Remembrance Day 2016 with Red Symons

Continuing with my tradition of discovering new and interesting bugling experiences, Remembrance Day 2016 turned it up and gave me another memorable one; an interview and performance with Red Symons on Melbourne’s 774 ABC Radio.

The RSL called the afternoon before to see if I was happy to be interviewed by Red in my capacity as a bugle player and after a quick chat with his producer, I was locked in for 7:20am the next day. As a regular listener of Red’s program, my immediate anxiety was not because I would be playing Last Post on air, but rather I’d be speaking with a man I had grown up idolising for his music career, both in Skyhooks and on Hey Hey It’s Saturday, a live variety TV show I used to watch as a kid.

Arriving at the studios I was amazed at how small his team is! The show is run by a producer, assistant producer and an intern while Red is on air. There is obviously a considerable amount of work put in outside the broadcast (presumably by more staff at the ABC), but I was very impressed by how small and incredibly polished the on-air team is.

The interview and performance went very well – nearly seven minutes of air-time was over in a flash and I wasn’t actually aware of the RSL’s plan to positioning buglers around the city; you’ll hear Red ask me if he needed to read the “piece of paper”. Having prepared a short bio the night before, Red also picked up on our band, Funk Buddies, which was a great little bonus.

I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated the chance to meet Red and perform Last Post. I received some lovely feedback from various places, including the ABC’s facebook video and look forward to the interesting experiences I might have in 2017.