Comedian Wil Anderson has become one of Australia’s best exports since the mining boom. After rising to prominence hosting breakfast radio, he’s continued to win over the small screen hosting comedy talk show ‘The Glass House’ and ‘The Gruen Transfer’, a panel discussion series scrutinizing the world of advertising and spin, which enjoyed reincarnations as ‘Gruen Nation’ and ‘Gruen Planet’. Now he’s taken a year to return to what he loves most of all: stand up comedy. He chatted to OUTinPerth from his apartment in Los Angeles ahead of his upcoming Australian tour.
(The following has been edited for length and clarity).
How are things over in the US?
They are going very well thank you. It’s been very very busy. I just came back from a week in Chicago and before that I had a week in Cleveland so I’ve been flying around a little bit but it’s been 16 cities in like 6 months so, yeah. I’ve seen a lot of the country.
Have you been taking Wiluminati all around there?
Yes, well, I mean I did Wiluminati in Montreal, and I have done it in various different places across the US. Sometimes when I go to a place for the first time, they get ‘Wiluminatish’, they get a bit of Wiluminati and they get a bit of old stuff that they’ve never heard before [laughs] There might be a couple of- particularly in Middle America there’s probably a couple of discussions in the Wiluminati show that they don’t trust me enough yet to get to that material.
What topics do you think are off limits there?
Well there’s a big brief in the show actually about guns in America and an experience that I had in America around guns. There’s a few places in America that I toured to where they just bring their guns to the gig so I probably couldn’t do that material. That is probably not the most receptive audience. You don’t want to piss off an audience of people who have guns.
That’s probably a good judgement call.
Yeah, I don’t have a lot of comedy rules but if people have guns, try to do a good job is one of them.
Do you think audiences are different in the US?
Look, here’s the truth of the answer to that question. It’s yes and no. In some ways there’s more difference sometimes between the 7 o’clock show you do in the same venue as you do your 9.30 show, they can be completely different shows because audiences are different and they behave differently all the time.
But is there a difference between the way Americans approach comedy and the way Australians approach comedy? Yes. I think so. It’s been around for much longer in America, and they have a richer history of comedy and they’ve been to more comedy. Every town you go to has a comedy club and people know how it works and they’re not going out to comedy for the first time. They’ve been consuming comedy through ‘Saturday Night Live’ and American stand up and all those sort of things for years. It’s been a thriving industry for decades now. So in some ways an audience in the US knows a little bit more how it works.
I guess the best way to put that is, I did a week of shows in Denver, and they weren’t the best week of shows I’ve ever done in my entire life, they were a very fun, great week of shows. But nothing special in the grand scheme of all the shows I’ve ever done. I got more standing ovations in that week of shows in Denver then I’ve had in 17 years of doing stand up comedy [Laughs] You know, they just are a bit more into it. If it’s good, they’re going to stand, they’re going to applaud. Everyone knows that cliché of an American comedian walking out onstage and saying something like ‘Hey, so I’m from Louisiana’ and the entire audience applauds. American audiences are a bit like that.
As a performer, how do you think the scene is different?
Look, I would say that, and I’m very biased of course. But I think I can honestly say this. I’ve performed in most of the major comedy scenes in the world and I know lots of people from those scenes, and while there are things that those scenes do better than the Australian scene, I think as a general overall scene, the Australian stand up comedy scene is by far, in a way, the most creative, the most interesting and the most supportive comedy scene in the world.
We are smaller, but the high level of creativity and people who are actually making world class fabulous things, and the way that those comics when they go overseas are so readily accepted and fit in, it’s a real credit to our industry. It’s in a very creative place. It’s not stuck, a bit more like the established industries can be. It’s a bit more creative and it’s got some new voices in there. It’s a really exciting time to be I think a comedian in Australia. And I certainly, as someone who’s been around now for 20 years, to look at this young generation and see how fabulous and inspiring and different and compelling that they all are, I think it’s really brilliant.
Something that I’ve been noticing more recently is, over the years I feel like there’s been quite a bit more diversity amongst the comedy scene. Do you think that’s the case?
Yeah, I absolutely agree with that. I mean I think it was always there, but I think that sometimes a couple of jobs define a generation. So for example if you look at my generation and I guess you can talk about people like Hillsy and Rove and Hughsie and whatever and you’re like ‘That’s a lot of white men with similar world views or experiences or whatever, right?’ And look, there’s certainly an argument to be made that that is the case. But I think if there was four people like that in this generation, they would also be doing well and doing their thing.
I just think there’s a lot more people of different experiences doing comedy now. People are really a bit more open to the idea of pursuing it because you don’t have to do it in the same way. You don’t have to do live comedy. You could do YouTube videos or you could have a podcast that people love or you could be really really funny on Twitter and build a following out of that and write a book and do a column. Like there are so many different ways now that you can be funny and that you can deliver funny. The great thing about this modern day is, you don’t have to wait for somebody to tell you to do that anymore. You can just go to YouTube or you can go to Twitter or whatever.
It always amuses me when someone talks about The Australian newspaper and the power of The Australian newspaper. I have more Twitter followers than people who read The Australian newspaper. The world has changed in regard to how you access your audience. They’re there. My podcast audience I can talk directly to and they listen to the podcast and they consume it and they support it and we just have our little community, and it doesn’t have to involve everybody else.
I think that’s why when you see these broader debates in society, when you see how now with #YesAllWomen and the rise of feminist commentary on the internet and things like that, it’s because in the old days there were gatekeepers stopping women from having proper voices. Now, people can say ‘hey, you know what? We all have been experiencing this thing that none of you would fucking listen to, and now we actually have a way of talking to people about it and when we tell these stories, there’s heaps of other people who are like “oh my god, that’s exactly like my life, thank fuck finally someone said that”’, you know? I think that the internet and that change in our world will definitely reward diversity. I absolutely agree with that.
There’s so many forms you can go to access comedy, so you can have a bit more of a niche audience and people can pick and choose things that are more specific for them, do you think that’ll change the comedy scene much?
Yeah, definitely. Of course it does, yeah. You can now build audiences- you could be a comedian, who might not still be able to kill it at comedy clubs, but you can build your own audience and take your show out on the road and it’s full of fans of what you do and it can be a different pace and a different beat and a different style, like Doug Benson, who’s a stoner comedian over in the US, he does shows at 4:20 because 4:20 is like the stoner code. Doug tours around the country and he does all these shows at 4:20 in the afternoon and they’re all his crowds, and it definitely enables people to do that.
You look at someone in Australia like Alex Williamson, who has built a massive following off YouTube, you know, he’s not a stand up, he just has this huge YouTube following and does these live shows and all the people who do his live shows you can see them so it’s definitely going to change it. You look at someone like Bo Burnham, who’s one of the best comedians in the world, in my opinion. And he started as the kid basically doing funny songs in his bedroom. He didn’t come up through the stand up scene like you used to have to do. I definitely think it’s going to change it for sure.
So let’s talk about your show for a bit. I was lucky enough to see it at the Melbourne Comedy Festival earlier this year, has it developed much? Once you’ve gotten a show on the road does it tend to evolve or do you kinda stick with the format?
I think the interesting thing is there’s a great Pearl Jam lyric that I really like and I’m never quite sure what it means. It’s the kind of thing where the more you think about it, the more you aren’t sure of what the actual lyrics mean. It says ‘everything has changed, absolutely nothing has changed’. I think about that all the time and I’m not sure if that’s meant to be a sad thing or if it’s meant to be just a recognition, but when you asked me that question, the first thing that came in to my mind was that lyric.
I think the show is substantially different, but it’s still about the same stuff. So, you know what, I would say it’s like the difference between the iPhone 4 and the iPhone like 6, right? You still recognise it as being the same fucking iPhone, you still have your twitter and your phone in the same place but it’s clearly a much better version of what they were trying to do five years ago. I think that’s what it is. They’ve added some shit, you know, there’ll be some people who’ll be like ‘I liked it better without this stupid bit’ and some people who are like ‘I like this stupid bit, this is actually better’. And they’ve carved up the edges and some people are like ‘I liked the edges’ but it’s a better version of the same philosophy and same story that I was telling then.
I have a recording of every single show that I’ve done of it and at some stage, not before the end of the tour but at some stage I might go back listen to it and different times and see how much it actually changed. But for me I don’t really like to do that, I like to tell it where it is right now, because I kind of feel like it needs to be where it’s at. That’s what I’m trying to do a lot more with my work at the moment is just really be in the moment, I guess and tell the story the way you’ve got to tell it that night.
I suppose that’s a way of keeping it fresh because it’s not easy to tell the same stories over and over again and kind of keep it alive in your head.
That’s a really smart observation that you make. Because the thing that I feared when I took this year to only do stand up, was what if without another distraction, there’s a point within the year that I get bored of the show? I was genuinely fearful of that. But what I realised, luckily, and I only realised when it happened, I didn’t have any sense of it beforehand, I literally did not know when I started out on the adventure how it would go, what I realised is there’s a whole different level that I haven’t been going to, which is the level where you know the show so well that you can genuinely be in the moment.
This is where I’m at now, I could literally tell you the show now on the phone. I don’t need to be in front of the audience. I could do a version of it to make it work to you, even though we’ve got this weird delay, we’re in different countries, I know the show so well that I could do a version of it to you right now that I would be comfortable that if people heard it they would go ‘that’s a good show’.
I’ve never been at that point with any other show that I’ve ever done, and the only thing that I can compare it to is driving. In the point that you still have to concentrate on driving, but you’re not really thinking about what you’re doing when you’re driving, right? And if you’re driving somewhere that you know the route really well, you can get distracted by other things and it’s not going to effect the driving. You can enjoy the view or your can go the scenic route or you can speed through the bad area of town or you can adapt to traffic and you can be much more responsive to the moment because you’re good enough at driving that you don’t have to think about it. And what I discovered this year is there’s also a point in your show where now every night is different because I know what I’m trying to say so well.
How do you think you got to that point? Is it just being able to single-mindedly focus on the show?
Literally it’s just time. I mean I’ll say to somebody that last year I probably did 200 gigs. Which is a lot, I mean it seems like a lot, right? But this year I have done, by the end of the year I will have done nearly 500 gigs. Probably the difference in what those gigs have been too, the fact that one week it’ll be a week in Cleveland in a 400 seat room that’s full most of the time and are the easiest shows you’ll ever have but maybe, like last Tuesday night I did a gig in front of ten people at a free bar in Hollywood and that was not terrible but was much harder work.
So the gigs are a lot more varied. The amount is great because you can literally go from one thing and go ‘I’m working on this idea, I’ll try it at this gig and this environment, now I’ll try it here, now I’ll try it here, now I’ll try it here’ Whereas in Australia normally even if I’m doing that many shows, maybe it’s in the festival and they’re all in the same venue to about the same size crowd and so you’re not testing it in all those different environments. I think it’s really just a combination of time and probably testing yourself in tougher conditions.
What made you decide to focus purely on stand up for the moment?
I don’t really know what makes me decide most things, to be honest. [Laughs] I kind of wish I did but I don’t really. I have ideas about things that I think that I might enjoy. I’m never 100% sure, like I mostly just get hunches on things. Sometimes it’ll be about turning down a job, I’ll talk about it for a while and I’ll just be like ‘It still doesn’t really feel right for me’.
All I ever wanted to be was a stand up comedian, you know? When I started it wasn’t usual that you went into TV or radio or whatever so I started out just wanting to go and do a show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival and be a comedian, and suddenly I’ve got a bloody radio show and then Glass House happened and then Triple M happened and there was a column and then there was Gruen and suddenly I’m fucking 40 and I’ve done 19 years of the Melbourne Comedy Festival and I haven’t had a year in 15 years where I’ve just been able to be a stand up comedian, the one thing I wanted to be.
I was like ‘Well bugger this. I’m bloody 40, I’m gonna give myself a present and I’m just going to take a year off and I’m just going to tour the world.’ Because I mean here’s my life: this year I’ve been to 16 different American cities, 6 different countries, I’ve just told jokes and then just toured the world. I mean that’s really just all I’ve done. It’s been fucking amazing and brilliant and wonderful and so I thought ‘Why not fucking do that for a while? That seems like that would be fun.’ So that was my hunch, and as it turns out it’s been really good. It could’ve been terrible because I don’t fucking know. I have no sense behind these decisions. I just thought maybe that would be fun and good and it turns out it has been fun and good.
But I mean it’s like Gruen, I can’t believe we’re still making decisions about that show seven years later. I just thought it might be fun for like a year. [Laughs] Sometimes you just get a touch about these things. I mean the podcast is a great example of that. We just did the LA podcast festival and we headlined that festival up against Mark Maron, we had a full room, it was one of the best shows I’ve ever had fun with, it was so much fun, and that really just started because me and my mate Charlie thought it might be fun to do a podcast. For no other reason. So sometimes I think that we think about these things too much, but anyway, I decided that I would give myself a year off and see if I could just tour the world telling jokes to people and so that’s what I did and it was fun.
So do you have any hunches for what you’re going to do next or are you just riding out the touring for the moment?
The tour doesn’t finish until January 19. I did two shows at the Sydney Opera House, in the big main room there, the concert hall, and that’s the final night of the tour and we’re going to tape it for a big TV special for the US, and then that’s done and then about 6 weeks after that I have to be onstage in Adelaide at the Adelaide Fringe going ‘Good evening ladies and gentlemen, welcome to my brand new show ‘Free Wil’. [Laughs] So I’d better think about what that’s going to be when I go onstage, and look there’ll be a Gruen thing, something I think, probably in 2015. When I asked them for a year off they were very nice about it and I said to them ‘I’ll come back in 2015 and do something at some stage’ but I mean I don’t really know what that’ll be or when. It won’t be in the first half of the year because I’m touring but sometime in the second half of the year, something Gruen.
Do you think you’d ever bring Gruen to the US?
You know what? It’s interesting. I have a lot of meetings here about TV shows and everyone’s always fascinated by Gruen and I think there’s only a couple of places you can do it. I think you could do it at HBO and you’d put it on after John Oliver’s show. I think that’s the audience. I think you could do a show like Gruen for an audience like that but most places here are so commercial that to be able to do a show like Gruen and really go after people, people would just be too afraid to do it. That’s why it’s so amazing that we have the ABC for all the shit that people give it. You just can’t make things like Gruen in America.
Catch Wil Anderson in the Perth on the 21st and 22nd of November. Tickets available from Ticketek.
Sophie Joske
