The Chaser Report - Ben Lee Hasn't Forgiven Us | BEST OF 2022

Episode Date: January 5, 2023

The union forced us to take a break over January, but that won't stop us from delivering you some cheeky BEST OF 2022 episodes! Here's the time legendary Australian musician Ben Lee joined the show to settle a decade-long feud with Andrew. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Chaser Report is recorded on Gatigall Land. Striving for mediocrity in a world of excellence, this is the Chaser Report. Hello and welcome to the Chaser Report for 2020. Congratulations on everyone who made it to the other side of the year that was 2022. I am Lachlan Hodson joining you, as will, Charles and Dom, for the rest of the year. We're looking forward to having another year of the Chaser Report, but not before we have a bit of a break over the month of January, and what we're going to be doing for this month is replaying some of the best of Chaser report interviews from last year. We've got a couple

of stellar ones coming up. I won't get into which ones they are because I haven't decided which ones they are yet. So, DM me or email podcast at chaser.com, if you have an idea for which interview you should think you should make it. But in the meantime, we're going to be listening to the interview from May last year during our election with none other than the musician Ben Lee because that's who we get our election coverage from at The Chaser, Newtown-based musicians. Of course, this is the interview in which Andrew Hanson also rips back into Ben Lee and they reignite their decade-long feud. However, the ending that it has is not quite the one that we anticipated it having. Listen in to find out what happens. In the meantime,

time, our gears from road microphones, and we're part of the Acast Corridor Network. Have fun. Ben Lee, thanks for joining us. Thank you for having me. Now, congratulations on getting onto this podcast, because this is, of course, the Chaser Report election edition podcast. So I assume the only reason that you're here is because you're entering politics. Are you running in this election or something? Yeah, I've, you know, I've been considering it.

I think I just missed the cutoff for the, uh, 50s. the ballot but uh but no i'm definitely like you know it's one of those weird things as an artist where like i'm passionate about it but i'm also skeptical and innately cynical like i like the way poetry affects politics so you know we all try and chime in and do our bit what what do you think of scott morrison's ukulele abilities you know his ukulele abilities are not that bad it's just that he chose to show them off like if that was a hobby that we never heard him do

it would be absolutely acceptable but the fact that he thought that was a good idea to demonstrate those abilities you know there's a lot of people that play music as a hobby and it's just a wonderful thing for them and that's where it should be kept because it felt like even

his family didn't really appreciate his ukulele maybe we're asking too much but I feel like our elected leaders, a basic ability to read the room is sort of a part of what we're voting for. Would you have preferred him to do one of your songs, Ben? Maybe cigarettes will kill you. It could have been a public health message. Yeah, no, there are certain cultural moments that you sort of feel relieved to be left out of. Do you use yuk yourself on your recordings ever? Do I use yuk? I have used yuk. It's not a great instrument, is it? You automatically conjure

images of, I don't know, like Hawaiian culture, and it just sort of has, like, it's hard to get it out of its stereotypes or something, or tropes. Now, we should probably address the elephant in the room, which is 14 years ago, Andrew Hanson went on national TV and made a song about you, which was not very kind to you. Well, is there still a feud between you two? There was never a feud. I thought the main issue wasn't that it wasn't kind. It was just, like, not quite funny enough.

I just think because I think the thing about like the way I've always used humor is that like I think actually perform because I'm deeply entrenched and always have been in like crossing over into the world of comedy and I am I love working with comedians and everything but I also think comedy reaches a certain limit where performance art doesn't like it can't touch what performance art can touch and I think at the end of the day I was funny than that song was. And so at the end of the day, it's just got to be about what's funnier, you know?

Brutal, brutal. Well, look, in my defence, and I'm going to throw Chris Taylor in front of the bus here, because he's not here to answer for his crimes, but the idea for the song and most of the lyrics were written by him. They were written by Chris Taylor. And this was what was interesting at the time, Ben, because at the time, and still,

I actually had no, you know, it was a song about finding Ben Lee, a bit irritating. That's what the song's about. And at the time, I remember Chris presented this script to the script meeting and said, here's a song about Ben Lee being slightly annoying. Is this amusing? And could you play it, Andrew, he said, because I was the one who plays and sings. And I had no feelings about you at all, Ben.

I'm not going to say that, you know, you're insignificant or whatever, but I had no problem with you. I had to say to Chris, look, I don't spend parts of my day thinking about Ben Lee. I don't spend hours like you do rapping myself in in agonies over Ben Lee so I felt awkward about being the face of that song but in the end we had to fill half an hour

Ben Lee rhymed correctly I don't think it even rhymed Yeah it does rhyme with a few of the words in the song yes I think look we're all roughly the same age And we grew up in Sydney Those of us who love music And Chris is very much into his music we had to, from the age of what, 13, 14,

we all had to hear about how amazing Ben Lee was for many, many years. Since you started noise addict, Ben, and I think for Chris it probably just built up as intense jealousy manifested in a somewhat mean lyric. But on the bright side, a lot of muses would say it was flattering to be mentioned in the same breath

as people like Michael Jackson. Yes, of course. And also, the other thing is about it that you're talking about somebody who was deliberately trying to, to be as annoying as possible. That was my entire, like, all I was doing, for that whole decade of my life

was living and breathing Andy Kaufman videos. Like, all I wanted to do was provoke people and annoy people. So it was like, it's not much of a criticism to say, oh, you're a bit annoying to someone who desperately only wants to be annoying. But I do remember being at the Lansdown. I think I was seeing Sleepy Jackson, and I hadn't heard the song, but Holly Throsby was there. I think, are you friends with her?

I think she was the person who first told me about it. Yeah, she was like, oh, there's this song on The Chaser. Have you heard of it? I said, no, I haven't heard of it. And she's like, oh, it's a bit mean to you. I think there was concern you'd be upset about it. I was like, it was honestly not that. Like, like I said, like I just, I, to me, that was like, um, steroids.

Like, all I wanted was to be irritating. It falls into a very, a small but esteemed category of songs. There was, um, the Atari's. had a song called Ben Lee. Klinger had a song called Ben Lee. And I think those... Oh, and then the Maltie Peaches, one of their first songs called I Wish I Was I Was Ben Lee.

So I think it's those four tunes are the canon of songs that discuss the pros and cons of being a fan. Are we not even the best song about Ben Lee? I mean, we can't compete with the Moldy Peaches. That's very depressing to hear. So you've got a new song out. It's called Like This or Like That.

remembering that this is an election podcast, is there any link at all to the election or Australian politics that we can sort of weave in? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think what that song like this or like that is about is about choices that seem arbitrary, but ultimately they're not because they're how we express our values, right? So when I was growing up, when you guys were all the same age, whether you were a Pearl Jam fan or a Nirvana fan was a really big deal. It actually said a lot about what your value system was.

It said a lot about what you wanted out of art, what you wanted out of like conversation, out of, you know, different types of the tribe you were part of. And similarly with, you know, the Beatles or the stones, like these are all kinds of silly things. But they do express, like, they express who we are and what we want out of our lives. And I think, because I live, you know,

most of the time in America, we got pretty involved with Biden's campaign. in 2020 and it was undeniable that Joe Biden, the Democratic Party, were not anybody's dream candidate dream platform. It wasn't even worth arguing about that. Like, you know, my stepdaughter who was at the time she was 19 and very idealistic and, you know, a real lefty, the way, you know, a 19-year-old should be, she couldn't bring herself to campaign for Joe Biden for the Democrats because it just did not resonate with, like, her deepest held core belief system. Yet, as you get older and you become pragmatic, but you also become, you understand that it's

sometimes the small choices that don't seem that different, where we actually make these kind of, like, key decisions about how we're going to approach the future. And I think particularly when you look at climate, similarly within America, I'm under no delusion that like suddenly we're going to like curb climate change because labor gets voted in. I mean, these are like huge international and almost like cosmic problems that all these multinational corporations and lobbyists are all part of influencing and it's like I remain optimistic that they can be addressed. But I also sort of just believe that like whether you go down swinging is part of what makes us noble as a species. I want to go down swinging. If we're

going to, if we are actually going to destroy this planet and destroy our species, which there is a chance that we're going to do, I want it written in like the cosmic records that I disagreed. And so I think making those choices, even if they're not going to like solve the problem, they're the stories we're going to tell our kids. They're the stories they're going to tell their kids about, you know, it's like, what role did you play as the bus was going over the cliff? And it's, I want it to be known to my grandchildren that it was not standing silently while Donald Trump was reelected. It was not, you know, giving Scott Morrison another chance to have another four years of just ignoring the biggest subject that we need to be talking about.

And that's, so, you know, it's like, in a way, you have to be a little bit hardened by life And have a certain amount of cynicism to realize that, like, damn, we can't fix it all with a vote. But like this or like that, those choices do matter. That's a very impressive link, I've got to say, Ben. So on May 21st, choose like this or like that, I guess. Well, just realize that, like, it does matter and it doesn't matter at the same time. I'm not going to try and convince a 19-year-old that if they vote for the Labor Party, all problems are going to be solved. But I do think at a level of like the integrity of our species, we have to try and make progressive choices.

So you've got the album coming out August 19th. I'm fun. How fun can we be in that context you just mentioned, Ben? Where do you find fun? Well, that's the whole thing, man. Like, you know, I come from punk rock. I come from underground music. It's like you guys come from like, you know, poking at the bear too. Like what's what we're all doing, right? We're all like on the fringes of culture trying to like, do. take a few jabs from where we stand. The mainstream, the machine of the mainstream and the music that it jams down our throat as a culture, I'm not going to be able to topple that, just the same way I'm not going to be able to topple climate change with one vote. But, like, I do think that toppling an empire,

like, it has to be done with a smile on your face. Yeah. I love it. So fun and subversive. Always, always, always. Because in a way, like, our rebellious nature is beaten out of us with our depression and our cynicism. You know what I mean? Like we become like so trapped within a system that we feel we can have no effect on and

we're sort of useless and we just got to accept it. And then we may as well just become these like whiny complaining voices because we don't believe we can affect any real change. Fun is like fun is cheeky. And I really come from that like I said, Andy Kaufman, but also like Abby Hoffman. men, you know, like, like, um, like people that sort of fought the system by, um, by just like with a wink, you know, and making you, making you kind of think like, huh, like maybe the next generation are, if you can just give them a wink at the right time, you can say, hey, they didn't

beat me. They didn't beat it out of me, you know? And that's like I think, like as we get older, we sort of are becoming like our generation, we're becoming like the elders, you you know, of like Australian showbiz or whatever that is. And I just like, I really like connecting with younger artists and kind of mentoring them and like just fostering their sense of cheeky rebelliousness and their sense of fun. Because I think that's where like real change can come from. Yeah, it's sad that we're no longer producing comedy songs

making fun of like emerging artists in their 20s. No, but we've really lost it. But we do. We've got a number one song at the moment. That is true. I heard, I've been following it. We are number one in the charts, in the iTunes charts. Cole makes me come.

Number one, is there a problem? Like, have you found with your latest single like this or like that, you've run into problems because, you know, there's a far more successful song out there, Cole Makes Me Come, that's just preventing your single from getting out there? Look, as always, I think that the dualism that you are reflecting, as if it can only be the chaser or Ben Lee.

You guys are like, you guys are caught in a dualistic mindset that you've been in since 1999. We can both coexist. Hey, Ben, it's been delightful chatting to you. It's great. It's great to connect with you guys. And honestly, congratulations on, like, yeah, what you've, this moment you guys are having with this song.

It really is, it's the spirit, you know, it's silly, but it's not silly. And it's like, I think silliness is, like, way undervalue. and it's like I just I just love that the spirit is alive in you guys after all these years to do something like that so it's awesome and it's a banger tune like it's an earworm that's the thing I like it yeah yeah yeah who actually who did the who actually did the music well none of us none of us cam smith our editor so you talked about working with the next generation

that's that's who cam smith is he's now the editor of the chaser and he's a he's a polymath and and he does this banger of a tune And I mean, Scott Morrison as vocalist, really, I wouldn't have thought he had it in him based on the April Sun in Cuba. Well, I'm hoping he's going to win, you know, an aria for best rock vocal. I mean, surely he's eligible now, isn't he? Because he is the lead vocal in the song. We're in the aria charts. We're like number seven or something.

Amazing. It's so amazing. So cool. So Ben's song, Like This or Like That, his single is streaming now, wherever you get your streams. and his new album I'm Fun is out on August the 19th and touring touring in June Touring in June The parents get high tour

Turing and June Ben are you after a support If you're after a support act I'd be more than happy to come and play The annoying Ben Lee song Before you're set Wait we should actually do that Andrew I'm serious

Wait are you in Sydney or Melbourne? I'm based in Melbourne these days But I can Okay let's do it in Melbourne Let's do it. That'd be really fun. I think that would be funny. Brilliant. That's great.

Okay, you're on.