Cast your mind back 20 years and you'll likely remember Tim Minchin taking the world of comedy by storm.

When his well-deserved time in the spotlight came about, Minchin had been involved in the creative world for well over a decade, having spent time composing for musicals, working as an actor, performing in the short-lived band Timmy The Dog, and somewhat accidentally finding himself ensconced within the world of comedy.

It was this latter venture which proved to be his most successful, with Minchin's profile rising rapidly thanks to his acclaimed piano skills and his undeniably clever songwriting, which often paired laugh-out-loud concepts with arrestingly emotional moments.

But after years of work as a – for lack of a better phrase – 'musical comedian,' Minchin found wider fame thanks to further acting roles and his penning the stage production of the highly-awarded Matilda The Musical. 

All the while though, it was this air of comedy that permeated his career, but in 2020 Minchin released Apart Together, his long-awaited debut album. The record was nothing short of magnificent, with the slickly-penned nature Minchin's songwriting on full display alongside emotional depth not previously seen.

Five years later, Minchin is back with another record, the awkwardly-titled TimMinchinTimeMachine (or simply Time Machine, if you prefer). As the name may indicate, Minchin isn't exactly delivering a follow-up to Apart Together, but sharing a collection of songs written throughout his 20s between 1995 and 2005.

Again, it's a wonderful piece of work and an exceptional snapshot into this beautiful mind of a songwriter who harnesses both sincerity and absurdity in equal measure, and knows exactly when and how they need to work together.

While any performer may be interested in knowing how their music is received by an audience – especially after decades spent in the world of comedy and sharing music undeniably deemed a little more 'serious' at times – Minchin feels like a rare exception; a true artist who simply seeks to create without any external metrics coming into play.

"I'm not particularly engaged with how [the music] lands," he admits. "Not because I don't care whether people care about my songs, but they don't get in the Hottest 100, they don't get played a thousand times in 10 weeks by three different radio stations in Australia and a hundred overseas, they just sit in the world and people start clicking on them a little bit and my little niche audience loves it.

"Then cut forward five years from the release of [Apart Together] and I'll play four songs from that album on stages all over, in 4-5,000 seat theaters all around the UK," he adds. "People will know them and I'll make them cry, but I'll reinterpret them and it'll be slightly different. I don't feel like the measures are the same for me."

While Minchin will gladly admit he's not involved in audience research so as to know how his music is received by the wider world, he does note that following the completion of his 2011 orchestral tour, a conscious decision was made so as to ensure he didn't keep pigeonholing himself.

"I am aware on some level that lots of people would've just wanted me to keep doing comedy," he notes, recognising that Matilda is likely his "greatest contribution" while the TV series Upright is "probably the most profound collaboration of something that I put my heart into."

"I'm engaged in a completely privileged and luxurious journey of making art that I want to make and letting the audience who want to find it find it, and not examining what those numbers are," he explains. "My comedy's still online if you want to watch my comedy.

"Because I'm doing a 20 year anniversary tour, I'm playing heaps of early stuff. I'm doing Canvas Bags and my YouTube Lament, and I'll be funny on stage 'cause that's what I do – when I get a mic in my hand, I tend to be vaguely amusing."

Without ruining what else Minchin's upcoming tour may consist of, he notes that despite his reputation as a musical funnyman, it's his more impactful songs that get the biggest reception. "I promise you, after the show the people coming out will be talking about White Wine In The Sun and Lonely Tonight," he adds. "They won't be talking about Canvas Bags."

In fact, it's these contributions which aren't comedic that Minchin says appear to have the biggest impact on a global scale, pointing out that while people may accost him on the street, it's usually the likes of Italian tourists who will often recognise him for his work in Californication.

"People will come up and say, 'Oh, you're funny, you made me laugh,' but if they want to talk to me about something that's had an impact, it's never Fuck I Love Boobs [aka Confessions)," he admits. "It's always, 'My autistic kid went and saw Matilda and it changed their life,' 'We play White Wine In The Sun every Christmas,' or 'Absence Of You is my husband and my wedding song.' 

"In terms of cultural impact and longevity and stuff where my work becomes part of people's stories, that to me seems more valuable than anything else," he adds. "That's where I've gone right."

With Minchin's efforts being focused on more culturally-impactful work and a 'serious' album, the comedy aspect still remains, however. But with his contemporary work being so well-regarded, why did he make the decision to throw open the vaults for Time Machine? Put simply, it's a chance to let these older songs get the attention they've deserved.

"[With Apart Together, I finally got a profile where I could arguably do this gear change and put out a serious studio album," he explains. "I don't think anyone who's seen my comedy was shocked to find that I was a serious songwriter as well. Because obviously my music's obviously always been clearly more than just a gag.

"I wanted to put out a record and some of those songs on that record were almost 20 years old anyway."

However, Time Machine was never conceived as a record. Rather, Minchin's initial idea was to simply get his band together, jam some of his old songs that have been staples of live sets, and release them with very little fanfare.

"I think a lot of these songs people know, but they've never been studio recorded," he explains. "I just wanted to put out a really good version of Rock N Roll Nerd out, you know? And other songs, too. Just because I became known as a comedian, it doesn't mean those songs were a failure, it is just that I got swept into a different genre. 

"Those songs were just sitting there – they exist, they can't unexist. I don't think the fact that my journey of putting music into the world was interrupted by a discovery that I was quite good at making people laugh.

"But they're still alive," he adds. "And by the way, there could be a Time Machine Volume Two, if people like this, 'cause there's a shit load.

Recording the music live with his band in four days, the plan to just share the music online was replaced by a meeting with BMG who told Minchin that the music deserved a proper release. He remained apprehensive, however, given the current state of the music industry.

"They're like, 'There is no fucking contemporary music;' it's just so disparate because of course there's the kind of homogeny of Swifties and stuff," he begins. But basically my son who's 16 and loves music, he'll send me a track and I'll be like, 'You're listening to prog fusion and then you're listening to this,' – he's all over the place.

"So BMG convinced me that it doesn't matter what era the songs came from, and it doesn't matter that I'm a 50-year-old man with a 50-year-old band," he adds. "They're just like, 'Put it out properly,' and so we're putting it out properly."

Thankfully, Minchin and BMG have put the record out properly, and it's a treasure trove of material for those who may have experienced some of it live in live shows over the years.

It's a record which feels full of material which Minchin could very well have written and recorded just yesterday – put simply, it doesn't feel like these songs have been kept in a shoebox under the bed for the past 20 years.

However, Minchin admits he's again unable to view this older collection of songs with any sort of objectivity. "I feel like such an outsider," he says.

"It's what the Rock N Roll Nerd persona is. Everyone feels like a fucking outsider, right? That's what artists are. But I say in Rock N Roll Nerd,"he's never really been part of the scene," and becoming an artist who can sell a lot of tickets has not made that feeling of not quite understanding where I sit go away.

"And I think you might agree that I do sit in a slightly theatrical world because of my comedy and because of Matilda, but it doesn't sound like anyone else particularly. Obviously there's heavy Ben Folds and even The Whitlams influence on these earlier songs."

Following the release of his Time Machine record, Minchin will also be hitting the road in October for an Australian tour, fittingly-titled Songs The World Will Never Hear. However, as opposed to just being a celebration of titular songs that you've likely not heard, or providing a rare chance to hear songs you may never hear again, Minchin explains that the anniversary aspect of the trek was one he had to keep in mind.

"I'm trying to thread the needle there, 'cause it dawned on me that it's 20 years since the breakout year – the Dark Side year and touring England – that it would be an interesting framing for a tour to look at what happened and just go through it all. And it would be an easy way to go, 'Well, I'm gonna play old comedy and stuff from musicals and blah, blah.'

"Then I thought of the Time Machine thing, which is this bunch of recordings done without any clear intention. And I realised I didn't want the tour to be the Time Machine tour because my audience, I've worked really hard for them and I don't want to say 'I'm just going to play these songs from my 20s.' I could do that, but that would be a few gigs.

"But if I want do another proper tour, I can't be restricted to just those songs," he adds. "So I called it Songs The World Will Never Hear."

Taking the lyric from Rock N Roll Nerd, the idea of the tour is for Minchin to effectively tell the story of his career while both leaning into old material and classics. As he puts it, it's a case of having his cake and eating it.

"I always want my shows to give the audience enough of what they know and like, and enough of what they haven't heard, even if it's just new versions of things," he explains. "I'm trying to do a retrospective, I'm trying to promote the Time Machine record, but mostly I reckon I'm really excited about this tour. 

"I'm going to do a lot more songs than I have ever done, because my songs have always been about half talk and half songs. And because this is a retrospective, I'm going to say to the audience, 'I'm not doing big bits of chat,' and then we'll see if I can be disciplined enough.

"I want to play 20 songs, not 12. I'm not going to do big bits of standup and lecturing you about cognitive biases or anything, because this one's about the songs. So that's the aim for this tour; to be a proper, joyous concert that spans all sorts of genres and times."

Tim Minchin's Time Machine is out now. Tickets to Tim Minchin's upcoming tour are on sale now.

Tim Minchin – Songs The World Will Never Hear 2025 Tour

Friday, October 31st – Palais Theatre, Melbourne, VIC (Sold Out)

Saturday, November 1st – Palais Theatre, Melbourne, VIC (Sold Out)

Sunday, November 2nd – Palais Theatre, Melbourne, VIC

Thursday, November 6th – Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane, QLD

Friday, November 7th – Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre, Brisbane, QLD (Sold Out)

Saturday, November 8th – Adelaide Entertainment Centre, Adelaide, SA

Thursday, November 13th – Canberra Theatre, Canberra, ACT (Sold Out)

Friday, November 14th – Canberra Theatre, Canberra, ACT (Sold Out)

Saturday, November 15th – Canberra Theatre, Canberra, ACT (Sold Out)

Sunday, November 16th – Canberra Theatre, Canberra, ACT

Friday, November 21st – Perth HPC, Perth, WA 

Saturday, November 22nd – Perth HPC, Perth, WA (Sold Out)

Thursday, November 27th – Newcastle Entertainment Centre, Newcastle, NSW

Saturday, November 29th – ICC Sydney Theatre, Sydney, NSW

Saturday, December 6th – The Star, Gold Coast, QLD

Sunday, December 7th – Empire Theatre, Toowoomba, QLD (Sold Out)