Rob
Deering is a cheery fellow with a big happy face. He’s an award-winning
stand-up comedian and has so far taken five solo shows to the Edinburgh
Fringe - in fact that’s where I last saw him, hurrying past me
with a big grin, carrying his guitar, which these days features prominently
in his act.
You’ve probably seen him most recently on the telly; he pops up
on the box quite a bit these days and can quite often be found spilling
out his memories of popular culture on those ever present list shows.
He has performed on The World Comedy Tour (Granada), and The World Stands
Up (Paramount Comedy Channel). He has hosted a couple of talent show
spin-offs; presenting Soapstar Superstar 2007 - Bonus Tracks (ITV2)
and Strictly Dance Fever 2006 (BBC THREE), he’s also done a bit
of panel gaming with appearances on Annually Retentive (BBC THREE) and
Never Mind The Full Stops (BBC Four / BBC Two) and is also ever ready
to share his opinions of ‘the housemates’ on Big Brother’s
Big Mouth (Channel 4/E4). He loves his trivia and has done a few quiz
shows in his time, most recently he impressed Anne Robinson, winning
The Weakest Link charity comedy special on BBC One, getting all his
questions right in the process. However he may still be best known for
drinking his own wee on 99 Things To Do Before You Die (Five).
We caught up with Rob for a bit of a chinwag…
Has
music always been a big part of your comedy?
No it hasn’t,
it’s always been a big part of my life. I was always in bands
since from being about fourteen, but when I was first a comedian I was
completely guitar free for a couple of years, then I started doing one
or two jokes, because I could, and they always went well, so I found
I was taking my guitar to all my gigs. And then I wrote more and more
jokes and then it kind of took over my life like a virus, you know,
like The Borg.
What music are you
really into?
Erm… I’m
very eclectic, but what have I been listening to? I like a bit of the
Super Furry Animals… erm… I downloaded a bit of Kylie the
other day.
Nowt wrong with
a bit of Kylie.
Well you know it
was the slightly more obscure, nicely produced stuff, you know, ‘Slow’
and ‘Chocolate’… good songs. Oooh, and an occasional
bit of noisy rock, you know, a bit of Zeppelin… I like Pink Floyd,
that’s sad isn’t it… but I don’t like Dire Straits
at all.
Fair enough. I can
understand that. What do you reckon is the album of the year this year?
This year? Ah, yeah,
you see… I’m not nearly hip enough to know the answer to
that question.
You’re
not buying so much of the new stuff.
No. Well I try to;
I try to keep up with it. I approve of the Arctic Monkeys and I listen
to them when I can, but really that’s young people’s music.
It’s so noisy!!
Have you got any
strong opinions on the way the music industry and music sales are these
days?
Well I think on
the one hand it’s a good thing that the record companies are kind
of losing their grip, and the internet is really opening things up,
but on the other hand there still seems to be a proliferation of people
who are pretending to be authentic and sort of non record company produced
when they so obviously are. Like all that stuff, last year, or whenever
it was, about Sandi Thom. You know, ‘oh it’s just in her
basement’. Yeah it was in her basement with all the record company
executives.
And the web technicians.
Exactly. And you
know the idea that James Blunt is in some way more honest than Girls
Aloud, and I don’t think he is.
So James Blunt is
quite a bit of a target for you?
Yes that’s
right!
Good for you.
Did you know he
wrote a dissertation called “The Commodification of Popular Music”?
No I didn’t
know that.
Yes he did.
Have
you seen his appearance on Sesame Street?
No I haven’t
seen that. Is it on Youtube?
Yes it is…
I suppose you’ve heard about it have you?
No I haven’t,
tell me.
It’s him singing
‘You’re Beautiful’… but instead of singing the
words to ‘You’re Beautiful’ he sings about ‘My
Triangle’… and it’s a love song about his favourite
triangle.
Oh. I think that’s
good. I’m sad to say my respect for Blunt has just gone up.
They’ve even
fitted in the word ‘hypotenuse’ in there which is quite
good.
Yeah I don’t
think I want to watch it actually, because its going to spoil my opinion
of him.
Yeah you don’t
want to start liking him all of a sudden.
No, exactly.
You mention that
you’ve been in quite a few bands during your youth. I’m
intrigued by some of the names… do you wanna talk us through a
few of them?
Well hit me…
Which one’s in particular?
Erm… The Jemima
Stepdads?
Ah well I can give
you the story on that one. My band radically changed line-up at that
time. My keyboard player Alex Lestrange became the bass and we sacked
the bassist and the drummer and got a drum machine. We borrowed…
well a girl I knew called Jemima, we borrowed her stepdad’s bass…
hence The Jemima Stepdads… and also it sounded kinda indie and
cool to me… what an idiot!
I also quite like
Benny and the Space Babies.
Yep… that
was erm… not my choice. But it was good; it was a special one
off band for a friend’s birthday. He called himself Benny, and
called his band The Space Babies. It’s based on the worst name
his four year old brother could think of when he was angry. [imitates
small angry boy] Oooh, you… you… space babies!
But then although Benny left The Space Babies, The Space Babies existed
for many years, we used to play weddings and stuff. Covers band.
Wax Lyrical…
was that a deep thought or a shallow one?
It was a shallow
one…. And a passing idiotic one. Within seconds of coming up with
that I thought to myself ‘oh god that’s an irritating name’.
It’s so wanky. But I, you know, I couldn’t shake it off.
We had some very, very minor fame… just around school literally…
but people would say, ‘oh you’re in Wax Lyrical aren’t
you’. And then I tried to change it to Sugar Hiccup, but the rest
of the band weren’t going for it.
Sugar Hiccup, I
like!!
Yeah ‘Sugar
Hiccup’ is a Cocteau Twins song. So there we go.
What’s your
favourite band name ever? Not just your own bands.
Band name! I dunno,
I like, erm… I like sort of Bentley Rhythm Ace… and Low
Fidelity All Stars… band names like that you know. They just sound
good… I don’t like… This is one of my old man reactionary
things… but I don’t like Bat For Lashes. Why aren’t
they called Bat Your Lashes or Bat Your Eyelashes… but some of
the band names now they’re a bit… you know… the three,
what are you supposed to say… ‘chk chk chk’, the three
exclamation marks… putting in capital letters and all that stuff…
band names are in a bit of the doldrums at the moment I think…
I’m in The Doldrums at the moment actually… I’m the
drummer!
You spent a bit
of time writing theme tunes, pop songs and jingles… anything we
might have heard of?
Erm… put simply…
no. I don’t know if you ever watched Vic Reeves Examines which
was on, what was at the time UK Play. It wasn’t one of Vic Reeves
biggest shows, but that was my biggest theme tune, that was my best
one… it went der der dum, der der der der der dum de dum dum…
and it actually had me on it, singing it like that, there were other
instruments but it also had me on going der der dum… It was quite
good.
Quite momentous.
You’re on tour at the moment aren’t you?
I am. With
my show Charmageddon.
What’s
Charmageddon about?
It’s just
the ultimate Rob Deering stand-up experience really. It’s got
plenty of stand-up, plenty of self-indulgent guitar work, some gurning,
some falling over. There are loose themes. The two key themes of the
show are me desperately wanting to be in bands and erm… death.
But I don’t ram it down your throat… and the death thing…
there isn’t too much of if, and you don’t really notice
it with this big face.
And you’ll
be doing Edinburgh again in August I presume?
That would always
be the aim… I mean it’s a long time away, who knows what
will happen between now and then, but yeah I reckon. I had a couple
of quite nice show ideas.
But
you’re keeping them close to your chest? You’re not gonna
spill any information?
I’m not gonna spill no… ‘cos it’ll end up never
happening and I’ll be ashamed. But I’ve got two different
ones… I might do two shows. Yeah I might do one that’s a
kind of creative workshop in the afternoon and a stand-up show in the
evening. Creative workshop… Oh yeah… that sounds cool.
Creative workshop…
Go back to your theatre roots for a bit.
No! Don’t!
Don’t! Never go back!
Sorry but we’re
gonna have to go back a bit… because I want to talk about some
quiz shows.
Good, good. No,
quiz shows is fine.
Your first quiz
show appearance was at the age of twelve?
I think I was eleven
actually.
And
that was on TVAM wasn’t it?
That’s right… Crack It.
Which I’ve
never heard of… what time was it on?
Crack It
was just the game… the show was called Splat. It was just before…
everyone remembers Timmy Mallett and Wacaday… well Splat
was the show that didn’t work that they cancelled just before
that. But Crack It was the game on that and you could win a Sinclair
ZX Spectrum for your school.
And did you?
Nope. I blew out…
I bottled. It went to a tie-breaker, and I got the fear.
You
got the nerves… You got the nerves again when you went on Fifteen
To One.
I did get
nerves on Fifteen To One actually. I made a couple of stupid
mistakes on there. It was tough being at number fourteen, because you’ve
got those first thirteen people to get scared through.
That had
a similar standing arrangement to the show which brought your major
triumph in quiz shows… The Weakest Link.
Yeah you see suddenly
it all came together.
You’d got
past the nerves by that stage.
Exactly.
And it was nice to actually be on there as a comedian, you know as my
modern self. And The Weakest Link, you know, the questions
are a lot easier.
And
you got all your questions correct. Do you know how many other people
have got through The Weakest Link with no incorrect answers?
I don’t know
of any other people who’ve done it to be honest.
So you might hold
a record?
Well I’d like
to think so. That’s what Anne Robinson said, but it might have
changed since then.
Surely this needs
verifying and some kind of certificate needs to be issued.
Yeah but you know
I’d look sad if it was me that did the verifying.
Is trivia a big
part of your life?
It really is. In
my act, it’s all about pop culture and all that sort of stuff.
And also sometimes people wonder where they’ve seen me. They’ve
seen me on those eighties list shows, not ones from the eighties, but
you know where you talk about things.
You do do a good
vox-pop.
Yeah, ‘cos
I really do remember everything that Rick Astley got up to and all the
old adverts. Gimme an old product and I’ll tell you what the advert
was.
Oooh, ah…
erm… Daz?
Daz…
That’s too
easy isn’t it?
Yeah but you know
I can remember, whats-his-name… Alfie Moon… Shane Ritchie…
But you’ve made me think of Biotex - with the ‘blood, sweat,
gravy and egg’. You see what I mean… if it’s pointless,
I can remember it. That’s the trick in my life.
That’s something
to be proud of. Those list shows, how do they actually work? Do they
rely upon you remembering the stuff as well as you do or do they have
a little combi TV with them ready to show clips?
Well you see they’ve
all got people more famous than me on them, and the thing with people
more famous than me, and often a lot younger, they get sent a tape and
they watch all the clips. Then when they put it together they think,
‘well we’ve got some but we haven’t got enough’.
Then I get kind of drafted in, I get parachuted in at a late stage to
natter on about anything.
Yeah so, we’ve
got no-one talking about Keith Chegwin… can you talk about Cheggers
for a bit.
Exactly.
And I do try and genuinely only talk about stuff that I know, but luckily,
like I say, that’s the kind of stuff I know.
Rob Deering is touring with his latest show - Charmageddon.
Full details on his website:
