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Some say it's one of the hardest jobs on earth, to stand before an audience who have paid top dollar to leave satisfied and in hysterics.
Sean Frazer chats to Akmal Saleh about the highs and lows, the do's and dont's and the life behind one of Australia's most respected comedians.

In the beginning what was it that made you decide to be a comedian?

Probably the fact that I failed at everything else. When I left school i tried a lot of different jobs and I wasn't good at any of them. Sometimes I would stay in a job for only a few hours. I was always obsessive about comedy, I loved going to comedy nights that were on and eventually I think it found me. For example, some people will pick up a guitar and it will just feel natural to them while other people will struggle with it. After watching shows like Monty Python, The Comedy Store and The Goons I thought to myself "I could have a go at that!"

When were you first discovered for your ability to make people laugh?

Probably from a young age. I always appreciated watching other people make crowds of people laugh, I was always aware of it. I was a quiet kid at school. People ask me "were you the class clown?" and I always say "No, I was actually fairly quiet at school. I was the class clowns assistant". I grew up with a lot of laughter, my family are quite funny. Most of my family are funnier than me!

How frightened were you on your first few performances?

It's terrifying. At first you have no idea if you can actually do it or not. You want to do it so badly, you keep thinking how brilliant it would be to make a living out of it, so you try your absolute hardest. I put so much emphasis and importance on it. It was always a worry wondering if I was going to get up on stage only to make a fool of myself. When I first began I would get up in the morning on the day of the show and be nervous all day, I always had this uncomfortable feeling in my stomach. When I look back on it I wonder why I was ever like that because in reality if you have a bad night, it's not the end of the world.

Do you ever try your routine out on friends or family before you take it to a packed audience?

I've learnt not to try it on friends because if it doesn't work you lose faith in it, as well as confidence. You've always got to remind yourself that it is a different setting and environment when you're performing in front of people who have come to see comedy. I'd say to any comedian that you should never try your routine out on people before you go on stage because chances are, you are not going to get the reaction you hoped for.

At first you decided you would perform under a different name, "Peter Saleh". What was the reason behind this?

When I first started at The Comedy Store in Sydney it was quite a rough place, you had to be loud and you had to be aggressive. All the comics that started in that era started like that, they had to adapt to the life of bucks nights and hen's nights and all that jazz. Rodney Rude would do shows there and on the poster for his shows it would say "come and heckle your favourite comedian". I thought that if I was going to go on with an ethnic name it's going to make it harder for me so I thought I'd just have a stage name "Peter Saleh" because it sounded like a nice common name. I soon realised that there were more comedians named Peter at the time than any other name so I gave up on it and kept my original name for shows.

Who were the comedians that you idolised when you were younger?

I loved Richard Prior, I love guys that just let everything hang out. Richard Prior had a lot of soul and was very transparent, it almost felt like it wasn't an act because there was so much truth to his performances. Everything Prior did was so memorable for me, he wasn't just your average guy getting up and telling jokes. I also love Steven Wright, who is at the other end of the spectrum, there is no spontaneity, it's all rehearsed and very well written - it comes from a surreal place - he is equally as brilliant.

Every comedian has their own disaster story. Would you care to share yours?

I've had so many in my career that I was considering writing a book about it called 'LIVE... after Death' [laughs]. Those moments are only funny in retrospect. I think one of the worst times for me was when I was 22, I had just started as a comedian and I got offered to go touring with a group of male strippers from Canada. Night after night I would perform to a room full of women that weren't interested in me what-so-ever. A short guy with curly hair, telling jokes, no one knew who I was. I was the exact opposite of what these women wanted to see. Realistically, the only way you can improve as a comedian is to have those nights where they just don't like you. Every comedian in the world, no matter how funny they are, have been through many of those nights.

Has there been incidents where someone has taken a joke the wrong way?

Yeah, it is inevitable. The nature of what you do (as a comedian) is belittling, trivialising and making fun of things. So when you start making fun and belittling something sacred to someone such as religion for example, you're bound to upset someone along the lines. I actually upset the president of Egypt once, so I'm very proud about that. I was working for my uncle who was the vice president of the Australian Arabic Doctors Association, a lot of wealthy people would show up each year to this show they had on the 6th of October which is Egypt's independence day. They asked me to get up and do a set so I thought it would be really funny if I started saying things about the President... little did I know the ambassador of Egypt was there and everyone began booing me and telling me to get off the stage. In the end, 50% of the people left the venue in protest.

- Sean Frazer.

The best hard workers are always the quietest. Sean Frazer speaks to Kris from Grinspoon to see where they have been the past 18 months and what to expect from their new album ‘Six to Midnight’

You guys have just finished recording Grinspoons latest album 'Six to Midnight' tucked away in Byron Bay with U.S producer Rick Well. This being your sixth album, what's going to shock the Grinspoon fans out there?

I guess the only thing that will shock them is the fact that we're still here. It's our sixth album, we've been around for fourteen years musically we're taking it back to square one we've rounded off all the sort of nice bullshit urges that we've gathered along over the past fourteen years and gotten a bit more raw about it - back to basics, basically. I guess when people listen to this album, if they were fans of our earlier stuff they should right for it. There’s no real 'Chemical Heart' on there or anything like that, it's just a good true rock record.

Is it fair to say that you guys are heavier on this one?

It's definitely heavier. I guess we could be accused in the past of putting too many slow songs on records or heading off in a few weird directions, especially in the last two albums, which wasn't the best for the band as a whole. I think with this album it's kind of consolidated that and we've come up with the best view that we think Grinspoon is. We're very happy to release this and feel really comfortable playing the songs.

It's been a good year and a half since we've heard anything from you boys. Has this time been dedicated solely to writing the new record?

Pretty much, we’ve been doing one or two gigs a month just along the way just so we've got something for us and the management to do while we wrote the record. I think we needed it, I believe it shows on the record that we did spend a lot of time writing it.

What inspired the writing for 'Six to Midnight'?

Everything inspires our writing because all of us write. Basically everyone writes in there own studios at home and then we come together after a month or two and bash out the ideas in a hired house in the country or whatever, there's many insulations. Lyrically, Phil's inspirations have been pretty well documented over the last couple of years with the issues surrounding him, but he has come through that and out the other side. I think if you listen to the lyrics you will sort of get where his heads at.

What were the changes you guys wanted on this record compared to your previous ones?

I think with this one, because we paid for it ourselves and we're putting it out on our own label we could do anything we wanted to do. I think in the past we've sort of been steered one way or the other by certain record companies or people that influenced us along the way. This one we've done whatever we wanted to do with it and I think that will be best for the band.

How did the title 'Six to Midnight' come about?

I came up with it, it's actually a line out of the movie 'Forgetting Sarah Marshall' but for us it meant a 180 degree turn around. We've been around the block a few times and we're heading back to what we do best that's the sort of analogy we'd like people to hear from the album title.

What artists were you guys brought up listening to?

Bands like Rage against the Machines, TOOL, Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Helmet you know all those sorts of bands influenced our sound back in the day. I think these days we pretty much have our own sound but it took all those grungy bands that influenced us and in a way we stole bits and piece from each of them to create our sound, which got us to where we are now.
    
What did Rick Well contribute to the recording process?

He brought a lot of experience to the table, he's done 260 something records with artists like Incubus and Ben Harper, he's worked with a great deal of people so he brought the experience plus us four guys in the room just jamming out these new songs, this time nice and raw. Over the past couple of years with all the digital technology, we tended to step away from that and were able to cover our mistakes. But with this album we just played all the songs all together and I think that shows what type of band we are....and hopefully....that means good haha.

You guys have been festival Heavyweights for years now, are you guys excited to jump on the festival wagon again?

Yeah, we love to play the festivals. I don’t think we've been down to Newcastle since New Years Eve of 2007 from memory, it's going to be great to get down there to play again and the bill looks exceptional as well. When we play festivals we try and bring the same attitude every time and deliver a fucking good rock show so hopefully people want to come back again and see us. When we did 'Splendor in the Grass' in Byron Bay it was our first gig back after recording the album so we were feeling a bit tentative because we weren't sure how the new songs were going to appeal to people. We went out there and blew them away which really gave us a big confidence boost because sometimes you can get stuck in the studio head space where you’re just in the studio recording away. It's great to get back out there and remember why you were recording all these songs.

What is your advice to succeeding in the Australian music industry?

The best advice we have ever been given was to keep writing songs, the more songs you write the better the chances. Once you get that opportunity, that little break you will be ready for it. I think a lot of bands that get a little break they aren’t necessarily ready for it. It happens to a lot of the unearthed bands that come through they expect for it to work like it did with Killing Heidi or like us and it's really not that easy. You have got to be willing to put in the hard yards, if you've got the songs and keep pumping them and remaining fresh that would be the best advice I could give for the upcoming bands coming through to just stick at it.

- Sean Frazer.   

Australian funny man and Ronnie Johns Half Hour star Heath Franklin gives an insight into the life of Impersonating Chopper Read on the road. He has sold out shows around Australia and New Zealand but how do the Brits and Scot's take to his parody? Sean Frazer chats to Heath Franklin about the touring Ronnie Johns LIVE show, playing Chopper Read... and meeting the REAL Chopper Read.