Lewis Spears Is The Best

Lewis: The Daily Talk Show.

Josh: It's The Daily Talk Show, episode 330.

Tommy: It's Easter Monday.

Lewis: Hey boys, it's good to be here.

Josh: How are you?

Lewis: I'm very good, man. I was, uh, this place is really cool, this little setup.

Tommy: Um, isn't it funny because we think it's a piece of shit?

Lewis: No, it's great, dude. My stuff, I, where I do my stuff, I've rented a warehouse in the brothel capital of Melbourne. Uh, so this shit's on it, really.

Josh: Where is the brothel capital of Melbourne?

Lewis: If you read a few news articles, you may find, uh, something about a man being found in that died, was murdered 15 years ago. It's around there.

Tommy: Okay, well, one of the other— I know where you are, but the other one is also, um, South Melbourne. Yeah, a lot of brothels.

Lewis: Yeah, South Melbourne is a weird area because I feel like South Melbourne is a social experiment because we do a radio show around there. It's like a weird experiment where it's like, let's get like the richest 30-year-old white women and put them right next to everyone in Housing Commission and just see what happens. It's like a social experiment. It's great.

Tommy: It used to be horrible. Like, it used to be a really shitty area. I think that's what's—

Lewis: And then they got the housos in and it got heaps better.

Tommy: Well, this area, Collingwood, used to be an absolute dump.

Josh: And look at it now.

Lewis: And now. But the people are still around, you know. Like, I saw walking here, I walked past, um, there were like two dudes sitting on the pavement smoking weed, like opposite to a bar that has free board games. And I'm like, you know, just play chess, boys.

Tommy: Full hipster area. Lewis Spears, people might know you from the interweb. I know you from family Christmas.

Lewis: Yes.

Tommy: Quite a few years back when we did it at Claire Faulkner's place.

Lewis: I have a photo, I brought one in.

Josh: Do you?

Tommy: Of you and I?

Lewis: Yeah.

Tommy: Fuck, so we're basically family. My brother's wife is Lewis's cousin.

Josh: So my sister-in-law.

Tommy: Okay, so my sister-in-law is Lewis's cousin.

Lewis: There it is, there's us at family dinner.

Tommy: God, Lewis, I was so hungover that day. I barely made that.

Josh: Can we put this on our Instagram?

Tommy: Is that you up the back there?

Lewis: That's me up the back looking depressed in the Crown.

Tommy: How old were you then?

Lewis: Oh, I don't even know. My mum sent that to me. That would have been like maybe, uh, 17 or 18.

Tommy: Yeah, so that was for me pre-Shepparton days, and I remember talking to you that day about you wanting to get into radio and get into media and starting your career, and you fucking launched hard over that time.

Lewis: Yeah, well, I'm trying. It's finally— I feel like just this year it's starting to feel big now, which is cool.

Tommy: Yeah, well, it's been exciting watching. I've been seeing you from afar and seeing your stand-up comedy. Josh said to me, was it stand-up for Lewis first, or was it the internet stuff?

Lewis: I always wanted to do stand-up, like since I was 12. I saw Lano and Woodley live and I thought, I want to do that. And, um, but I kind of fell into online stuff at 18. I just started doing videos and mucking around and fucking with the media. And I think it took me a whole year of doing that before I realized, oh, this is comedy too, and I can leverage this into getting people to come to shows and I can start stand-up. So it was kind of weird, like I always wanted to do stand-up. I did online shit by accident and then got this small audience and I thought, well I can get them to a show, but I have no idea how to do stand-up. So I just started doing stand-up for a whole year in secret because there's— the last thing you want is for people to come out and you suck.

Josh: Where did you go?

Lewis: Come back.

Josh: Where were you doing the secret stand-up?

Lewis: Um, I just did open mics all around Melbourne, um, and just, you know, as many times a week I can get on stage. And I still do that, still do all the same rooms that I used to because there's not— there's only one comedy club in Melbourne and you can only really get on there maybe twice a week. And if you want to work on your act, you've got to be up every night. So just lots of shithole bars.

Tommy: Well, there's worse things you could do in secret, like heroin.

Josh: Yes.

Lewis: Yeah. Or playing chess.

Tommy: You mentioned the stuff about the media, sort of fucking with the media. I mean, if Josh's mum and dad are watching, they might know you from ACA.

Josh: Oh, that's right. Yeah, mum and dad are big Current Affair. Yeah.

Tommy: I wonder if they saw back in the day when you were on ACA.

Lewis: It's funny, that whole period of time. It's just that doing that, if you don't know, basically a group I was in, we tricked a, uh, we tricked A Current Affair into running a fake storey about how we were bullying someone. That person turned out to be a member of our group, uh, and it really just demonstrated how little time they have for research. Like, they don't have time for research. If you think about A Current Affair and Today Tonight, they got to do 4 storeys 5 days a week. Like, we sent an email in, we had a whole plan and a backstory, and we did a conversation map. We sent an email in, we got one back going, "Great, can you meet us in 2 hours at this park?" And we were like, "Okay." And then it was on TV that night.

Tommy: Jesus.

Josh: You didn't even have to show them any of the, like, any of the stuff that you'd planned?

Lewis: Nah, nah, it felt like a big waste of time really, trying to counter their research that evidently was nonexistent.

Tommy: Well, I saw you, they sent a text text message the girl that was in it saying, um, do you have any photos of the conversations? And she just said no. And they're like, no worries, that's fine. Yeah, but they still run the story. It's crazy. I think when you did that, it's almost, um, at this— so many people are doing that now, tricking the media. But that was kind of a little bit before it's become kind of real popular to fuck with the media.

Lewis: Yeah, well, it's— it is— it is kind of interesting, like, seeing all of it happen now, uh, at after we did it, it's really cool. I think it's great, you know.

Josh: It's a whole genre.

Lewis: If we could inspire some of that, that's great, you know, because all it was, uh, for me that it eventuated was it— I think it just teaches people that maybe you shouldn't believe everything you hear, because if it's that easy to trick someone into saying some fake stuff when they're saying things they think are true, maybe they're not actually, because they haven't been researched properly.

Josh: It was the OG fake news.

Lewis: Yeah, yeah, it was a real actual fake news.

Josh: Did you, uh, this— the stepping stone that online was to radio, did it change your perception once you're actually in radio and actually considering the fact that maybe it wasn't— maybe it is the thing rather than the step?

Lewis: Uh, not really. No, doing, doing radio for, for us, me and Luke, we do a show called Luke and Lewis. Radio for us was, um, is just an excuse to do more content online, you know. It's, it's like to just get our voice out to a demographic that we wouldn't reach before, you know. We've got a podcast now, we film every show, and it's just a chance to get more stuff out. And, and me and Luke are like really, really good friends, and we've— we'd be hanging out talking shit anyway. We might as well, you know, put it on radio. Um, and I suppose that we don't— you know, we're on, we're on Fox FM. They're not known for their journalism, you know. Like, we're not exactly doing news or anything like that. I don't think anyone there is. So it didn't really change.

Tommy: There is a newsroom.

Josh: Is there?

Lewis: Never been in there. I don't know if anyone goes in there.

Josh: Is there like, what's been the learning around content? Have you like, have you had like content directors or people supporting and teaching the work?

Lewis: Yeah. Well, what's really good about working for SCA who own Hit and Fox is they're great at nurturing talent and just teaching us to avoid pitfalls and like, What I think what we really learned from doing radio is that you can work a lot harder than you think you can. Like, you can actually turn on funny if you can get into a room and you can structure the— try and harness the chaos of funny and stupid. You can really control it a little bit. So I think just getting in a room and having that planned structure of the show goes for 40 minutes, so we need 8 talk breaks that go for 5 minutes. So what are your 8 subjects that you're going to talk about today. And just learning about, you know, how me and Luke work. Like, we, we kind of worked out that at the start we would tell each other our ideas and you'd almost do it in the meeting, and then you get on air and you would just try and recreate what it was. But we also needed to talk through our ideas to make them better.

Tommy: Yeah.

Lewis: So we just kind of got to the point where I'd be like, okay, we're going to do my ideas. Luke leaves the meeting room. I told the producers, I got to walk— work through it. They still help me modify it, make it a bit better. And then when Luke hears it, you know, he knows that it's planned and he can actually hear it for the first time and react more organically.

Tommy: Yeah, that was always the problem. I mean, we didn't even have a producer when I was doing my show in Shepparton.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: But it's always like, if you do it the other way, you almost need to run through your ideas with your co-host.

Lewis: Yeah.

Tommy: For a certain amount of time, but then it sounds like amateur radio, which it is.

Josh: It's like we tried to pre-record our shows, and then I just got so into trying to work out what day it was and what potentially could have happened. So now we don't pre-record, we're just here on Monday doing the show right now.

Tommy: Yeah, Easter Monday, amazing, right?

Josh: Did you get many eggs? I didn't get any eggs, bro.

Lewis: No eggs? No eggs. No, my family doesn't celebrate Easter. No? They think it's blasphemous. Eggs, everyone's allergic to it.

Tommy: Really?

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: Do you guys have fish on Friday? Because that's a no-go.

Josh: Well, we had Fat Fridays and we had the—

Tommy: Yeah, what do we have again?

Josh: I can't remember.

Lewis: Anyway, the main thing is no pre-recording goes on here.

Tommy: No way, not on public holidays, never.

Josh: Potentially. Um, so from radio, stand-up, or like, what are the commonalities then in all of this?

Lewis: Uh, I would just say that the commonalities is just, um, The most important thing is to be genuine. And that's kind of always been my thing of like, I'm just gonna try and be as honest as I can with the people that like me. And obviously funny as I can. Like that would just suck if I rocked up and told everyone what I had for breakfast and then went through my day without any jokes. That sounds like our podcast.

Josh: That sounds a lot like—

Tommy: No, that's your food diary. Food diary.

Josh: You can have fun with it.

Lewis: Can you?

Josh: It's like everyone has to have breakfast. So everyone can relate to it.

Lewis: What did you have for breakfast?

Josh: Today I actually had, I went coffee. So I had, I got a Moka Master recently.

Lewis: Yeah.

Josh: And so I got a—

Lewis: what is that?

Josh: A Moka Master is like—

Tommy: I got it from the guys that were playing chess.

Josh: No, it's a drip coffee. So you put the coffee in and it like drips in.

Lewis: And then this is the most early 30s conversation I've ever had in my life. I walked in here and I think I may have had the most boring conversation with you I've ever had in my life, where Josh told me about how he bought 8 pairs of Sketches in America. If you're going to America and the only thing you come back with is pairs of Sketches, why do your trips suck?

Josh: Why do you have two? Why do you think you get two bags of luggage? Are you asking? One's for the Sketches. I believe that's the case. Do you ever, do you ever feel, because you do stuff that is slightly controversial, yeah, we're pretty—

Lewis: not as controversial as wearing Sketches. Fuck, man, that's brave.

Tommy: You gave him that one, Josh.

Josh: I did, I did. I don't own any of the sketches, but I stand by there.

Lewis: What did you do with 8 pairs of sketches?

Josh: I actually gave them to my girlfriend's dad and he's never wanted them.

Lewis: And he's like, man, that's why he'll never come to the wedding. It's like, this cunt gave me 8 pairs of Sketchers, I'm not walking her down the aisle.

Josh: No, I feel like he's into it. I think that it's like, because they sort of look like they're like, oh, there's like a— they're a bit formal.

Tommy: No, but it's like, no, mate, he was being polite.

Josh: But you know what they sell you on at Sketchers is like, you press—

Tommy: you have to walk in for them to sell you one. Exactly.

Josh: No, but you press like the sole and it's like real cushiony. Like, it's like a full— it's like memory foam.

Tommy: It looks like you've got a foot roller on the bottom.

Lewis: So you walk into the Skechers store and they go, look, I know they look like shit, but put your finger in the shoe. And you go, this is great. Am I ever going to put my finger in the shoe again? And they go, no, generally your foot. And you're like, I'm sold. Why is everyone making fun of me?

Josh: Well, the get one 50% off, like buy one get one 50% off, it still doesn't equal 8. Yeah, well, no, if you get 4 and then anyway. It doesn't matter, but it's so controversial. We've all been into it.

Lewis: How much money did you spend on sketches?

Josh: I reckon probably, like, the way that I justified it is probably $400, maybe $400. $400 on sketches?

Lewis: You know the staff laughed at you when you left.

Josh: No, but they're all into it. They're really like, they're part of—

Lewis: The cult.

Josh: Yeah, it definitely feels, it feels like the same sort of breed as people who are into like—

Lewis: So it's like the Apple Store, but shit.

Josh: Not at all.

Tommy: I will say, Lewis, there is at times that this, friendship and this trait in a friend actually pays off. Yeah, when he gives you his shit. But he's getting too much. No, not Sketchers. Well, this is the problem.

Josh: I was like, I had a rebrand, and so I bought some new shoes, which you had a rebrand? Yes, I had a—

Lewis: are you a flagship?

Josh: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. A little bit.

Lewis: What was your brand before Sketchers?

Josh: My brand before was— oh no, so that was— that was—

Lewis: must have been a shit brand if Sketchers is an upgrade.

Josh: No, the Sketchers were sort of free rebrand. So I used to be sort of, I used to be 120 kilos. I would sort of, I would go comfort or whatever. So like 3XL would give me room to move and things like that.

Lewis: Hats.

Tommy: You look like a small young American boy who was travelling in a Winnebago.

Josh: Yeah, because I got some like chequered sort of shirts or whatever.

Lewis: But yeah, so that's like Maccas playground attire.

Josh: Yeah, very much, very much that. And so I went from like the snapbacks and stuff to something more minimal. And so now I'm trying to go from more sort of like a Steve Jobs-esque—

Lewis: that's good— look, um, without all the terminal illness.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. But I do— we've spoken about on the show, he's the gaunt, you know, the sort of—

Tommy: he had that because he had cancer.

Lewis: It's not really a look you want to go for, but like, I really want to look like Steve Jobs. Fuck a diet, I'm just going to go out in the sun. Sun.

Josh: Yeah, just a little, but just that sort of lean look where it's like, oh, you haven't overdone it, you know, sort of like you've got that look, like with your height.

Lewis: Well, I look like someone dying of cancer. No, no, no. Fuck, I'm leaving.

Josh: No, it's the pert, no, I think it's great. Like it's the aspirational. It's 'cause you could wear anything, I think.

Lewis: Well, I struggle finding pants that are long enough.

Tommy: Well, Lewis is 6 foot 8.

Josh: Yeah. Really, 6 foot 8?

Tommy: Yeah.

Lewis: Only? 2 meters.

Josh: I felt like, because Tommy was talking it up, like, ah mate, we're gonna look like that.

Tommy: And then you came in, I was like, I don't like— Dude, we're usually the tallest in the room majority of the time.

Josh: Like, it wasn't over.

Lewis: My knees hurt sitting on this desk.

Josh: Yeah, so do mine too. But on the height thing very quickly, is the— when you're on a plane, is it like a annoyance or is it a medical issue? Like, would you have to get upgraded? Like, Based on the law?

Lewis: I don't do the robot check-in because if a human cheques me in, I always get the free upgrade because they go, "Oh, poor bastard," because I only fly Tiger. So they're like, you know, "Poor bastard, and we'll also help him out." So where do Tiger put you?

Josh: They just put you in the aisle or something?

Lewis: They put me in the emergency lane and they go, "Are you willing and able to help in the unlikely event of an emergency?" And I go, "It's Tiger, pretty likely, firstly, and also yes, but my fingers are crossed. I'm not helping. I'll open the door and then I'm getting out and everyone else can, you know, burn. I'm not helping.

Tommy: You posted on your Instagram, um, today— I was going to say today, but that was probably like a week ago.

Josh: This one's pre-recorded, guys.

Lewis: Yeah, can we be giving up on that? Okay, that's good.

Tommy: There's too much masking. But you posted today, which is the day we're on, um, Easter Monday. Yeah, about how, uh, 30 of your followers fetish, tall people fetish pages.

Lewis: Yeah, I have, I have, there's a website out there, don't go on it, it's called tallguysfree.com and I am the thumbnail and the most popular person in the, the tall and lanky category.

Josh: What's the free bit?

Lewis: It's free, so you know, look at that, take that Netflix. Yeah, jeez, perv on, apparently incredibly tall men is a fetish.

Tommy: And so have they got photos of you?

Lewis: Yep, there's photos. Every single photo I've ever taken with my top off, and there's not that many. Like, they've gone through my whole Instagram. Most of them are just me doing jokes. Like, there's one where I put myself next to someone wearing a ridiculous outfit and then they crop the other person out and then they just put my topless photo up there of me on the beach. It's not— it's a bit weird, isn't it?

Josh: It's very fucking weird. Do they at least give you like a link for search engine optimization? Yeah, they do.

Tommy: They credit me.

Lewis: So I don't know. I don't know if anyone's going from wanking over my spine length to laughing at my comedy, but you know, it's a market.

Josh: Yeah, I think like the SEO thing is actually could be quite good if you— if you—

Tommy: if they're linking off, you're essentially being trolled. It's—

Lewis: I know, no, it's—

Josh: you're being celebrated. You're being— I think it's— I think it's a good thing.

Tommy: Yeah, but without his permission. Yeah, I mean, that's—

Josh: I think it's okay. What do you feel about it?

Lewis: Uh, I don't know. I think it's funny.

Tommy: Yeah, I guess it's just—

Lewis: it just points out that there's a fetish for everything, man. Like everything's a fetish. I didn't— I knew tall people were like, ah, he's tall, that's good. But I didn't know that anyone's being like jacking off to just height.

Tommy: It's a weird thing that I'm all about centimeters.

Josh: Well, that'd be good. They'd be into like basketball and stuff, you'd think. Like they'll love—

Lewis: like, dude, watch basketball. There's people that are taller than me and they, they're not— they don't look like Steve Jobs. Go there.

Tommy: What we've worked out is Josh is actually really into that.

Josh: Yeah, no, I like the look. I like the look.

Tommy: He's actually built the website.

Josh: Yeah, exactly. I wasn't going to reveal it. Um, but the, the controversial stuff, do you, do you get anxiety around like the fact that there's a portion of the population that dislike what you've done? So like the anti-vaxxer one, for instance?

Lewis: Uh, no, I just think it's funny. Yeah, I, I don't know. End of the day, I've only ever been yelled at once in public, and it wasn't that scary. Like, some— and it wasn't even for anything that I did, um, like content-wise. It was— it's pretty fun. Happened years and years ago.

Josh: Someone off at a car park.

Lewis: I was, I was on the train and, uh, and I was just by myself, and these two girls came up to me and they were like, oh, are you Lewis? And I said, yeah, how you going? And one of them sat on my knee to get a photo which was, you know, a bit too touchy for me, but whatever. So you got the photo and then she walked back to her boyfriend and he saw that and he was not happy. And this is like a Friday night, I'm by myself. I think they might have had something to drink. And I got up to get off at my stop and to get off at my stop I had to walk towards the group and the guy looks at me and he goes, "Oi, are you Louis Spears?" I said, "Yeah, man, how you going?" He goes, You're not funny, you shit.

Josh: That's way low level.

Lewis: Yeah, and I was like, oh, sorry, man.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: And then the doors open, and then he goes, yeah, fucking run away, you pussy. And I just said, dude, I'm not gonna miss my stop.

Josh: Absolutely.

Lewis: To punch you.

Josh: I got—

Lewis: I'm going home, man. I've got a book I want to read. I don't want to, you know, potentially lose a fight just to— for something because you called me a pussy. And then he He just— I'm getting off the train, he goes, "No one likes you, cunt." And I said, "Your girlfriend does." And the door's closed. And then I think that may have been the end of that.

Josh: Did you touch off?

Lewis: No, I didn't touch off. I felt too alpha.

Tommy: There's, um, I guess there's a massive difference between what people will say in real life versus the internet. Your comedy special, Death Threats Don't Scare Me. So you legit got death threats? Yeah, so they're online ones though, they weren't in person.

Lewis: Yeah, because that— even that guy yelling at me fair enough, you know. He wasn't angry about something that I did, he was angry because his girlfriend sat on my leg. And that's whatever, I'd be mad.

Josh: Did she post the photo? Did you get tagged in it?

Lewis: Yes, she tagged me in it.

Josh: Really? Did you click through to the boyfriend?

Lewis: Disrespectful on her, I would think.

Josh: Yeah, give him a follow.

Lewis: I feel like your problem's maybe not with me, dude.

Josh: Yeah. It'd be her.

Tommy: Yeah.

Lewis: But yeah, the death threats thing, you just get them and you kind of learn. Some of them, the only ones that can get a little bit, and I talked about this in my comedy special, the only ones that get a little bit scary are the ones that are specific. Like, I did a joke about the Dreamworld accident that, like, the day it happened, um, and it went, it went nuts. A lot— most people thought it was funny, but obviously a lot of people think it's angry, which just goes with the territory. But I got this one— I got all these death threats, but only one scared me, which was, 'I see you coming to the Gold Coast on April 14th. I'm going to be there with a knife.' Oh, I saw that one and I thought, 'Oh, a little bit spooked.' I don't know if I'll do the meet and greet after the show, uh, but I did it anyway.

Tommy: And you didn't get knifed?

Lewis: No, but one guy came up to me because I meet everyone after all my shows if anyone wants to kill me, um, and he, he had his hands in his hoodie and he came up to me and I was like, hey man, and he didn't take him out of his hoodie.

Josh: Oh no.

Lewis: And I was like, oh fuck, this is the guy. I was like, hey, how you going? And I put out my hand to shake his hand and he took only one hand out, left the other one in. I was like, oh, this is how I die. But he was just nervous. Yeah, or he might have been an amputee, I don't know.

Josh: That is actually scary though.

Lewis: But that one, that freaked me out, just that moment. But that was just all my head, he was a nervous guy.

Tommy: Well, I guess like Josh said, it's more the space you're playing in, the outs you have. If we started saying controversial shit, we're not comedians, so it'd be just like we're real cunts.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And do you see being a comedian as an opportunity not to be a cunt. Yeah, yeah.

Lewis: Well, yeah, thanks for that, Joe. My, my— yes, but I always think that as my intention is never to offend, like, that's never my intention. That's always just a byproduct, you know? Like, if I went out there, I'm like, I'm Lewis Spears and I'm going to offend the whole crowd, I wouldn't sell any tickets because everyone's just like, oh, that guy's an asshole. Yeah, my intention is and should be to make you laugh. Yeah, you know, and I'll take dangerous topics or dangerous subjects. My favourite thing is taking something that's objectively not funny and being like, ah, but have you thought about it like this? Yeah, like my favourite laugh is 70/30, which is 70% pissing themselves and 30% going, oh, I don't know about that one. Yeah, but you get those people with the next one. Yeah, like I try to— I never try to, to preach or to, to voice only one opinion. I try to make fun of all sides 'Cause I think there's so much comedy out there that puts like convincing you I'm right ahead of being funny. Like funny's here, I'm right is there. And I think that sucks. My comedic inspirations were the Chasers and they did their show, The Chasers Waren't Everything. And if you watch that show, you would have no idea what they actually thought, what their actual opinions were. 'Cause they took the piss out of everyone.

Josh: What do you like at funerals?

Lewis: Mostly crying.

Tommy: Yeah, are you really?

Josh: Like, I feel like a coping mechanism. I definitely— like, there was moments where I've gone to funeral, like my, my nana's funeral or whatever, that we are like, when we're in the car, there's opportunities that we're just trying to— yeah, find moments.

Lewis: Yeah, no, I've only, only really been to two funerals. One when I was super young and I didn't get it, and the, and the other one was, was recently my gran. And yeah, it's, it's like, uh I, I, it's not really a depressing thing. I've, I viewed it more of like, fuck, she did some amazing stuff. Yeah. You know, and like the eulogies were all funny, most of them anyway, uh, depending on who was doing it. But most of them were funny, which I think it might be just our family, which you would know.

Tommy: Yeah, definitely.

Lewis: I think everyone's just a little bit funny or a bit of a shit stirrer.

Tommy: Yeah.

Lewis: Um, and, and yeah, I thought, I thought that was great. I think if, if there's an opportunity to, to either get angry about something or to to make it, you know, try and turn that darkness into something good. Why would you not take that opportunity?

Tommy: I think that like the last couple of years, there's definitely the sensitivity, politically correctness of the comedy space has definitely amplified. Like, yeah, Chris Lilley, he's just brought out a new show, and I was a fan of Chris Lilley back in the day, and I, and sort of whatever now. I don't like— I'm sure I could get into watching your show if I cheque it out.

Josh: Summer High Tide was sort of like literally just my school. That was exactly how it was.

Lewis: So we— apparently everyone's school as well. Like, that show's huge in the UK and the US, and you wouldn't think that it would translate, but it's gone— like, that whole thing's gone global, which just makes sense as the high school experience. Yeah.

Tommy: But I think I look at some of the— so his new show that's just come out, Hectic or something, or what, a brand new one that's just coming out.

Lewis: He's doing like 6 or so characters, and none of them are in blackface.

Tommy: Yeah, there's just a tan South African, which is a damn shame. Well, yeah, well, I guess he's felt the brunt of that coming from a time where it was kind of acceptable, just wasn't even critiqued like it is.

Josh: It wasn't serious, it wasn't blackface.

Lewis: I think that the thing is that blackface in America is— I wouldn't do it, and I think that no one should do it there, and I think no one should really do it now because we know the reasons why.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: But in Australia, we didn't really have the huge, like, minstrel shows and like the whole blackface thing that America did. We had it to some extent, but it wasn't like as popular. It wasn't in movies and all that kind of shit. So I think that I guess that whole blackface thing came from him doing it, came from like just ignorance of like, oh, you know, you just did it because you weren't doing it with a racist intention. But, but now that it's been seen by a broader audience that, you know, have that history, they see it and the only thing they see is a racist intention because the only people who did it from where they're from were people who had that racist intention.

Tommy: Yeah, John Safran, I remember he did Race Relations and he had like a full prosthetic face that he— it was black. But it's interesting, that was at a time I remember I was personal training him at that stage and he's telling me about it. I was like, haha. And it came out, there was no sort of nothing said about it.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And so the time that we're in now what are the sensitivities that you have as someone who really plays in this space?

Lewis: I don't have to— my thing always comes back to if I cheque myself and I go, am I doing this because my intention is to piss people off or to make them laugh? It can be both, but the main thing has to be to make people laugh and to bring joy. Pissing people off, bit of fun for me. But I don't— I think that there's I really like a quote by, um, Patrice O'Neal. He was talking about this before, like he did an interview in like the '90s, I think it was the '90s, where he was talking about rape jokes and there was a person saying that you should never tell them. And he kind of said that, um, I'm not going to tell anyone what type of joke to make as long as their intent is to make people laugh. So she was like, so, so you support rape jokes. And he goes, I don't make them. I don't make rape— I don't think, you know, it's funny, but I've heard them, you know. Um, and I think that's, that's the kind of thing— as, as the, the darker a subject matter is, the harder it is to make it funny.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: So I think a lot of the time when people get offended, it's not so much the subject matter. Maybe it's just the skill level of the person doing it, you know. Like, so many times I've written down an idea that's quite dark and I've tried to do it and it does— it's not funny and it doesn't work. But then I come back to it 2 years later when I'm a better comic and I've worked out how to make it funny. Like, I used to do this joke about sex work in Thailand and like the ping pong shows because I went to one and it was fucking horrible. Like, it was just sex trade shit. Like, you felt really bad about it. And I tried talking about that when I was very early in my career and everyone just felt sad. It took me like 2 or 3 years before I was better to finally get people to laugh at that and then also pass on a positive message of maybe don't go to these things, they're a bit fucked.

Josh: How did you actually apply like comedy to it? How did you make it funnier?

Tommy: Live demo.

Lewis: What the? Yeah, I don't know, I just talked, just the whole, I just walked through the whole experience of what I thought it was going to be in my head versus what it actually was. Like we walked, we got flied and there's this woman, she was going ping pong show, ping pong show, and you're thinking Yeah, like the noise that it makes and you're like, oh, that sounds fun and that sounds like everybody wants to be there and not because they have kids to feed and they have no skills.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: And then we went down an alleyway and down another alleyway and just got dirtier and darker and we walked in and it was just this horrible— and you just like, the minute I walked in, I saw the girl on stage and I was like, oh, she doesn't want to be here. Fuck. And then we just tried to leave and they tried to drag us back in because they were all desperate for money and I was like, I'm not. Doing this. And, um, you know, obviously that's not my joke, that's just what actually happened. But yeah, it's just a, just a bad thing. But you can make, you can make it funny and still pass on the message of that, you know, a positive thing without just standing up there and telling people not to go to it, or, or only making light of it without like, with just going, haha, their life sucks, isn't that funny?

Tommy: Yeah. Um, your crowdfunding campaign Yeah. Was that— so Josh, I don't know if you would have seen Lewis at this time. He was— tell us about how— what you did.

Lewis: So I was at a stage, I've been doing comedy for 3 years and I knew I wanted to do a comedy special. I planned to do it year 2, but I wasn't good enough, so I delayed it a year. And then I got to a stage where I had like a really good hour of stand-up and I wanted to film it properly, um, because the nature of the online thing is most people who watch me, uh, you know, now most people from America, and I don't have a visa yet, so they can't see me live, you know, or people live in regional towns and I don't come there yet. So I was like, well, most of the people who like me have not seen my stand-up and potentially won't for like 5 years until I become successful enough. So the solution to that problem is a comedy special. So I approached a bunch of networks and I approached a bunch of distribution companies and all these different people that could fund it, and they all told me that my stuff was too controversial, or it's too expensive to do it properly, or this or that, or we can do it like this but it has to be this length and you can't joke about this. And I just thought, fuck it, I'm just gonna do it myself.

Tommy: So what are you showing them? Are you like showing them jokes? Here's a list of jokes, guys.

Lewis: It's hard. So you just— I basically just showed them my— I filmed a show just on a fucking camera, so like really shit, but you can hear that the jokes are funny, you know. So you can get an idea of what it would look like if it was done properly. So you show that to them and they go— basically all I got was, this is really, really good, but we can't touch it because it's too controversial, or this or that. So I just thought, fuck it, I'll do it myself. And I launched a crowdfund and it was going to cost $30 grand.

Tommy: So it was just Lewis's fee?

Lewis: Yeah, that was, that was my fee. And then it cost $10 to get an iPhone up the back of the room. So yeah, it was going to cost like $30 grand was what I worked it out to be. So I got all the money I had in the world. I put up $15,000 of my own and I did a crowdfund and I asked for $15,000. And I said, if we can get this, I'll pay for half, we'll go halves with my audience, and then you guys will have a special. Anyway, I raised that in about 3 hours, and then the first day I raised $30,000, and then by the end of it I'd raised $70,000.

Tommy: Shit.

Lewis: To this thing, which— and we broke the world record for the biggest comedy special crowdfund ever, which makes me feel a little bit guilty because the previous world record was, was, I want to do my last comedy special before I die of cancer. I think he deserves it more than me.

Josh: Turns out the tall fetish have more money to spend.

Lewis: But you know what, he's still around, so you know, he could do another one.

Josh: So it was all bullshit.

Lewis: Yeah, so you know, it's fair.

Josh: Was it Kickstarter or what did you Did you actually use—

Lewis: I used Indiegogo.

Tommy: I remember seeing it, I was refreshing, going holy fuck.

Lewis: It was insane. I knew I could raise $15,000, but raising $70,000 was not even in, I didn't even think I could get $30,000. But I guess it's just that thing of I always try to be honest and I was telling people, I tell my audience how much money I have and how much I pay myself and I've been doing that for years. And I think they just thought, he's given us so much shit for free, it's time to step up. And it worked. And it's to this day the best performance of my life. Like, I was just— it's the one— it's the rare moment in my life where everything from the crowdfund to the production to the people that I worked with to my performance itself, where I just thought I could not have done that better.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: And I think that's the only time I've ever— because, you know, you look back on shit and you go, oh, I could have done this, or I could have done that. It's the one thing in my life where I've gone, I fucking nailed that. And so did everyone else who helped. It wasn't just me, of course. Um, and yeah, it's just fucking amazing. And now it's just sitting on my website. It's like a $5 download thing that you can stream or watch. And it's just something that's always there where if you want to see me live now, you can just go get it. And, you know, now it's, it's kind of made me go, well, I don't have to wait for TV. I don't have to wait for Netflix or, or any of these people to do it for me. You can just kind of take control. And that looks like how I may do the next one.

Tommy: The conversations you had with the people that said it was too controversial and then see that happen— I mean, it's always fucking great.

Lewis: You're like, yeah, well, that's what it was. And then, and there was, there was another conversation I had with, with some people from America who were going to fund it, but they were like, yeah, we'll fund it, but, but we own half of it. And in the contract it said, it was like, we own half of it in perpetuity, forever. And I was like, fuck that. I'm only going to get one opportunity to, to own my comedy special. Maybe, you know, someone else might pick it up in the future or whatever. So I thought you know, I want one for me.

Josh: What did you do with the extra cash?

Lewis: Uh, punted it. Uh, no, I just—

Josh: sketches sale.

Lewis: Yeah, I just put it back into the hole and I just use it to fund more comedy, you know. I got myself a film space and I've hired an editor and a camera guy to help me put more stuff out because the biggest struggle when you do stand-up online and radio, those are 3 completely different jobs. The only thing you have in common is you're trying to be funny, but but really the actual way you do it is so different. So I've managed to hire help with it and fund a tour off it. And yeah, I'm just trying to hold on to it and not be an idiot.

Tommy: What happens with— so like, remember how Egg Boy recently raised a bunch of cash?

Lewis: What—

Tommy: who gets that cash? How does the actual process work? So when you get $70,000, how the hell do you do that?

Lewis: That was the craziest. So what happens is It goes to Indiegogo, it takes it from everyone and they hold it, and then when the crowdfund's over, they just send it to you in bulk. And then it's this— dude, the coolest thing ever was just looking at my bank account, seeing $70 grand in there going, I'm fucking rich. And then, but then you just gotta send it all away. I gotta send it to all the camera people, you gotta send it to the people who do the merch, you gotta send it to this and to that, and then you have of what you actually have. So I didn't end up spending 30, I ended up spending a lot more than that 'cause I had this extra money. So I was like, I'd rather just fucking do all the stuff that I cut out 'cause I thought I could only raise 15. So I cut out a bunch of stuff. So I thought, well, I'll put all that back in. So it's like the perfect thing. We got like 3 extra cameras and all that kind of shit. So it was really, really good. But yeah, just seeing it there, just the thought in your head of going, I could just run away. Yeah, but obviously you can't.

Josh: There's, there's only a few people in Australia, like there's probably 20 or 30 people who have created these audiences online, like Christian Hulls. Like, you're in that same sort of category. What is it that we don't understand about the audience building and the type of audience that you have versus the audience that you would see on, let's say, like a hit network or something like that?

Lewis: Well, now, now, especially now that I've been, um, I've been in both worlds properly, uh, the difference is the people watching you online choose to. That's the main thing, where people sit down and they go, today I'm going to listen to the Daily Talk Show. You don't show up anywhere, you know, it's— you're not on a billboard, you're not yet—

Tommy: turn on soon.

Lewis: Yeah, soon. But, but, you know, you're not on radio and they— and and it's just on, so you listen to it. And the main difference is people choose to listen to you, so that audience is so much harder to get, which is the down trade. But when you get them, as long as you're consistent and good and honest, they fucking stay and they'll support you because they sit down and they go, I'm going to turn on a Lewis Spears video or listen to the podcast or whatever. And I think that's the main difference that we noticed because Luke, who I do the show with, also built his, his crowd. It's just you, you earn that crowd with the online thing, whereas the, the mainstream media thing, it's there and it exists and it's given to you. And you can lose it if you suck, and you can increase it if you're good. But at the end of the day, it's, it's there, and it's also theirs. So it's SEO, it's not yours.

Josh: It's—

Tommy: you can lose their audience, you can build their audience. Still not yours.

Josh: Yeah, yeah. I wonder about like the, the financial reward of having an audience. How do you know how much your audience can spend?

Lewis: Well, clearly I had no idea, you know, like I had, I had no idea.

Tommy: Did you actually try and work out the math for the $15 grand thing? Say I've got $15 grand, I reckon maybe based on my followers it's X, Y, and Z.

Lewis: Yeah, well, I kind of was like, I pitched— so the, the crowdfund, I pitched it as I want to do a comedy special and I want to make it as as easy for people to buy and stream, so I'm gonna make it $5. I know if you have a smartphone, you have $5, or you have the ability to get $5. Yeah, you know, if you don't—

Tommy: stolen it, or you can steal another $5.

Lewis: Exactly. If you don't, you're lying. You have 5 bucks, you know, you just don't want to give it to me, which is fine, but be honest, you know. I don't— sometimes I get comments like, man, I wish I could watch your special but can't afford it. It's like, dude, just tell me that you're not going to watch it. That's fine, don't lie. Um, so that's what my logic was. Everyone has $5 and that's all that I'll ask for. So I did the math. I couldn't do it in my head now. If however many thousand people give me $5, it'll work because I worked out, well, look, on my last tour I sold like 1,500 tickets and those were $25, whereas the online thing is not constrained by distance or travel or dates or what you're doing that night. So if I can get this many thousand people to give me $5, it should work. Um, but what I didn't really take into account was people giving way more than $5. You know, some guy gave me $1,000.

Tommy: What did he say? I want some nudes. I'm from that tour website. Yeah, I'm sending them over, baby.

Lewis: Crazy. I just, I just said I'll give you a signed setlist, uh, and as the reward for $1,000, and I didn't think that anyone would do it. Yeah, but someone did it, and, and that's a crazy thing because because that means that, I guess that means that I'm their favorite.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: You know, and which I don't think I'd ever experienced before. I had a lot of people that like me, but I'd never had many people go, oh, you're my favourite guy. Because everyone's favourite is like a special thing. Like mine is Bill Burr. I love Bill Burr. He's my favorite. And something slightly creepy about, he's my, like saying my favorite.

Josh: I like that.

Lewis: Well, my favourite comedian. You can't say, you're my favorite.

Josh: My favorite.

Lewis: You're my favorite.

Josh: Like a stalker thing. Um, and so was— so does that mean that you had like 10,000+ people all chip in?

Lewis: I think it was, I think it was a few thousand people. I can't really remember off the top of my head, but like where it— when— because it's been out now, I think we're nearing 10,000 people buying it. Yeah. And that includes the people contributing. So that's really, really cool.

Josh: Do you start sort of like, um, what is that called when you put your hands together and saying fuck, I can just, uh, if I get some sort of subscription thing and get all these cunts paying me $15 a month, I'm gonna—

Lewis: yeah, but that's— I don't want to do that. I want to make my shit— I always want to make my shit accessible because at the end of the day, I'm doing this because I want to perform as much as possible to the most people as I can. And you can't do that by ripping people off or just trying to get money.

Josh: So how do you know what your worth then? And do we— do you think that as artists or comedians, do people tend to undervalue?

Lewis: Definitely undervalue. And that's a big problem with me. Like, my first tour, I did a national tour and I only charged $20 for tickets. And then I got to the end of it and I had made no money. Um, like, I made a little bit of money but not enough to fund me to the next tour or to fund the next tour. It was enough to live for 6 months. And I was like, well, That doesn't work. And then I think that a lot of people do undervalue themselves in terms of ticket price or stuff. It's like a weird thing of some people undervalue, most people undervalue a lot where they think, oh, I'm not worth it, or I don't know why people are listening to me, or this video only got 100 views, that means that I suck. And then there's the other side, which is people overvaluing themselves, and that's just trying to get, take as much shit. I've always been about giving. I've just giving as much shit away for free so that when I ask for something once, yeah, they'll turn up. And that's just what it was because I did, you know, I did comedy online since, since 2012 just for free, never asking for a thing. And then, you know, 5 years after that I said I need one thing and they showed up.

Tommy: Have you— did you learn this? Like, because I mean, this is the Gary Vee jab, jab, right hook. Yeah, it's like that's exactly what he does. Free, free, free, please give me money.

Josh: How do you work out what the ask is?

Lewis: Um, yeah, I don't— I think it was— it ultimately, it was a combination of my dream, which was to do a special and to be a stand-up comedian, and then also because I was honest about that dream, that became a problem for them because they were like, oh, we know you care so much about this and we know you're performing and you do this and that, but we can't see you. We want to see you. So like, it was a combination between what I wanted to do and what they wanted to do. And then the solution to that was the comedy special. You know, they were like, we want to see you live. And I was like, well, I can't show it to you unless you come. And they're like, I'm in fucking Sweden. I'm like, dude, I'm probably never going there.

Tommy: So then you could probably crowdfund a trip, Euro trip. Lewis Spears Does Euro.

Lewis: That's true.

Josh: I think like the other thing too is it's like you talk about the 5 years prior, people see the big amount. There's an appealing nature to saying, and I do it too when especially when I was starting to get into video production, you talk about these big amounts that you make, but then what people don't realise is like, okay, 5 years, if you take $70,000 and put it over 5 years, you're at like minimum wage territory. Um, you know, has that been something that like that you've been thinking about in, in the future where it's like, how do I actually get a sustained salary?

Lewis: I think that's, that's what I've started thinking about more now, um, and that's, and that's come from my problem of undervaluing myself where I talked to— just recently I talked to a bunch of people and I was like, how much would you actually pay to see me? And all these people that like me were like, oh, I'd pay $60. And I was charging like $25. And I was like, oh, well, fuck, I'm too cheap.

Josh: Yeah, yeah.

Lewis: And you know, that would be reflected in how much money was left over at the end. And all that kind of stuff. And because I do all my tours myself up until recently, I've just finally got someone to help me out with it. So I never really had all these, all these people like going, oh, you're way too cheap. And now I look at, I look at my peers that are on the same level and they're charging like $70 a ticket, and I'm not going to do that. So now what, what I've kind of realised is that, uh, if I really want to give them as much comedy as I want, I need to start making enough money to to fund it properly. 100%.

Tommy: I've always found it like, when it comes to charging, what's the amount that comes to mind? Add a little bit more, because usually it's always—

Josh: yeah, we tend to add the value. And yeah, the other thing too is it's like, it's— this still is coming from a place of serving people, right? It's like realising that the only way that you're going to be able to serve people is by making enough cash that's sustainable.

Lewis: Yeah, so that's, so that's what I've really taken seriously this year is— and that's also the opposite end of like, well, if I want to make money, I need to start spending a bit as well to like get what I need. Like, so this year I was like, well, I need, I need enough money to, to fund an international tour and that I can lose money on because you generally lose money the first time you go a place. So I need to make enough money to make losing money justified. So I was like, well, I'll get a, I'll get a warehouse and I'll get a guy and I'll employ him to help me make videos. And then I just, you know, put it out there and I said— I've got a Patreon— and I said, look, this— I'm spending more money, um, I need some more patrons. Then people were like, oh yeah, he— I have noticed he's doing more, so I'll, I'll jump on and I'll support him a little bit. Whereas before, maybe I would have been like, oh, I'll get a guy when I get more Patreon supporters, or, or I'll rent a space when I sell more tickets. But sometimes it's just— it's a matter of working harder and giving more so that they kind of go, oh, he's working harder and giving more, maybe I'll contribute more as well, or I'll see a show, or I'll buy a poster, or whatever. So yeah, I think that's, I think that's the thing. I've always, I've always been hyper, hyper-focused on being, giving as much shit away for free, and then when I do charge, being as fair as possible. And to, to me, in my mind, that meant as, as cheap as I could make it Whereas I, I found that from talking to people who actually like me is they don't, they don't mind. They're happy to pay a normal amount of something. They're not offended by it, you know. Like some— like when I did the crowdfund, all these people messaging me were going, thank you so much, and for doing this so I can give you, give you something and help you achieve something. And I was like, well, no, thank you. And I think that's something that, that a lot of entertainers maybe should realise is that It is a mutually beneficial transaction. You're entertaining and they're giving you something. They're getting entertained and giving you a bit of money, and the world fucking spins.

Tommy: I mean, maybe it's hard because the thing you do is something you love, and then you're like, that's another— this is like, it's not easy for me, but it's like, this is a bit like as if I get paid for this. Like, you could go to LA right now if you had money for a holiday, and then you could go and do a bunch of stand-up, you know, like, and you'd feel like, fuck, this is a holiday. Especially once you start— if you got paid, I guess that's the mindset of big comedians. You hear Joe Rogan talk about— yeah, he kind of feels like, from what I gather, is he's like, fuck, like, this is amazing where I am. Like, they're all super grateful for having turned on this floodgate of money doing something they fucking love.

Josh: If you like the pro— if you love the process, then it becomes, you know, a lot easier.

Tommy: Yeah.

Josh: With the— yeah, with partnerships and teamwork and stuff like that, how How do you reconcile that with what you're doing?

Lewis: Uh, yeah, well, that's— I think that's, that's what it is. Like, you find yourself when someone offers you a job that you don't want to do, you quote them a stupid amount of money. Yeah, because, you know, if they say yes, great, then doing the shit job is worth it because I'll get heaps of money. And if they say no, great, I don't have to do the job. Uh, and so sometimes the opposite is like, oh, you want me to do comedy? I'll do it for 10 bucks. Yeah, I love comedy.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: Um, and you— oh yeah, you've got to find that middle ground.

Josh: So with, uh, your radio show and what you, what you develop, uh, going forward with that online, is, you know, what is the, uh, what's, what's your thoughts on the team dynamic of it? So yeah, two, two individuals coming together and doing a show.

Lewis: Yeah, well, it's really good. So, so me and Luke, we're, we're friends, and we, we never wanted to do a radio show together when we started being friends. We just were friends because we liked each other. We met through comedy, and we built a good friendship and a relationship, and we started doing online stuff together. And every time he grew, I grew, and it was just, you know, tide rises all ships kind of thing, and mixed with a really good friendship. And then, uh, I knew a few people in radio, and I thought 'Oh well, we do shit all the time, but we've never actually created a project. We've collaborated, but we've never like built something new. So why don't we try radio?' Um, and that— it just felt like the most natural thing in the world. And it really demonstrated to me also, after seeing all of a lot of other radio teams and radio shows that fall apart or don't do that well, just comes down to people getting put in a room that don't know each other.

Tommy: Yeah. And forced to be friends.

Lewis: Yeah.

Tommy: And it's like Friendships can't be forced.

Lewis: Yeah, no, you can't. Like, end of the day, that's why Hamish and Andy are so big and so genuinely loved by people, because it's a genuine friendship. If they didn't have a radio show, they'd be hanging out anyway. Yeah, whereas so many of these radio shows is like a Bachelorette contestant and a guy who hosted a TV show 2 years ago, and then some dude who kicked a ball really good, but they would never hang out together. It reminds me of like the those undercover ticket inspectors when they walk through the train and they're wearing like, it's like some 40-year-old Indian dude and then like a 30-year-old 6-foot-3 lesbian and then some giant 6'2" white guy. It's like, you guys aren't friends and that's why I know that you're ticket inspectors.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, and I'm fucking out of here.

Josh: Yeah, but they definitely could do a regional breakfast show.

Lewis: Exactly, like that's what they are. It's like the undercover ticket inspectors It's like undercover friendship. Yeah, it's not real.

Tommy: So funny. Um, something funny that you do online is Spotnebs, hashtag Spotnebs. Josh, have you seen that?

Josh: Yes, I have. Yeah, you should. Like, Tommy, always you are constantly showing me every single time there's a great photo.

Tommy: Well, basically it's, um, you've, you've— it's like paparazzi. It's like fan-populated paparazzi.

Josh: Yeah, where people crowdsourced.

Lewis: It is, it really is crowdsourcing paparazzi.

Tommy: People see Lewis and take a photo from ages away. Who, who started that? Did you start that or someone, someone thought there's a big tall guy that looks like Lewis?

Lewis: I don't know if you know this, man, but you can't actually take a photo of yourself from across the street, so I didn't start it.

Tommy: No, but no, as in, did you say if you see me you get fucking a piece of candy?

Lewis: Okay, it kind of was pretty handy. It was pretty organic. So this is when Snapchat was like a big new thing. Someone just took a photo of me and they sent it to me, uh, and I think— I can't remember if I came up with spot names or they captioned it, but anyway, they just took a photo. I thought it was funny, and then I just screenshot it and I didn't post it. But then like a month later, someone else took one, uh, and then I just took a screenshot. I didn't post it, and then I just had nothing to put up, so I just chucked it up. And it was just me from across the street just looking at my phone or whatever, and it got heaps of likes. People thought it was funny. Um, and then I just had this little caption of going, if you would just taking the piss out of the people that did that. I was like, if you want to take a photo of me and send it to me, instead of saying hi, follow me here. And people thought that was so funny that they just started doing it. And, and to the point where there was a little bit in my career where I was like, man, I am fucking dying because no one's saying hello anymore. No one's coming up to me. But people have— people was doing that less. They would prefer to take the photo and then send it to me. So I was getting more of them and less hellos in public. Um, we're talking—

Tommy: we're talking with, um, Stringer we had on the show last week, um, and it was talking about me becoming a meme.

Josh: Yeah.

Tommy: And do you plan to become a meme or does it evolve? And that's essentially what's happened. You've become a meme in that—

Josh: in that—

Lewis: yeah, well, that's, that's what it is. Like, that's like— it's not a viral thing, but that's just— I don't think you can— I never think you can plan that meme thing. You can only embrace it. And then you can kind of take control a little bit after it happens. Like DJ Khaled is a perfect example. Like he started doing that, everyone was just laughing at him and he was like, oh, okay, I can do this. If you want me to be that guy, I'll be that guy. And it fucking works.

Tommy: Well, who was it? Howard Stern, Josh, saying that phrase?

Josh: Oh yeah, he calls himself the king of all media and it all of a sudden started to stick.

Tommy: Logan Paul, he's like, I'm the number one podcast in the world. And even on video lately he's like—

Lewis: Episode 1, he was like biggest podcast best person in the world.

Tommy: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's now, it's now climbing. And even on one of his recent videos, he's like, dude, it's fucking actually happening.

Josh: Self-fulfilling prophecy.

Lewis: Yeah, you have to do that. Like, I, like, I remember you gotta have that self-belief. Like, we— I used to— I still do. I always, before I get on stage, I'd go, I'm the fucking best, I'm the best. And me and my friends used to do that for us when we were starting out, and we sucked. Yeah, but we were like, let's be the fucking best. And every now and then it would happen where be the best comedian on the lineup and you'd be like, fuck yeah, I am the best, and it becomes true. I'm not the best yet, but that's the mindset, you know. I wanna become that, so you gotta tell yourself that, otherwise you won't be. Like Dave Chappelle, you know, he's probably the best stand-up in the world and he starts one of his recent comedy specials going, I'm the best comedian in the world and comedy's getting too easy for me. And his whole hour is just about how how fucking good he is at stand-up and how he can do anything and make you laugh. And he's right. And he probably wouldn't be right if he didn't think that. And I bet you he thought that before he was.

Josh: What's your international audience like?

Lewis: It's criminal. It's growing more. So before it was like 90% Australia, but now it's like 60% America.

Josh: Interesting.

Lewis: So it's kind of growing there.

Tommy: That's probably the best thing, right?

Lewis: Well, I think that's where I picture myself going. I'm going to LA and New York. Next month for a whole month because I, I, in my head that's where my career ends up is either LA or New York because the stand-up scene's really good. I may hate it, that's why I'm going, you know, because I want to scope it out.

Josh: Have you been to the States before?

Lewis: I've never been. I've only ever been to Thailand. It's about as far away from Australia.

Tommy: Led down a back alleyway.

Lewis: Yeah, I didn't like that.

Josh: There's like legit like a lot of— I know you're, you're making fun of the Sketchers stuff, but their presence in the US, they've got a lot of Sketchers That's good. That's good.

Lewis: Especially around just king hitting people.

Josh: So the East Coast and West Coast, like, uh, you're gonna spend what, a couple of weeks in each one?

Lewis: Yes, I'm gonna do New York for 2 weeks and I know a bunch of stand-up comedians. Well, I don't know them, I've just talked to them online, just internet people. So I'm just going to link up with everyone in New York that I know, then I'll go to LA and link up with everyone there that I know and try and perform as much as possible. And see it and do everything. And, and then kind of— because I realised that's probably years away of me actually moving there. But if I like one more than the other, I'll be like, well, now I'm going to be working towards living in New York or living in LA and trying to do that. Because I think I've always been like such a long-term goal person. I love setting impossible goals. Like, I wanted to do the comedy special. I knew I was going to do that year one, and I knew it wasn't going to happen for ages, but that was always the goal. And then I did the special, and for about 8 months I felt really lost because I didn't have this thing that seemed fucking impossible.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: And now I think it's blow up in America, and that's impossible now, but I may do it.

Tommy: Um, is there a pecking order? Like, does it feel like— I guess from being online where you get to put it up wherever you want, and if it works, it works, if it doesn't, it doesn't— the comedy scene on an actual on-the-ground level, are you going to, you know, thinking about going to LA? Is there— do you have to sort of stay in your lane? Is it we're all over here doing our thing?

Lewis: Well, I don't really ultimately know, but I have noticed that the people that blow up online are so much more welcoming to other people because I feel like people mostly know that we benefit each other. Yeah, the bigger your friends are, the bigger you will be when you do a video with them and all that kind of stuff.

Josh: It's democratised as well, right? So it is that whole—

Lewis: it's quite a merit-based thing. Like, if, like, if, you know, if you're, if you're good and consistent, you will get big online pretty much. Um, there's obviously exceptions to that, but generally, um, but yeah, I've noticed that in, in Melbourne, a lot of the people from the traditional scene don't like the online thing because there's, there's this mentality of, of, oh, wait to get chosen and wait to get picked. But, and then, then these online guys come out of nowhere a few years ago and just start selling tickets with with no radio, no TV, no one putting them in that position, no one saying, "Yes, you're allowed," or no gala spot, or even a good venue in the Comedy Festival. And then all of a sudden, these 20-something-year-old people come out of nowhere and start selling more tickets than these people who've been doing it for 10 years. And this whole reaction was like, "Oh, you guys are skipping the queue." And then we're all standing there going, "There's no queue." Yeah, didn't you get the memo? Just go and get your food.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: You know, sometimes with the traditional thing, a lot of them act like you selling a ticket takes one away from me. But I've noticed with the guys that are all blown up online, we're all completely different people from different backgrounds. But whenever any one of us does well, the other people are like, fuck yeah, that's awesome.

Josh: Yeah. What does your narrative look like going back, say before you'd sort of built an audience? What were those key milestones? Do you have it like clear in your head?

Lewis: Yeah, I would say, I would say it was, it was the first one was when I realised that the online thing was, was comedy. Because I did it for almost a year just for fun, because without even realizing, because there weren't, there was, weren't— when I started was 2012, there were really no big consistent online Australian personalities other than Alex Williamson, who I think paved the way for all of us. Um, he— because, but when I started, it was uncool to like Australian YouTubers or even to think of becoming one.

Josh: It was an interesting— I remember going to, um, a conference called Game On, and it was like a pre-VidCon in Australia type of thing. And it was—

Tommy: where was that?

Josh: It was in Sydney. It was when I spoke to an audience of—

Tommy: oh, this is the one I saw you.

Josh: Yeah, yeah. And it was like the YouTube scene was a very specific underground. It's like very blue hair.

Tommy: Like, yeah, even VidCon last year I went. Jules Lund had some tickets and it was like, yeah, there's still the same thing, but it's not the same as the States still.

Lewis: But because VidCon won't give any fucking tickets to people who are actually big here because we all say cunt. Yeah, like, that's, that's what it comes down to. Like, so I, like, you know, I reached out to to VidCon a few times and they knocked us back. And I'm not the biggest, but I'm one of, you know, if you're talking like actual YouTubers. And there are people 10 times the size of me that reached out and got knocked back because they were too Australian. It came down to which is swearing and drinking and stuff like that.

Josh: So is that adpocalypse thing, is that actually something that you have to worry about?

Lewis: I don't, thankfully, because I have ticket sales.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: Um, but But if I wasn't doing stand-up, I'd be fucked.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: You know, like, thank God I've got, you know, ticket sales and people can download the comedy special because, yeah, I'm not like— I reckon I used to make 3 times as much on ads as I used to, and I'm bigger now than what I was.

Josh: Yeah. So that milestone thing that you were talking about, so the year-end, so realizing—

Lewis: when I realised that it was comedy and then I started thinking about stand-up and And then another thing was when I left the group that I was working with because I wanted to do stand-up and nobody else did. And so it was kind of like a natural thing of, well, I need to do stand-up, you know.

Josh: Were they doing mainly like sketches? Was that what that was? Or what was the sort of—

Lewis: It was just like different goals growing up, you know what I mean? Like we started it when I was 18, the other people were like 17. It was just— we just grew apart quite naturally.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: So then I was like, well, fuck, I need to— I need to be Lewis Spears. Because at the time I was going under a name, Nebs, which was just a nickname from high school. So I was like, fuck, well, I can't be like, welcome to the stage, Nebs. That sucks. So I left the group, I started a new— my page got deleted on Facebook because it was too much fuck stuff on it. And it was like right after I left the group, so there was like no go and cheque out Lewis who's doing stuff over there. There was none of that. So I had to start from scratch and I had this moment of like, fuck, I don't know if I can build it from zero again.

Josh: What was the audience like when you left in size, size-wise?

Lewis: Uh, not that big, like 20,000 or so. Um, still, which is, yeah, still there, but then it got deleted so it was back to zero. So then I started again and I was like, oh fuck, I don't know if I can do it. But because it was first time working by myself and first time building from zero as well Um, and then there was a moment where I had this one video that went crazy viral, uh, where I just did Pinger Pete, the police are planning a party. And that still goes around today where it's just— it's like a police, uh, ad about road safety where they're going, the police are planning a party, and they go, there's lollipops, and they're like doing mouth swabs for drugs and just like a parody thing. So I reacted to it and I was like, oh, that sounds fucking sick. Yeah, this whole thing of like, oh, I'm gonna go to this party. And then that went, that went crazy viral and I was like, oh no, I can do this by myself. Um, and then it was just like, just, I just kept doing it. And the other notable milestones was getting on stage at the Comics Lounge for the first time and I did okay. I didn't tank on my first comedy set. Tanked hard on my second.

Josh: What was that like?

Tommy: Blow the wind out of your sails?

Lewis: Well, yeah, because I did my whole set and I researched gigging and I went up there going, I'm gonna tank and that's okay. And then I got up and I did pretty well. Yeah, like I didn't smash, but I did pretty well. Did you tell people?

Josh: Was it like your primed audience or was it just—

Lewis: it was just the Comics Lounge show. It was like just the perfect, just strangers who didn't know me. So it was a genuine response, you know. So I got up there because I also knew that if you get up in front of fans, it's a soft crowd, you know? It's hard to bomb in front of them.

Tommy: You're primed to laugh.

Lewis: Wanted to do it properly, so got up there and I did pretty well. And I was like, fuck, if I did pretty well on my first gig, I'm gonna be amazing. And I did my second, my third, and my fourth, and I tanked so hard on all the next ones. I was like, oh man, clearly I fluked the first one.

Tommy: Is it no laughs, or is it an internal feeling where it's just you feel like you're fucking every minute of it?

Lewis: It was both. It was like I got on, be like, gonna smash it, smash it again, and then just silence. So I was like, oh shit. And then, and then I was quite bad for a while, and then I started getting better and better.

Josh: And what are the tells, by the way, that you notice around whether something's tanking? Like, what do you do? Do you start speaking a bit louder? Yelling?

Lewis: Just fucking flat out yelling? Well, what's good is it happens less. It still does happen, but it happens a lot less now because, because I have backup material to fall onto. I generally only ever don't do well now if I'm trying something new for the first ever time. And maybe I'm, maybe I'm wrong, or maybe I haven't remembered it properly, or the— it's just a little bit new. Um, but I don't— I haven't like properly bombed for a while now, which is good. Um, if it was still happening at this point, you'd be worried and maybe thinking maybe it's not for me.

Josh: So have you got material in your head then where it's like, if shit hits the fan, yeah, I've got a real easy confidence booster that I can just throw out there?

Lewis: So now what's great is now when I'm testing material, I start off with something really good that always works pretty much. And then I chuck in my stuff that's a gamble. And if that tanks, no worries, 'cause I finish it with something awesome too. You give them a shit sandwich. And then eventually, you know, that stuff that's in the middle becomes good. And then you can start opening with that. And then you replace the shit stuff with some more new shit, and you just kind of work it like that.

Tommy: Um, do you listen back to all your sets? Like, yeah, yeah.

Lewis: So I record them. I've got this awesome app called— I think it's called Otter— that transcribes it as well, which is so good. So now when— because before what I would do is I record it, and if I did really well, I would sit there and I'd write it out listening to it. But now I can— if I do, if I smash, I can just take out the text and fix the spelling errors that the AI's made. Yeah, which is great. Saves me a lot of time.

Josh: Do you search cunt to see how many times you say cunt in the show?

Lewis: Well, no, I try, I use cunt as a weapon. I try not to swear as, 'cause I do know that I swear a lot normally in conversation, but when I'm on stage, I try to use it properly because that was a bad habit of mine when I started was I would just swear so much. And then if a punchline had a swear word in it, wouldn't hit as hard.

Josh: Yeah, really? And so when you were at the stage of those first few shows, what was your audience at? Like on, from an online perspective? Were you back at the 20,000 or—

Lewis: Yeah, so, so basically my, my page got deleted and it took another year to get it back to where it was. And through that year I was just— because, you know, those people still know you, they just need to find you again. So it wasn't as hard as starting from nothing. Yeah, because they were there, they just were like, oh fuck, why isn't he showing up on Facebook? And they'd search me and I kind of got them back with a couple of viral things and got new people. So I think when I did my first tour, I was only at like 20,000, 28,000 people or so, which is quite big, but, but if you're doing a tour, pretty small. And I just did like, I did the Melbourne Comedy Festival. I did 12 shows there in like a little 60-seater conference room where my head touched the roof. A funny storey from that is, as a joke, I used to rub my forehead on the roof, just, which was really funny, and it would like, it would vibrate and make a stupid noise, which was hilarious and such a good joke until I had to pay to get the sweat stain removed.

Josh: Really? Yeah.

Lewis: And then, and then I toured around. I did every state except for Tassie, and I think in Brisbane I booked a 176-seater and I sold 17 tickets.

Tommy: I know.

Lewis: Um, and, and that was humbling, but it turned out to be one of the best shows of the tour to the 17 people. Yeah, just because I just went on there and acknowledged it, and people were just kind of like, ah, well, he fucked up, but we're here. So, but, but, you know, it's, it's just from perseverance and keeping on doing it. I went to Brisbane last year and I sold out 450.

Tommy: Yeah, that's crazy.

Lewis: Went from my smallest show ever to my biggest.

Tommy: What's, um, what's arriving for you? You know, like, if you think about these times, all these storeys are rubbing the head. Like, this seems to be the fun, you know? It's like, it's hard because it's so hard as you're doing it. Yeah, getting 17 people is no fun for anybody.

Josh: 17 is fucking great.

Tommy: I mean, it'd be great for us. Could you imagine?

Lewis: 17 would be the momentum when you book flights and pay for venue hire and Airbnb. 17 tickets doesn't even pay for breakfast.

Josh: When I did the game on, literally there was one person in the crowd when I was talking.

Tommy: At least you were getting paid, dude.

Josh: Yeah, you were an employee. You got paid.

Lewis: No guarantees, but it's your show.

Tommy: What's arriving for you? Do you see it like that, you know, like getting to this?

Josh: Or—

Lewis: well, yes, it finally— I feels like at the beginning stages of big, you know, like it's not huge. But I went to Brisbane in front of 450 people and I did an hour and a half, and like I had the skills to back that up, and it was definitely my best show. That I'd done. And I've got this comedy special and a body of work out there that people can go, and it's just constantly ticking over of new people watching and finding me online. And I've got a guy working for me to help me put out more stuff. It, it really feels like I'm right on, on, on— like I've hit a plateau and I'm just about to hit the next flight of stairs. Like, I feel really, really good about what's coming next. Because I know that I've, you know, I've, I'm, I think I'm through the scary stage.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: You know, where I might run out of money or, you know, I'm not rolling in it, but I've got enough to last until the next tour and that's all I need.

Josh: Do you feel that in this new age of sort of building an audience, are we going to have people who are known around Australia? So for instance, you look at like the Huzies of the world where it's like they're Australian icons or whatever, or within Australia they go down the street and everyone knows them. Do you think that that is the destiny for what you're doing, or do you think that with all of these audiences, they're the sort of thousand true fans, or the 10,000, or the 20, or the 100,000 true fans?

Lewis: I don't— yeah, I don't think that will happen. I don't think that— well, I don't know, maybe. But what I've noticed now is like When I— so the Melbourne Comedy Festival's on, so all of the people who are big online and do stand-up as well are in the same city. So there's me, Luke Higill, Isaac Butterfield, who's new, Frenchie, Alex Williamson, uh, Fairbarn Films, they're new as well. Between us, 3 of us have like over a million people who follow them. I've got like half a million, so does Luke. Between all of us, there's probably about 5 million people following all of us as a group. And when we walk through the city, no one recognises all of us. Like, one guy will go up to Frenchie and be like, Frenchie, I love you. And they'll see all of us, don't know what we look like.

Tommy: Yeah.

Lewis: Or some guy will come up to me like, Lewis, man, I love your stuff. And I do a fucking radio show with Luke. Yeah, he has no idea who he is.

Tommy: Yeah, it's—

Lewis: I think that the future is just grabbing your type of person and holding on to them. And we always laugh in the city when someone comes up to us and we go, oh, that's one of Frenchy's, because he's got like a mullet and a flannel. Or it's like, oh, it's one of mine, he's like a, like an emo.

Josh: They get you to take the photo type of thing.

Lewis: Yeah, yeah, I've had that so many times where I'll take the photo, and I think that's fucking awesome. Everyone just finding their crowd of people. And that— what that also means is that You know, if I do a video with Frenchie, I'm being opened up to a whole audience that I would never attract on my own. That would— that means that the more we work together, the more we have so much more to grow. Yeah, even the people that are 10 times the size of me, if they're not attracting the people that I am, I have so much to give them by working with them.

Tommy: Yeah, you said it perfectly. Rising tide raises all boats.

Lewis: Yeah, exactly. And that's, and that's why I think the, the guys who are big online, the kind of new wave of comedians, I found have been so much more supportive and welcoming than, than the traditional industry, uh, in comedy. Which is, which is changing a little bit because they're— I feel like they're kind of realising that, oh shit, maybe, maybe television isn't the future. Maybe, maybe Channel 10 can't make my career anymore.

Josh: Well, I mean, what is— what does mainstream mean? Like, what I wonder is, it's like, what is— what does it mean, say, in 5 years' time when you go into an Uber At the moment they're either, you know, they've got like Gold FM, Fox, they've got like one of the, the, you know, the, the radio stations in Melbourne. What happens in 5 years? What is, what's on the, the, the screens at bars? What's on where, what are people—

Lewis: well, yeah, that's why I think everyone's just listening to their own shit. Like, I, I was in a, I drove around a friend who has a Tesla. And being in that thing, I was like, it's got Spotify, it's got podcasts, it's got— it had like 4 different apps of just whatever the fuck you could think of. It was just in the car.

Josh: Yeah.

Lewis: And I thought, there wasn't a radio button. Yeah. Like, there was not a radio button on that thing. There was no dial. I was like, okay, it's fucked, you know. And the same thing with, with television. I go to my, my friend's house who's who's young and he's doing really well and he's, he's got enough money to, to build an entertainment system in his house. And on his massive fucking television, it's YouTube. Yeah, you know, just auto-playing stuff that, that's recommended for him. And then if he gets bored of that, he gets the remote and hits the Netflix button. It's not— I think the future is just everyone's specific interest and there is no mainstream anymore. Like, when's the, when's the last time— like, you guys obviously have friends in radio, but when have you talked to a friend that doesn't work in the entertainment industry, when's the last time they said, oh man, you know what I heard on radio the other day? Do you know what I watched on TV? Yeah, never.

Josh: I worked at a—

Lewis: this guy on Joe Rogan said that, or I was listening to this podcast, you should cheque it out.

Josh: I remember going into Envato where I used to work, tech company, over 200 people in the office. I was on Hamish and Andy, did a whole bit, whole like segment on there, and I walk in the next day like a top dog and there was literally one person in HR who has a commute who heard it. It's like no one's listening, like no one is listening to the whole show. Yeah, exactly.

Lewis: And that's what, that's what being in radio really taught us, is you start every single talk break when the song finishes, I go, "It's Luke and Lewis," because no one listens to the whole show and you have to tell them what they're listening to. And then so often throughout the the talk break, which goes for 4 minutes, you've got to keep using each other's names because people will turn in halfway through and they'll hear 2 voices, have no idea who they are until I go, great idea, Luke, thanks, Lewis. And they go, oh, Luke and so much resetting, you know.

Tommy: I mean, like, forward hooking something is useless. Like, I've pulled over and searched something, they're like, coming up after this is this. I'm like, that's interesting, I'm just going to search it right now. Pull over and talk. Yeah, like, it— yeah, it's, it seems archaic.

Lewis: Like, we found— because what we did with radio is we, Luke and I, folded it into our online content. And so we filmed every show and we did a podcast, and we made sure we set that up and we owned it ourselves instead of the radio owning it. Um, and we noticed that when we, we were filming and we were editing clips and putting them out there, uh, Luke did a tour and then I did one 6 months later. So when we were putting effort into our socials and putting videos out, people showed up to Luke's show with in-jokes. So we had a thing of like Savoys are the best biscuits. Some guy brought 40 boxes of Savoys to Luke's show, gave one to every person in the audience. Pretty funny. Like, he would have spent like $60 on a stupid radio joke, and people were showing up giving him gifts and wearing t-shirts that we talked about and just shit like that. And then because we were putting so much effort into the socials of the radio show, our personal stuff started to slip a little bit. So me and Luke went, well, we need to focus on us because we have tickets to sell and we are each of our own main priority. Luke and Lewis is a project we're doing, but Lewis Spears and Luke Kidjell are the main thing. So we stopped making videos for Luke and Lewis, we started again for our individual stuff. I had my tour 6 months later, not a single person came from the radio show.

Tommy: Yeah, interesting.

Lewis: Which means No one's coming to the show from listening to us on radio. It was all the online stuff we were doing. Yeah, it was all the podcasts, all the videos, everything like that. There wasn't a single person who heard us on radio and thought, I'm gonna buy a ticket to go and see him, or I'm gonna cheque them out on Instagram or Facebook, you know.

Tommy: In the last few years of Hamish and Andy, I literally was just watching their snippets online. I felt like I was watching— I was listening to their show. I remember I was an avid listener at one point. But then that slipped, but then I felt like I was still getting everything, getting the joke.

Josh: But when you don't have that commute or whatever, or if it changes— like, I heard a stat around having long podcasts and the fact that, like, if it's over an hour, people listen to less than 50% or whatever. But it's like, it's still good when you consider, like, a radio show. Like, you definitely aren't listening to a, you know, a radio show from start to finish.

Lewis: As opposed to what? Listening to 30 seconds of a radio show and then changing because you hear an ad. Yeah, that happens way more, you know, like, and I've talked to Haym Shandy about this, about what you were saying, was they, they would talk to people that are genuinely huge fans of them, be like, I listen to your show all the time, but they would only ever reference talk breaks that they posted on Facebook or YouTube, and they feel like they're listening to it, and they are. Yeah, they're just listening to little chunks, but they're not actually listening to it on radio or even listening to the full show.

Josh: That's why I think video is so powerful. Video, I don't think, like, I don't think, like, a lot of people argue you don't, you know, you don't need to film your show and all that sort of thing.

Tommy: You do.

Josh: But yeah, when it comes to actually being able to have snippets and being able to share it, for, for us, the, the full show as video is, is just a nice to have that will slowly build over time. People open up in a tab, it might be the choice for some people, but the real benefit is from the— yeah, from the show, we'll have a clip and it will go up on Instagram and then that might inspire people to, to, to listen. But also that might be the thing—

Lewis: this is bullying Josh about sketches, I have to listen to this.

Josh: Exactly. And so that's— I think that there's, there's so much power in that video content as well.

Lewis: Yeah, definitely. And, and that's— we— that's what we made such a big deal out of filming every show. And the radio people are like, I think you're focusing too much on filming the show than actually doing the show. And we said I think you're a dinosaur, uh, because we noticed, like, you know, we're on— we started on Modern Digital, which has no listeners, which is kind of the point, so we could be shit and it didn't matter. Yeah, while we were learning. And that we had people calling the show and they were like, what the fuck, how are you getting this? It's like, because we're doing videos.

Josh: Yeah, yeah, that's super interesting. Would love to have you back on when we're in our—

Lewis: absolutely not.

Josh: Yeah, I'm just worried about the height, the height The door, the door height I'm concerned about.

Lewis: I'm used to that.

Tommy: It's, um, what is it, 2200? You'll fit.

Lewis: So I've got 20 meters?

Tommy: No, no, 2200 millimeters.

Lewis: So I've got 2 centimetres to spare.

Josh: Is that really?

Lewis: I'm 2 meters.

Tommy: No, you're— it's 20 centimeters. So you're 2 meters, you're 2000, the door frame is 2200.

Lewis: Okay, glad we got that sorted. Otherwise we could—

Josh: or we could like winch you up with the rope or whatever. The top bit.

Tommy: You have to come back in, yeah, when we are in our new space. Josh will give you a free pair of Sketchers.

Lewis: Yeah, great. I'd love to come in when it's not Easter. This is a real fuck around.

Tommy: Yeah, I know, Easter Monday, crazy.

Lewis: Well, public holiday, boys.

Josh: Yeah, I've, uh, I've definitely overdone the whole egg thing. That's okay.

Lewis: I was prepared to just ignore it. We're gonna rope Lewis into— I'm not pretending for you guys. This is your podcast, not mine. It's 2023. Recorded. We recorded it last year.

Josh: That's not true.

Tommy: No, mate, it's exciting seeing what's happening. I'm looking forward to seeing you walk up that next flight of stairs.

Lewis: Yeah, it's really cool. Thanks for having me on, boys.

Josh: The Daily Talk Show, hypethedailytalkshow.com. Do you have any emails? Do people email you ever, or is it all DMs and shit?

Lewis: Uh, follow me on Instagram, guys. Send me a letter.

Josh: But do people actually— you do have a—

Lewis: yeah, I get— I've got an email thing for my podcast.

Josh: Yeah, I like the email thing.

Lewis: Emails are good, they're all thought out. I'm going to sit down and write an email. It's a DM, it's just like a dick pic or fuck you.

Josh: Yeah, you just need to actually read them out. That's a bit that we like— we tell people the email address and we— but do send us an email. It's a Daily Talk Show. We'll see you tomorrow, which is Tuesday. Yeah, hi@thedailytalkshow.com. There you go. And also we have a PO Box. Do you have a PO Box? No.

Lewis: Yeah, well, how about she's yours?

Josh: Yeah, yeah, actually no, seriously, PO Box 400 Abbotsford, Victoria 3067.

Lewis: If you want to send me a letter, that's the way.

Josh: We'll send it through. How you going, guys?