March 22, 2026 • 24 mins
Comedian Paul Ego has been the voice of Stick Man for 17 years, and is a main stay of the TV panel show 7 Days.
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Speaker 1 (00:09):
You're listening to a podcast from News talk s ed B.
Follow this and a wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News Talk s ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Gooday, welcome to real life. My name is John Cowen,
and my guest tonight is a man whose voice you
hear in your head every time you drive past a
pack and save mister Stickman himself. Paul Ego.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Welcome Paul, Hi John, or should I say Hi? John?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Is that voice? That voice? You've had a huge career
decades on not hatters and it's a potball past tense now,
but you're having a fantastic career decades on stage. Is
a top stand up comedian on TV for seven days
and radio and other work. And yet when I mentioned
to people I was interviewing you, the first response I
(01:10):
get is, ah.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Stick Man, Yeah, Yeah, It's amazing how it's how it's
happened from a voice job that I auditioned for and
I think about two thousand and nine, and then was
very happy to get and probably thought that maybe I'd
do it for a couple of years. You know, where
what are we? Seventeen seventeen years in now, which is
pretty incredible, and that yeh, that's certainly what I get
(01:33):
yelled at me as well when I'm seeing it. It's
no longer Paul Ego. I've basically become Stickman. And obviously,
if you are familiar with the animation, which most people are,
I look very unlike stick Man. I'm more like a
I'm more like a fat tree.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Really, considering all the good food that you've been selling
over the years, Yeah, sick Man does look really undernourished.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Well, he's just I guess he's just when he's not
doing the ads, obviously he's just doing a lot of pilates,
I would imagine, which you've got to be very careful
about when you are just sticks.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Very Barry Humphreys sort of always referred to Dame Edner
and the third person and would tell interviewers, oh, she's
a real person and as if I had a separate identity.
Have you found yourself sort of splitting your personality off
into stick Man and Paul Lego?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Oh, well, I sort of.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I use the voice quite I've always used the voice
quite a lot with my kids. I like to think
it's it's part of me really, And when we were
a few years into doing the ads, the agency were
looking for kind of stand ins for me in case
I came down with COVID or was away overseas and
that sort of thing, and they couldn't, seem to my surprise,
(02:52):
I thought they would find somebody quite easily, like another
comedian mate who could do a naisiy kind of advice.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But people have sometimes.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yeah, I think a few of them were close enough.
A few of them clus enough, probably including you, John,
I'm sure you were top twenty. But yeah, they just
didn't find any. And so I sort of came to
realize it's essentially my my voice, Like I'm not really
putting it on, It's just my voice, just taking a
few sort of taken apple a little bit, you know. So, yeah,
he's he's very much inside me, I guess for one
(03:28):
of the better works.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
As as the name Paul Ego, I was asking you
before how you like it to be pronounced and how
I'd known the family of Egos, and you were surprised
because you made the name up.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Yeah, I did, like my So my real surname is
Jones's Paul Jones. That's who I am.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
At home.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
That's on my birth certificate, my marriage license, and my
bird owner's certificate, of which I owned one.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
They've all flown by.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
But anyway, no, I just I just started calling myself
Paul Ego because I thought it was a cooler stage
name for doing stand up and I thought Jones was
really was really boring.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So I tried it out one night and it just
it just and good and it stuck.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
So now my wife Jeanine, who you know, we've been together,
been married like thirty seven years. When people say to her, oh, hi,
missus Ego, she goes, yeah, that's not my name.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Now you're taking stick Man on tour and Tiao Mudu
last night, and then coming up this week for Katani Patoni, Napier,
Wellington and then another eight towns and cities around the
country and it's going.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Well, Yeah, it's been fantastic. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I started down south when I down in Thembcargl and
Tapanui and then have worked my way back up. It
really just depends on when venues are available, really, but yeah,
so my third the league starts this week and it's
just been awesome, just playing fairly small venues, you know,
just pubs and clubs and stuff like that, sort of
venues where it's advantageous for both of us to be there.
(04:59):
You know, I can sell tickets. They might get a
few more people in on a Tuesday and Wednesday night
than they normally would, so it's good for the bar
and it's Yeah, the response has just been absolutely fantastic.
I'm really loving.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
It, okay, and you still enjoy getting around the country.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I mean, yeah, very much, very much got.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
A few years now. In fact, I believe I believe you.
I believe you had a significant birthday in the last week,
you know, one of the horrible zero birthdays that's people
in nineteen sixty six get this year.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, I've apparently I went to the doctor and he
told me I've actually now been thirty twice, which I'm.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Like, what are you talking about? Once is enough?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
But yeah, I was very fortunate to have turned sixty
last week, and it was a fairly low key affair.
I'm not anti birthdays, and it wasn't like I was
hiding from my age. I'm really proud that I'm sixty.
I'm very happy to you know, have made it this far.
Some friends haven't and you know, it's just really blessed
to still be in a loving relationship and have you know,
(06:02):
wonderful sons and a lovely place to live and be
doing what I do at the age of sixty. So
it wasn't any of those kind of hiding from the
each thing. It just happened to coincide my birthday with
a really busy time where we had We had the
wedding of the son of some friends of ours, kind
of like the oldest kid of our friend group, if
you like, got married the week before my birthday. And
(06:23):
then my youngest son, Isaac, who's twenty, has just moved
to Sydney, so he was moving to Sydney like two
days before my birthday. So there was just a lot
of emotional stuff going on. So when it came to
like and we should plan a big party, I was
just like, I just can't. I can't rally myself into
doing it. So we might do it next year when
my wife turned sixty, I might get crash her party
(06:45):
and go, hey, it's also about me.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
You could have the fortieth anniversary of your twenty first.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
That's a fantastic idea. Absolutely, yeah, that's a nice way
of doing it.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Hey, But what I was going to say is, you're
sexty and you're still on the road. Do you found
that it still gives you a buzz? Orders it?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Absolutely? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:04):
I love it so much. I'm not tiring of its.
Stand up's always been my first love, being the thing
that's led me into others, you know, has led me
into radio and has led me into TV. But it's
standing on stage creating stuff in my head in the
moment has always been just, you know, my real buzz,
the thing that I loved doing anything more than anything.
So to still be doing it is Yeah, it's just
(07:27):
an absolute joy. It's such a high.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Now you describe it as your first love, but you
were actually on stage with a microphone in your hand
before that.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
In fact, that's how I met my wife out of school.
I was in a band with some guys that I
went to Avondale College with in west Auckland, and we're
in a band probably from when I was about sevent
sixteen or seventeen, and then I met my wife when
I was eighteen, when I was still in it.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
She was a groupie, she.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Was yeah, yeah, she was at one of our gigs,
and I just saw her as I jumped down off
stage one night at a New Year's Eve gig and
was just I don't know, I just I just had
laser focus on this girl's face, going, oh my god,
it was that and yeah she still does that to
me now.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I really loved singing and sort of fell into comedy
sort of not really by accident, but was sort of
dared to do it and never really consider that something
that I would want to do. And then as soon
as I did it, I was like, Okay, see you
later singing this is me. It just felt it just
felt absolutely natural. And I've done a little stints of
singing over the years. I was an acoustic duo with
(08:41):
a mate for a while, and I occasionally bring a
little bit of singing into my comedy. But in fact,
when I first started doing stand up, I would do
a couple of songs on the guitar. I'm not a
great guitarist. I know maybe three chords, but I wrote
a couple of original songs and they were fine, you know,
they were relatively funny, I like to think, and I
(09:02):
would include them in my first couple of sort of
solo shows, and then this, and then these guys called
Flight of the Concords came along and I was like, Okay, yeah,
I'm going to stop doing music.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
They're not going to shoot off and become Tim Minchin
or anything like Oh.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
God, no, no, just I mean the level of those
that you know performers that is just fantastic. So I
would rather stick to what I love doing, which is
just telling silly stories, talking about my family, riffing with
the audience of it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I think that's that's where I'm in my sweet spot,
you know, that kind of that work, sort of thinking
of spots.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Something you do so well.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Think.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Hey, they say, and I don't know, I'm not too
sure who they are, but they say that life has
lived forwards and understood backwards. And so we did a
bit of an archaeological dig back through the early decades
of your life. Was there anything back then that would
point to where you are now in twenty twenty six
as a top comedian. There were you a funny kid?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Apparently I was a funny kid, and I I didn't
really remember myself as being such. I do know that.
So my parents are both British, They're both from the UK.
They came to New Zealand in nineteen sixty six when
I was just a baby. But they've always been massive
comedy fans, so my mum and dad, particularly my dad
was really into the Goons. M Peter Sellers was my
(10:27):
mum's favorite goon and so I do remember growing up
that whenever they had like friends around or family members
and we were having dinner, you know, you'd usually put
on some dinner music or something you might put on
some music where you're having dinner. My dad would always
pull on like Peter Seller's records while we're while people
were having dinner, and him and mum would be cracking
up laughing while people are trying to eat it. And
(10:49):
it was such a weird thing to do, but that
was their thing that they would do rather than put
music on, like they put comedy records on.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
So I've always loved.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Great, that's such a great strategy so I don't have
to make small talk.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
That's right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, true, I suppose it is. So,
so they always loved that. And then when I started
going to school and met other kids, so I thought
were funny and like the guys in the band that
I was in the band, were big Monty Python fans,
and we had the live at Drury Lane. I think
it was a double cassette that showed my age, and
we just used to play it in the car all
(11:23):
the time, so all of us just knew every single
sketch I would, you know, to repeat. So so it
was that sort of comedy coming through. But even then
I wasn't thinking of being a comedian. I just loved
to laugh and just loved how major field.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And but you're getting on stage. I believe your parents
pushed you into talent quests.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, yes, you've done your research very well.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, yeah, because I found in fact, if I mentioned
green fingernails made out of garden hose, yeah, with that
trigger or anything.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Yeah, so that's probably Yeah. So my first performances, I
guess were either in school musicals or productions, which is
where the green fingernails came from, or talent quest. So
I probably entered talent quest when I was about eleven
or twelve.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Mom and dad encouraged me to.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I used to have singing lessons and I did love singing,
so I entered the few talent quests I remember once
I won I sang bad Leroy Brown by Jim Crochet
at a talent quest at a shopping mall. I think
it was a New Lynn in west Auckland, and I
won a fifty dollars Farmers voucher. Wow, And that would
have been a lot of money when I was twelve.
(12:35):
Even now, fifty dollars farm a voucher you get quite
a bit. So that was really cool, big time, big
time man. I hit the big time. And then when
I was in school, I went to audition for a
few school productions, one of which was Avondale College was
doing Aladdin, the Musical of Aladdin, and I got the
(12:55):
role of the evil Wizard, and so my mum made
me some wizard long green fingernails out of garden hose,
and they just looked incredible on the stage, just so
so good. I've still got at it somewhere, I think.
But yeah, I still see people from time to time
I went to school with them and they're like, I
remember you being the wizard with your nails at school.
(13:16):
So yeah, they were quite the hit.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
So well done mum. She worked very hard on those.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
If you've just tuned in, you'll know the voice I'm
talking of Paul Ego, and we'll be back with Paul
after this break, be back with you and just to.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Take intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on
news talks.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
It'd be like you once time.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Hell right, fine, live and.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Judge, welcome back to real life. I'm John cownt looking
with Paul Ego, who's also chosen the music for us.
What are we listening to there? Paul, you can put
on your DJ voice if you like.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Okay, well, John, thanks for asking.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
So that's a beautiful song called One Day Like This
by Elbow, who are a British band, one of my
favorite bands. In fact, I've got Elbow t shirt on
today and I've been into Elbow for a long time.
They're from northern England, so you hear them talk. They're very,
very broad when they talk. But the main singer, Guy Garvey,
is just such a beautiful poet, just little everyday moments
(14:45):
but just described so beautifully every day moments with big feelings.
And one of the reasons I love that song in
particular is it was one of the favorites of my
very good friend who's sadly no longer with was Cal
Wilson New Zealand comedy icon of course, who passed away
a couple of years ago. Loved Cal very much and
she was really into Elbow and particularly loved that song,
(15:06):
and so we would whenever Elbow would come and play
and they play Australia where she was living and they
were going to come to New Zealand, we'd be messaging
each other about particular song lyrics that they do. So
whenever I hear that music, that song in particular, I
always think of Cap.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, that's one of the wretched things about getting a
bit older. We were talking about it during the break,
about about friends that shuffle off us mortal coil. We're
talking about you and Gilmore and.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Oh yes break Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I was my wife Jeanina and I were in the
UK when Ewan passed away, so sadly I couldn't get
back for his funeral, but we were staying at some
little motel and with the time difference, I remember getting
getting the message. I think it was from my friend Justine,
Justine Smith, and it was about one o'clock in the morning.
(15:55):
I can't remember why I was helping out our boys
because our boys were quite young. We're staying in this
motel and they didn't want to sleep, and we're all
really tired. And I remember getting the message from Justine
that you and had passed away, and I just burst
into tears. And my wife Jeanine got up at the
time and thought I was really upset that I was
having to remake this bed for of the boys or something.
(16:15):
She's like, it's okay, that'll be okay, and I'm like, no,
Ewan's die and oh, it's just yeah. Still I'm getting
tingles now just just thinking about it. Yeah, I still
can't believe he's gone.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
No, I don't remember signing up for this mortality thing
and you sort of had to face it when Jeanine
was only thirty. Yeah, I gave you a big fright.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, really did.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
And I think that's possibly one of the reasons that
I that I do just still love getting out there
and doing comedy and that I am so grateful every
day that I'm here.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So, my wife Jeanine had she had a heart attack
when she was thirty years old. When she came through, thankfully,
and she's still you know, playing tennis to this day
and is healthy. And she was one of the lucky ones.
But yeah, It happened right in front of me. We're
at home together, and we both just thought it was indigestion.
Maybe we'd both eaten dinner too quick, because you know,
(17:11):
she was thirty, she wasn't a smoker, she didn't take drugs,
she was pretty healthy and fit, none of their risk
factors at all, so we just were completely blindsided by it.
But yeah, she went into cardiac arrest while there were
a couple of ambulance guys in our house checking her out.
Because I was just my initial thing, like most dudes,
(17:31):
was like, it'd be fine, it's nothing. They have a
quick ease, yeah, have a quikease.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
But just you know, her breathing started to get quite
quite shallow and quite fast, and I'm like, oh, this
is a bit weird. So I called hers in John's ambulance.
There happened to be an ambulance station not far from
where we were living in West Auckland at the time,
and they just came pretty quick and they were just
talking to Janina. While they were talking to her, she
went into cardiac arrest. So it was the foot, it
was the full paddles and you know, restart her heart
(17:59):
again and in the ambulance. She was in hospital for
a week and came through it, and they never really
figured out what it was. I mean, it was a
clot that caused the heart attack, but why she got
it it was just still to this day a bit
of a mystery. I remember the you know, because we
saw so many specialists at the time because they were
like thirty thirty year old women do not generally have
heart attacks unless their drug users. All these are pre
(18:21):
existing condition, so we saw lots of specialists at the
time who were very interested in her, And one of
the mahematologists is basically said, look, there's just there's so
much about blood and clotting and stuff that we still
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
So we may never know.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
But I'm just still I'm just very grateful that I
still have her. She's just the ray of sunshine in
every one of my days.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, now you'll be married. How long did you say that?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Thirty seven years?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Thirty seven years and a Shoba's career. Now, sometimes I
don't know if it's just a trope, a stereotype that
shopis is not good for marriages or family life. You
seem to have made it work. Was it a deliberate
thing of and you're living the sort of erratic touring
life and working in shopahs that you decided to make
(19:08):
this work well, I.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Think because Janine's been with me since the beginning. Like
I didn't start, So we got married when we were
twenty one and twenty two. I didn't start doing stand
up until I was like twenty eight, so we've been
together for quite a while. We traveled together, which if
you can survive that is a couple, you can survive anything.
And so we had a pretty good foundation, you know,
(19:32):
And I think doing stand up, whether I'm on the
road with the Seven Days guys or I'm just you know,
doing this tour by myself, it's not it's not that
rock and roll, to be honest, you know, it's still
you know, it's nice for us to have a breakaway
from each other sometimes, and you know, like on the
stick tool that I'm doing at the moment, I'm generally
only away for three or four days at a time,
(19:54):
and we're texting each other most days and then I'll
be home again. And when I'm home, I just you know,
like to be a quiet guy and sit on the
deck with a G and T or a coffee and
look at the trees, you know, So it's you know, yeah,
I might have a glass of wine or a couple
of beers. I'm doing the show, but that's really about it.
I'm a feeling and simple guy.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And the group is that much of a problem. You
just marry them?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Well exactly, yeah, yeah, and you know I'm not a Mormon.
I can only marry one at a time.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's right now. Also in your portfolio, you're a sign writer.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yeah, that sort of was that.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
That was my well, sign writing was was my sort
of trade out of school. When I left school, I
didn't want to go to university because I didn't really
know what I wanted to do. Well, I sort of
knew what I wanted to do, which at that stage
was be a rock star, be a singer in a band.
And so my dad said, okay, well you might need
something else.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Just in case it doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I mean, it probably will happen, obviously, but just in
case it doesn't happen, maybe you get yourself a trade,
you said, get yourself a trade, and then you'll always
be sort of it's always something you can come back to.
So so yeah, i'd always had quite nice handwriting, and
my grandfather was kind of like it used to do
posters and signs and stuff like that, that incredible handwriting.
So yeah, I did a sign writing apprenticeship with a
(21:15):
company called Peak Display, who I think is still around.
They used to be based Uponsibly in Auckland, and so
I did a sign writing apprenticeship for I took about
five years at that point, and then went to the
UK with my wife did some sign writing, bits of
bar work, bits and pieces.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
So yeah, that's what I did.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I didn't really leave sign writing until I got a
full time radio job in nineteen ninety nine, so I
was sort of doing part time sign writing, doing stand
up at night bits and pieces. But it's still something
I enjoy, like whenever our young boys have had a
when they were at primary school and there was a
school production and they're like, oh, we're going to need
a hand to like paint the set and do a
(21:54):
castle and do a room, you know, do a sign
for the room over this pub and this robin Hood atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I'll go. I'll do it. So I'd go.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
And I've still got my sign writing kit downstairs in
the shed with all my brushes this oiled.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I still look after them. They're still sitting there, so yeah,
I still actually I.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Find it but a great skill. And I bet you
can do a hand lettering too, not alla computer generated
extensils and things that that's.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
All I can. Yeah, I look out.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I look out for those hand lettered signs. You're an artist.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah, I can only do the hand letter stuff. I'm
hopeless with all that computer stuff. But if you want
me to write something, if you want me to write
something where it starts quite good, and you'll see a
few signs like this and it looks quite good, and
then clearly the sign writer has run out of room
at the end of the last few letters are quite
crunched up. That's that's me.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Ah, Yes, it's terrible tattoos like that too. Get the
curning wrong, Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Right, I know your curning's all off, Paul.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It's you provided so much entertainment over the years. I reckon.
I think it's wonderful. But there are people who have
chosen as their career to make us laugh. You guys
should be funded out of the health budget. You do
such a lot of good for us, and.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
I appreciate it and well, it's it's it's selfish as well,
because I think I've done a lot of good for myself.
You know, I generally feel you know, I don't feel
like I'm sixty. I feel like I'm maybe forty, and
I still just love doing it. But yeah, it's sharing
a laugh with the crowd is just all a bunch
of friends. There's nothing better.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
It's just well, keep doing it, mate, because we enjoy
it so much.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So people want to get a bit of therapy from
you while they're on tour. The best place to get
your tickets and to find out where you're playing, because
there's a fair chance that just about everybody listening to
this tonight will have you in their neighborhood in the
very near future. So if they want tickets to come
along and have a laugh, whereabouts would be the best
(23:55):
place to find you.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
My website is the best thing.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Most of the tickets are through event Finder, but just
go to Paulego dot com and there's a big yellow
button there that says click here for tickets to Paul
stick to it.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
So click on there.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Like you us, don't don't touch the screen, and unless
you've got a phone, then you can do that.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, I don't know technology.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Technology, We're too old for worrying about stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Exactly, yeah, exactly. Just just fax me your interest.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Send a pigeon, Paul. Great talking with you and if
you all the best for your for your rest of
your tour.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Take care for more from News Talks at b Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
You're listening to a podcast from News talk s ed B.
Follow this and a wide range of podcast now on iHeartRadio,
Real Conversation, Real Connection. It's Real Life with John Cowen
on News Talk s ed B.
Speaker 2 (00:33):
Gooday, welcome to real life. My name is John Cowen,
and my guest tonight is a man whose voice you
hear in your head every time you drive past a
pack and save mister Stickman himself. Paul Ego.
Speaker 3 (00:43):
Welcome Paul, Hi John, or should I say Hi? John?
Speaker 2 (00:47):
Is that voice? That voice? You've had a huge career
decades on not hatters and it's a potball past tense now,
but you're having a fantastic career decades on stage. Is
a top stand up comedian on TV for seven days
and radio and other work. And yet when I mentioned
to people I was interviewing you, the first response I
(01:10):
get is, ah.
Speaker 4 (01:11):
Stick Man, Yeah, Yeah, It's amazing how it's how it's
happened from a voice job that I auditioned for and
I think about two thousand and nine, and then was
very happy to get and probably thought that maybe I'd
do it for a couple of years. You know, where
what are we? Seventeen seventeen years in now, which is
pretty incredible, and that yeh, that's certainly what I get
(01:33):
yelled at me as well when I'm seeing it. It's
no longer Paul Ego. I've basically become Stickman. And obviously,
if you are familiar with the animation, which most people are,
I look very unlike stick Man. I'm more like a
I'm more like a fat tree.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
Really, considering all the good food that you've been selling
over the years, Yeah, sick Man does look really undernourished.
Speaker 4 (01:58):
Well, he's just I guess he's just when he's not
doing the ads, obviously he's just doing a lot of pilates,
I would imagine, which you've got to be very careful
about when you are just sticks.
Speaker 3 (02:09):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (02:11):
Very Barry Humphreys sort of always referred to Dame Edner
and the third person and would tell interviewers, oh, she's
a real person and as if I had a separate identity.
Have you found yourself sort of splitting your personality off
into stick Man and Paul Lego?
Speaker 3 (02:29):
Oh, well, I sort of.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
I use the voice quite I've always used the voice
quite a lot with my kids. I like to think
it's it's part of me really, And when we were
a few years into doing the ads, the agency were
looking for kind of stand ins for me in case
I came down with COVID or was away overseas and
that sort of thing, and they couldn't, seem to my surprise,
(02:52):
I thought they would find somebody quite easily, like another
comedian mate who could do a naisiy kind of advice.
Speaker 2 (02:58):
But people have sometimes.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
Yeah, I think a few of them were close enough.
A few of them clus enough, probably including you, John,
I'm sure you were top twenty. But yeah, they just
didn't find any. And so I sort of came to
realize it's essentially my my voice, Like I'm not really
putting it on, It's just my voice, just taking a
few sort of taken apple a little bit, you know. So, yeah,
he's he's very much inside me, I guess for one
(03:28):
of the better works.
Speaker 2 (03:29):
As as the name Paul Ego, I was asking you
before how you like it to be pronounced and how
I'd known the family of Egos, and you were surprised
because you made the name up.
Speaker 4 (03:40):
Yeah, I did, like my So my real surname is
Jones's Paul Jones. That's who I am.
Speaker 3 (03:46):
At home.
Speaker 4 (03:47):
That's on my birth certificate, my marriage license, and my
bird owner's certificate, of which I owned one.
Speaker 3 (03:54):
They've all flown by.
Speaker 4 (03:55):
But anyway, no, I just I just started calling myself
Paul Ego because I thought it was a cooler stage
name for doing stand up and I thought Jones was
really was really boring.
Speaker 3 (04:05):
So I tried it out one night and it just
it just and good and it stuck.
Speaker 4 (04:09):
So now my wife Jeanine, who you know, we've been together,
been married like thirty seven years. When people say to her, oh, hi,
missus Ego, she goes, yeah, that's not my name.
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Now you're taking stick Man on tour and Tiao Mudu
last night, and then coming up this week for Katani Patoni, Napier,
Wellington and then another eight towns and cities around the
country and it's going.
Speaker 3 (04:35):
Well, Yeah, it's been fantastic. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (04:37):
I started down south when I down in Thembcargl and
Tapanui and then have worked my way back up. It
really just depends on when venues are available, really, but yeah,
so my third the league starts this week and it's
just been awesome, just playing fairly small venues, you know,
just pubs and clubs and stuff like that, sort of
venues where it's advantageous for both of us to be there.
(04:59):
You know, I can sell tickets. They might get a
few more people in on a Tuesday and Wednesday night
than they normally would, so it's good for the bar
and it's Yeah, the response has just been absolutely fantastic.
I'm really loving.
Speaker 2 (05:10):
It, okay, and you still enjoy getting around the country.
Speaker 3 (05:14):
I mean, yeah, very much, very much got.
Speaker 2 (05:16):
A few years now. In fact, I believe I believe you.
I believe you had a significant birthday in the last week,
you know, one of the horrible zero birthdays that's people
in nineteen sixty six get this year.
Speaker 3 (05:28):
That's right.
Speaker 4 (05:29):
Yeah, I've apparently I went to the doctor and he
told me I've actually now been thirty twice, which I'm.
Speaker 3 (05:36):
Like, what are you talking about? Once is enough?
Speaker 4 (05:40):
But yeah, I was very fortunate to have turned sixty
last week, and it was a fairly low key affair.
I'm not anti birthdays, and it wasn't like I was
hiding from my age. I'm really proud that I'm sixty.
I'm very happy to you know, have made it this far.
Some friends haven't and you know, it's just really blessed
to still be in a loving relationship and have you know,
(06:02):
wonderful sons and a lovely place to live and be
doing what I do at the age of sixty. So
it wasn't any of those kind of hiding from the
each thing. It just happened to coincide my birthday with
a really busy time where we had We had the
wedding of the son of some friends of ours, kind
of like the oldest kid of our friend group, if
you like, got married the week before my birthday. And
(06:23):
then my youngest son, Isaac, who's twenty, has just moved
to Sydney, so he was moving to Sydney like two
days before my birthday. So there was just a lot
of emotional stuff going on. So when it came to
like and we should plan a big party, I was
just like, I just can't. I can't rally myself into
doing it. So we might do it next year when
my wife turned sixty, I might get crash her party
(06:45):
and go, hey, it's also about me.
Speaker 2 (06:47):
You could have the fortieth anniversary of your twenty first.
Speaker 4 (06:50):
That's a fantastic idea. Absolutely, yeah, that's a nice way
of doing it.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Hey, But what I was going to say is, you're
sexty and you're still on the road. Do you found
that it still gives you a buzz? Orders it?
Speaker 3 (07:03):
Absolutely? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (07:04):
I love it so much. I'm not tiring of its.
Stand up's always been my first love, being the thing
that's led me into others, you know, has led me
into radio and has led me into TV. But it's
standing on stage creating stuff in my head in the
moment has always been just, you know, my real buzz,
the thing that I loved doing anything more than anything.
So to still be doing it is Yeah, it's just
(07:27):
an absolute joy. It's such a high.
Speaker 2 (07:29):
Now you describe it as your first love, but you
were actually on stage with a microphone in your hand
before that.
Speaker 3 (07:38):
Yes, it was.
Speaker 2 (07:39):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (07:40):
In fact, that's how I met my wife out of school.
I was in a band with some guys that I
went to Avondale College with in west Auckland, and we're
in a band probably from when I was about sevent
sixteen or seventeen, and then I met my wife when
I was eighteen, when I was still in it.
Speaker 2 (08:00):
She was a groupie, she.
Speaker 4 (08:01):
Was yeah, yeah, she was at one of our gigs,
and I just saw her as I jumped down off
stage one night at a New Year's Eve gig and
was just I don't know, I just I just had
laser focus on this girl's face, going, oh my god,
it was that and yeah she still does that to
me now.
Speaker 3 (08:17):
But yeah, it's yeah.
Speaker 4 (08:20):
I really loved singing and sort of fell into comedy
sort of not really by accident, but was sort of
dared to do it and never really consider that something
that I would want to do. And then as soon
as I did it, I was like, Okay, see you
later singing this is me. It just felt it just
felt absolutely natural. And I've done a little stints of
singing over the years. I was an acoustic duo with
(08:41):
a mate for a while, and I occasionally bring a
little bit of singing into my comedy. But in fact,
when I first started doing stand up, I would do
a couple of songs on the guitar. I'm not a
great guitarist. I know maybe three chords, but I wrote
a couple of original songs and they were fine, you know,
they were relatively funny, I like to think, and I
(09:02):
would include them in my first couple of sort of
solo shows, and then this, and then these guys called
Flight of the Concords came along and I was like, Okay, yeah,
I'm going to stop doing music.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
They're not going to shoot off and become Tim Minchin
or anything like Oh.
Speaker 4 (09:21):
God, no, no, just I mean the level of those
that you know performers that is just fantastic. So I
would rather stick to what I love doing, which is
just telling silly stories, talking about my family, riffing with
the audience of it.
Speaker 2 (09:33):
You know.
Speaker 4 (09:33):
I think that's that's where I'm in my sweet spot,
you know, that kind of that work, sort of thinking
of spots.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
Something you do so well.
Speaker 3 (09:42):
Think.
Speaker 2 (09:42):
Hey, they say, and I don't know, I'm not too
sure who they are, but they say that life has
lived forwards and understood backwards. And so we did a
bit of an archaeological dig back through the early decades
of your life. Was there anything back then that would
point to where you are now in twenty twenty six
as a top comedian. There were you a funny kid?
Speaker 4 (10:05):
Apparently I was a funny kid, and I I didn't
really remember myself as being such. I do know that.
So my parents are both British, They're both from the UK.
They came to New Zealand in nineteen sixty six when
I was just a baby. But they've always been massive
comedy fans, so my mum and dad, particularly my dad
was really into the Goons. M Peter Sellers was my
(10:27):
mum's favorite goon and so I do remember growing up
that whenever they had like friends around or family members
and we were having dinner, you know, you'd usually put
on some dinner music or something you might put on
some music where you're having dinner. My dad would always
pull on like Peter Seller's records while we're while people
were having dinner, and him and mum would be cracking
up laughing while people are trying to eat it. And
(10:49):
it was such a weird thing to do, but that
was their thing that they would do rather than put
music on, like they put comedy records on.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
So I've always loved.
Speaker 2 (10:58):
Great, that's such a great strategy so I don't have
to make small talk.
Speaker 4 (11:02):
That's right, Yeah, yeah, yeah, true, I suppose it is. So,
so they always loved that. And then when I started
going to school and met other kids, so I thought
were funny and like the guys in the band that
I was in the band, were big Monty Python fans,
and we had the live at Drury Lane. I think
it was a double cassette that showed my age, and
we just used to play it in the car all
(11:23):
the time, so all of us just knew every single
sketch I would, you know, to repeat. So so it
was that sort of comedy coming through. But even then
I wasn't thinking of being a comedian. I just loved
to laugh and just loved how major field.
Speaker 3 (11:37):
You know.
Speaker 2 (11:38):
And but you're getting on stage. I believe your parents
pushed you into talent quests.
Speaker 3 (11:43):
Yeah, yes, you've done your research very well.
Speaker 2 (11:46):
Yeah, yeah, because I found in fact, if I mentioned
green fingernails made out of garden hose, yeah, with that
trigger or anything.
Speaker 4 (11:56):
Yeah, so that's probably Yeah. So my first performances, I
guess were either in school musicals or productions, which is
where the green fingernails came from, or talent quest. So
I probably entered talent quest when I was about eleven
or twelve.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
Mom and dad encouraged me to.
Speaker 4 (12:14):
I used to have singing lessons and I did love singing,
so I entered the few talent quests I remember once
I won I sang bad Leroy Brown by Jim Crochet
at a talent quest at a shopping mall. I think
it was a New Lynn in west Auckland, and I
won a fifty dollars Farmers voucher. Wow, And that would
have been a lot of money when I was twelve.
(12:35):
Even now, fifty dollars farm a voucher you get quite
a bit. So that was really cool, big time, big
time man. I hit the big time. And then when
I was in school, I went to audition for a
few school productions, one of which was Avondale College was
doing Aladdin, the Musical of Aladdin, and I got the
(12:55):
role of the evil Wizard, and so my mum made
me some wizard long green fingernails out of garden hose,
and they just looked incredible on the stage, just so
so good. I've still got at it somewhere, I think.
But yeah, I still see people from time to time
I went to school with them and they're like, I
remember you being the wizard with your nails at school.
(13:16):
So yeah, they were quite the hit.
Speaker 3 (13:18):
So well done mum. She worked very hard on those.
Speaker 2 (13:21):
If you've just tuned in, you'll know the voice I'm
talking of Paul Ego, and we'll be back with Paul
after this break, be back with you and just to.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Take intelligent interviews with interesting people. It's real life on
news talks.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
It'd be like you once time.
Speaker 6 (13:46):
Hell right, fine, live and.
Speaker 2 (14:04):
Judge, welcome back to real life. I'm John cownt looking
with Paul Ego, who's also chosen the music for us.
What are we listening to there? Paul, you can put
on your DJ voice if you like.
Speaker 3 (14:15):
Okay, well, John, thanks for asking.
Speaker 4 (14:20):
So that's a beautiful song called One Day Like This
by Elbow, who are a British band, one of my
favorite bands. In fact, I've got Elbow t shirt on
today and I've been into Elbow for a long time.
They're from northern England, so you hear them talk. They're very,
very broad when they talk. But the main singer, Guy Garvey,
is just such a beautiful poet, just little everyday moments
(14:45):
but just described so beautifully every day moments with big feelings.
And one of the reasons I love that song in
particular is it was one of the favorites of my
very good friend who's sadly no longer with was Cal
Wilson New Zealand comedy icon of course, who passed away
a couple of years ago. Loved Cal very much and
she was really into Elbow and particularly loved that song,
(15:06):
and so we would whenever Elbow would come and play
and they play Australia where she was living and they
were going to come to New Zealand, we'd be messaging
each other about particular song lyrics that they do. So
whenever I hear that music, that song in particular, I
always think of Cap.
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Yeah, that's one of the wretched things about getting a
bit older. We were talking about it during the break,
about about friends that shuffle off us mortal coil. We're
talking about you and Gilmore and.
Speaker 3 (15:32):
Oh yes break Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4 (15:34):
I was my wife Jeanina and I were in the
UK when Ewan passed away, so sadly I couldn't get
back for his funeral, but we were staying at some
little motel and with the time difference, I remember getting
getting the message. I think it was from my friend Justine,
Justine Smith, and it was about one o'clock in the morning.
(15:55):
I can't remember why I was helping out our boys
because our boys were quite young. We're staying in this
motel and they didn't want to sleep, and we're all
really tired. And I remember getting the message from Justine
that you and had passed away, and I just burst
into tears. And my wife Jeanine got up at the
time and thought I was really upset that I was
having to remake this bed for of the boys or something.
(16:15):
She's like, it's okay, that'll be okay, and I'm like, no,
Ewan's die and oh, it's just yeah. Still I'm getting
tingles now just just thinking about it. Yeah, I still
can't believe he's gone.
Speaker 2 (16:26):
No, I don't remember signing up for this mortality thing
and you sort of had to face it when Jeanine
was only thirty. Yeah, I gave you a big fright.
Speaker 3 (16:38):
Yeah, really did.
Speaker 4 (16:39):
And I think that's possibly one of the reasons that
I that I do just still love getting out there
and doing comedy and that I am so grateful every
day that I'm here.
Speaker 3 (16:48):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (16:49):
So, my wife Jeanine had she had a heart attack
when she was thirty years old. When she came through, thankfully,
and she's still you know, playing tennis to this day
and is healthy. And she was one of the lucky ones.
But yeah, It happened right in front of me. We're
at home together, and we both just thought it was indigestion.
Maybe we'd both eaten dinner too quick, because you know,
(17:11):
she was thirty, she wasn't a smoker, she didn't take drugs,
she was pretty healthy and fit, none of their risk
factors at all, so we just were completely blindsided by it.
But yeah, she went into cardiac arrest while there were
a couple of ambulance guys in our house checking her out.
Because I was just my initial thing, like most dudes,
(17:31):
was like, it'd be fine, it's nothing. They have a
quick ease, yeah, have a quikease.
Speaker 3 (17:35):
Yeah yeah.
Speaker 4 (17:36):
But just you know, her breathing started to get quite
quite shallow and quite fast, and I'm like, oh, this
is a bit weird. So I called hers in John's ambulance.
There happened to be an ambulance station not far from
where we were living in West Auckland at the time,
and they just came pretty quick and they were just
talking to Janina. While they were talking to her, she
went into cardiac arrest. So it was the foot, it
was the full paddles and you know, restart her heart
(17:59):
again and in the ambulance. She was in hospital for
a week and came through it, and they never really
figured out what it was. I mean, it was a
clot that caused the heart attack, but why she got
it it was just still to this day a bit
of a mystery. I remember the you know, because we
saw so many specialists at the time because they were
like thirty thirty year old women do not generally have
heart attacks unless their drug users. All these are pre
(18:21):
existing condition, so we saw lots of specialists at the
time who were very interested in her, And one of
the mahematologists is basically said, look, there's just there's so
much about blood and clotting and stuff that we still
don't know.
Speaker 3 (18:32):
So we may never know.
Speaker 4 (18:34):
But I'm just still I'm just very grateful that I
still have her. She's just the ray of sunshine in
every one of my days.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
Okay, now you'll be married. How long did you say that?
Speaker 3 (18:45):
Thirty seven years?
Speaker 2 (18:46):
Thirty seven years and a Shoba's career. Now, sometimes I
don't know if it's just a trope, a stereotype that
shopis is not good for marriages or family life. You
seem to have made it work. Was it a deliberate
thing of and you're living the sort of erratic touring
life and working in shopahs that you decided to make
(19:08):
this work well, I.
Speaker 4 (19:10):
Think because Janine's been with me since the beginning. Like
I didn't start, So we got married when we were
twenty one and twenty two. I didn't start doing stand
up until I was like twenty eight, so we've been
together for quite a while. We traveled together, which if
you can survive that is a couple, you can survive anything.
And so we had a pretty good foundation, you know,
(19:32):
And I think doing stand up, whether I'm on the
road with the Seven Days guys or I'm just you know,
doing this tour by myself, it's not it's not that
rock and roll, to be honest, you know, it's still
you know, it's nice for us to have a breakaway
from each other sometimes, and you know, like on the
stick tool that I'm doing at the moment, I'm generally
only away for three or four days at a time,
(19:54):
and we're texting each other most days and then I'll
be home again. And when I'm home, I just you know,
like to be a quiet guy and sit on the
deck with a G and T or a coffee and
look at the trees, you know, So it's you know, yeah,
I might have a glass of wine or a couple
of beers. I'm doing the show, but that's really about it.
I'm a feeling and simple guy.
Speaker 2 (20:14):
And the group is that much of a problem. You
just marry them?
Speaker 4 (20:18):
Well exactly, yeah, yeah, and you know I'm not a Mormon.
I can only marry one at a time.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
That's right now. Also in your portfolio, you're a sign writer.
Speaker 3 (20:32):
Yeah, that sort of was that.
Speaker 4 (20:35):
That was my well, sign writing was was my sort
of trade out of school. When I left school, I
didn't want to go to university because I didn't really
know what I wanted to do. Well, I sort of
knew what I wanted to do, which at that stage
was be a rock star, be a singer in a band.
And so my dad said, okay, well you might need
something else.
Speaker 3 (20:53):
Just in case it doesn't happen.
Speaker 4 (20:54):
I mean, it probably will happen, obviously, but just in
case it doesn't happen, maybe you get yourself a trade,
you said, get yourself a trade, and then you'll always
be sort of it's always something you can come back to.
So so yeah, i'd always had quite nice handwriting, and
my grandfather was kind of like it used to do
posters and signs and stuff like that, that incredible handwriting.
So yeah, I did a sign writing apprenticeship with a
(21:15):
company called Peak Display, who I think is still around.
They used to be based Uponsibly in Auckland, and so
I did a sign writing apprenticeship for I took about
five years at that point, and then went to the
UK with my wife did some sign writing, bits of
bar work, bits and pieces.
Speaker 3 (21:30):
So yeah, that's what I did.
Speaker 4 (21:32):
I didn't really leave sign writing until I got a
full time radio job in nineteen ninety nine, so I
was sort of doing part time sign writing, doing stand
up at night bits and pieces. But it's still something
I enjoy, like whenever our young boys have had a
when they were at primary school and there was a
school production and they're like, oh, we're going to need
a hand to like paint the set and do a
(21:54):
castle and do a room, you know, do a sign
for the room over this pub and this robin Hood atmosphere.
Speaker 3 (22:01):
I'll go. I'll do it. So I'd go.
Speaker 4 (22:03):
And I've still got my sign writing kit downstairs in
the shed with all my brushes this oiled.
Speaker 3 (22:08):
I still look after them. They're still sitting there, so yeah,
I still actually I.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
Find it but a great skill. And I bet you
can do a hand lettering too, not alla computer generated
extensils and things that that's.
Speaker 3 (22:20):
All I can. Yeah, I look out.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
I look out for those hand lettered signs. You're an artist.
Speaker 4 (22:26):
Yeah, I can only do the hand letter stuff. I'm
hopeless with all that computer stuff. But if you want
me to write something, if you want me to write
something where it starts quite good, and you'll see a
few signs like this and it looks quite good, and
then clearly the sign writer has run out of room
at the end of the last few letters are quite
crunched up. That's that's me.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Ah, Yes, it's terrible tattoos like that too. Get the
curning wrong, Yes.
Speaker 3 (22:50):
Right, I know your curning's all off, Paul.
Speaker 2 (22:55):
It's you provided so much entertainment over the years. I reckon.
I think it's wonderful. But there are people who have
chosen as their career to make us laugh. You guys
should be funded out of the health budget. You do
such a lot of good for us, and.
Speaker 4 (23:10):
I appreciate it and well, it's it's it's selfish as well,
because I think I've done a lot of good for myself.
You know, I generally feel you know, I don't feel
like I'm sixty. I feel like I'm maybe forty, and
I still just love doing it. But yeah, it's sharing
a laugh with the crowd is just all a bunch
of friends. There's nothing better.
Speaker 2 (23:29):
It's just well, keep doing it, mate, because we enjoy
it so much.
Speaker 3 (23:33):
Thanks.
Speaker 2 (23:34):
So people want to get a bit of therapy from
you while they're on tour. The best place to get
your tickets and to find out where you're playing, because
there's a fair chance that just about everybody listening to
this tonight will have you in their neighborhood in the
very near future. So if they want tickets to come
along and have a laugh, whereabouts would be the best
(23:55):
place to find you.
Speaker 3 (23:56):
My website is the best thing.
Speaker 4 (23:57):
Most of the tickets are through event Finder, but just
go to Paulego dot com and there's a big yellow
button there that says click here for tickets to Paul
stick to it.
Speaker 3 (24:06):
So click on there.
Speaker 4 (24:07):
Like you us, don't don't touch the screen, and unless
you've got a phone, then you can do that.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
Yeah, I don't know technology.
Speaker 2 (24:14):
Technology, We're too old for worrying about stuff like that.
Speaker 3 (24:19):
Exactly, yeah, exactly. Just just fax me your interest.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
Send a pigeon, Paul. Great talking with you and if
you all the best for your for your rest of
your tour.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
Thank you, John.
Speaker 1 (24:33):
Take care for more from News Talks at b Listen
live on air or online, and keep our shows with
you wherever you go with our podcasts on iHeartRadio
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