00:01:52.200Well, I mean, one of the things people won't know from behind the scenes, but actually at the end of last year, the end of 2022, we were having kind of a rough time of it.
00:02:26.240And then immediately got COVID and couldn't work for a month, basically, towards the end of last year.
00:02:31.360So as we were breaking up for the Christmas period, I was sort of looking at the accounts going, this is actually really, really difficult.
00:02:40.140And we had to cut the two of ours' salaries, which are not huge anyway, Anton as well.
00:02:46.500And then we came back and we were like, we're really going to have to pull a rabbit out of a hat here.
00:02:54.400And when we sat down at the beginning of the year, Laura, who's our chief operating officer now, basically runs everything.
00:05:35.480When I'm not in here working, I'm at home with my family going for walks in the local park or whatever.
00:05:41.080And so, the only thing I noticed is I said to my wife, like, you know, when I used to go out in the local, in the small town that we live and maybe get recognized once a week.
00:06:57.920And between arriving at the hotel late at night and getting to, was it D.C. or New York Airport, wherever it was, I'd been recognized 10 times in the space of about, what, 24 hours?
00:07:17.060And he was literally like, I went down to the pub in the hotel for a drink with my son, and a guy came over, started to, he had no idea, he didn't know my name, didn't know anything about trigonometry, anything.
00:07:30.200Next day, I take a cab to the airport.
00:07:32.480Cab driver's like, oh, do I recognize your voice?
00:07:35.420And, again, he didn't know about trigonometry.
00:07:37.180This is the thing, like, most people used to know me just for trigonometry.
00:07:40.780And now there was a huge number of people who'd never really known who I was, who'd just seen the speech.
00:07:47.480The guy in the airport, the guy in security.
00:07:50.980And it started to get to the point where it's kind of, like, almost a little bit worrying because when we were in, there was a long queue when we arrived in the airport in America.
00:08:23.660And then when we got to America, I suddenly realized that, like, all the people that we'd been in touch with previously because they were guests of the show or we would have been guests on their show or whatever, they treated me very differently now.
00:08:39.120And it was kind of eye-opening, really.
00:08:41.240So that trip to America really changed everything for me because, you know, we arrived there, and basically I was like, all my heroes are there saying, you know, welcome, brother.
00:08:55.580It was almost an initiation into a world that I'd always aspired to be part of.
00:09:00.680And, you know, the thing that really summed it up for me was when I went on Bill Maher's show, Eric Weinstein, who's a guy that, you know, we'd been dreaming of having on the show for ages, so much respect for him, a fascinating guy.
00:09:13.240He asked to come and be my guest with his wife and a friend of hers in the green room of Bill Maher, whereas to me, I would have been honored to, like, have a coffee with Eric up until that point.
00:09:24.240We used to speak every now and again on the phone, but it was just, like, amazing.
00:09:28.220So it changed a lot, I think, for the show because we pretty much, I don't know, we would have got 150,000, 200,000 subscribers from the speech itself and then the follow-up hits that I did on various podcasts and TV and stuff like that.
00:09:45.700But also for me, it really changed how I think I see what I'm doing and how other people see what I'm doing.
00:09:52.720My book, I think, doubled sales in a week or something.
00:20:09.640Because if you look at our interviews, the way we attack our interviews are from two completely different places.
00:20:16.080And as a result of that, you get a far more well-rounded view of the individual in front of us than you would do if it was just me or you.
00:20:23.720Yeah. And you know what? Speaking of interviews, I mean, one of the things that I have to say I'm incredibly proud and excited about is some of the recent guests and the guests that we've got coming up.
00:20:36.200You know, we have got everybody from Nigel Farage through to Mark Steele, who's a lefty firebrand comedian, to Aaron Bastani, the founder of hyper-lefty media organization, Navara Media.
00:20:48.140And this is what we set out to do when we started.
00:20:50.660Yes, we have our own points of view. Yes, we are not pretending to not have them.
00:20:57.460But we want to speak to everybody. We want to hear people's views from different sides of the political spectrum.
00:21:03.060And there's not many places that you're going to get that variety of conversation, including Navara Media.
00:21:09.520Yeah, you're not going to get it at Navara Media.
00:21:11.680I mean, they had Matt Goodwin on, but that was like a massive scary thing for them.
00:21:15.240And look, good on them for having him.
00:21:17.020I'm just saying, I think that in terms of pioneering a new media organization that is going to have a range of voices on it that you might agree with or you might disagree with,
00:21:28.100but they've got to be heard and they've got to be discussed in an open and honest way.
00:21:31.760We're really, really plotting quite a unique course, I feel.
00:21:36.300And that's something I think we should be very proud of.
00:22:47.600Well, I think we've found ourselves in a very, very locked in world where, look, it's very gratifying, isn't it, to just hear your opinion regurgitated back to you.
00:23:00.040And this echo chamber thing, it exists for a reason.
00:23:30.220Whereas, look, there are things that I think you and I both feel very strongly about that we've kind of worked out for ourselves as a result of the conversations that we've had on the show and lots of things.
00:23:41.100But there are so many things that we do not know about the world, about all the different things that we talk about on the show that are worth discussing, that are worth debating, that are worth chiseling away at things and working out exactly what it is that we think.
00:23:57.760And we live in a world that lacks that.
00:24:00.120And I think that's, again, another of the reasons for how far we've been able to come and how far we're going to go, because we are going to retain that attitude always.
00:24:09.000We are not going to get locked into a particular worldview and a side, which makes it difficult sometimes.
00:24:16.180I think we all know that if we pick the team and started batting for that team, we'd probably be further along in terms of numbers and revenues and whatever.
00:24:25.920But it's just not – I don't think you can be successful being truly successful, being something that you're not.
00:24:41.240You weren't trying to be something else.
00:24:43.480You weren't saying something that you didn't wholeheartedly believe in.
00:24:48.580And there's a very famous playwright, and I say it all the time, David Mamet, words that come from the heart go to the heart.
00:24:54.160And that's why that speech connected, and that's why it was brilliant, and that's why it worked.
00:24:58.640And I don't think people actually really understand that, because so many people are trying to be something in order to achieve something.
00:25:09.340But you're never going to get there if you were trying to be something, because immediately you're inauthentic.
00:25:15.080And the moment you're inauthentic, it's when you become – people don't believe in you, because they know it's fake.
00:25:20.640You know, well, I think the truth is for us both, what we've been doing for the last five and a half years is chipping away at the persona that we thought we were supposed to have.
00:25:34.120And actually getting to the core of what we are and who we are and what we believe.
00:25:38.720That's really been the journey, is like talking to people to try and understand what the truth is about certain issues, but also being free to speak our minds.
00:25:47.240Because not that we want to bang on about it too much, but when you are on the comedy circuit and your livelihood depends on people in the industry liking you, in a very punitive industry where if you have the wrong opinion, people will ban you from clubs or not book you or whatever, we had to really watch our steps all the time.
00:26:08.180And it creates this kind of eggshell walking experience that's just – it's the worst thing.
00:26:14.400It's not the worst thing, of course, but it's really, really terrible.
00:26:17.520It's a terrible way to live your life.
00:27:12.300I have, like, I mean, I have a very fucked up motivation system personally.
00:27:17.300But one of the most inspiring and powerful things that I know and think about often is you say you're in your 50s and 60s, you don't know how much longer you've got left.
00:27:33.300It doesn't matter if you're in your 20s.
00:27:34.940You don't know how much longer you've got left.
00:27:37.320And the reality is as well, man, is, you know, I think people, I don't know if it was true for you, but for many people, I think we kind of live through life waiting for something to happen, for someone to come and save us somehow.
00:27:57.380People are busy living their own lives.
00:27:59.140They're not sitting there judging you and wondering what your opinion is about this or that most of the time.
00:28:04.040Another thing is you don't know when you're going to die, but when you do, all that's going to happen is they're going to put you in the ground, throw some dirt on top and go and eat some food.
00:29:45.000And then when it went big, you deserve every single thing you got because you were willing to stand up and say that thing that nobody else had said.
00:29:55.020And that's why it went big and that's why it worked.
00:29:57.480And watching that made me realise, look, when it comes to your own comedy, you need to go out and say the thing.
00:30:03.840You need to go out and say the thing that you want to say.
00:30:06.880And if people get pissed off and people don't want to work with you, well, thems are breaks.
00:30:12.560Well, and for us, we're in a fortunate position now where reality is people can dislike you or ban you from their comedy club.
00:30:20.500You're still going to find a way to get your message out there to go and do the comedy that you believe.
00:30:25.320And if you look at the comedy greats, the people that you respect, that's what they all did.
00:30:34.180And if you think about the people that we all respect, the people who we look up to, who we idolise, who we say, you know, whoever it may be, the writers, the thinkers, the poets, the philosophers.
00:30:47.100When they were around, they pissed a few people off.
00:31:06.300And it's not going to be every day you wake up and it's going to be plain sailing and it's going to be relaxed.
00:31:13.240No, it's going to be tough and people are going to criticise you and people aren't going to invite you to things and people are going to misrepresent you.
00:31:24.160And if you don't want to accept that, then you have to accept living a life where you're going to be inauthentic, which to me is the greatest punishment ever.
00:38:15.300Head over straight over to Italy and drown myself in carbs.
00:38:18.360But the values will always remain the same.
00:38:21.580We are always dedicated to having the conversations with the most interesting people about the topics that people are scared to confront.
00:38:30.060Because it's only when you talk about a topic honestly, all different facets of that topic, can you possibly hope to have an honest conversation.
00:38:39.340And that's why the mainstream is dead.
00:40:42.080And I think that's a great problem of our age.
00:40:44.360I think that's why people don't achieve what they want.
00:40:46.940I think it's why they don't go after their dreams.
00:40:49.140And I think it's why, ultimately, they don't live the life that they want.
00:40:52.720You know, it's so interesting that this conversation has been popping up quite a lot in relation to depression.
00:40:57.160Because I see a lot of people saying something which I believe to be true, which is the way that we treat male and female depression is the same, even though they're caused by very different things and require very different solutions.
00:41:08.420And I think particularly for men, the answer to a lack of fulfilment, a lack of meaning, and all the other things that are likely to make a person depressed, is actually stepping in to that risk and danger.
00:41:22.340And building something or doing something that scares you, but inspires you at the same time.
00:41:28.940And I've always, since I was quite young, actually, I've always, people won't believe this, perhaps.
00:41:34.340I did public speaking when I was at school.
00:41:36.840But then when I left school, you know, like you get those 18-year-old footballers, they've come on the pitch, they've got no fear, because they don't have any concept of what's happening.
00:41:45.840Oh, yeah, they've got no idea how high the stakes are.
00:41:47.920No. And then you kind of get to your mid-twenties, and suddenly you feel a little bit more protective and whatever.
00:41:55.060So by the time I was in my mid-twenties, I was actually, it's probably fair to say that I was very nervous about speaking in public.
00:42:01.080I would have been very nervous about being on camera.
00:42:04.480And I ran towards that, and I started, I forced myself to do public speaking.
00:42:09.520I forced myself to train and learn and whatever.
00:42:12.800And I think for men in particular, this may be true of women, I don't know, because I'm not a woman, although I could be.
00:42:24.500I think for men, mental well-being comes first and foremost from a feeling of, it's not power exactly, but it's the ability to make an impact and the ability to take charge of your life.
00:42:40.180That really is what will offset any anxieties or, you know, depressive tendencies or whatever you have, because you are inspired and you feel like you are actually, you've got some measure of control over life, which isn't true because you don't have full control of your life.
00:42:59.020But there are different gradations of control.
00:43:02.600And I think often the reason people feel lost is that they haven't really taken charge.
00:43:09.180And you've been doing that in a really impressive way.
00:43:13.060And by the way, you know, I used to, on Roars, I used to jokingly fat shame you.
00:44:12.720This idea that you're going to get to a place where, you know, you have somehow overcome all of these emotions and fear, that ain't never going to happen.
00:44:21.820You're just going to get better at dealing with it.
00:44:23.480I will say, though, I mean, you can get a lot closer to, like, I, for example, the first time I did TV ever, I remember pacing up and down the hallway.
00:46:44.340And look, if it goes – and I'll tell this story.
00:46:46.960So I presented a show on GB News, which is Headliners, and they got me in,
00:46:53.080and I was very happy, and they gave me the clicker, and I went to start,
00:46:57.260and the clicker froze, and everything went wrong.
00:47:00.720Let's take a look at those front pages.
00:47:03.440The Daily Mail are going with Make Coward Letby Face Us.
00:47:10.540This is to do with Nurse Letby, who is refusing to actually face the judge when she is being sentenced.
00:47:24.920The Times is now going with Letby Police fear that she attacked 30 more babies.
00:47:34.740And I stumbled through it, and I didn't look very professional, and there was a few comments on Twitter and people saying this and that and whatever else,
00:49:17.420And, you know, also, we've become better interviewers.
00:49:20.460One of the things people don't realize is it's kind of hard in our game, in the new media world, where, you know, you've spent months chasing a guest.
00:49:50.580But also, if someone is saying something that's not quite true, we are going to get to the bottom of it.
00:49:58.220And, you know, for all the concerns we had about how that interview got spun and whatever, our interview with Sam Harris last year is a good example.
00:50:06.080And when we go back to America, we're going to interview Sam again.
00:50:20.280And that's, you know, it's the opportunity to get better.
00:50:24.280It's the opportunity to talk to people who are the people that you really want to talk to, the people you've always dreamed of talking to, the people you've always dreamed about having a conversation with and just finding out who they are, what makes them work and what you can take from them.
00:50:43.360You know, and the beautiful thing about the America trips is that it's all, you know, to sit opposite someone like Bill.
00:51:48.920You have to take every moment and appreciate it and realize as well that the difficult moments are going to teach you far more than the good moments.
00:51:58.140The good moments are wonderful and you should savor them and you should treasure them.
00:52:02.760And you should put them away and lock them away and just remember them.
00:52:06.500But it's the moments when they're tough.
00:52:10.060That's the moment where you are forged as a human being.
00:52:15.000And the fires of when things were really tough and you carried on pushing through, that's how you became the person that you are.
00:52:23.720Because there's a lot of people in that journey who would have turned around and given up.
00:52:37.780Our locals community has grown a lot and it's how we fund the show.
00:52:42.480It's the biggest single source of revenue that we have.
00:52:45.000So when people sign up to locals and, you know, some people give us $200 a month, some people give us $7 a month, wherever it is, that is what allows us to do what we do and to keep going.
00:52:55.200So, you know, every time we go on there and we chat with people, I just feel so immensely grateful that we live in a world now where people can find each other.
00:53:05.200They can find content that they enjoy.
00:53:06.780They can go, you know what, I really believe in this.
00:53:09.060And there have been people at every step of the way.
00:53:11.680You know, there's a guy called Tom who knew that we were struggling when we were still in that shed, quote unquote.
00:53:17.460And he really liked the show, so he bought us new cameras and microphones.
00:54:58.720Oh, mate, the rest of this year is going to be absolute dynamite.
00:55:04.660I mean, the stuff we've got coming up is exciting as hell.
00:55:10.840In terms of what the media organization that we're building is going to look like, we'll be talking more about that when the time is right.
00:55:18.300But also some of the stuff we're going to get up to in America, some of the brilliant guests we've got lined up here.
00:55:22.980You know, you and I are going to continue putting out comedic and satirical stuff.
00:55:29.220It's just, like I said, there is no limit anymore.
00:55:33.680There is no limit to what we can achieve.
00:55:36.660There is no limit to what the organization can achieve.
00:55:40.700And also for the people at home, there's no limit to what you can achieve.
00:55:45.020What we want to do with this is fulfill our dreams.
00:55:49.200But also as well, we want to make an impact so that people who watch our show can think to themselves, well, I don't want to create a YouTube channel, but I want to do X or Y or Z or whatever it may be.
00:56:01.280And that they can go ahead and do that.
00:56:03.180Because it's by doing that that actually you're empowering other people, which will then come back to you.
00:56:52.480Like I said, we've got an incredible team as well of people that are working really well together.
00:56:57.780They're going to drive this whole thing forward for us and allow us to just be the creative people that we started out being.
00:57:05.020And that's, you know, there's so many things.
00:57:09.020And look, the impact that we want to make on the world is that we live in these very, very superficial times.
00:57:17.760This culture of everything being condensed into a tiny little tweet or whatever.
00:57:24.360That's not the way human communication is supposed to be.
00:57:28.660And it's almost a tragedy in the sense that even in our own lives, you and I,
00:57:35.520the conversations like this that you and I have and the conversations we have with our guests are probably one of the few times in our lives,
00:57:46.460in all of our lives, that we actually get to sit down and connect with another human being for an hour uninterrupted by phones or whatever.
00:57:54.700And that is quite extraordinary that we get to do that for a living and that we get to share that with the world and people can join in those conversations
00:58:02.940and see people who are actually communicating in a way that human beings are supposed to communicate, you know,
00:58:10.600in a world that really, really very rarely has the opportunity for people to do that.
00:58:16.060Yeah. And that's why it's so important that we do what we do, because we live in this world and it's been said many times,
00:58:23.960but it's true and it makes people miserable because you don't sort anything out.
00:58:30.400You don't discover anything. You don't play on social media or doing these little soundbites or watching TV,
00:58:38.280which is why no one watches it anymore, because it's inherently fake, every single thing about it.
00:58:42.720Yeah. So as we move forward, we're going to be doing more interviews, more conversation and talking to people who are going to be even more exciting.