Exclusive: Iain Lee Interview Part 2

LaughRiot met up with Iain Lee recently, to talk shindiggery, Danny Baker and being obsessed with the iTunes podcast chart. This is part 2. I thank you!

LR: With the success of Shindiggery, how important do you think the iTunes podcast chart is?

IL: Really important. I am obsessed with the iTunes chart, but I am sinking down it at a rate of knots. In all honesty, and people don’t believe me when I say this, the first two or three Shindiggery shows I genuinely thought I could sneak them out and maybe a hundred people would listen to them tops, and I would be really pleased with that, and it would kind of grow from there. But even the early tests got like fifteen hundred downloads each, the shows themselves are getting two to two and a half thousand downloads each. It kind of took me by surprise, because the first couple of shows were not really very well thought out. Then I was surprised to look at the iTunes chart and see that I’d gotten up to 24, it dropped back down, but it is still getting the same number of downloads, the figures are pretty consistent. I am trying to let it go, and not worry about it.

LR: What about the half episode, why do that?

IL: The way I worked it out was that I guessed that some people coming late to the podcast had also downloaded the tests at the same time, and this had obviously boosted the figures. So the half episodes were to try to keep me up in the chart between the main episodes.

LR: Where do you see this podcast going? Obviously Danny Baker is charging for his and Ricky Gervais obviously made loads of money. You must think there is some commercial potential?

IL: I haven’t really got that far to be honest. I don’t know, I’ve got no plans to start charging for it. I don’t know how you do it. I am realistic to know that compared to Baker I am small fry. As soon as I decide to charge for the show the figures are just going to go straight down…

But I kinda like this sounding like it’s done in someone’s bedroom, that homemade feel of it. And people are sending me stuff in, some of its good, some of its rubbish, some of its brilliant.

So at the moment I am quite happy, genuinely happy, to be doing it for free. I generally start recording it on a Wednesday, and then add bits on a Thursday or a Friday. I am quite happy to just do that as a sort of hobby. If I started to charge for it , it wouldn’t make me that much money to be honest with you. I think that this one will still stay free forever. But then there might be other things that I might go and do that might be charged for. It’s always just been me pissing around, the fact that people are downloading it, and some people are saying quite nice things about it, that’s just a bit of a surprise. I don’t know whether that is naïve or what, but it does surprise me.

From doing stuff like the 11 o’clock show where I got a bit of a rough ride, and R.I.S.E. which people say was shit – which they are wrong about, it was quite good – I am kinda used to people saying “you are a little rubbish”, so having someone say “this is alright actually, it’s quite funny” is quite nice.

LR: Gervais is in a different league, even from Baker. Do you think that Danny Baker has a chance of continuing as a charged for show?

IL: I think it will do, because it’s only £2 a week, so I think it will. I am certainly going to sign up for it. I am sure he will lose a lot of listeners but I think he will do alright. I’d be really interested to see. I think he will do alright because his show is so good, and it is genuinely funny.

LR: If you don’t think that charging would work for your show, might there be an option for adverts funding.

IL: I am not averse if anyone wants to come and sponsor me they can. Of course, I’m not stupid, I don’t mind reading an advert at the top and tail of it to get a few quid. But in all honesty, it’s not costing me a lot. Some for the hosting, the microphone cost me £40 and that is it, that is the only outgoings that I have. So I am not in debt or desperately going, ‘I pray that someone starts sponsoring me or I am screwed’.

LR: Where did you get the theme tune from?

IL: Two listeners, Guy Magic Fingers and Eduardo who used to do a lot of parody songs for me on the LBC show. Eduardo did me a song but I couldn’t use it as it wasn’t original music, so I said “ah, I’m looking for a theme tune so if you can re-do this but with original music” then I’ll have it. I was expecting it to be a bit half-hearted and rubbish, but it was brilliant. They have a hit on their hands. They have also been sending in sketches and other songs. I think they are both really clever.

LR: Are you still aiming for the full-length episode once a week, and half episode in the middle?

IL: I think so, ideally one episode a week and a half episode, but if I suddenly get a burst of creativity and I get two episodes out that’s fine, or if it misses a couple of weeks that’s also fine. It’s just gotten into this pattern.

LR: So there really is no plan behind all this Shindiggery?

IL: No there really isn’t. And people don’t believe that. There is no plan, with my hand on my heart. It’s just a laugh putting it out. I’ve recorded some really good stuff with Varinder who is a caller to the LBC show. I got him round and just gave him a microphone for an hour, he just did the funniest stuff, the boy’s a genius.

LR: Where did the name come from?

IL: I remember I was doing a show and I thought I’d made up a word, Shindiggery just came out of my mouth and I thought ‘wow that’s a good word’. Then people phoned up and said, ‘actually I think it exists already’. It just sounded like a 60s Lionel Bart musical name, or some sort of Austin Powers sort of thing and it just sums up the essence…. I don’t know what the fuck it means, it just sounds good. It’s just a nice name and names are sometimes the hardest things to come up with, and it works.

Who knows, it may evolve into something a bit more formal, and maybe I’ll start selling it off to radio stations to see if they want to do a “sketch show” – which is a lazy phrase.

LR: Do you listen to any other podcasts?

IL: Tommy Boyd on Play Radio UK, Clive Bull on LBC who I think is an undiscovered genius – he is really subtle and laid-back. And that’s it. I listen to G-Mans podcast, but that’s rubbish, I’d advise everyone to avoid that…

You can waste a day just going through iTunes trying to find something that’s half decent. And I don’t want to listen to Russell Brand, or Ricky Gervais. I have heard Gervais many many times, and I just don’t ‘get’ Brand. So to try and find the smaller ones that are any good, is a minefield.

LR: What other projects do you have on at the moment?

IL: I am doing some filming for TittyBangBang series 3 with Bob Mortimer. And that’s going alright. And that’s it really, then it’s just LBC. The TV work is a little bit quiet at the moment, and I can’t pretend I am not a little bit disappointed that that’s not happening at the moment, but hopefully it will pick up soon, I am optimistic it will do.

LR: Well when you become a podcast sensation…

IL: People will be banging on my internet door….

Our thanks to Iain Lee for sparing his time, and keeping Frank Sidebottom waiting while we finished things off.

You can catch Iain on LBC 97.3FM Monday-Friday 7pm-10pm, and Sunday 10pm-1am! Also Shindiggery is on iTunes.

Long Live Shindiggery!

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