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00:00Hi. Dave Hughes has been one of Australia's most successful comedians for decades, across
00:22stand-up, TV and radio. He won over audiences with his hilarious but brutally honest self-assessment.
00:29In this program, Dave explores the roots of his work addiction with the same unflinching gaze.
00:37One Queen. How was your day, Tess? You're the only one at school at the moment.
00:43It was pretty good, yeah. We were making stuff for graduation. We made those big
00:48paper tissue pom-pom things. I've spent a lot of time at the
00:52shrine of Dave Hughes just bowing down. I love crab sticks. You think about it,
00:57you get the goodness of a crab with the convenience of a stick. I'm concerned about wanting to be
01:04known or wanting to be adored by everyone or as many people as possible. How would you feel if
01:10I couldn't go to your graduation because I was working? Probably disappointed but not surprised.
01:15There's a difference, I think, in being a hard worker and being a workaholic. I feel he's a
01:20workaholic. God, kids are hard work. I had no idea. They never leave. That's why I work so much.
01:28Hughes's enduring mistress is his job. I think that was really hard for Holly at the start.
01:36How was your day, Dave? What did you do today? Thank you for asking. I thought someone might ask eventually.
01:40No, I'm not interested. I'm interested. Like when he goes away, he never tells her until
01:44like the last minute because he's scared of what she's gonna say, which is just idiotic.
01:49Sometimes he asks us if we can tell her. Yeah. But the fact that mum's like the head of that house,
01:54I think that's what happens when you're away a lot. Should I win Father of the Year or not?
02:00No. Should your mother win Mother of the Year? Yeah. There's nothing that he can achieve that
02:09will stop him feeling like he needs to keep working. I'm impressed by his drive but there's
02:16no point where it's ever enough. I begged one of the Surf Lifestyles. I said, just take me
02:20somewhere. I can see your buggy over there. He said, I meant to go on the road. I said,
02:24let's do it, mate. I'll pay you surge prices. Just go for it. I'm definitely addicted to comedy
02:31and always looking for the next audience. And that has had its trials and tribulations over the years.
02:38Oh, the flame trees will blind the weary driver. And there's nothing else to set fire to this town.
02:56There's no change. There's no place. There's no change. There's no pace. It's very evocative for
03:06me. It really is. I love coming back to Warrnambool. It's a beautiful town. And my father
03:15would always say it's the best place in the world. He'd never been anywhere else really.
03:18I come from a line of addictive personalities. And I think it's fair to say dad was addicted
03:26to alcohol. And I stopped with alcohol a long time ago. And maybe I've gotten a work addiction,
03:32which has been claimed. So, but I think it's a healthy addiction to be, you know,
03:37obsessed with making people laugh. This is a Deakin University. Remember on the university
03:48orientation camp, I got way too drunk and shat myself. That was terrible. I never really lived
03:56that down. And I was not ready to laugh at it back then. And no one was allowed to bring it up.
04:01It was a terrible time of my life. The old house there where I grew up with the yellow brick fence,
04:10there's a commission house area around here. Dave, the youngest of four of us,
04:18he was incredibly shy and not a big chatter. I think he internalised a lot of things.
04:23That internal monologue was basically narcissistic, morbid self-love, which I've had
04:33since I was probably four. Morbid self-love, like wanting to be the best and then being
04:38miserable because I'm not seen as being the best. No, Dave was not a funny kid. He was serious. He
04:47was a crier. He liked to cry. Particularly when Carlton lost, he cried a lot. You know,
04:52if I didn't make the first football team, I'd be in the bathroom crying, wondering why God
04:57doesn't love me. So I very much wanted to be a hero from a very young age. This is my field,
05:05my field of dreams, the Davidson Oval, where I played AFL for the old Collegians Football Club.
05:13These were my glory days. Dave's a good sportsman, good footy player. He was very courageous,
05:24like he used to back into packs and take marks that other people wouldn't do,
05:27but he's determined to take that mark and not be outplayed. There used to be cars up on the hill,
05:36honking their horns if you got the ball through. People cheering over on the stands over there.
05:43My old house was just here. Dad would be on the porch looking over the fence,
05:49or pottering around in the backyard, so a lot of good times. I still cherish my childhood and
05:58cherish my upbringing and I realise in a way how good I had it, even though it was very stressful,
06:06you know, with Dad. Do you remember the shift work, Dave? Yeah. When Mum was working late at
06:15Croyd Hospital and one of us had to wake him up. Oh my God. That was nervous times. He didn't want
06:20to wake up to do the midnight shift, did he? Never. No, but the worst was when he wouldn't
06:25go on the four o'clock shift. Oh yeah, that was terrible. He'd come home from school in the car
06:28and still be there. I know. Oh no, here we go. Yeah, that's right. It was going to be a tough
06:31night. It's true. My father worked at the local factory. If he was at home and he'd been drinking
06:37in the afternoon, obviously in his head he'd be going, I should be at work, you know, I'm not,
06:42and he'd be feeling guilty, I imagine, and he would take it out on the family, which is not
06:46fun. He was never physically violent, no, but emotionally it was hard. Look, it was,
06:53but we got through it. Made us tougher, do you reckon? We got through it well, yes.
06:58But I often really reflect how Mum coped with it all, but she did.
07:06David always said when Mum was alive he wouldn't talk about Dad's drinking. I had a respect for Mum,
07:14but we knew when Mum had passed that he would talk freely about it.
07:20Yeah, there'd be definitely times of feeling stressed and scared. Yeah, a lot of times.
07:27Knowing there's a loaded gun in the house and someone who is not mentally stable and
07:33drunk in the house is not a relaxing way to go through your childhood. It's a Dr Jekyll and
07:40Mr Hyde situation, which I think is pretty common, where they'll wake up the next morning and
07:46just get on with their day like they hadn't terrorised everyone the night before.
07:52Mum was very patient, obviously, and endured quite a bit of BS over the years,
07:58but, you know, she loved him and he had many lovable characteristics. Yeah.
08:06She never complained to my mother. She wasn't a complainer, so she would just get on with it.
08:09Very stoic, very, yeah, matter of fact. She was a very strong matriarch of our family.
08:18I think she's been a really good influence for him. She was an incredibly smart person
08:23with a very dry sense of humour. Yeah, he looked up to her a lot. They were like kindred spirits,
08:30in a sense, similar personalities.
08:36I was always a love to comedy, always. I loved to laugh.
08:42I reckon I was lying in bed maybe at the end of the day, and I'd just go,
08:45I reckon I was lying in bed maybe at the age of 14 where I thought, I want to do comedy.
08:49So I didn't really tell anyone, but it was there from a really young age.
08:55We're always trying to crack each other up. The class was always pretty funny.
08:59We used to torment Brother O'Brien. That became a bit of a sport in year 11. But I remember we
09:05were allowed to do a speech of an inspiring person in religious history, and Dave got up
09:11and just treated it like a game, and the whole room was in tears. And Brother O'Brien was going,
09:17sit down, son. Sit down, son. He's getting really cut. They just let Dave on.
09:23That moment in front of that class where they all laughed so hard at my improvised comedy,
09:29that really stayed with me like, I can be funny.
09:32We're here at the Max Hotel. These are all my old friends, or some of my old friends,
09:36who I used to play footy with. Simon and Stephen, they both did year 12 with us.
09:41Rats are a few years older. Six years older. Although his skin looks great, doesn't it?
09:47I don't know how these guys look so young, to be honest. I had Lee on a TV show I did years ago,
09:51and people were saying that he looked younger than me. I said, he's my fucking school teacher.
09:54I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie. I'm not going to lie.
09:59I said, he's my fucking school teacher. He's my school teacher.
10:04Anyway, what was I saying? Yes, Lee, who got the highest marks in year 12 at that school?
10:11When you hear about ducks of a school, you assume there's a cohort of 250 students. We had,
10:17I think, 25, and Dave Hughes ended up in front. So he's the official ducks of
10:23Service E in 1988.
10:26I got a scholarship to do information technology at Swinburne in Melbourne,
10:31and I was so bored. I lasted six weeks. I couldn't handle it.
10:40I came back and I worked in an abattoir for a year, actually. So that was confronting. So
10:47I'd started an accounting degree. It was good because I moved out of home and lived with some
10:53friends. I was one of the leaders of the party pack. I was certainly someone who encouraged
10:59people to get off their nuts. Dave's personality was that intense that he couldn't stop. Once he
11:06started, he couldn't go out and have two beers. He'd want to have like 15. And I did not study
11:12in the second year, so I failed every subject. So I quit uni, and then I basically was just
11:21on the dole, really. So that was a pretty depressing year.
11:30I was not in a good headspace. I was spending most days just sitting in the bath.
11:34I think alcohol was a big part of it, and marijuana was a big part of it. I was dependent
11:39on other substances for my moods. I was self-obsessed, and I was thinking I'm a failure in life.
11:51I hated myself, yeah. And actually my mother helped me out. I said to her that I thought
11:55I was schizophrenic. I was really having bad moments. And she took me to a doctor,
12:01and she took me to a doctor. This doctor said, I don't think you're schizophrenic,
12:04but it looks like your lifestyle's not helping you.
12:11Hey Mick. Hey. Hey Mick, how's it going? Good, Dave, how are you? Yeah, good. That's what we
12:17want. We're here for, mate, we're going to go through some photos. Yeah. This is me at my 21st.
12:25Dad, Mum, back in my drinking days, my last hurrah, basically. You grew up,
12:32J, and then you just looked a bit older. No, no, I was still 21. I'd had a bender after we
12:39actually won a grand final, and that went for probably eight weeks. And I actually,
12:45I think I read somewhere that every time you black out, you lose part of your brain. And I thought,
12:50well, that's every time I drink, so I mustn't have much brain left. I love this photo. Oh,
12:56yeah. So my ego kicked in to say that you have a good brain and you should protect the rest of
13:02your brain that's left. That was a big day. Was it Sunday afternoon or Saturday afternoon?
13:07Sunday afternoon. Yeah, that's right. In his mind, that's how he was going to continue.
13:12He was worried he was going to be like Dad. And at that young age, he decided to give it up.
13:17We thought, oh, he'll get back and have a few. Never. That was his resolve though, and that's
13:22him. There you go, lads. Sean. I thought he was brave because he's, well, I'm going to stop
13:27drinking because I've decided it's not good for me. And then, well, who am I then without the drink?
13:35I felt powerful. I felt like I'd taken the power back.
13:40I think I just got more focused on what I wanted to do.
13:43I moved to Perth with a friend and I started comedy. I followed my dream,
13:48you know, and I don't think I ever would have done it if I had have kept drinking.
13:52I don't reckon I would have had the mental clarity or the mental fortitude to do it.
14:13I first saw Husey at what was his very first stand-up gig at a comedy
14:21club called The Laugh Resort in Perth, and he fell flat on his face.
14:29It was the worst moment of my life. No one laughed.
14:35There was no jokes. Was that fair to say?
14:39Yeah. Yeah. It was an external thought process.
14:43Yes. On stage. My internal monologue was,
14:47you're not funny. You failed uni. You can't get a job. You are a complete loser. So that was what
14:53I was thinking as I was trying to make people laugh. To his credit, he got up the very next week
15:01to do another five minutes and again another week. And I have never seen anyone
15:10find their comedy voice as quick as Husey did.
15:15That third gig, I walked on stage and just relaxed. I thought I'm a winner for just being up here.
15:21And it just, it caught fire that night.
15:23I was talking about things in my life which were embarrassing and turning it into jokes.
15:30And that was the night I was hooked. All my brain was going, you're right. You are funny.
15:35This is a life for you. He very quickly worked up to being a headline act,
15:42and he wasn't there very long before he moved back to Melbourne.
15:54Yeah, so this is my first head shots, I think.
16:01There's not many wrinkles there. The hair is very dark. I don't know what's in here.
16:09Shit. God, that's heavy. Jesus.
16:14These are joke books from bloody 30 years worth of jokes all in here.
16:20I was a big self-help guy as well. There's so many here. Oh my God. I would journal and I would
16:27write about my experiences and I would, yeah, I would write about my hopes and dreams.
16:35The first time I came to hang out with him at his flat in St Kilda, the one thing I distinctly
16:42remember was in his room, his bedroom in this flat, just surrounding every space on the wall
16:50was inspirational quotes, just on random scrap bits of paper that was just staring at him 360
16:57from the moment he woke up. And as much as that could be seen as serial killer stuff,
17:04I quite admired it. Mum rang me up once a day. It's okay if you're gay.
17:08I said, Mum, I'm not gay. She said, I never see you with girls. I said, I do see girls. You never
17:13bring any of them down home. I said, Mum, it's a three hour drive down there. These girls want
17:17200 bucks an hour. I remember you doing material on stage about being with prostitutes. Yes.
17:25And it felt to me at the time, the scene, like the other comedians-
17:29They were having trouble dealing with it.
17:30They had trouble dealing with it. And you were kind of put on the outer,
17:33you were sort of not blacklisted, but you were frowned upon.
17:37But I was really trying to keep honest to myself.
17:40Well, I didn't have a girlfriend for a long time. I was not until I was 25 to get my first
17:45girlfriend, you know? So I was walking around this earth for 25 years without realising all
17:49the things that was wrong with me. He could speak to everyday people, and he was supremely relatable
17:59at a time where that's not necessarily what people were doing.
18:02I think the army are doing a great job. I've never been invaded ever.
18:05In 1999, I was doing the Comedy Festival in front of like 40 people, maybe 30, sometimes 20.
18:13And then I went on the Comedy Festival Gala on TV, which is the first year I'd been on it.
18:17I'd been wanting to be on it for a few years.
18:20Every tram trip for me, I call it my reverse scratchy.
18:23I get on, I don't pay $1.20, and I've got a chance to lose $100.
18:29And then that went to air, and the next night it just sort of, the room started filling up.
18:33They moved me to a bigger room. So that was the year where I thought,
18:37right, I'm going to make some money here. I knew then that it was a financially viable
18:42thing to do. I bought a purple Corolla. That was my first big purchase, brand new.
18:51For me now, I think I'm so hooked that if I don't do a gig for a week, I really feel a bit edgy,
18:57you know what I mean? It's like something that I have to do to feel good in a way,
19:02you know what I mean? When I feel good, I just feel normal. So I'm sort of hooked, I don't know.
19:07When I first met him, I was not sure about him at all. He was really weird.
19:14He was like very ill at ease, particularly, I think, around women. He was our Friday
19:24correspondent on the Breakfast is Breakfast show on community radio. But he was just so funny,
19:29and unlike anybody else, laconic, but sharp at the same time, an unusual combination.
19:50When we were approached to do Nova Breakfast in Melbourne, I was like, oh, great. The process
19:58is collaborative, and we became, you know, really beautiful friends. But even at that point,
20:04I didn't know how voracious his appetite was for success. Really, only in retrospect,
20:12you recognise the engine that was driving him was never off.
20:18All of a sudden, I'm the popular guy, you know, which I wasn't. At 19 and the Warrnambool pubs,
20:23I wasn't popular. But here I am, the age of 29, maybe, I'm popular.
20:36I had been out to a bar with my friends, and they said, oh, look, there's Husey.
20:41He'd just started on Nova, so people knew who he was.
20:45A group of blokes had recognised me at this bar, and they were talking to me.
20:49This girl just was hovering over their shoulder, and she was beautiful. Oh, my God, she's stunning.
20:56I thought that this was a guy who got a lot of attention all the time,
21:00and that, you know, why would he be interested in me? And we just had a nice little chat,
21:06and nothing happened. And I did actually write about it in my diary. And I said,
21:10I met this lovely guy, I met, you know, I met Husey, and he was so nice.
21:14Then on the Monday on the radio, one of my friends texted me and said,
21:18flick on to Nova, I'm pretty sure they're talking about you.
21:22So she ended up ringing into the radio station to say it was her. She didn't go on air,
21:27but I rang her and I said, do you want to go out? She said yes.
21:32You know, she was just a very interesting, unusual, solid, grounded, so beautiful,
21:46but kind of without ego, like Maria in The Sound of Music. Just very lovely woman
21:53who loved and approved of him. I'm almost 10 years older than her.
21:59Other people judge me at the time, they'd say, why don't you go with a girl your own age?
22:02And I said, they had their chance 10 years ago.
22:07They didn't want me on the dole, they're not getting me now.
22:12As a person, Dave is very kind. He's a deep thinker. But then there is probably that shy
22:20and slightly insecure child still in there. And so it took a while for me to understand how much
22:27of a problem his ego is for him. This, you know, desire to get attention all the time and to always
22:34be the best. I love being on the TV, I do. But you know, I got a couple of kids, so it's not easy.
22:40You know, but my two year old son doesn't even watch the show. That's disrespectful.
22:45He loves to be acknowledged and he loves to be recognised. And for a long time,
22:50he had terrible crow's feet because he didn't want to wear sunglasses in case
22:53someone wouldn't recognise him. I do radio in the mornings, I work TV at night. And you know,
22:59I understand that the hard work happens at home, but I'm there on the weekends.
23:03My wife doesn't give me bloody any favours though. There were definitely times in our marriage that
23:08that has been an issue. You'll be saying, well, actually, you should be at home here with us or
23:15with the kids. But he can't pass up an opportunity to do something that will help his career.
23:24I don't like playing any venues, to be honest. I equate it to like surfing. You know, if you can't
23:31surf big waves, surf small waves, you know. As long as there's a wave, as long as I can paddle out
23:36and there's an audience, I'll take it. So yeah.
23:43We all talk about it. You know, why we all do this, what is it we're missing?
23:48It seems to be in our own life that has this yearning for the gratitude of complete strangers.
23:56So I'm on first, yeah? Yeah.
24:00Also, there's probably a fear of, you know, if I get off the treadmill, what happens?
24:09It's not about money with Hughsy, really, though he enjoys that. And it's a great metric of his
24:16success. But for him, it's actually properly the work. He can't say no to it, you know.
24:25It's the piece of cheese to the rat.
24:35I think that he would regret that he missed out on time with the kids.
24:40And now that the kids are older, he has been able to be very involved, which is fantastic.
24:52He's taught us a lot about voicing the positive side and things, like it might seem like it's
24:56really bad now, but then in a couple of years, you'll be making a joke about it and it will be
25:02OK. Is Hughsy turning into a boring, whinging right wing knob? Hopefully not. Hopefully not.
25:15I used to like him a lot. Please, no. Definitely my ego was wanting to share my opinions all the
25:22time. So during COVID, I was vocal on social media about decisions that were being made,
25:28which I didn't think were right. And a lot of the stuff I said, I absolutely stand by.
25:37But yeah, there was a pile on.
25:43Yeah, it was stressful at times. My wife said, why are you on it? I said, I don't know.
25:47She said, people don't need to hear your opinion all the time.
25:51It was a revelation to me. So I share my opinion less now.
25:58I've got into cold water therapy. It's something I do regularly now.
26:16It wakes me up and it's invigorating. So I recommend it to everyone.
26:22Dave is someone who is always looking for ways to improve himself.
26:27He's got that sort of Aussie, Bogan persona, but he's actually a vegan who meditates.
26:36So he's a bit of a contradiction in some ways, but
26:39he tries to be honest and to be truthful about who he is.
26:43We lost our mum October 2023. Without her support, life would have been a lot tougher for
27:01me. So yeah, she was a bloody, a real champion and a champion of mine.
27:06Dave's always been very honest about how important his mother was, especially in his
27:12upbringing and her determination to see him not necessarily succeed in terms of comedy,
27:17but to be like a functional person who kicked his addictions and made something of himself.
27:28My dad passed about 10 years ago now, maybe a bit longer.
27:32We certainly made up for whatever problems we'd had in the past.
27:36I didn't hold a grudge against him at all, even though I've gone down a different
27:41path in the way I live my life. He was a wise man in many ways. You always say that family's
27:48the number one and as I was chasing success over the years, maybe I didn't agree with that,
27:54but now as I get older, I realise he was right.
28:02I had definitely times where I could have spent more time with the family
28:06rather than chasing that laugh.
28:14I'm much more centred now and much more relaxed and some of that comes from having failures.
28:21You know, where like a radio show doesn't work or a TV show isn't renewed or having pylons online
28:28and realising that a lot of people don't like me or whatever, but realising that doesn't matter.
28:35Life isn't about that bullshit, it's about the moment and
28:39you know, being kind to people and yeah, sharing joy with others.
28:48From a man who came from very humble beginnings where he didn't have much,
28:52you make hay while the sun shines and we're in an industry where
28:56you do not know how long this will last.
29:00But I'd like to think for his sake, he at some point can
29:03just pat himself on the back and say, I can start to
29:06rest a little bit, but whether he'll get there or not, I don't know.
29:13We always get the biggest names in the country dropping in because it's such a good club.
29:17This next guy is no exception. This guy, just a fact,
29:20the greatest stand-up comedian this country has ever produced, ever.
29:25He's unbeatable, get excited, put your hands together, let's go.
29:42And if they edit that intro out of the story, I'm fucking throwing my TV through the window.