Multi-talented musician, writer and comedian Chris Endrey is coming to the Rock & Roll Writers Festival in Brisbane this April.
A self-proclaimed “generalist performer”, Chris has done just about everything: frontman for Canberra band Fun Machine, he also has his own stand-up comedy show, was the host of the TV variety show 'In Canberra Tonight', and does countless other writing and performance gigs on the side.
Chris admits that just like when he was a kid, he still doesn’t really know what he wants to do, but is quite happy doing it all. “I'm broke, but I'm busy.”
The Rock & Roll Writers Festival is about the connection between writers and their music: their processes, inspirations, hits and flat out failures. For Chris, writing music gives him the “instant sensory feedback” he doesn't get with his other writing. “It's cheating in a way. If you're writing with music it'll always end up having more dimensions than just a poem or some other piece of writing.”
Chris’ band Fun Machine have played at festivals like Groovin The Moo and Woodford Folk Festival, while his newest musical project – PAINTonPAINT – sees Chris and good friend Hannah Beasley singing their hearts out together and releasing an album very soon.
But how did Chris go from musician to stand-up comic? “I kind of came into it backwards, the stand-up [comedy]. Being in Fun Machine: from that, being on stage and being brash came pretty easy.”
Chris says that after hosting ‘In Canberra Tonight’ and taking care of all the logistics a production like that involves, “the idea of picking up a mic and just talking seemed so much simpler”.
He encourages everyone to give stand-up a crack at least once in their life: especially women. Because as he puts it: “Like a lot of performance areas stand-up is just turbo-loaded with dudes, and it’s not like they’re all funny.”
Chris has been called a feminist comic: a label that in a perfect world would be totally unnecessary. “Being praised for being a feminist is a pretty fucking low bar,” he agrees. “That’s a sad sign of where we're at.”
The list of ways Chris spends his time seems never ending: there's never a dull day. He talks about a big, entertainment variety gig coming up, intimate piano shows he’d just arranged, and the night before sitting in on the drums for a local soul band. “Because I'm independent and self-employed, if there's a couple of empty days in a row I sort of start clawing at the walls.”
There was an ABC show in the works at one point as well, but it was cancelled because, as he puts it: “Tony Abbott’s fault, he pulled the funding!” Not directly of course.
When discussing the reason he got into performing, Chris says there’s one thing that regularly pops up in his music, comedy, and writing. “I always question why adults put restrictions on their own lives, when they don’t need to,” he explains, adding that he’s a firm believer in people not worrying about how they should dress, what job they’re ‘supposed’ to have, or what kind of life they’re supposed to live.
Chris' band Fun Machine is a good example of that as well – with a sound described as ‘sex pop’, he says of the band’s philosophy: “We’re very body-positive and definitely don’t buy into any fearful ideas about gender or sexuality or anything.”
Based in Canberra, Chris says he’s lucky to live in a pretty progressive city, even if it’s a city that’s so often overlooked. “Canberra's completely overlooked, but that's not a problem because it just means all the douchebags who think that they're the heroes of the world don't move here.”
Perth is another overlooked city, but in Chris' case that's probably a good thing. “When I was in Perth – I wear short shorts all the time and people there would give me the finger, yell out of their cars, yell 'faggot' at me,” he recalls with a laugh.
He adds that anyone who hasn't actually spent a lot of time in particular capital cities only has their outside ideas of what it might be like – that there’s good and bad everywhere.
Having lived in Brisbane for a little while as well, Chris is looking forward to speaking at the Rock & Roll Writers Festival, held in the city this April. “The good thing about this festival is that it's not about industry," he says,"it's not about anything other than content.”
The Rock & Roll Writers Festival takes place at The Brightside 2-3 April. rockandrollwritersfestival.com
