You mention your inspiration…where do your most ridiculous ideas come… on a walk, in the bath, on the toilet?
It’s always the hardest question because there’s no set answer, it’s literally when something pops into your head… I’m originally a stand-up and it’s the same, you never know when a joke’s going to hit you, you just watch something and think that would work and it is often a bath or a long journey, it’s when you’re not trying. It’s sometimes when I’m hungover but it’s sometimes when I’m meant to be focusing on talking to my dad or something, it’s when you least expect it.
What would the first single from the theoretical Horne Section TV show album be and why?
We’re hoping it won’t be theoretical, we’ve always got ambitions for the band, but it would probably be the song in the second show which is called ‘Grandaddy’ and it’s a very innocent song about peas and pea farming. It’s definitely our biggest hit and I’d love it if that became an actual hit. We know a lot of kids who like us and who sing it to… there’s nothing wrong in the song but it’s quite rude as well. If I could choose a Christmas number one that would be the song. It’s sweet and innocent on the surface and it’s really catchy. When there’s a six-year-old singing it, it’s so funny.
If you couldn’t be the leading man for one night which band member would take your place and how would you decide who got the winning slot?
It’s a great question, I mean none of them could do it. They all have their own roles, so Mark is the band leader, he’s the grumpiest and the most organised who claims to never be late or ill, he’s always late and he’s always a bit ill. I think he would probably have to be at the front but because he never smiles it would be quite a hard gig for people, but I think he’s the only one. They’re such an odd group of people, Ed the pianist would rather not do anything, he’d rather stay at home and play computer games. I mean Joe could do it, Joe the trumpeter, but he’s too modest. I think Mark’s the one with the biggest ego so let’s say Mark, also he’s the strongest so he would just win in a wrestle.
You’re a self-declared non-musical stand-up, if there could only be one instrument in the band what would it be?
We sort of talk about it in the show. The Horne Section tribute band has only got a keyboard and two dancers, and I think that’s the way we’re going, you just need a keyboard. Keyboards are so good nowadays, just a laptop really. So, I think we’ll get rid of all the musicians, and I’ll just have my laptop and press play. That’s all you need, just those big, square buttons you can press for the drums. I think in 10 years’ time I’ll get rid of them all, we’ll still have the same name, but it’ll be me and my laptop and we won’t have to split everything six ways, it’ll be much better… obviously I don’t really mean that and genuinely, it’s so good hearing live music all the time. On the shoots as well, they’ve got their instruments with them so when we’re off-camera then we’ll just have a jam and it’s really nice for the crew as well. I think one of the reasons why we’re still going is because there aren’t many six-piece bands out there, especially comedy bands so even though it’s harder work to make it financially efficient we would never reduce… we would only make it bigger, I’d love a string section in there and this German brass band, one day.
…backing singers as well, we need backing singers.
There’s a brilliant mix of guests involved in the series, how did you convince them to get involved and was there anyone that you wanted that couldn’t make it work?
It’s a weird one this bit and it’s the same in most TV shows when you’re trying to persuade people to be in it when it’s a brand-new thing, even though the Horne Section’s been around people don’t know if you’re going to take the p*ss out of them. I mean there’s elements of Ricky Gervais’s Extras, I suppose. We wanted people to come on and be an exaggerated version of themselves and they were being controlled. Martin Kemp and Anneka Rice did the pilot, and they were so good we were desperate to have them back - luckily, they enjoyed it too, so they were easy ones. I wanted Greg Davies to be in it because it makes sense in the narrative, and he’s the funniest… well, him and Tim Key are the funniest people I know so I was always desperate for them to do it.
Having Imogen Heap was just amazing, we wanted a proper musician… I think you’ve either heard of her or you haven’t but if you have, you’ll be amazed that she’s on our stupid show. It was quite a long process and I think now we’ve done it hopefully it’ll be easier in future, but we’ve got Big Zuu, Dr Ranj Singh, John Oliver who is in every episode and he’s enormous in America, he’s won a million Emmys! So that’s odd, he said yes straight away, it’s an odd ensemble but hopefully it’s always unpredictable. We didn’t want it to be the sort of show you look at and think, oh it’s the same old faces.
How did that work with John Oliver on the laptop calling through, how was that filmed and set up?
We had to be really clever with that, I had a day with him over Zoom and we had to record everything. We had to go through every script and lots of costume changes, we had to improvise quite a bit and then we had to fit round his bits in the room. So, we had to pretend he was there, someone had to press play, that was really odd, but it worked, and you can definitely… hopefully I think when you’re watching it you presume that he’s actually there but he’s a man that doesn’t have much free time. He also nailed everything first time so yeah, it’s an odd element to it, he was always in America and never here but hopefully… We’re all so used to people being on Zoom now and you don’t really bat an eyelid, I think.
A lot of 90s and early 00s late-night chat shows did have more of a live music element than those of today, did you pull inspiration from any of these?
Yeah, there was a bit of that. We talked about Jools Holland a lot, he’s kind of the only music show that’s still there on terrestrial telly and I love the idea that people go to Jools and perform. I think my character of ‘Alex Horne in the show’, wants to be the new Jools Holland, wants to have all these famous people coming to his house and have a party. There’s also a bit of Noel’s House Party in there and naffness as well. There was stuff like The Word when I was growing up, that was really cool because it was live, and you never knew what was going to happen. TFI Friday was a big thing when I was 18, you’d always watch that with a few beers and then go out. We were trying to harness a bit of old school rock and roll TV programs which I think don’t exist anymore.
You say Alex Horne in the show, how different is Alex Horne in the show compared to Alex Horne in real life?
I think he’s quite a lot different. He’s definitely got a bigger ego and he thinks he deserves to have his own show. I think I’m more modest in real life, but maybe it’s not that different. It’s probably just me times two in the same way that he’s got five children in the show and he’s just about to have a couple more which is not far off from the truth. It’s definitely me but just an ever-so-slightly more monstrous version. We never wanted it to go too cartoony so it’s hopefully believable but in the show I eventually… I don’t want to give things away but there’s a clash with the band and I’m definitely a lot odder in the show than I am in real life. I’m very boring in real life.
Who from the band is most likely to succeed going solo?
Well, Joe and Will. Joe’s the trumpeter but he’s also the banjo player, Will is the bassist and they actually have got their own project, a project called Splinter because they’ve formed a splinter group. They are the ones to watch, they attempted to do their own Edinburgh show and that sort of thing so I don’t think there’s going to be a solo artist but those two will form their own little country and western band at some point. but they’ll always come back to the fold.
What was your main ambition in creating The Horne Section TV Show?
We’ve tried to be quite ambitious with each episode in that we’ve mucked about with the genre a bit, so there’s one which I narrate the whole thing and there’s one where we have words on the screen, like we’ve split it up into chapters. We’re just trying to make each episode slightly surprising for the viewer because this is our one chance. It’s pretty amazing to have your own sitcom so we’ve chucked everything at it I suppose, we’ve tried to not regret anything.
On that front I would say we really like it, so we’re really happy. No matter how it goes we don’t really mind but it’s very strange thinking this is what we wanted to make. If people don’t like it I don’t know what that says about our sense of humour because this is exactly our sense of humour, which I guess is the name of the game, but it is very exposing. Normally, because we’re a live band, if something doesn’t go well, we know and we do something else whereas if this doesn’t go well, we are saddled with it. So, it’s quite an exciting, scary time.
Picture and interview supplied by C4.
