Kyle Sandilands finds big fan in rival breakfast host Lawrence Mooney
Breakfast radio can be unforgiving and rival hosts (and a few co-hosts) have been known to harbour truckloads of animosity for one another. But a new member of the competitive Sydney market has bucked the trend and declared his admiration for one of Sydney’s most polarising shock jocks.
Breakfast radio can be an unforgiving beast and rival hosts (and a few co-hosts) have been known to harbour truckloads of animosity for one another. But a new member of the competitive Sydney market has bucked the trend and declared his admiration for one of Sydney’s most polarising figures.
Lawrence Mooney, host of the new Triple M breakfast show Moonman In The Morning, probably isn’t someone you’d necessarily pick as a card-carrying member of the Kyle Sandilands Fan Club, but the comedian has all but declared his love for the controversial personality.
“Kyle is — how do I say this shyly — a bit of a hero of mine. I really love the idea that Kyle Sandilands is one of the few people in media who says what he likes and probably more so than an Alan Jones or a Ray Hadley,” he tells Insider.
“Kyle actually is unabashed about his power and his position and his privilege and he’s ‘I am what I am’ and I think that is a very attractive thing. I like Kyle Sandilands a lot.”
It’s probably shouldn’t come as a huge shock that Mooney has a deep respect for Sandilands. While they come from wildly different backgrounds and their shows share very little in common, both are known to speak their minds and have little time for political correctness.
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Earlier this year, Mooney came under fire for comments he made about Cassandra Thorburn, who at the time was competing on Dancing With The Stars and had spent months in the headlines over her very public split from her husband of more than 20 years, former TODAY Show host Karl Stefanovic.
After refusing to discuss her former husband and asking for the interview to focus soley on her appearance on the Channel 10 show, Mooney was unimpressed.
He told his audience “we’re going to watch you (on DWTS) because you were Mrs Stefanovic and you’re a woman scorned” but she refused to be drawn into commenting on Stefanovic, despite unloading on him a number of times during their messy split.
“I am back into Karl Stefanovic, I’ve swung right back. You know what, Cass? I can see why he walked. You are a nightmare,” he said.
Cue outrage.
Having been in the business for decades, Mooney wasn’t overly surprised by the hostility, but he did think it was over the top, especially one article in a Sydney newspaper (not this one) that suggested his comments would spell the end to his female audience.
“There was a Wendy Tuohy article that kind of shocked me (that said) ‘I’d be surprised if any women listen to him ever again’,” he recalls with a laugh. “It’s like ‘oh my god, you’ve really gone from nought to a hundred there, Wen’.”
Mooney believes the outrage machine has grown exponentially in recent years. It’s why he got off Twitter, a social network he says has become a “sewer”.
“I think the rush to outrage is unbelievable and the pile-on mentality in what essentially becomes a real mob mentality too,” he says. “The moment somebody makes a gaffe or a mistake, there’s this baying mob with burning torches and pitchforks standing in your front garden demanding that you get sacked.”
That’s basically what happened a few years ago when Mooney took exception to a review of his show by a local journalist at the Adelaide Fringe Festival.
“I was in a Twitter spat some years ago with a reviewer and broke the golden rule of responding to a reviewer — you should never do that — and then it was a race to the bottom,” he says.
“As Australian Rules coach Denis Pagan once said ‘If you’re in an argument with an idiot, pretty soon nobody can tell who’s who’. I’m not saying she was necessarily the idiot in the argument - it may well have been me - but yeah... I don’t think arguments are going anywhere on social media.”
But Mooney, who has been doing stand-up for more than 25 years, won’t let the outrage machine dictate how he does his job.
“I’ve always given myself complete freedom to talk about whatever I want,” he says. “Sometimes you do stumble into areas where people are deeply shocked or offended but you can’t please all the people all of the time.”
One thing that has pleased many is Mooney’s hugely popular impersonation of former Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, which he pulls off spectacularly. He started doing it on stage before Triple M asked him to do it on air into all capital cities and last year he even took it on the road for a sold out tour.
It was the gift that kept on giving until the PM was axed by his colleagues in August last year. Mooney said that it was fortunate for him that “both sides hated him”.
“The Liberal Party hated him so they found what I was doing hilarious and of course the Labor people hated him and so they found what I was doing hilarious so everyone loved that impersonation, they thought ‘you’re spot on, that’s exactly who he is’.”
Everyone except one man.
When asked by The Grill Team last year what he thought of Mooney’s impersonation of him, his response was very…Malcolm Turnbull.
“I’m probably not the one to ask but I don’t think much of it. I don’t think it’s particularly good, mind you a lot of people must otherwise he wouldn’t have a gig,” Mooney recalls.
It’s that kind of answer that Mooney believes demonstrates the disconnect Turnbull had with ordinary people.
“That’s the kind of tin ear Malcolm’s got,” he says. “Remember the king is meant to embrace the jester and say ‘yes, Lucy and I think it’s hilarious, we love him, we can’t get enough of him, we watch it on Facebook, all my friends really tease me and I think he’s really nailed me’,” Mooney says.
Having been recruited to the prime Sydney market after taking Triple M’s Brisbane breakfast show from 9.2 to 14.1 in the all-important radio ratings, Mooney and co – former The Block contestant Jess Eva and Grill Team alum Gus Worland – are slowly building a loyal audience in the competitive slot.
Moonman in the Morning started its run in Sydney with a 4.7 in the first survey of the year to be at 6 in the fourth and on an upward trajectory with cumulative audience numbers.
“My report card has been pretty good actually - I’ve had a terrific year radio-wise,” he says. “We’ve had three positive surveys, Triple M are very happy and we’re feeling pretty happy with the show too.”
And he’s taken a liking to his new city, too.
“I tell you what, as a long time Melbournian who’s defended and championed that city, I’ve come up here and I’ve thought ‘f--- you Melbourne, I’ve stuck up for you for so long and you’ve done nothing but freeze me to the marrow’,” he says.
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