‘Musicians Used To Hate It’: Adam Hills Talks ‘Spicks & Specks’ Learning Curves & More

“It feels like there's a bit more excitement about the show this time,” begins Adam Hills ahead of Spick & Specks’ new season premiere on August 7. “I don't know what it is. Maybe because LEGO Masters is not on, we get more attention,” he laughs. “I don't know, but people feel really excited this time.”

The new episodes have an infectious energy about them, something Hills attributes, in part, to the fact that himself, Myf Warhurst and Alan Brough were able to film in front of a live studio audience again; a luxury they didn’t have while making the show during lockdown in 2020. That excitement is compounded by it being “repeated every night on the ABC”.

“It means it keeps finding a new generation of fans,” Hills enthuses. “Even when my kids were little, they'd watch In The Night Garden, and then they'd ask if they could stay up to watch daddy on Spicks & Specks. It's pretty hard to say ‘no’ to that.”

Some of the musicians now appearing as guests on the show were just kids when it first started airing and have grown up with its segments, so they jump at the chance to dive headfirst into the action, but that wasn’t always the case.

“When we first started making Spicks & Specks, musicians got really nervous around the time of the game we called ‘Substitute’, where you have to sing words from a book, but to a well-known song. And the musicians used to hate it, because they were like, ‘Well, this isn't my song. I feel awkward.’ 

“Whereas now, we're getting people in their early 20s coming on, and they're like, ‘Oh, I used to do this in my bedroom when I was seven, at parties. I know exactly how to play ‘Substitute’.

“[Comedian] Gabbi Bolt dreamed of playing ‘Substitute’ on Spicks & Specks and then she finally got to do it. So, I mean, it makes my job easier, because the guests now know how to play the games.”

The 2022 series will introduce a new game, ‘The Secret Song’, sure to become a fan favourite. Throughout the duration of each episode, Hills will drop subtle (and not so subtle) clues about what that week’s mystery song is, with panellists and viewers then asked at the end of the episode what they think the song is.

“It's a brand new game, so the first couple of episodes, when we were writing them, we were thinking, ‘Are these clues too obvious?’ But then, what we realised eventually was you can't be too obvious. And I guess what we realised eventually was that, the joy was getting to the end of the show, even if both teams knew exactly what song I was giving clues to. 

“It was like our Unusual Suspects moment, where you started to put together all the little clues, and went, ‘Oh, my God. I can't believe I missed that. Yeah, sure, I might have got the three clues that gave away the song, but I can't believe I missed another nine that were in the show.’

“And as writers, because I'm in there every day, writing the show as well, it just gave us something extra to play with, as far as comedy. So, whenever you've got something new, it's easy to be funny about it.”

Hills reveals that writing jokes around music requires a bit of a different approach.

“Well, it's interesting, because you can't really be cynical,” he tells. “We learnt early on with Spicks & Specks that… I remember having a producer saying, ‘Look, no one sets out to make a bad song. And the band that you might think is rubbish, a whole bunch of other people like.’

“So I think when you're talking about music, any jokes that you make about it, you have to come from a place of respect, and go, ‘Well, this person at least wrote a song, and put music out into the world.’ We realised that if you just do deep dives on people, eventually you'll find some really funny facts. But the secret is not to be cynical about them, the secret is to be positive, to kind of uplift them.

“It's really hard to explain, but once you've been positive about people in the jokes, then that positivity spills over to the show, and then nobody feels threatened, and everyone feels safe. And that's where that infectious joy comes from.”

Spicks & Specks is a ‘safe space’ for musicians to have fun but also be discovered, with Hills noting they “made a real effort” to book artists “who haven't had the chance to promote themselves over the past couple of years”.

Among the artists featured this season is Casey Donovan, Montaigne, Camp Cope’s Georgia Maq, Polish Club's David Novak, Briggs and more.

“A lot of the bands in the ‘Look What They've Done To My Song’ segment, are all up and coming, or they're under the radar, or they're all the kind of bands that are good, hot bands, that could just do with a little bit of a publicity kick… our plan with this series was to give as much airtime as possible to new and up and coming acts, while also keeping in some of the old favourites.”

Hills recalls a Spicks & Specks wrap party during the early days of the show when Aus music personality and saxophonist Wilbur Wilde pulled him aside.

“He said, ‘You know you're carrying the torch for Countdown?’ And I kind of shrugged that off, and he went, ‘No, you are. You're doing what Countdown used to do. You're giving new Australian artists a chance to be on TV, whilst also honouring the old stars.’

“And to be honest, that's one of the reasons I said ‘yes’ to Spicks & Specks when it was offered to me in 2004. Because yeah, it was a music cliché, but the ethos behind the show was, ‘Let's celebrate new Australian music and also pay homage to the people that have come before us.’

With the Spicks & Specks’ 20th anniversary only a few years away, fans will be hoping that these upcoming episodes won’t be the last.

“Well, I think we worked out, when we were filming, that I've made 297 episodes of the show maybe. So, I think ticking it over to the big 300 would be nice. Do we take a break and come back in 2025, and then do just three episodes?” he laughs. “Or maybe it's just one special a year, for the next three years, to bring it up to 300.”

And as for how long Hills could himself doing Spicks & Specks for?

“I honestly don't know,” he says. “It's been so fun to see the response to this particular series. People are really excited for the show to be back, and I think we've made some cracking episodes. 

“Alan and Myf and I have never really talked about it. We would make a series, we would go away, and then if another series was offered to us, then we would sit down and go, ‘Okay, well how do you feel about it?’ So, to me, I think I'm just going to see how this series goes down, how well received it is. And if I think the episodes are good, and if I think people are still liking them, then who knows?

“For as long as the audience are enjoying it, and I'm enjoying making it, then we'll still make it.”

'Spicks & Specks' premieres August 7 at 7:40pm on ABC TV and ABC iview.