Zan Rowe can't stop talking about her beloved "Bang Fam".
Not familiar with the term? It has been adopted by Rowe and Myf Warhurst to describe the people who tune in to their weekly pop-culture podcast, Bang On.
They're not just listeners, Rowe insists. They're a community. A family.
I was introduced to a handful of unfamiliar words, in fact, when I spoke to Rowe this week. "Farshun" was another, and a new definition of "crop dusting" that doesn't involve aircraft, agriculture or the unwelcome public sharing of bodily gases.
But first, the podcast, the live version of which Rowe and co-host Warhurst are taking on tour to venues across Australia next month. Bang On is a weekly wrap of "music, art, life, and stuff" which Rowe calls their "hot takes" of the week.
The success of Bang On took the close friends and media personalities by surprise in 2017, and continues to surprise them to this day.
"We get the most beautiful emails from people who listen, sharing stories. People coming up to us on the street, sharing stories," she says.
"Then there are the people who can't bring themselves to come up and chat but will do a thing that we call crop-dusting, where they walk past and whisper 'Bang Fam' to us, and it's just the most glorious thing whenever that happens.
"It's not like a secret society, but it's definitely a community that fosters a feeling of belonging and understanding, and of being seen, and of being part of a group, and that is the best outcome of our little podcast we could ever have hoped for. We're stoked."
A MUSIC LOVER
Rowe is a respected broadcaster, TV presenter, music journalist and podcaster. She kicked off her radio career as a volunteer DJ in Melbourne in 1996, moving on to host a drive-time show in 2002 while studying a media degree. In 2005 she started hosting mid-dawn shifts on triple j followed a year later by Weekend Lunch and then the triple j Mornings slot, where she stayed until 2017.
These days Rowe is the host of the Friday Mornings show on Double J which features the flagship segment, podcast and now ABC TV series Take 5. She's also the national music correspondent for Double J and ABC National Music, and appears regularly on Australian television screens to talk all things music and culture.
Yes, Rowe is a respected music journalist, but she's also a music fan who gets to talk, in-depth, to some of the most successful artists in the world. Her passion for, and knowledge of, the subject matter shines through in each interview.
"It's a fun job; I get to speak to amazing creative people and research things and learn things," she says.
"At this stage of my life I'm really enjoying listening, which is funny because Bang On is about having hot takes and sharing them, but I'm really enjoying listening to people and hearing their perspectives and shutting up for a while.
"Everyone has a story, and it's a joy to hear them."
RADIO VERSUS PODCAST
Rowe credits Beyonce's 2016 album Lemonade for prompting her and Warhurst to start a podcast.
"We started chatting about it privately and in public, and then we were like 'You know what, why don't we turn this into content? Why don't we try to make something out of this because we've clearly got a lot to say," she says.
"We've always had a lot to say, actually."
Learning to talk on radio for a living requires a certain set of skills. Rowe says she and Warhurst had to "unlearn" them while working out what makes a good podcast.
"We're very different people. Myf is 'fly by the seat of her pants', very quick, very witty, very sharp. I'm the opposite; I need to be super prepared. But we are the yin and yang that work well together, and the chemistry we have in conversation just translated really easily into doing a podcast.
"That said, when we started Bang On we did quite a few demo episodes because we had to unravel years of radio training. We'd been trained to not make mistakes, to make sure things were polished, to use our broadcast voices.
"And a podcast is a different offering. It's much more conversational, it's much more intimate because you've got people choosing to listen to you. They're active listeners, as opposed to the radio, and you don't need to get people's attention in the same way.
"So we had to unlearn all that radio craft, which took a few goes, and still sometimes I see myself sliding into it. I hit certain moments and I have to tell myself to be messy, to let it be free, because it is supposed to be a conversation just like you'd have with your mates."
Rowe says her favourite podcasts, as a listener, are the ones where she feels that she is part of the conversation. It's something she and Warhurst strive to achieve every week through Bang On.
"People tell us how much they love our podcast because they feel like they're in the conversation, and that can sometimes mean they are lonely," she says.
"A lot of ex-pats listen to us, who miss home and who miss the vernacular of Australian speech. Or people just having a rough time. Or while they're out walking or driving. Whatever the circumstances, there is that feeling of connection.
"Throughout the pandemic Myf and I were both based in Melbourne and we had some pretty real chats about how we were feeling ... we have been in media for more than 20 years, and we do our jobs and we present and we interview people and we're professional, but I think Bang On is a place where we can just be real.
"And I think people appreciate that, because everyone's got something going on, right? Everyone has shit to deal with."
YIN AND YANG
The two-decade friendship between Warhurst and Rowe is the secret to Bang On's success.
"I knew her as a public figure beforehand but she immediately struck me as so generous and so open and so welcoming - and 20 years on, that's still exactly who she is," Rowe says.
"She is one of the busiest people I know but also the most generous with her time. She has that generosity of spirit, that warmth, a very funny personality and an incredibly sharp mind. All of that just drew me to her.
"Whenever I press record or I go on the stage with Myf, I know that she's got my back and I've got hers, and we just have a dance together, you know? We have a play and the joy you hear on the podcast is 100 per cent real in the room.
"We edit very little out of each week. We probably record for 45 minutes and then we cut five minutes out, say, if we've just stuffed up a word of perhaps accidentally defamed someone [laughs]."
BANG ON LIVE
Without giving too much away, Bang On Live audiences are in for a few surprises - or "little tricks", in Rowe's words.
"There will be a lot of hot takes, for sure, but we have quite a few audience interactions planned too," she says.
"We have a segment called 'Farshun' where we'll bring in some farshun items that have featured heavily in Bang On over the years and that we've taken the piss out of (and celebrated), and we're going to see if Bang Fam folk want to get up on stage and model said farshun in a farshun show.
"We'll have special guests in every city where we can, famous friends, basically, that we're going to drag up on stage to bang on about something.
"We're also going to ask the audience what they want us to talk about, so we'll set up a jar of hot takes at the start of the show; a big glass jar with some pieces of paper and some pencils. Questions can be as serious or as non-serious as they like."
An excited Rowe lists the merchandise that will be available for sale (Bang Fam keyrings, tote bags, keep cups and her favourite, the tea towel) and encourages people to have a chat with her and Warhurst at the "merch stand" after the show.
"Bang On Live is such an incredible community reunion. I'm so looking forward to being in the room with our Bang Fam," she says.
"When we've done the shows in the past people have made friends there. I've even had people email me in the lead-up to the tour saying they've moved to a new city and they're coming along to the show to meet like-minded people.
"The tour is a celebration of the community that has grown around the podcast, really. We're so lucky and so grateful to have them."
