Interview from a 2003 phone conversation

Dave Hughes
is a comedy contradiction …

He takes on the persona of the Aussie larrikin, a wag, a joker, but he has come a long way from his days of being a student and living on the dole to become one of the hardest working people in the Australian comedy scene.

With his frequent live performances, new CD — “Whatever’, television show (ABC’s The Glass House), radio show (Breakfast – with Hughesy, Kate and Dave on Nova), Dave keeps himself pretty busy. Despite the hard work it is difficult to imagine Dave dragging himself out of bed each morning.
“It is annoying getting up that early, but I suppose I’m only on the air three hours. People probably get up there and work twelve hours. I don’t know,but I still whinge. I have a massive whinge about having to get up that early.”

As his fans would hope, Dave has a new comedy show at this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival – Massive. “I’ve got lots of new stuff. I set myself (the task) of writing some new jokes and working them in. You need to be working to write new material, because it is a matter of thinking of it, getting on stage doing it, and then it sort of grows from that. One idea can become a very different joke, or a much longer joke overtelling it on stage. Finding different ways for it to be funny.
“To become a good stand up you’ve got to hone your material, and have the same routines every night so that you can get up on stage and do a reliable job. As you’re comfortable with your environment over time you start to loosen up more. I think I have done that a bit over the years, so [it’s more] sort of improv. Some comedians try to do that straight away, and I just say ‘look, just get your joke right for a start and once you are really solid you can relax more and improv more’. I did some very, very dodgy gigs in my early career, I’m telling ya. Some nights you’d be funny and you’d think ‘I’ve got this — I’ve worked it out’ and the next night you’d get up and you’d just get nothing and you’d think ‘fuckin hell, I thought I had the secret and I just had nothing’. It’s all about having good jokes and relaxing when you are on stage.”

Dave started doing comedy at open mike nights in Perth, where he met a young Rove McManus.
“I started the week before Rove McManus, and he said to me a few years later ‘you inspired me to do comedy, ‘cos I saw your first gig and thought if someone that bad is allowed to do I’m glad I’m the inspiration for these TV celebrities.”

Seven years later Dave had his first comedy show at the Melbourne Comedy Festival, ‘Hughesy and friends are lying to the government’. Not quite an overnight success, a major
point in his career was when he was able to get off the dole. “That was always a dream of mine – to make a living out of comedy.
“I started thinking, ‘I can’t put any more forms in or I’m gonna get in trouble’. I was very happy to keep putting forms in though…for a long time, but I thought I better not. So that was a good moment anyway. Since then it has been ‘whatever’. You very quickly get used to the fact that you are going all right, if you know what I mean, and you don’t really appreciate it as much as you should.”

I lasted six weeks out at Swinburne, getting the tram out every day. I really wasn’t very dedicated at that time.

Something that many students wouldn’t know is that Dave is a Swinburne dropout.
“I’ll tell you the true story. I did the first shitty Information Technology course that they had, at Hawthorn. This was back in 1989. It was obviously computers fully, and they placed you in work over summer in companies. I was there for six weeks. I lasted six weeks out at Swinburne, getting the tram out every day. I really wasn’t very dedicated at that time.
“I remember the concrete jungle. I remember getting the train out there and walking up to the, tall buildings… Ammm… that’s about all that I remember, mate.  I didn’t spend much time on Glenferrie road. No one would remember me, I only went to about four classes.”

So after seeing Dave’s new show we have has new CD “Whatever” to enjoy – “I’m pretty excited about it.”
When Tabula Rasa spoke to Dave, he was surprised to learn that Guido Hadzits also had a CD called Whatever, released two years earlier. In fact Guidos won the 2001 ARIA Award for Best Comedy Release. “I fuckin’ didn’t even know that he said Whatever. Is that what his CD is called? “Mate…It’s fuckin’…you’ve just fuckin’…you’ve just givin’ me a revelation. I don’t believe it. I probably wouldn’t have called it that. That probably sold a hundred thousand copies. Fuck.
“You’ve just freaked me out just then. It’s too late now. I’m gonna have to deal with that. I don’t know whether to call someone or not. I’ll just pretend that I didn’t know anything.”