Where did you grow up?
I grew up in the far eastern suburbs of Melbourne, in a little town called Mt Evelyn, which is at the end of the Lilydale line, the most notorious train line in and out of the metro network.
What were the creative career prospects like when you were growing up?
There weren't any really, unless you include minor league crime as a career prospect.
So is that what spurred you to move into the centre of Melbourne?
No, not exactly. I think for anyone who has grown up in those satellite, fringe areas, the 'city' becomes this exotic 'thing' that you mentally have to grapple with - you either embrace its freedom which is a scary prospect, or you decide to play it safe and stay in the area where you grew up. I don't know if it is the same elsewhere, but coming into town was the big thing when I was at high school. You are 14 or 15, and you go and buy a pair of Doc Martens and see a film or play the pinnies and generally run amok I remember the "Thank God It's Over" concerts, the communal experience had a profound impact on me. It took enrolling at university to give me the structure and impetus to actually make the move. I was really green when I arrived, probably hilariously so.
So when you were younger, did you have any ideas that you would be interested in breaking into the magazine and publishing industry, and what did you want to be if not?
Nope. I didn't even know what a graphic designer was. I don't know that I ever had any clue what I wanted to do, I just had an annoying urge to bust loose and an idea that I was just a bit different. I remember going to see a careers counsellor, and it was probably a job that he didn't want to do, but his solution was to just get you out of his hair. Who knows how to tell a 15 year old what they should do with their life? What can you expect from anyone at that age? Bless little Bindi Irwin, she knows she wanted to be a Wildlife Warrior before she was born but for the rest of us, the best solution is work experience. I did it in a few places, which was quite helpful, because the penny dropped and I actually realised that going to work is hardcore and permanent compared to school life. I mean, I didn't start Sneaker Freaker until I was thirty, so I had a decade to come up with one good idea. I wish mine had been to start Facebook and become a billionaire at 23...
So how do you think they benefit from having work experience before they go out into the industry?
I think it's not so much what you do, but how you approach it. The biggest thing that I learnt was that enthusiasm will get you 99% of the way to your goal, and is what it's about. I think for some kids, just turning up or doing it somewhere 'cool'is all their expectations are based on. The practical benefits from just being there are pretty minimal, because you can't just walk straight into an office and start being productive or have a staff member assigned as your personal butler to show you how the system works. In saying that, I would never expect anyone on work experience to lick envelopes, you've got to give them a chance to shine, but at the same time, I'm usually so busy it's hard to roll out a red carpet and give them something that they don't regard as demeaning for at least some part of the day.
So what work experience did you do?
Man, we're going back in time now, but I did it as a gardener for some reason!
Something the careers counselor thought you should do?
I don't know what they were thinking or what I was thinking, but I didn't want to be a gardener and I'd have been shit at it anyway. I also did work experience at Channel 9, I did it at a radio station, and I'm sure I did it somewhere else as well. I also did it later when I was at uni, as a way of getting to meet people in the industry. The thing that's impossible to teach is how to make that initial contact. You need balls, and luck. You need to use every resource you have and not be afraid to make the call if you think it can get you in. I find once you've made that inroad and you're not a halfwit, the thing to do is to make yourself indispensable and all of a sudden you're annointed as the next in line to whatever position comes up next.
Do you think doing voluntary work gives you the edge to break into whatever industry you are targeting?
Anything that gives you a connection with people in any capacity gives you an edge. Being in the scouts would work, as would volunteering at a charity all these things can spark a little maturity and that goes a long way. I mean, people talk about networking, but when you're a kid, and even as an adult, the idea of networking is terrifying. Who knows what it even is or how to do it? You've got social things to get over, you might be shy, or you might be simply 16 years old trying to deal with adults in a fast paced environment. How do you get their attention? It's hard not to be annoying if you're keen as mustard, but you have to get in there and give it a go and say "man, I'll do anything!" and not grumble when you've licked your thousandth stamp. I think back to what I was like, and I must have been annoying and a bit cocky. I would have been demanding "give me a go on the big mixing desk, move over and show me how it works." And that's how you learn when you are starting. I really admire those kids who have the get-up-and-go gene. You can identify who has it straight up, you can tell they are going to go places. Of course you could be a shy genius, but your road will be that much slower.
Going back a bit, when you come out of high school, there is a tendency to think that the world owes you a living, and a hard lesson to learn is if you don't go out and grab it, if you don't decide for yourself what you want to do, then it's really no-one's fault anymore. Some people are born super talented or super lucky, they get discovered like Ben Lee as a 12 year old in a punk band. Some get discovered doing Australian Idol both are equally valid as far as talent is talent, but for the rest of us, simply putting yourself out there can take some courage. The alternative is pretty boring and fatalistic... are you supposed to be discovered like a supermodel walking down the street? Once you hit eighteen, you can't blame your parents or the school anymore. You are supposed to be doing what you want to do, as opposed to when you are at school, when you always seem to be doing what someone else wants you to do. It's a hell of a lot easier to say "I don't wanna do that", rather than "I really wanna do this." Myself, I hate being told what to do, which made life difficult for my teachers...
Does motivation stand in for skill sometimes?
For sure, you can't expect someone even with a degree behind them to be that skilful, there's no substitute for one year of actual industry work. And that is a real shock to a lot of kids who just spent 3 years believing they are now ready to take the world by storm. Maybe they will, but more than likely they're in for a reality check. I've recently seen plenty of kids with design degrees, and I'm really curious to know what the hell they did for three years, because they generally aren't prepped at all for working. I would love to impress upon whoever is teaching kids at a degree level to make sure they work harder and faster than what they are doing now. Because there is no substitute for just grinding it out, learning your shit inside out and back to front. If you want to be employable and you want to be of benefit to a company, even on the small salary that you might be starting on, you need to be able to do stuff to a pretty high level. You can't afford to have someone sitting there like Stevie Wonder, holding their hand as you go through a job, piece by piece.
Do you think there is much to be said for a formal tertiary education in your field? Do you think it is beneficial in any way?
This probably sounds incompatible with my own experience, but I'm not convinced you need tertiary education to make it, unless you have a specific vocational direction. I've got a degree in media studies from RMIT, which is an Arts course with practical subjects in radio and television. It was a brilliant course and I loved it so much it took me 5 years to finish. It's probably come in handier than I thought it would in a weird way, because I'm now doing a lot of writing and critical thinking. If I'd done pure design, who knows where I'd be?
There is no doubt a degree is beneficial. You're placed in an environment where you're meeting a fresh set of peers who are interested in similar things. A lot of students I met when I was at RMIT are now lifelong friends. Some of them are in the film industry; some of them are in television; some of them are in radio; some of them are even doing something completely useful with their lives so on the whole, you'd have to say the degree helped them get there. Or maybe they're just smart and would've made it anyway?
Going to university is also a way of escaping from your high school persona - you turn up, you don't know anyone, you reinvent yourself, and you just start again, especially so when you come from the outer suburbs. It was a real eye opener for me to meet people from radically different backgrounds to mine - I'm talking about their religion background or maybe they had lived in the city all their lives and were pretty street smart or maybe they went to really exclusive private schools. I was seventeen and it was a real shock to me on a number of levels. I certainly wouldn't just go and do a course for no real reason, besides which, HECS costs a lot of money these days. With hindsight, uni can be a life-changing thing and a period where you decide who you are in so many ways. But equally, it is how you approach it once you are there as much as what you learn. High marks aren't everything, especially in a creative job.
As a kid, who/what were your three biggest inspirations?
My school was not academic in any way, nor did I want it to be at the time, but there was something inherently missing in the system that gave kids a hunger to learn and really go for it. It wasn't cool to be smart or try hard with your school work and that's such an endemic fault that I don't know much can be done about it. But there were a couple of teachers who really challenged me to do well, and I am thankful they did. This is sounding like an Oscar speech but I think everyone deserves a Good Will Hunting relationship with at least one teacher because it can be the most valuable thing and could save you from a job boning chickens at an abattoir.
What was your first job?
I had a few jobs. I stacked shelves in a supermarket. I made pizzas and pumped petrol. The best job I ever had was at a TAB. I think there was a rule that TABs have to have 2 people in them at all times, in case there is a robbery or something. Every night after school I went to the TAB for 3 hours and sat out the back and did my homework. So I basically I got paid for doing nothing, which was quite a lark. The pay rate was probably 7 bucks an hour or something, but that was THE holy job to be passed down like a priceless family heirloom. I had to bribe someone's brother to hand that one over.