Arts > Comedy

Abandoman

22/06/17

Meet Rob and Sam, aka Abandoman. Described as Flight Of The Conchords meets 8 Mile, this is a comedy hip hop show with a difference – the whole thing is improvised, with the starting point being the audience. Having toured with Ed Sheeran, headlined comedy stages at festivals like Glastonbury, Latitude and Bestival, the awesome Abandoman visits Norwich twice this summer to entertain us. Rob, a hugely likable, chatty Irishman and rapper of the dup is writing a new show for this year’s Edinburgh and I spoke to him about how he got started, who he rates in the hip hop world and the story about the aquarium leg.

So, you’re currently getting ready for Edinburgh Fringe. How’s the preparation going?

It’s a funny old time, the same every year, you sort of feel like you’re getting ready for your exams! I’m enjoying it but nonetheless you look outside and it’s sunny and you have to keep working.

Who’s in Abandoman? How did you meet?

Abandoman is myself and Sam Wilson. We met in 2011 when I went into the Guildhall Music College in London to do a show. I met Sam afterwards and he offered to put a band together for me. He asked me what instruments would you like, and I said all the instruments I could think of and two weeks later he’d assembled this amazing group of musicians. We spent six months touring everywhere from theatres to V Festival and everywhere we went we got the same thing – the stage was set up for one person with one microphone and we’d all crowd on the stage and people wouldn’t know what was going on. Sam’s an incredible musician, plus there’s a lot of tech onstage which means we can loop songs and get authentic hip hop sounds. There’s a Skrillex meets Ceilidh sounding track in the new show. I am so into that track I broke my knee on stage dancing to it. It’s built over the years, sonically and narratively, and this is the best show we’ve done so far. That comes partly down to the fact that the sound is as good as a hip hop track should be.

I guess most hip hop isn’t live musically as they use DJ’s, but you’ve chosen not to?

Because the show is live, and the input from the audience is key, I think that the music also has to be live. If we can keep it live but also sonically make you feel like you’re listening to a really great hip hop track that’s perfect.

How did you first start writing funny songs, and how long did it take you to come up with your own unique act?

It’s always been improvised. Even when I first came over to London as a stand up comic I would improvise all my sets, which was very stressful. When you’re new you don’t have the confidence to do that really. Then I went to an audition for a hip hop theatre show in 2008 which was being set up by Bashy the rapper and Jonzi D who runs Breakin’ Convention. I had a really good time at the audition and freestyled for ages. I was an office temp at the time so I was in a suit which provided extra amusement! After that tour of a year and half, and doing all sorts of freestyle workshops as well with them, once I got back to the stand up circuit I adored the rapping side. I decided to build hip hop into the show, as I’d been rapping since I was at school anyway. My first ever show was in Brighton, and I went onstage really terrified. Someone had a story about their cat passing away and I did a rap about that, and since then every show has been based around a member of the audience’s story, and the songs we create around that. Growing up in Ireland I didn’t have that much exposure in person to rappers, and so going on tour with the hip hop theatre company was great because I felt comfortable enough to stand up next to those amazing rappers and authentic MC’s and be confident in myself.

Why are you called Abandoman?

Originally the ambition was to be a one man band, like A Band O’ Man. I was going to learn keys and I bought a looper, but that did not occur. In the very early days we won a competition at the Hackney Empire under the name Abandoman and two months later we won the Musical Comedy Awards so the name stuck. Sometimes I wish there was something better for people to shout out at the end of a gig but it’s too late now to flip it up now. We’ve been introduced as A Banjo Man, Abandoned Man..we’ve heard it all!

Who inspires you on a comedic level?

I love all the battle rappers at the moment..there’s a Canadian guy called Pat Day who’s one of the best writers and comedians around. As a teenager Dara O’Briain and Jason Byrne were the two that inspired me the most. I saw them both when I was 17 and they improvised excessively and risked their whole set in this small venue in Dublin – they riffed all this material and I thought it was the greatest thing. Both those guys are still doing amazing work two decades later, I saw them both a couple of weeks ago actually. They’re still on top, and not only that they’re excelling and getting better. I love improv and the liveness in the room. Tommy Tiernan is the biggest comedian in Ireland and when I saw him recently I was so interested to see how he can bring the show to a very quiet, gentle place, and then drop a line in and the place erupts. The people that you tend to look up to are usually the people that went before you in a certain art form, like rappers look up to those who existed before they were big, from back in their childhood or teenage years. Everybody’s idea of who the best is pretty much always is someone who was around before they were themselves. I find that really interesting.

What do you think of the state of hip hop in 2017?

I was listening to Apple’s playlist of Hip Hop A List, which was, you know, grand. The grime are lyrically much more interesting than the hip hop at the moment. The stuff that’s going on in America, there’s not many words and not much storytelling. I don’t yearn for the past but I wonder at what’s gone super pop at the moment. Basically, a lot of it has become near singing, which I don’t have a problem with but I think there’s no storytelling like you got with NWA or Ice T, at least commercially speaking. Bugsy Malone does some great storytelling, and the UK artists are leading a bit more with the storytelling elements, and British MC’s are now getting very popular in the States, like Giggs.

Your shows are based on audience interaction. What’s been your favourite moment?

Hogmanay, two years ago in Edinburgh. Four lads from the army were in the front row, so I went out and asked them for a story…why were they there? The soldiers had seen Abandoman exactly five years ago. They’d just returned from Afghanistan and one of them had lost his leg whilst they were there. They were there to celebrate the five year anniversary of seeing Abandoman and to celebrate this guy’s new leg. They’d all chipped in and got him a leg with an aquarium inside because he loved fish! On every song that guy and his leg got featured that night, it was excellent, they were top lads and I loved their narrative, to celebrate a leg, I just loved it. It was one of those nights that you just cannot create.

You perform internationally in places like Hong Kong and America. In those places where English isn’t a first language do you ever struggle?

This I find fascinating. One of the first places we went was to Sweden, and on night one I slowed things down but the show didn’t connect as well as it normally does. I spoke to some people afterwards and they said they’d got every word so I went back the next day and did it normal pace and it was 10 times better. Then we went to Norway and there was no issue with the show until I asked “what’s your name?” and to my Irish ears they would give me a collection of letters that have never sat beside each other in a word before. There would be a J next to an N, and that was the crowd’s favourite moment, they adored me trying to rhyme phonetics that I barely had a grasp of. So mostly people speak excellent English, and it’s me that can’t pronounce things.

Your 2016 show Life & Rhymes sold 10,000 tickets at Edinburgh, and that’s the show you’ll be doing at the Arts Centre in September. What will you be performing at Laugh In The Park here this month?

For the first time I’m actually writing a hip hop show and that’s what we’re taking to Edinburgh and what you’ll see at Laugh In The Park this month. It’s scripted with animation in it, it’s a ridiculous musical really, Rosie and Drake, based on Rosie and Jim the TV show. Though it is a hip hop show it won’t be Abandoman’s famous freestyle hip hop show, it’s something quite different. It’s very odd and interesting for me to write a show. I’m loving it, but it’s tricky – I have to remember stuff, you can’t change it as you go along – it’s a different energy. Usually the audience and I create the show together and their energy and participation feeds it. For me it will be two very different shows.

Abandoman plays at Laugh In The Park in Chapelfield on 27th July, and at Norwich Arts Centre on 28th September.