Jim Jefferies is arguably one of the most successful comedy exports that Australia has had in the last decade.
Originally from Australia, Jim established his career in the United Kingdom before finally settling in Los Angeles, California. He's had multiple stand-up specials air internationally and wrote, produced and starred in two seasons of a sitcom called 'Legit'.
However, Jim has only recently come to the attention of Australian audiences after completely selling out a national tour in 2014. “I didn't tour Australia that much. You have to be on TV, also my TV show aired over there and I think Comedy Central bought some of my comedy specials and put them on TV, so that leads people to watch you on YouTube. It just takes a little longer if you aren't actually in the country. It's all going great now, so I'm pretty happy with it,” Jim says.
“It's pretty much sold out already,” he explains of the upcoming tour. “The venue in Brisbane is a little big, so it'll be hard to sell that out completely but we're getting pretty close with the rest of them. We're doing a few extra dates, we're doing Cairns and Darwin and Alice Springs and a few cities that we didn't do last time.”
Most of Jim's career took place in the United Kingdom appearing as a panelist on shows like 'Never Mind The Buzzcocks' and '8 Out Of 10 Cats', as well as performing regularly at the Edinburgh Fringe. “Luckily enough, by the time I came to America I had already had a small fan-base,” Jim says about his move across the Atlantic, “so I was already playing to people who had seen my stuff. I wouldn't want to start out doing comedy in Australia, I believe it's a lot harder slog than in the UK where you get paid quite well and in America, you don't get paid that well until you start to headline.
“Also with the amount of swearing they have and all the subject matter I choose, I don't believe I'd go down that well at an open mic night in Indiana,” Jim says with a laugh. “Luckily enough, I can just play to my fan-base.”
His Australian fans can expect “the same shit that I always talk about. There's religion and sex and little, personal stories. At the moment there's less stories about one-night stands and more stories about having a two-year-old son. I'm a dad now so I'm talking more about what's been going on in my life. I didn't want to be a 40-year-old guy that was talking about taking coke and trying to shag kids in nightclubs for the rest of my life. It could have gotten really depressing. It was getting pretty depressing in my mid-30s.”
For those worried that Jim might have softened his no-holds barred approach to comedy, you can rest assured the birth of his son has had no impact on how he approaches his craft. “My comedy has the same sort of voice it had before, it just doesn't really change. At the moment, I'm doing a big routine about autism and immunisation whilst having a child. I don't do a lot of routines about my kid saying the cutest things because he's only really got about 40 words and he mainly just sits there and shits himself.”
On his last stand-up special, 'Bare', Jim tackled a subject that received an unprecedented amount of backlash from US audiences. The subject? Gun control. “It's by far the most negative backlash I've had with hate emails and people writing nasty messages to me. But also I feel it's broadened my audience a lot because I'm getting a lot of people now who just used to think I was a smut peddler. They thought, 'You just tell dirty jokes'. So I think for as many fans I've lost doing material about guns I've probably made just as many back,” explains Jim.
“It's totally a cultural thing in America. Other countries they have guns but over [in the States] they'll say things like, 'the First Amendment cannot exist without the Second Amendment', and they believe that, even though almost every country on Earth has a freedom of speech amendment in their constitution as well and they don't have the same type of gun violence,” laughs Jim.
“They were saying that they made Kinder Surprises illegal because of the little toys; if kids eat them they can choke, they're not safe enough for children but they still have guns in their houses. People say it's not about locking the guns up, it's about teaching the kids gun safety. Maybe they should start with Kinder Surprise safety and work their way backwards.”
For those who can't wait for a 'Legit' movie, Jim will be starring with fellow comedian Greg Fleet in a film called 'Me And My Mates vs The Zombie Apocalypse' that's due for release later this year. “We filmed it almost a year ago now. Just after we finished up with 'Legit' I went back to Australia to see the folks. A friend of mine, Greg Fleet, was in it and Alex Williamson, it sounded like a good bunch of lads and it was good to hang out with them for a couple of weeks, so we went and filmed it. I'm yet to see it myself so I don't know how it turned out, but hopefully good.”
Jim Jefferies Tour Dates
27-28 Mar - Palais Theatre (Melbourne)30 Mar - Brisbane Entertainment Centre
3-4 Apr - Crown Theatre (Perth)
8 Apr - Thebarton Theatre (Adelaide)
9 Apr - Darwin Entertainment Centre
10 Apr - Araluen Arts Centre (Alice Springs)
16-17 Apr - Enmore Theatre (Sydney)
20 April - Cairns Civic Theatre
