Mick Molloy on comebacks, curses and Copperhead Road

21 February 2011

by Jason Treuen

Mick Molloy fears he's a corporate curse. In the same week he returned to Triple M in January, Village Roadshow announced it was selling its shares in Austereo, the station’s owners.

"I’ll take it as a vote of confidence,” the breakfast host laughs down the line from Melbourne. “In fact the last time it happened I was at Channel Nine and on the night of my first episode of The Nation. I remembered James Packer sold all his shares in the station."

Financial funny business aside, the move heralds Molloy’s first full time gig with Triple M since his national Tough Love show wrapped up in 2006. Since then, the former star of The Late Show and the infamous '90s D-Generation radio has concentrated mostly on TV hosting (he’s a regular on AFL show Before The Game), stand-up comedy and writing film scripts, although he has ducked back into the studio now and again.

"I’ve been a professional seat filler for years,” he says. “If a DJ gets pregnant or a presenter goes missing in action, I generally get the call up."

In fact, it was a fill-in gig for Triple M Melbourne’s Hot Breakfast host Luke Darcy (who was over in India covering the Commonwealth Games) last year that led to Molloy’s role becoming permanent this year.

“Radio’s probably my favourite medium out of all of them,” he tells TMN. “It’s creative and people don’t really interfere as much beforehand. They can check you afterwards and tell you not to do it again. Plus if you have a bad day, you can come back and do it the next day and erase the memories. If you’re doing a film or a TV show, you have to live with it…”

And despite it being more than twenty years since he started with Triple M (D-Generation hit the airwaves back in 1990), Molly asserts nothing’s really changed about the art of the airwaves - except technology.

“That’s the only thing. We used to record sketches on a reel to reel machine and someone would have to edit with a razor blade and sticky tape. Now it goes into a computer.

“These days, when you’re taking calls, there’s a print out on your screen with who’s calling, what his name is, what suburb, if he’s called before. Before we used to have someone on hold and there was a lot more danger… I don’t think it’s changed at all. I’m sure we’re still playing Copperhead Road by Steve Earle, which we were playing 20 years ago.”

Even (some of) the faces remain the same. The new gig sees Molloy sharing a studio with his very old friend in Eddie McGuire.

“Eddie used to do the sports reporting on Triple when I started 20 years ago,” Molloy recounts. We’ve worked occasionally on TV together too (they co-hosted Channel Nine’s Winter Olympics coverage last year), so we know each other well. I’ve looked forward to working with him. This is our opportunity for us to both get some hours up in the same studio again.”

At the same time, Molloy is also clocking up hours on Triple M Sydney’s Grill Team breakfast show. In addition to hosting the Melbourne show, he also records daily segments with Sydney hosts Mark Geyer and Gus Worland, which get played from 8:15am. Despite the seemingly arduous task of double-dating two shows and two cities, Molly says it’s not really a problem.

“There’s enough news that goes on that has a national tenure… Everyone knows what the Australian Open is, or the Australian on the Year is. I’ve done national shows before so I’ve had plenty of experience producing material that works in all markets,” he explains.

And does it mean he picks up two paychecks at the end of the week? “Well, you’d hope so. Actually I’m still waiting on one from either station at this stage. Hopefully I’ll get one of those big novelty cheques that Tony Grieg gives out at the cricket.”