When it’s summer, in Australia, if you don’t like Billy Birmingham that’s a real bummer because, more often than not, he’s the number-one man in town.

Billy Birmingham Billy Birmingham. Images: Getty Images

You know who he is. Let’s face it. There’s a 90 per cent chance you’ve bought at least something of his over the years (25 since he began taking the piss out of Richie and the team, to be exact). His latest offering is called The Box Set, the seven-disk complete works of the great man featuring famous titles like Still The 12th Man, Bill Lawry … This Is Your Life and The Final Dig?  Yep, he’s a funny man alright, but he’s achieved serious success on our album charts: he’s sold in excess of two million albums in Australia alone and he’s the only Aussie recording artist in history to have seven consecutive number one albums. Oh yeah, and he’s a multi-ARIA award winner, including the prestigious ARIA for highest selling album of the year. (See, we’re all over his career like “spots on grandma”.) Matt Cleary caught up with The 12th Man and The Back Page panelist and hasn’t been the same since …

Did you watch much cricket on television as a kid?

Not really. I went to school in the ‘60s, did my HSC in 1970. If you were a real cricket fan you were into it, but it certainly wasn’t in your face. There was a bit of black and white coverage on the ABC – one camera from one end. It was just wallpaper. A lot of my mates drifted away from it and lost interest, and it was the same for a lot of people. Then Kerry Packer came along in ‘77. He got Richie Benaud and Tony Greig on board and came up with this idea of – my expression – putting a bit of “Hollywood” into it. And then it was under lights; white balls, coloured gear. All of a sudden, whether you were a small, medium or rabid cricket fan, the game you knew was being presented in an exciting way. It highlighted the gladiatorial aspects of a guy hurling a rock at another bloke, on 20 different cameras, under lights. It was an instant success as far as I was concerned.

And the commentary team – particularly Richie Benaud – became stars … 

I knew of Richie through the ‘60s, a former great Australian captain, a hero. You didn’t have to know cricket to know Richie Benaud. And all of a sudden there he was on TV. He used to ride side-saddle, slightly three-quarters, and he was turning up in jackets with shades of white, off-white, bone, ivory, beige. And I could not believe that was how his voice sounded! It was very distinctive. And as someone who had a penchant for imitating voices, doing people off TV, teachers at school, making Mum and Dad laugh, he was a goldmine. But I never thought I could hone this craft and make a living out of it. I was just doing Richie. I thought it was something everyone did.

And from that sprung The 12th Man?

So, the summer of ‘83/84, I was sitting back counting my money [following the success of comedy piece Australiana, which Birmingham wrote in 1981], and I’m doing what I’ve done for the previous six years: sitting there on a Sunday with a beer in my hand, with my mates, watching cricket, and mimicking voices. “Marvellous effort that; half-a-dozen Mars Bars; double-decker bus; got ‘im, yes!” Just blokes watching sport and taking the piss – the two great Australian pastimes. We all used to mimic; it just took me a while to realise I was better than everyone else. One day I just thought, ‘I wonder if that would work as a record?’ I went out to the backyard and I was so familiar with it, I didn’t need to write much, and I just closed my eyes and heard the bum-da-bum-da-bum cricket theme music. And then it’s Richie, side-saddle, saying, “Welcome back to the MCG” and, “Players and umpires are moving out into the centre, so let’s have a look at what happened earlier today.” And then he’s got to fill five-six minutes, show some wickets. I put it onto a dictaphone and played it to some mates over a beer. They liked it. I put it on a cassette and took

it down to EMI, and this little spoken word comedy piece went to number one.

There was too much swearing in The 12th Man’s material for Richie Benaud. There was too much swearing in The 12th Man’s material for Richie Benaud. Image: Newspix

Was it hard to back up?

I had no idea if I even wanted to. I thought it might be like Australiana, a one-off. But around this time I got sucked into the other iconic program of the era, Wide World Of Sports. Gibbo and Chappelli. For five hours! Cricket, golf, footy, tennis. Then they’d have women’s body building, lobster racing in West Virginia. And jeez, on a rainy Saturday, you’d sit there with your feet up and watch five hours of stuff. You could go and play golf, come back and it was still going. So I started doing Gibbo’s voice, his melodic, excited way of presenting: “By gee, by jingo, by crikey, what about that Ian, that referee went down like a sack of spuds.” And Chappelli: “Yerrrsss, he, ah, did, ah, Gibbo, go down ... ” It was way before pay-TV. When that came in, magazine shows like WWOS faded out because we didn’t need to see five hours of what had happened during the week. But in those days, by crikey. Five hours of it! That album had the “typical stinking fuckin’ hot day in Bombay” which is a line much-quoted to me.

And the State of Origin league segment, “Pearce off, Jack ... ”

[Laughs] Yeah, Gibbo, “Okey-dokes by jingos, during the week the Canetoads took on the Cockroaches. Let’s look at the highlights.” Then there’s Big Jack, and Darryl Eastlake telling him, “Pearce off, Jack, Gibbs on.” And Big Jack: “Don’t tell me to piss off, fucknuckle.” Then Jack belts Darryl, but Darryl keeps commentating ... [doing Darryl] “Oh! Big Jack’s king-hit me! Sensational stuff from the Supercoach!”

Merv Hughes played himself on one of your albums, didn’t he?

We recorded him in his hotel room. I don’t record in a state of the art studio; it’s three mattresses in the corner of a room with a doona over the top. I rang housekeeping to order up three mattresses. And Merv’s started worrying about his reputation, thinking it’s a bit weird. “What does Mr Hughes want three mattresses up there for?” I said I hadn’t thought of that, got on the phone and ordered three bottles of baby oil. Merv was all, “No! Don’t do that!”

Your feedback from Richie Benaud was that there was too much swearing …

In the early days I sent copies of the records to all the boys. Richie, I’ve got no idea whether it was based on, “Ah well, it’s only a one-off, I best be seen as a good sport”, or something else, but I got a letter on an embossed “Benaud and Associates” letterhead, saying, “Thanks for the record and congratulations on your success. Few points worth noting: too much swearing for the sake of it, Ian Chappell’s voice not right, and the record’s a bit too long.” A backhanded way of saying there were bits of it that were funny [laughs].

Did you ever meet Kerry Packer?

I used to see him around here [in Sydney’s Double Bay] all the time, so many times that I thought I should go and say g’day to him. I really wish I had, because the stories I’ve heard since are about how much he liked my stuff. So I wish I’d told him I was one of the people who benefited most from the Packer cricket revolution. I regret I didn’t. Mind you, he was a fairly foreboding character. “Bugger off, Sunshine!”

What do you want to do now?

 I have two projects. The Box Set, where I’ve been lamely trying to convince people it’s not a grab for cash, but rather that I’m doing it as a public service for all those people whose cassettes have melted on the dashboard or their CDs have been lost. I’m making them all available, so it’s not a grab for money, it’s from the goodness of my heart. The other thing I want to do is a documentary-style DVD, The Making Of The 12th Man, to try and answer the questions: how do I have seven consecutive number-one albums with this sort of crap? And would it happen anywhere else other than Australia?

– Matt Cleary