Interview: Rory Lowe

Perth is home to one of the best comedy scenes in Australia, however due to the sheer volume of creative talent we’re pumping out, it sometimes gets overlooked.
Individuals such as Rory Lowe are changing this, and man do we love it.
We had a chat ahead of his show’s at the Mt Lawley Bowling Club this week.

I like your shoes.
Thanks, I love Adidas, its something about the logo, the 3 stripes is nice to look at.. and everyone knows Nike is evil, I don’t think everyone knows Adidas is evil… it’s not as bad maybe.
I really like the classic look, all one colour, I got a blue pair, these black pair, a white pair with black stripes, a light blue pair and gazelles are the best.

What do you usually drink?
Red wine, shiraz actually. I don’t really like beer, its like my default, beer. If someone’s like “So you want a beer i’m like ‘yeah! lets go have beers, okay,” then I’m like “oh fuck I would have much preferred to think about what I want.” Dudes just seem to do it, like lets just keep this easy and simple; *Aussie accent* “I’ve been lifting the bricks all day mate just give me whatever.”

Thats a pretty impressive impression of an aussie you did there…
I love doing Aussie impressions, it’s so much fun. Aussies love Aussies, Aussies love laughing at bogan Australia, it’s actually so funny, but it is just such a weird thing – everyone acknowledges it, everyone takes the piss out of it, even bogans are like, “bogans are fucked” haha.
Like how does this cycle end?! They acknowledge it! They are like “yep were bogans, we love being bogans,” so well maybe we should just accept that they are bogans.
Everyone assumes they’re rednecks, but like the Australian version, but its so much more. I love a good bogan, just having a conversation with someone you didn’t know was a bogan. Half way through your just like “OH MY GOD TELL ME MORE THINGS.” I’d rather talk to a bogan than a vegan anyway…
“What did you do tonight? I did some skids and punched a guy then like we had a big BBQ and set some shit on fire,”
Then the vegan guys like, “Oh yeah I sat down in silence next to a candle.”

Haha so true. What do you think of the Perth comedic scene at the moment?
It’s so underrated, we have some of the best talent in the nation. Ciaran Lyons is on Triple J now – he’s just a kid from Perth who was just doing his bits and being funny and he got picked up. Melbourne International Comedy Festival put together a show called Comedy Zone and they go through all the states and put together the best up and coming comics and showcase them and put them in the gala, Tien Trang was doing Southbound and stuff, Jim Jefferies went to WAAPA as an opera singer.
The promoters don’t have the budget to targeting our demographic. People don’t think it’s an option they’re just like “Stevos bands playing, we can smoke ciggies out the back.”
Check out whats on, come have a good time.

Do you smoke?
I quit 4 days ago, but I’m not going to say I quit yet, I’ll give it a month or so, cigarettes aren’t cool.

At this point we run out of liquid to drink to I head to the bar to get us another round (wine for Rory), I leave my phone recording on the table…

I didn’t really listen to Prince, I don’t know if I really care that much, everyone thinks Prince is ‘Yeah! oh!’ they’res so many classics, there’s hundreds of classic artists, hundreds of greatest artists… I’m not going to hear them all. Theres too many. I don’t have to like prince, just leave me alone facebook.

What’s it like writing comedy?
I was watching Straight Outta Compton last night and everyone was in the studio getting down having fun and I’m like that looks sick! Meanwhile, I’m just gonna sit by myself in my room and make funny jokes.
Comedy is the most funniest thing to do in public, like you look like a crazy… your just sat by yourself writing into a book pissing yourself laughing at what you just wrote down.

I just got a burger and it just began to fall apart, stop putting so much shit in the burger, I reckon it would be sick if they made heaps of tiny burgers so like ill have 4 mini burgers for 15 bucks.
I think that’s already a thing… like sliders
Well I’m gonna come through the game strong, put this in the article, ‘Rory Lowe said sliders are coming back, sliders are the new black,’ give it 3 years and there will be slider bars everywhere and they will all be served on metal plates, because of modernism or something.

Do you like social media?
I don’t know. Some days I do. Today I hate it. Today I fucken hated it because like, the sky was all grey and I looked it my phone and oh no some country somewhere has run out of water and some guy has killed 100 people and theres no more air left and the ground is now jelly and theres no more water in the ocean and theres too many fish so all the fish are dead and now theres too much water so I was like oh man FUCK facebook today. Sometimes I say I cant do this and sometimes I’m like ‘yay awesome!,’ sometimes you post a status and you’re like ‘fuck yeah everyone likes what I said.’

I don’t get Instagram, I still don’t. I think I’ve figured it out but its not what I wanted it to be. I wanted it to be cooler than that. There was this dude walking down the street talking to his girlfriend about this picture/this picture, he goes “its just people taking pictures of their food and shoes mate, I don’t wanna see that, I don’t wanna see that what makes them think I wanna see that?”
And I was just thinking, ‘they’re not taking those photos for you’ you know what I mean? Instagram isn’t about taking photos to show people it’s about taking a photo because you wanna take a photo and that’s why somedays I like social media. It’s just a really good way for people to express themselves, a good platform, its able to connect everyone on the planet but usually its just ‘look at this cat doing this thing’ but you need that too.
I was feeling a bit blue today because of all the shit I said before but then there was this thing saying ‘if you’re sad look at this!’ and it was just this dog looking at its owner, while its owner was on a swivel chair and it was just playing that ‘all around me are familiar faces, worn out places…’ and it was just like this pug with eyes wide open because its upside down being spun around, and man it was fucking hilarious.

That Lion king video went huge.
Yeah its so strange, you know, it’s like ah really? Is that what everyone likes?!
I sent through an Aladdin one today so hopefully that goes up. I wanna do a Toy Story one. It’s not a new idea, like taking something and putting an Aussie accent on it, its not a new thing. It’s just those things where like you muck around with stuff … like you look at Alex Williamson and Frenchy  and all these big massive YouTube dudes and youre just like oh yeah just put on an Aussie accent and act like a bogan and do those things, a lot of the things that successfully go viral (esp. in aus) are things that have Aussie accents that shouldn’t have an Aussie accent,.
But those guys are funny, I don’t wanna knock them, haha next minute headlines everywhere – ‘Rory slags off everybody in the business.’

Who’s your comedic idol?
Bill Burr is the best, he is an American comic who has been out for years, he is the best. Louis CK is a game gamechanger – he did 5 specials for 5 years and really changed how comedy was made, he will be remembered more than Bill. I really like a guy called Chris D’Elia he is just funny, like theres nothing too much too it, nothing too phisolophical or analytical of society, he just says some really funny shit and I like it.

When did you realise this was what you wanted to do?
I did a gig in high school for the talent show at Aquanis and it just went well. It pissed off the people I didn’t like and the people I did like loved it, so a year later I did another gig because people were telling me to do it… so I did it and that went well. Then I did it six months after that and again it went well so from there it just became more frequent. I got some more gigs and opened up for Tame Impala at Big Day Out and that was awesome. My friends and I used to pretend we were Tame to get chicks and then it ended up we ended up being part of the crew and I saw Kev when he was back in town last and it was cool, it was just one of those things where I was like fuck how the fuck did this just happen?
I fanboy so hard to myself in secret, like one night I was hanging with Stephen K Amos and some other guys and we ended up going to Connections because they were so gay and I had to pinch myself, it was so fun.
When I met Snoop Dog, he is so tall, I looked at his chest and I just went ‘oh my god’ and there was a light behind him and I was like its Jesus! Coolest mofo, he was just in their singing Bob Marley and shit.

Check out Rory’s gig Instagram’s to Grammy’s at the Mt Lawley Bowling club running from tonight to Saturday.
We’ll hook you up with some cheaper tickets here, because we like you xo