What'd the nicest thing you have ever done?
The nicest thing? Um, well having a baby's nice.
[gets out mobile phone and shows us his background, of him and his beautiful, wide eyed (most probably jetlagged) infant daughter]Is that really cliché?
Danna and Ali: AWWW!
"Aww, isn't it cute."
Ali: Hey, we're girls okay? We're allowed to make those noises.
Danna: Involuntary cooing is what we do when shown cute baby photos.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, totally.. The nicest thing? That's a weird question.. Um, yeah.. Probably the nicest thing I've ever done is not, really, repeatable. I mean, I think nice things are what other people might think as quite strange things. Um, uhhhhhhh, in terms of profoundness, um, having a baby's nice. There are lots of nice moments with a baby. But you have fucking awful ones too! But you know, the more big things that happen in life, I wouldn't describe as 'nice', because they're always.. they're complicated, you know? Like, getting this career for me has been like winning the fucking lotto, I can't believe I've got this career after doing what I've been doing perfectly happily for ten years, and then to suddenly go, "Oh fuck, I've got this career! Let's go around the world and shit!" It's fucking amazing, but it comes at a price, and there's always downsides; it's really hard work, I've got a really huge tax bill, I don't know where my home is, people recognize me when I'm not in the mood - whatever. Whereas, with a baby, it's very pure; there's downsides to it, but the moments that are nice erase those pretty much, there's no like "Awh shit, I'm going to pay for this..", you know?
Ali: Just as soon as they do something cute, all is forgiven.
Yeah, that's exactly right. It's a very pure, nice type of nice.
Why is it on most occasions, you lack any kind of footwear? Besides the fact that you say it's an 'affectation'?
[it's was at this point he looked down and laughed at his feet, while wriggling his bare toes around. he'd removed his shoes at some point during the thirty minutes we had been talking]On staaage, on stage I guess, like, growing up in WA in the nineties, probably the same in Brissy, people in bands were always walking about in their feet because it's just a kind of hippy, cool thing to do especially around Freemantle. But I've started doing it during comedy mostly because it made me feel comfortable, so yeah.. it's boring. I don't mean it's a boring question! It's just my answer is boring! I always give boring answers because I'm asked it a lot, but it's a good, inquisitive question nonetheless.
Do you have a hair maintenance regime, or is it just neglect?
Hah! Snap! Uh, um.. I don't brush it out inbetween shows very much, I just tease it. I don't tease it too much -Fuck! I didn't buy any hairspray? Got any hairspray? No, no one uses hairspray! Of course you don't use hairspray! Who uses hairspray besides me these days?
I have a pot of wax?
Yeah, I've got goo, but I usually try and spray it a bit. Yeah, I have to get it chemically straightened, as well documented, which is about... once every six months. It grows out and you start seeing the height, because the curls are coming through, and so then I get it straightened again, I get someone to go Cung! Cung! Cung! and chop it up, and then every night I go, Chuh! Chuh! Chuh! and then every now and again I'll wash it out and go Cusht! Cusht!
[he speaks directly into the recording device aka my mobile]I was doing some actions there, but you couldn't see them.
Does your writing happen in juxtaposition, or do the music and lyrics happen separately?
I tend to write a lyrical idea, and I put that idea, the hook or whatever I think the central line is, and I try and work a bit of music around that. Or I might get two lines, or a rhyming couplet or something, and I work the music around that and then I tend to expand the music, and then fill it up. It always starts with the lyrics, it never starts with music unless I'm going, "I'm going to write a funk song for this documentary", as I do a whole lot of other writing as well. But for comedy songs, it starts with a lyrical idea and the lyrics have to motivate the music, because the comedy comes from how they relate. It's an important choice.