Brig & Lehmo open up to Peter Saxon about the day they stepped into Grubby and Dee Dee’s jobs at GOLD. All the people they’d like to beat and who they’d listen to if they weren’t on air themselves.
The great thing about interviewing radio teams is that you can ask a question addressed to either or both and they’ll instinctively know who should answer first. They know not to talk over each other. Brig & Lehmo do it better than most. Such is the chemistry between them.
And when not out and out funny, they are both very, very humorous. But they didn’t start out that way.
Brig, Brigitte Duclos completed a Bachelor of Applied Science majoring in Phys Ed while Lehmo, Anthony Lehmann, threw away a career as an accountant to do stand up. “I think it threw me away,” he jokes, “For seven years, I would work during the day as a mild mannered accountant and then go off and do gigs at night. And I got a lot more satisfaction from standing up in front of a crowd telling jokes and getting paid ten bucks than I did as an accountant and getting paid proper money and no applause.
“Worse, I worked in insolvency, so it was the opposite of applause. People hated me. People hated seeing me. Getting applause as stand up was a big turnaround from arriving somewhere and getting death threats.” says Lehmo.
Brig, who has always loved sport, never thought she’d do anything else but Phys Ed. It was never her intention to get a job in media. And she certainly had no idea she was funny – in a professional sense.
“I don’t think I found out or knew that something was going on at all till I worked for Richard Stubbs (Triple M) as a news reader 21 years ago. And suddenly he started bringing me into the show and he thought I was funny and I couldn’t work out what was going on. And the next thing I knew I dropped the news reading and I haven’t looked back,” says Brig.
For some time both Brig and Lehmo worked at Triple M, but not in the same city. They finally got together around four years ago, “I was working on MIX 101.1 with Tom Gleeson (right) and we were just starting to come good I think, to find each other, when Tom decided he wanted to leave and concentrate on a stand up career and we had Lehmo in for a week doing footy during the AFL finals,” recalls Brig, “And I thought ‘he’s a bit of a spunk.’ And he went, ‘Brigitte who?’”
radioinfo: You were at MIX for a couple of years and then they tap you on the shoulder and say we want you to move over to GOLD… where you’re going to replace a Melbourne institution in Grubby and Dee Dee. What went through your minds?
Lehmo: We actually thought we were going to get fired. We got back to the office and we saw Grubby and Dee Dee (right) and they said to us, We’ve just been told that we are not going to be renewed. We were absolutely shocked.
Brig: There’d been speculation. And funnily enough we’d been saying to each other how we’d hate to be the people who take over from Grubby and Dee Dee, poor things, because how do you replace that? It never crossed our minds…
Lehmo: Then we got called into a meeting. Honestly, we walked into that meeting thinking we were going to get fired as well because we thought they’d want to start afresh. So we walk into the meeting … you should have seen the look on our faces when they said, we want you to go over to GOLD. We were like…
Brig: It was the biggest shock of my life I’ve got to say. One of the biggest shocks I’ve ever had.
Lehmo: We were both very conflicted because we’d become really close with Grubby and Dee Dee. We saw them every morning, so it was a lot to take in at the time.
“At first, we didn’t know what GOLD was. We both thought Gold was something it wasn’t because I only heard it in the toilet in the building”
radioinfo: Apart from the awkwardness of the situation, what did you think of the move from MIX to GOLD?
Lehmo: I personally felt that maybe the brand was a bit old. I had a lot of uncertainty. But then I went away, thought about it and thought, well we’re not flooded with choices at the minute. It’s not as though we had 20 options
Brig: So they asked us… they said, How would you feel…
Lehmo: I don’t think they were asking…
Brig: They were telling.
Lehmo: So there was a lot of trepidation early on. And we were feeling really bad to walk into someone else’s job like that after we had just seen them and seen how upset they were. It was horrible.
Brig: At first, we didn’t know what GOLD was. We both thought Gold was something it wasn’t because I only heard it in the toilet in the building – but now. Its so different to what I pictured it to be.
We realised almost immediately what a golden opportunity, no pun intended, it was. I realised for me at 48…
Now I look at it as a gift. To think GOLD is a place where you can have longevity at this stage of my career and Gold is so stable. The minute we got there we decided we liked it so much better than mix, didn’t we?
Lehmo: We fell in love with it immediately. And you know the music’s great. It’s the music we both grew up with, so the music format is perfect for us.
And you know what, I spent my whole life in radio with music formats changing about every six months. That’s not an exaggeration either. It was a never ending frustration of mine- they would have two bad survey results – look you’ve got to change the music and you’d go, Jesus!
The best description was: If you’ve got Coke and Pepsi, yet the taste of Pepsi keeps changing, eventually everyone’s going to just drink Coke. So leave music the same and let people just make up their mind and that’s the great thing about GOLD, the music’s not going to change. The music is exactly what it is.
If you stop anyone in the street in Melbourne and you ask them what sort of music GOLD plays, they’ll all tell you: They play classic hits, Great 80’s songs, 70’s songs. Elton John. Fleetwood Mac. Rolling Stones. They just know. GOLD has the most solid music brand of any radio station in Melbourne.
radioinfo: How much of your personal life do you want or need to put on air
Brig: A lot less than we did on MIX because we are very ‘news topical,’ which we love.
Lehmo: I was sick of trying to pretend that I had an interesting story about my cats or my girlfriend.
Brig: I was sick of talking about my kids. And they were sick of it too.
Lehmo: Now we just talk about ourselves now when it actually is interesting.
Brig: We love the news because we are doing so many interesting things. We’ve been to Cairo this morning. We’ve been to Bali. We cover all the big stories.
Also, we do lots of Footy, which we both love.
So, not as much personal things – which is good because my kids are of the age that you just can’t get away with it anymore.
radioinfo: GOLD caters for a more mature age group, yet you still do these crazy stunts. We did that story on you, Brig, where you lost on Gender Wars and as ‘punishment’ you had to go bungee jump off some great height…
Brig: I always lose…
radioinfo: Do they pay you danger money?
Brig: I’m glad you brought that up. No, they don’t. And the boys got a bit cross with me, because the last two challenges they gave me, I didn’t want to do. Like one was going in an airplane that does acrobatics and I knew I’d be sick. I tried to pull out on the day, and my mum – I love my mum – said, You shouldn’t have to do that- they shouldn’t make you!
And the bungee jumping… They fly you to Cairns just for the day – can you imagine? And I started to get a bit shitty about it because I am just sick of losing and having to do all these horrific things. I’m not paid enough to do it!
Clint (Brig & Lehmo’s Producer): But the audience loves it. The reaction we get. Even I get stopped on the street, let alone these guys…
Brig: The scores are close at the moment – 16 all or something. Lehmo and I can’t speak to each other for the last weeks of Gender Warfare.
Lehmo: We get very competitive.
radioinfo: Lehmo, which was the worst punishment you had to perform?
Lehmo: The worst one I’ve done was probably sitting in the Collingwood cheer squad wearing my Hawthorn gear.
radioinfo: Are you kidding me? She jumps off a 50 metre platform while you sit with the Collingwood cheer squad?
Lehmo: Have you seen the Collingwood cheer squad?
But I’ve done worse. I’ve got a spider phobia and I had to have a spider crawl up my arm. That was pretty bad.
Brig: Can we release the next one, Clint?
Clint: The next one coming up is the Ferris Wheel of Frightening Food.
Lehmo: Kind of like exotic foods from Chinatown.
Clint: It’s your monkeys brains and your bulls balls.
Brig: I won’t cope with that.
radioinfo: On survey days, what goes through your mind?
Lehmo: I try and wipe it out of my mind.
Brig: Someone told me you’ve had so many now it doesn’t matter. But it does. It really cuts you when you feel you’re on song (and the survey figures don’t reflect it) it’s really disappointing.
There’s a lot you can’t control but, at Gold we’ve had more good than bad. It’s been lovely but there’s always disappointments. It’s awful going down. It’s awful.
Lehmo: What I’ve worked out over the years is that you can never ever predict it.
radioinfo: But you’ve done well over the past two years, you’ve vindicated their decision to put you on breakfast?
Lehmo: I think we came in on a 5.4 and we’ve averaged 6.4 since we started.
Brig: The listeners haven’t rejected us which is a big thing because that was always the worry with replacing Grubby and Dee Dee with anyone.
“I want to beat Eddie… And Nova …. And MIX. And FOX.”
radioinfo: Are you competitive people by nature?
Brig: Oh god, yes.
radioinfo: Who do you see as your main competitors? Who are you looking to beat?
Brig: Eddie! Eddie (McGuire) is probably the big one for us. I want to beat Eddie… And Nova …. And MIX.
Lehmo: And FOX.
Brig: Yes, and FOX
Lehmo: From a demographic point of view it’s Eddie. They have the most similar target demo so, it would be Triple M and Eddie.
We’re a bit older and a bit more female, whereas they’re a bit younger and a bit more male. And they do a similar style of show to us as well. They’re news topical. They have a heavy focus on comedy with Mick (Molloy) and they cover footy really, really well.
radioinfo: You mentioned Nova, which is very different here in Melbourne to the one in Sydney.
Lehmo: I think Kate and Hughesy have the most similar dynamic to us compared to any other show. Like us, it’s male and female. I think there are a lot of similarities between Kate and Brig and I think Hughesy and I have a lot of similarities as well.
radioinfo: Are you mates?
Lehmo: Yes we are.
radioinfo: A lot of these people you compete with, you know quite well. Do you like any of their shows? I mean, who would you listen to if you weren’t on the radio yourselves?
Lehmo: I flick around. I do Before the Game on Saturday, which is an AFL footy panel show. And on the show is Hughesy, Mick Malloy , Andy Maher (SEN 1116) and myself. So that’s four breakfast show hosts.
Brig: And we’re all friends. I don’t listen to a lot of radio when I’m not on it, but I reckon I’d listen to Eddie first because of the news angle.
Lehmo: I’d listen to Eddie and Ross and John (3AW). But I’d listen to Andy Maher and Hughesy as well. So I’m a flicker. I’ve been in a cab, flicking for content, and the cab driver said to me You’re the first person who ever flicked when a song comes on. Its always when people start talking that they flick to get rid of it. But I flick for content not songs.
radioinfo: You don’t ever feel you’ve had enough of radio?
Brig: No! That’s why I think I’m so lucky. It’s been 21 years and I’m still loving it.
Lehmo: That’s why we’re so lucky with the news. Its topical and it doesn’t repeat itself every day.
Brig: But also, it’s stages of life. When I started I had no husband – no kids. Then I had a husband. Then I had a husband and kids. Then I had kids and no husband. And Lehmo’s had to get married. So I suppose your life changes. That’s the way life is.
Peter Saxon