GQ Wil and Lehmo interview - "Things that make you go MMM!"

GQ wipes away tears of merriment in the company of Wil and Lehmo, the comic duo at the wheel of the best drive time show on radio

Interview: Dan Rookwood. Wil Anderson and Anthony Lehmann are seriously funny. By which we mean they take the important news issues of the day, weave in their sophisticated irreverence, and spin them into comedy gold. The pair only got together on Triple M by accident after Anderson’s popular comedy TV show ‘The Glass House’ was axed by the ABC amid rumours John Howard had expressed his personal disapproval. But that hasn’t stopped Anderson throwing stones. On his recent comedy tour, Wil of God, he upset Australian Idol finalist Shannon Noll by cracking jokes about his late father’s name, despite the fact that Neil Noll [who Anderson unfortunately called Noel] was killed on a tractor in 2001. The singer, who witnessed the accident, challenged Anderson to a fight. The comedian declined the invitation. But together with his accountant-turned-comedian cohort Lehmo, Anderson has shown more stomach for the drive time ratings wars – putting on “literally tens of listeners” since their show began in April. Here they explain how…

GQ: Describe your show in one line.
Lehmo: It’s one long rowdy pub conversation for people who want to have a laugh on the way home, but still find out everything that happened that day.
Wil: I like to think of it as a commentary on modern times and current affairs – but with dick jokes.

GQ: How does your show compare to the other drive time shows?
L: Our show is really for men of the world in their 30s. So we are our demographic. As much as I would love to relate to chicks under 30, I am not a chick under 30.
W: Clearly the biggest difference between our show and the competition is ratings. More people listen to them. But you know that things that are really popular are never cool.

GQ: Describe your normal working day.
L: It’s just changed. We were getting in by 9:30 to prepare for out 4pm show, but we had a meeting with our boss last week who said that we had been working too hard and coming up with too many ideas and suggested we come in later and prepare less. We said that we’d only do that on the condition that we get paid more.

GQ: Lehmo, on your MySpace page, it says that nearly a million people have asked you how you went from being an accountant to a comic? Is GQ the millionth?
L: No.

GQ: How many more puns are left on your name, Wil?
W: A fair few yet before I get to ‘Last Wil and Testament’, I hope. When I was just starting out, I asked a brilliant US political satirist hero of mine called Will Durst for some advice. He’d just done a show in Melbourne called ‘The Durst Amendment’ and he said: “Always put your name in the title of your show and always make it a pun.” So my first show was called ‘I am the Wilrus’ and then ‘Wilennium’ and so on. I reminded him of this when we met again at the Edinburgh Festival and he shook his head sadly and said: “I was just trying to get rid of you so I could go to the bar.” So my entire career has been shaped on some bloke trying to blow me off, if you will.

GQ: If you could make one apology, what would it be and to whom?
L: To a friend of mine’s mum for stealing her car. Fifteen years ago I was living in a share house and a housemate and I came home one night to find a set of car keys in the letterbox. It was like 3am and we were excited. We tried the keys in the flashiest car in the street and it worked. So we just decided to take it for a spin. And then we left the car in the middle of a cricket pitch with the lights on, engine running, doors open and just walked home. The next day we were woken by another housemate who was on the phone to the police. He was a mechanic and his mum had brought the car over for him to service. We were wondering whether we’d have to fess up when he said: “They’ve caught who did it”. Some kids had found it, driven off and got pulled over by the cops. Of course their story of “we found it with the keys in it” didn’t wash. That was in 1992 and I admitted the truth for the first time in a gig three months ago when the guy was in the audience. He was a little surprised. So now I need to apologise to his mum. Sorry.
W: There was a girl at school whose reputation I unintentionally ruined. I was young and sexually inexperienced and I thought she had performed a sex act on me that she hadn’t. I told all my mates and within seconds word got around. She thought I was lying, but in actual fact I was just an idiot and didn’t know the difference between a blowjob and a handy. That was 20 years ago and I still feel bad about it.

GQ: What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever said on air?
W: I dropped the C-bomb live on air once. I was trying to say the phrase “Rex Hunt: uncut” which, on reflection, I probably shouldn’t have attempted. It came out as “Rex Hunt’s a cunt”. Our station manager came in and said “I heard that. This is an official warning.” And I was really scared. And he goes: “If you ever say “Rex Hunt” live on air again…”

GQ: What was your nickname at school?
L: Back home in the country my nickname was – and for some people still is – Turd. Because my brothers used to think I was a little shit. And what’s a little shit? A turd. But it caught on and caused me pain for years. Everyone called me that including adults, football coaches, everyone in the community.

GQ: Sing a song lyric that means something to you.
W: “I like big butts and I cannot lie.”
L: It’s the first line to a Weddings Parties Anything song called For a Short Time. And the line is: “Sometimes you can say more, in a drunken hour or so / Than some people get across, in a life of lying low.” It’s about the benefits of having a beer, of how alcohol can help you get to know people. You can work sitting next to someone for 30 years of your life and not know them as well as someone you meet once in the pub.

GQ: Do you have any regrets?
W: I only regret not doing more shit that people told me I shouldn’t.
L: A mate of mine, Johnny, who I met travelling, went back home after being away for 10 years. He caught up with an old mate who in that time had settled down, got a job, bought a house, got married, had two kids. His mate says: “Johnny, what are you doing with your life? You’re wasting it. You’ve got no money, nothing behind you.” And Johnny says: “Mate, when we’re 40, we’ll be sitting on your porch listening to my stories.” That’s a great line.

GQ: When was the last time you laughed till you cried?
L: Actually it was last night. My girlfriend was cuddling up to me in bed and she goes “ah come here” and she puts her arms lovingly around my neck and then all of a sudden gets me in a headlock, flips her arse around and farts on me. It was one of the most putrid stenches; it climbed out of her arse and punched me in the face. I fell out of the bed. I was suffocating with the laughter. I don’t know whether it was funny or whether it was the noxious gas that made me cry.
W: I really like Australia’s Funniest Home Videos. It’s a guilty pleasure. But it’s like porn; I can’t watch it all in one go.

GQ: Wil, why was the Glasshouse axed?
W: To this day they have never given us an answer. Critically and ratings-wise it was doing the best it had ever done. But it was the best way to go out. We were more popular dead than we ever were alive. We were like the Tupac Shakur of light entertainment. I’d much rather that than for it to fizzle out because it was shit.

GQ: In what way are you turning into your father?
W: Lehmo, you’ve started having sex with your mother haven’t you?
L: No, I’ve actually stopped having sex with my mother – just like my father.
W: There’s no-one I admire more than my dad. He’s never had a drink, never had a smoke, never taken drugs. He lives on the road he was born on and he’s very happy to do that. He married the first woman he ever had sex with, he does not swear and no-one has a bad word to say about him. I am the complete opposite. Every now and then I will phone him up and tell him that I’ve been thinking about him and that I love him. And he’ll say: “[Long pause] Good. I’ll get your mother.”

GQ: What do you hate most in the world?
W: Lehmo, don’t say blacks, jews and retarded people. Personally I hate the celebration of mediocrity. When shit is celebrated as being really good, that really annoys me. I’ve done plenty of stuff that is mediocre, but I’m not proud of it.
L: People using religion as an excuse for poor behaviour.

GQ: Describe your sartorial style?
L: Trainers, jeans, t-shirt. That’s it.
W: I have one suit for corporate gigs and court appearances. I like that I have a job where every day is casual clothes Friday. But as my girlfriend always says: “Wow, you spend a lot of money to look like shit.” I’ll pay $400 for a pair of jeans and they look like I picked them out of the bin.

GQ: Who would win in a fight between a lion and a tiger?
L: A lion without a doubt and I say that purely because I am a Leo.

GQ: Who would win in a fight between a Shannon Noll and a Wil Anderson?
W: Shannon Noll would kick my arse. That’s one of the reasons I would never fight him. I just love the idea that the first thing he thinks when he hears someone say something he doesn’t like is that he wants to fight them. But as I said to him at the time: “Can’t you challenge me to do something that neither of us are good at? Like singing.” That didn’t help apparently.

GQ: Who would win in a fight between Shannon Noll’s dad and Wil Anderson’s dad?
W: My dad would have the advantage of being alive and if I say any more than that Shannon will want to kill me.

The Wil and Lehmo show is on from 4pm-6pm every weekday on Triple M: 104.9 FM