Steve Hughes: Heavy metal, comedy and controversy...

LIZ • Published 26 Jan 2012 16:30 0 Comments

An interview with Australian comic Steve Hughes is a fascinating experience: wicked, 40-fags-a-day laughter, liberal pepperings of cursing, and edgy views on everything from religion to poltical correctness.

"Comedy has many different facets and it can be political or intriguing or silly or just down right stupid," he told me on the phone. "The only thing at the moment is how things start getting marketed, like young good-looking guys in comedy. I understand the nature of selling, I'm not against it, but I do not know how grown men and women would laugh at a 20-year-old, prancing round the stage going 'I took a **** in my mum's house, hahaha'."

The 45-year-old comedian and heavy metal musician has lived in England for 12 years, with experiences during his time as a resident of Manchester often turning up in his material.

Renowned for cutting, informed comedy that isn't afraid to shy away from more difficult subjects, the tall, long-haired figure he cuts, clad in band T-shirts, always makes an impression on stage. Now Steve is taking to the road for his first UK tour, entitled Big Issues - a reference to a joke that he often opens his set with (I won't ruin it by sharing it here) - and also a play on words, as Steve explained.

"The war on terror, global warming, what I see as the small oppressions in the West that are made out to be protections of our freedom... The amount of stuff that's happening in the world today it's not hard to find big issues to discuss.

"And I like to bring God into it because I think that God gets a raaw deal of it, with all these atheists runing around saying he does not exist," the gravel-voiced comic added with a cackle. "I do not believe in that idea of an old bloke with a beard sitting on a fluffy cloud but that's the culture you grow up in.

"You have to understand your conditon and break out and look at it from many different angles. Like all of life, religion is vast and massive."

And as many comedians are trying to avoid controversy amid recent scandals involving Ricky Gervais and Frankie Boyle, Steve isn't quite so retiring. "It's nothing premeditated, I'm a 45-year-old man and I expect my audience to be adults. I do not think my set is controversial - there's more controversy about looking at a newspaper! But to an audience, it's 'here's a real life person saying it'. I say, what are you talking about?!

"Growing up in underground heavy metal, we were thinking: we can sing about anything - heavily offensive things! I have come from that background so things people think I should not be saying I just do not have reservations about.

"If anyone's offended then that's their choice to be offended. Somebody could tell me I have offended them and then I could learn something profound.

"That's why it is so scary, all this political correctness, people saying they have the 'right' not to be offended. You have no right. Life has ups and downs, you cannot control it."

Steve Hughes plays Maidenhead Norden Farm Arts Centre on Thursday, February 2, and South Street Arts Centre, Reading, on Friday, March 2. Get tickets for Reading from www.readingarts.com or 0118 960 6060, and for Maidenhead via nordenfarm.org or 01628 788 997.

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This article appeared in Reading Chronicle 26 Jan 12

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