Catalyst. RMIT publication,April 2002
Triple J Brekkie Interview with Wil Anderson
Why would thousands of people and guests including Rocket Science, Spiderbait, Ross Noble, Tripod and WWF Founder Vince McMahon be roaming around the Melbourne Town Hall in the early hours of the morning? To be part of Triple J's Breakfast Show live broadcast, of course.
Samantha Allenmann caught up with one half of the Breakfast team, the multi-talented Wil Anderson.
S:
What did you think of today's turn out? Gee, there was a lot of people here. It was massive! Each year it gets bigger and bigger, like I would have thought last year we had 1500 people and today maybe 2000 people, something like that.
S: Even at 6am?
At 6am we probably had like 1000 or 1500 people which is just insane-it's just beyond our wildest expectations. That's about how many people actually listen to our show in the whole of Melbourne!
S: Do you prefer being live in front of thousands of people instead of just sitting in a studio?
No, it's actually really hard work. I mean, it's good to do once and every now and then but you'd die if you had to do that everyday. It's the hardest work, for three hours you're just 'go,go,go', you've got people coming in and out and you don't have time to think or pause or do anything like that. And at that time of the morning, to get your brain and body working like that is silly. It's much better to do the show in the studio where you can read the paper, write some jokes, have a coffee, relax in between what you're doing, you're not 'bang bang bang' the whole time. You've actually talked to your guests off air - we had guests coming in today that I hadn't spoken to off air, so the first time you ever speak to them is on air, which is not the ideal thing to do. Normally you'd like to get a bit of a feel for what they're like and whether they are going to go with you comically or they're going to be serious, or whatever that sort of thing.
S: With what you said about it being harder to do live shows, in that respect is it more like stand up?
No, because stand up is easy. I find stand up really easy, I find that fun. I love the stand up because it's what I do. This is just my second job; this is just my part time thing… Doing radio in front of people is a lot harder because radio is not designed to do in front of people, radio is designed to do in a radio studio… The weird thing about doing this in front of a live audience is really essentially a radio show is us sitting around yakking and then playing CDs, which doesn't exactly lend itself to being a huge, live spectacle.
S:How does this compare to being on a TV show [The Glass House]?
It [TV] is easier because we know what it is - that's what we do and we do it the same each week in that regard, and it's in front of a live audience which makes it feel a bit like stand up; it feels like a gig. It's a harder gig though than stand-up, I prefer stand-up the most and I probably prefer radio the second most and the TV is the least of my priorities. [However] I think it's probably easier than doing one of these live ones, these live ones are just - I feel exhausted, I feel like I could just sleep the next twenty weeks.
S: Well, people had their blankets and pillows in there!
Yeah, and they're tired just from watching!
Q: Any other comments for RMIT students?
Um yes, university education is the best time of your entire life, drink a lot of beer, have sex with a lot of strangers don't worry so much with your studies because they don't actually really make that much difference once you get out into the real world.
S: What did you study?
Journalism.
S: And did it help in getting you somewhere?
No.
S: Thanks for your time.
Alright, thanks mate, cheers.
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