Ian ‘Dicko’ Dickson spills all with insider’s account of Australian Idol
Tough judge Ian “Dicko” Dickson makes a shocking admission, revealing what it was like being a judge on the hit first season of Australian Idol.
It’s not regret, but looking back Ian “Dicko” Dickson now admits he could have been too tough on some of the Australian Idol hopefuls he famously judged.
“I don’t think these days there is an appetite for a complete arsehole on TV anymore, not when it comes down to young kids having a go,” he said.
“Most of the kids were just having a crack really, and it’s hard to look back and think I covered myself in glory.”
Dicko, 56, who played the Simon Cowell bad guy role on the judging panel alongside Marcia Hines and Mark Holden to great success, thinks he may have gone too far sometimes.
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In a candid interview with news.com.au, Dicko believes if Australian Idol started in 2019 and not 2003, things might have been different in his delivery.
“Regret and guilt, they’re kind of wasted emotions in some ways,” he said.
“I think a lot of what I said to people, I was honest, but I think I was weaponising honesty. I think I was using honesty as a blunt implement just to create a splash for the show.
“I didn’t want to make people upset, but I understood in this job I was just going to have to speak the cold hard facts of the commercial reality of the industry, but that’s a pretty horrible thing to do.
“The whiff of blood in your nostrils is also not very nice, and it’s even more appalling when you realise you’re getting used to it.”
Probably the most famous — or infamous — comment Dicko ever made was when he referred to how finalist Paulini looked in her gold dress in the first series in 2003.
He said Paulini should “choose more appropriate clothes or shed some pounds”, with the comments making national headlines.
He acknowledges he wouldn’t get away with a comment like that now, and rightly so.
“Imagine if I had said that in the days of social media?” he said.
“I’d be on the town hung, drawn and feathered.”
Dicko in his time has softened.
“I think it’s now a different world,” he said.
“All of us are a lot more inclined to think about how our words land, and our words are a lot more carefully chosen these days.
“I don’t think it’s a bad idea that we try and be a little kinder to each other.”
Rewind to 2002, and Dicko was working in Australia as general manger of record company BMG, which later merged with Sony and became Sony BMG.
Simon Cowell, a friend of Dicko’s, had become a huge star as a judge on the show Pop Idol in the United Kingdom, with his harsh, quick and acerbic wit.
Cowell recommended Dicko for the Australian Idol job in Australia, but initially, Dicko had his doubts.
“Ultimately, I was a little bit unsure,” he said of putting his hand up for the role.
“So I actually sent six or seven people I thought would be good as an industry insider, but in the end they waited for me, and they really wanted me to do it.”
Dicko had no TV experience, but he, Holden and Hines clicked, and the show was an immediate hit when it started in 2003, often averaging over two million viewers.
It turned him into a celebrity in Australia, someone that you either loved or hated, literally overnight.
“I woke up and there was this newspaper headline, ‘Is this going to be the most hated man in Australia?’” he said.
“I thought f***ing hell, hold on a second.”
When the show started, Dicko was overseas for the first couple of weeks. When he returned, he realised his life would change forever.
“I went to a conference in New York City for two weeks around the start of the show, and I left a nobody,” he said.
“When I came back into the airport after two weeks, everybody was nudging and pointing and whispering. It really made the hair on the back of my neck stand up, and I’d feel a bit odd about it.
“That was my first taste of it, but as I got into it, it became this huge wave we were riding, and there were incredible moments.”
The judges, especially Dicko and Holden, may have had some arguments along the way, but Dicko respected both Hines and Holden and the chemistry they had.
“We worked brilliantly well, and none of us were really doing anything all that great,” he said.
“It was just one of those things that worked.
“Marcia obviously, she was the black Mother Teresa, and that was what she was there for.
“Mark probably understood the role a lot better than I did because he realised he had to be this weird, orange-faced, crazy uncle who made all these strange noises and sounds and made up words. He understood that it was a performance role.
“I obviously was trying to believe my own hype and be too cool for school, but it worked really, really well.
“Also the fights we had were never manufactured, they just happened naturally because you had three people who were quite fiery.”
The very first day of auditions for Australian Idol a young Guy Sebastian walked in.
The judges, including Dicko, couldn’t believe their luck.
“He came in on that very first morning, and at the time we were thinking, ‘What have we got out there?’” Dicko said.
“He auditioned and ended up winning.
“We now know that he was ridiculously special, not just his voice but his musicality and the way he carries himself.
“I was saying to my wife last night, ‘Look at him, he’s an absolute star, isn’t he?’ and that’s what he is, a star.”
However, there is one moment Sebastian is remembered for on Australian Idol — his performance of the Sound Of Music classic Climb Every Mountain — that Dicko believes doesn’t deserve the accolades.
“Look, there wasn’t a dry eye in the house,” he said of the performance.
“Well, mainly the gay guys were absolutely weeping and clutching their pearls around production.
“But I must admit I thought that it was a little bit of sugary nonsense. For me, that wasn’t him at his best, it was a bit of TV crowd-pleasing moment.
“I also thought his fist single Angles Brought Me Here also wasn’t what Guy is about. I think Guy is better with something like Battle Scars and music that has a bit more edge to it.”
Dicko recalls the crazy scenes walking up the stairs to the Opera House with Hines and Holden for the very first live final in 2003, followed by a let-down in his opinion.
“Walking up those Opera House steps with the red carpet was one of the most fantastic moments only to be followed by a huge let-down because we had to go inside,” he said.
“You think about the Opera House. Everything that’s magical about the Opera House is on the outside of the Opera House. Inside you could be anywhere.
“We should have stayed outside because when you’re on those steps it’s magical.”
The Australian Idol final ended up being viewed by 3.3 million Australians, remarkable figures that are never repeated today in television.
Dicko thinks the viewing public got it right when they chose the show’s final two, Sebastian and Shannon Noll.
“I have to say we could not have had a better final two that year because we ended up with a clear choice between old Australia and new Australia,” he said.
“The music of the day was R&B, and that was very much Guy, but Australia still had a misty-eyed view of itself as this rock nation, and that was Shannon.
“It was a wonderful clear choice between a virgin and a father, R&B versus rock.
“Old, white, rural Australia versus multicultural, urban Australia. It was a brilliant choice.”
After the highs of series one of Australian Idol, and perhaps because of the backlash, Dicko was very reluctant to do a second season, he revealed to news.com.au.
“Bizarrely, after the first series, I felt I didn’t really want to do it anymore,” he said.
“I stepped out of the role for a few months and went back to my old job, and then the prospect of doing it again came up.
“I felt a little bit sick about the idea of going back and judging again, and then the head of Network 10 said to me, ‘You need to take the money, take your nasty pills and get back in the chair’, and that was that.”
Fame came quickly for Dicko after Australian Idol, and over the years he hasn’t been far away from our TV screens, including judging on another big television format, Australia’s Got Talent, in 2016.
However, he admits the up-and-down nature of fame sometimes can be tough to deal with.
“The thing is when you are famous, they never tell you how it’s going to end,” he said.
“If you could switch the fame off when they’re done with you … it’s like when you turn the lights off and shut the door and bugger off, that would be fine.
“There is no switch to become unfamous. You become vaguely famous, and let me tell you, that sucks sh*t.
“People put their head on one side and they look at you and they point to you and think, ‘Where do I know you from?’
“I normally say to them from a hard-core porn video.”
Dicko now lives on the Sunshine Coast but still gets offered TV gigs, the latest a commercial with Aldi and an appearance soon on Channel 10’s Celebrity Name Game.
He is also working on a passion project of his, a musical festival Almost The Greatest Gig On Earth.
The festival on the Gold Coast on Saturday, August 10 will feature tribute bands and artists performing the music of ’80s superstars, including Tina Turner, INXS, Wham and Bryan Adams.
“I want to bring the time back to life, with the best musicians, the best performers and the best production values and have some fun with it,” he said.
For more information about Almost The Greatest Gig On Earth, go to www.almostthegreatestgigonearth.com
Luke Dennehy is a freelance entertainment journalist. Continue the conversation via @LukeDennehy
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