that's not a vibe, there's no
there's no laughter already build up, and I'm doing jokes
and I do this pedophile.
Speaker 3 (36:29):
Joke and it fucking and it did not go and
it did not go well, and it bubbs so hard,
and then like, so what do you do? You just
I just crack on. I'm like, all right, well, I
know my job. My jokes are funny. I just crack
on with the next one. I'm like, all right, well
I missed you on that one.
Speaker 1 (36:44):
I'll get it on the next one.
Speaker 3 (36:45):
So I just there are some comedians that will react
if a commit if a joke doesn't go well, they'll
go like, fuck you, that's a good joke. But I
do know there's obviously a reason why certain jokes are
work in certain circumstances. So I just like, I know,
on a numbers game that most of my jokes work
most of the time, so if one doesn't work, I'll
go right, let's get it on the next one, next one,
next one. Let's just work through this until we fucking
get some momentum.
Speaker 4 (37:06):
Gun. Yeah, Now, did you ever do a police Christmas Fine?
Speaker 3 (37:09):
I actually got invited what was it like, over a
year ago to perform for a police station in Melbourne
for their Christmas party, and then my management trying to
negotiate it, and they didn't have any money.
Speaker 1 (37:22):
They were like barely going to cover my flight to
go there, and I thought, why the funk would I go?
Speaker 3 (37:28):
Like, you know, I hope to do it if you're
paying me, but I'm not doing any fucking favor, you know,
Yeah I would have been if I would probably.
Speaker 1 (37:34):
Just give it to Haz So yeah, I don't know, man.
Speaker 3 (37:44):
I think that a lot of the time, the bad
gigs are few and far between for me fortunately at
the moment. So I think that when something doesn't go well,
I usually have enough tools and the toolkit to turn around, Like,
I have enough jokes that work most of the time
that if something takes a dep I'm like, all right,
(38:05):
let's dig ourselves out of this.
Speaker 2 (38:06):
Whole, you know, like going back to when you come out,
you didn't think of going back to what you were doing.
Speaker 4 (38:13):
It never crossed your mind.
Speaker 1 (38:15):
No, I didn't. I think at first. I did.
Speaker 3 (38:18):
When I first got arrested, absolutely, I thought I was
going to get bail, I'm going to go out. I'm
just going to fucking get into the second house and
start dealing again. But there was at some point about
maybe like six or eight weeks in where things just
changed for me. I think my fiance left me, my
friends had bowed on me, you know, my pizza store
had gone under because I rent out of money, and
like it was just everything was just a mess. And
(38:40):
the other people were sticking by me, were like my
a handful of friends and my parents and I don't know.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
I just it was like I just got bored of it.
Just I did the math.
Speaker 3 (38:50):
I think when I was in jail, I've probably done
over fifty thousand drug deals when I was active, and
like that means I've had to have small talk with
fifty thousand people and that what they're up to for
their weekend.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
And at some point, Neil, it's just enough enough. I
don't care what you're up to, you know.
Speaker 4 (39:03):
So I think when you were inside you came out,
you're just a different person.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
I definitely think I was a different person.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
I don't know if it's if I would shure it,
but I definitely did change what I wanted to get
out of life changed. I think I had a greater
appreciation for just the simple things.
Speaker 1 (39:19):
I think because.
Speaker 3 (39:20):
When I had all this money, I didn't particularly do
anything good with it. I just fucking gamble, snort cocaine,
fuck and just like spend fortunes on fucking fancy restaurants.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
I didn't like. It was just dumb shit, you know.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
And I'd make forty grand a week and somehow spend
fifty and I was just an idiot. So, you know,
I think that when I was in jail and I
started to exercise and get some sun and just get
off drugs, I.
Speaker 4 (39:45):
Just totally off when you came out.
Speaker 3 (39:47):
Yeah, I mean I still drink, but I don't do
drugs anymore. But I yeah, I didn't do any drugs
in jail, and I think that just having that time,
it was a rehab for me. I got off drugs,
and I just like I started to feel like shit
in like a way, which was good because I used
to escape whenever I felt like shit, I'd gamble, snort
fucking drink just to escape that feeling. And just like
(40:10):
my whole life, I was just anetheesized And so I
think feeling like shit in jail where I was like,
hold on, this is a good feeling because it's telling
me something's wrong. What are you going to do about it?
And so for me it was like, okay, let's do
something completely different. And so, yeah, I don't know how
to extrab but maybe it was God. Just something spoke
to me and said do stand up and it'll change
your life. And like it might sound strange to people now,
(40:32):
but like I'm still I'm a poor comedian living with
my parents, and I am happier now than I've ever
been in my entire life.
Speaker 4 (40:38):
Poor comedian, yeah.
Speaker 3 (40:40):
Most of us are poor now. Yeah, and we don't
make much money out of comedy.
Speaker 4 (40:43):
Your poor comedian. Don't think you're a poor comedian.
Speaker 3 (40:47):
No, I mean like I've got no money. Like I'm
a good comedian with no money and I live with
my parents, is what I mean. You know, I'm a
very good comedian. I'm pretty good for three years in
things are going all right, but I mean I'm a
comedian with no money living with my parents.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
So what would Okay, what would so? What would and
you like to do?
Speaker 3 (41:03):
Then?
Speaker 4 (41:03):
What's this goal for twenty twenty five to build this game?
Speaker 3 (41:06):
Well, now that I'm allowed out of Australia, Neil's World
Domination Baby, we're working on my US visa, so hopefully
I can do the UK US.
Speaker 1 (41:14):
You could get into the US, yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2 (41:16):
Well, my innovation, I hope they want to allow me in.
Speaker 3 (41:19):
Well, it's because I'm an inspiration to the community now now, yeah,
it's going to work on that. So now that I'm
doing these jail shows and like all this kind of stuff,
my turnaround story, it inspires millions around the world. I
don't know if you've checked the news now, I can
see I'm inspiring you right now. So I think my
podcast so yeah, I think we'll see what happens. But
(41:43):
my immigration lawyer thinks that I have a pretty good
case and we have some people in the New South
Swaler's justice system that are willing to support me in that.
Speaker 1 (41:53):
So yeah, we'll see what happens.
Speaker 4 (41:55):
To do stand up in America, that's right.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3 (41:58):
So a big chunk of my audience on social media
is US and UK, so I think it just makes
sense to go there and New Zealand. All I know is,
ever since I've been on this path, more and more
opportunities keep presenting themselves.
Speaker 1 (42:11):
So I'm not trying to overthink it.
Speaker 3 (42:12):
I'm just trying to become better at stand up and
just seeing where this ride takes me. But it's changed
my life in such an amazing way. And now I
get to go to places in Australia that I've never
even dreamed of going and have like two hundred people
turn up to a show and have an amazing time.
Speaker 1 (42:28):
It is very humbling. So it's very cool.
Speaker 2 (42:30):
Is that you do a lot of stuff's like it
that the Comedy Clip down and at More Park.
Speaker 1 (42:35):
Yeah yeah, yeah, so that the Comedy Store.
Speaker 3 (42:37):
Those kind of venues are great and yeah, I'll do
The main way that comedians make money out of comedy
in Australia is through the comedy festival circuit, so we
have that's the one in Melbourne. We have the Melbourne
Comedy Festival, which is the biggest comedy festival in the
Southern Hemisphere. We have Sydney Comedy Festival, but we also
in January they have the Perth Fringe Festival, which is
the Performing Arts Festival, which where there's a lot of comedy.
(42:59):
And then we have Adelaide Fringe which is in kind
of like mid.
Speaker 4 (43:03):
Feb and that's only invice on.
Speaker 3 (43:06):
Well, any of these ones are not really invite you
just you apply, you pay the registration fee and you
just find a room. You find a room that'll have
you and a time slot, and then they take a
fucking fair chunky of profits to do the show. But
yeah you can. They'll let basically anyone that signs up
get a room if you can find the space. But yeah,
(43:26):
so that's that's how most comedians will make money is
by doing the comedy festival circuit. And then they've got
to write a new hour every year to make money
out of it, which is crazy because we're such a
small market, because we have so few people in Australia
and it's so spread out, you've got to write a
new fucking hour show every year, whereas in the States
you'll have comics that can tour around all the clubs
with like the same half an hour and make an
(43:49):
absolute fucking fortune for years during the same thirty minutes.
Speaker 1 (43:53):
You know, we just don't have that. We don't have
that kind of stuff. You Wow, So what do you do?
Speaker 4 (43:58):
Done? Is difficult?
Speaker 3 (43:59):
Yeah, got to write comedy like where Louis c k
every fucking single comedian and it just shows because there's
very few comedians that can do a really, really.
Speaker 1 (44:07):
Good show every single year. It's just not possible to
do that much good jokes in one year. Is just
very very difficult. Wow.
Speaker 2 (44:14):
I thought it was such like seeing like even you
advertising yourself, like doing a lot of stuff, and even
the Olva comedians that I know, I thought, oh wow, well,
you know you must be busy what you do?
Speaker 4 (44:24):
You know what I mean? Like, but it's not that.
Speaker 3 (44:27):
Well, some of us are more busy than others. I'm
very fortunate that I can, like I'll do the comedy
festial Circuit. Then I can go regionally in the middle
of fucking nowhere. You can send me to fucking baler
At or Buddy Esperance WA or Bunbury and I can
sell tickets there whereas a lot of comedians that can't.
But I think, luckily because of my presidence on social media,
and also the show.
Speaker 4 (44:47):
Did you functions or that kind of stuff like or not.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
Not really, I've done the most of the corporate gigs
I've done so far have been for the new South
Wales justice system, they said to him, because there's this
big thing called lived experience, right with people that have
been through the criminal justice to them and then turn
their life around. They want to hear their stories. So
they're kind of the main clients that I have so
far for corporates, But there's any Is there any banks
(45:12):
with heaps of money I want to hire me for
a I.
Speaker 1 (45:15):
Can do a comedy, I can do a keynote speech,
whatever you.
Speaker 3 (45:17):
Want, so God, yeah, I will see what happens with
that kind of stuff. But it's still early days with it.
Speaker 1 (45:21):
Yeah. I mean I've only been in comedy for three
years and it.
Speaker 2 (45:25):
Was the way you act is like you're being in
it for years more than that.
Speaker 3 (45:28):
Yeah, I think I'm very lucky that I started comedy
at the right time. I think if I had to
start up when I was younger, when I was twenty two,
I would have talked about wanking and come for five
minutes and bombed and be like, right, I suck I'm
awful and quit.
Speaker 1 (45:41):
I would, I wouldn't give it up.
Speaker 3 (45:42):
But look, I started at thirty six, was a thirty five,
and I talked about prison and drugs and people laughs,
and immediately gave me the encouragement I needed to go
on with it.
Speaker 2 (45:53):
That.
Speaker 1 (45:54):
Yeah, I just think I was just fortunate that I
started late, because.
Speaker 2 (45:57):
It's like it's like Sushi Mango when they started through COVID,
and that's how they got their reputation.
Speaker 3 (46:01):
It builds up, built up, built up totally. And now
look at them there fucking killing it. You know, they're
selling out fucking massive theaters everywhere they go.
Speaker 2 (46:08):
Should be on there, on the card for them.
Speaker 3 (46:11):
I'm happy to be involved with them anytime. Those boys
got me, but yeah, they're amazing. But yeah, that shows it.
Like the same with like Andrew Schultz in the States.
Speaker 1 (46:21):
He just started.
Speaker 3 (46:21):
Posting stand up clips during COVID and he blew up
so hard and now he's selling out the ICC when
he came here. And so the power of social media
is an absolute game changer. I'm not competing with anyone,
but I have the thirteenth highest Instagram following of any
sand up comedian in Australia.
Speaker 1 (46:37):
I have a list.
Speaker 3 (46:38):
But but it helps, man, It helps to sell tickets
to show us because when people will see an ad
for you and they go, I know this idiot, he's
made me laugh before. That's all you need is if
I've made him laugh before, they'll hopefully give me permission
to make him laugh like how to show and that's
all you need. Whereas so many comedians great stand ups,
(46:58):
but no one's heard of them. Yeah, they putting a
social media add up that's just like the name of
their show is called Daffidil or whatever, and people like that,
The fuck is this?
Speaker 1 (47:06):
Why would I go to that?
Speaker 3 (47:07):
Because it's not only your costing, but it's also I've
got to choose to spend an hour of my time
with you once I buy that ticket, And so if
you don't know anything about them, it's like it's does
too much risk?
Speaker 1 (47:16):
Twenty bucks? Fine, but if I do want to spend
an hour with you, I need to know more about you. Wow.
So it's a weird game.
Speaker 4 (47:23):
Any regrets.
Speaker 3 (47:26):
I regret having so many drugs in the house when
I got raided out of.
Speaker 1 (47:34):
Probably that's kine of it. Regrets, but not.
Speaker 3 (47:39):
Really because I think you've got to be pretty philosophical
about it. I'm so happy with the life I live
now that if I hadn't gone through all that shit,
I would wouldn't have led to here, correct, you know,
So No, I'm pretty happy with it because, Yeah, I
now I get paid to travel the country saying dick
jokes in your microphone and I have the best time
(48:01):
doing it.
Speaker 4 (48:02):
Describe you in one word, too, if you need.
Speaker 3 (48:05):
To optimistic and chaotic, probably, Yeah, I'm definitely optimistic because
I think that certainly helps you when you're in jail
or when your luck is down, is just to be like,
all right, we can come back from this. And that's
something that I've had my whole life, and so I
think that's probably the thing that's carried me the most. Yeah,
(48:28):
probably my optimism and my sense of humor other things
that were my two biggest assets when I was locked
up and when I went through my toughest times.
Speaker 2 (48:36):
Well, thanks Andrew for coming on. It's been worth the weight.
I've got to meet that my pleasure mate.
Speaker 1 (48:40):
It's fun.
Speaker 4 (48:41):
So I did, and I'm very grateful for you coming on.
Speaker 3 (48:44):
If anyone wants to check me in on social media's
Andrew Hamilton comedy. I haven't got any more Sydney to
a date's locked in for the moment, but I'm hoping
to film my prison show sometime in Sydney later in
the year, but otherwise I'll be traveling Australia, New Zealand, UK,
the US later this year, so keep an eye on planks.
Bro
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