On-Air Supply

“I'm beginning to be chuffed about the whole thing of releasing a CD,” Alex Dyson says. “I've never really seen myself as a 'cool' radio presenter.” Indeed, the opening track on the triple j breakfast team of Dyson and Tom Ballard's new CD is far from cool. The pair have committed their very first mic break demo for triple j, from 2006, to compact disc for posterity.

“It felt terrible when I heard that again for the first time,” Dyson cringes. “It was fingernails down the blackboard for me. I hope we've improved since then! It was all 'Tom the B-Meister Ballard', and I was nowhere near the mic, couldn't get a word in – we didn't know what the hell we were doing. But it's a good set-up for the CD. You hear better radio after that, I think.”

The pair, who met at playgroup from Warrnambool in Victoria's windy southwest, are now listener favourites and in their fourth year of doing the triple j breakfast show – they started when they were both 21 years old. When the idea of doing a CD of their funniest moments was floated, the two had to comb through four years' worth of material, during which they spent 15 hours on air each week, not to mention unreleased podcasts and the like. “It's so difficult to go back through all that,” Dyson says. “Some things stuck out instantly, like Richard Kingsmill's Italian accent, but other things, I had to be reminded of. You can hear us getting younger, I think, the further back you go.”

The pair did dig out some fantastic moments, and Dyson says many of them were driven by their interactions with listeners, such as the time they chatted with elderly seamstress Gwen, who'd just finished repairing Kanye West's split trousers at Splendour In The Grass. “It's the clashing of a few cultures there; it was quite a magical moment,” Dyson says. “We should get back in touch with her and see if she's been sorting anything else out for famous people, like fixing Bono's glasses or something. We should do a series going around the unsung heroes of the music industry.”

Another standout moment in the pair's history, included on the CD, was Dyson learning to drive on air. “That was towards the end of last year,” he says. “The fact I'd been on my L [plates] for the first couple of years of breakfast was the cause of much derision, and I decided to turn it around. We took the boss's car out, and Lewis McKirdy got in the front seat with his very relaxed tone – I think that's the most on edge he's ever been on triple j, in the car next to me while I'm trying to drive a European manual. No one got hurt, which was good. The risk assessments were all filled out, but we didn't need to use them.”

True to form, the duo decided to go for a self-deprecating title for the CD – rather than trumpeting it as the best bits, they opted for The Bits We're Least Ashamed Of. Dyson says that's rather misleading. “There is one story on there I'm very ashamed of, one of the least interesting stories ever told on radio – 'Flight Fiasco',” he says. “I was fighting against it going on the CD but I was outvoted. I'd skip track 11 on the CD, if I was you. That's my advice.”

WHAT: Tom & Alex – The Bits We're Least Ashamed Of CD (out now)