Dylan Bird Shares Triple R Connections as Radiothon Kicks Off
From chasing footies to stuffing envelopes, a glimpse into the making of Dylan Bird
What was it that drew you to community radio at Triple R and how did you first get involved?
I first discovered Triple R through my parents. Mum would always have Off the Record on in the house on Saturday mornings, and I remember cackling away to Fee B-Squared, John Safran and Tony Wilson on Breakfasters while I got ready for school. I then started discovering all the amazing other shows on the station. It felt like a portal to another world. In my late teens/early 20s I did a regular Wednesday night shift as a Hallkeeper for Kingston City Council (that’s still the best job title I’ve ever had!). The job involved a lot of sitting around, looking after various council facilities while community groups used them. I remember looking forward to it each week just so I could listen to Anthony Carew’s International Pop Underground, then tell my friends about all the cool bands I knew.
It took me a few more years before I signed up to be a volunteer at the station, sometime around 2012. I walked through the door feeling nervous and unworthy, and met Annaliese (host of Neon Sunset), who back then was the station’s Volunteers Coordinator. The first thing she asked was what I wanted to do there, and I’m pretty sure I said ‘stuff envelopes’. Before long I was helping out doing social media highlights, filming a bunch of live-to-airs in the Performance Space, and then assisting Kulja and Donna with The Grapevine, which I would later co-host.
You were a big part of the legendary show 'The Grapevine', and now you present 'Future Perfect'. What has kept you as a part of the furniture for so long and tell us about the different aspects of what you do at Triple R?
Hosting The Grapevine was such an amazing experience. I feel so lucky to have learned a lot of my radio chops from Kulja Coulston (the show’s co-founder and my former co-host), who will be a life-long friend. As well as broadcasting and doing some other volunteer things, I worked at the station full-time for six years – first as a Sponsorship Coordinator, then as a Producer and Coordinator of Broadcaster Training. Working there gave me a much broader sense of what goes into running a community radio station, and made me appreciate even more how much of the station’s success comes from the incredible work of volunteers, and the generosity of subscribers.
The place has become something of a second home. My relationship with the station has evolved over the years – from being a shy, fresh-faced volunteer, to a staff member, and now long-term broadcaster.
Tell us about Future Perfect and how you piece together this show. It feels like you cover a lot of issues and content, does it take a long time to prepare and navigate?
Future Perfect is essentially a three-hour interview-based show. It brings together a whole bunch of my interests – news, politics, human rights, arts, culture and music. It started this year, replacing The Grapevine, which I co-hosted with Kulja from 2014.
The two shows share some similarities, but in re-naming it I wanted to lean into the idea that despite all the shit going on in the world, there is hope for making things better. A lot of the people I have on the show embody that – whether they’re fighting injustices, highlighting policy wrongs, doing important journalism, or just producing great art and music that makes our lives better, and Melbourne a great city.
It takes a bit to put the show together each week. I’ve got help from some producers at the station, Adam Christou and Sam Cummins, who find and line up a lot of the interviews. Sometimes I get to Sunday night and have a mild freakout at my lack of time to properly prepare for all the interviews - or some interviews not even being booked yet - but one way or another it comes together!
Does your lecturing in Journalism at RMIT help inform Future Perfect and vice versa?Â
I’ve only recently started working full-time as a lecturer at RMIT. There’s a nice synergy in working at the place where Triple R started out way back in 1976. That connection is still there to see. There are Triple R posters and stickers around campus, and you can sometimes hear RMIT students on the airwaves for the midday news and Room with a View. Occasionally I’ll incorporate the show into my teaching, especially when helping students with things like interview craft, and I always give students who are Triple R subscribers a few extra points on their assignments ;)
My academic research focuses a lot on audio journalism, particularly podcasting, and how at its best it can help to build a better society by making us more connected and empathetic, and less polarised. I hope that Future Perfect does that in some way, but it’s just one little show in a big wide world.
What are your favourite pastimes?
Kicking the footy is up there. I play for The Easybeats in the Pub Footy League – which is basically an expanded version of the Community Cup. I still get a huge lift out of chasing a piece of leather around a muddy field with mates. I also love the ocean and try to get out for a surf when I can. I grew up right next to the beach and still miss being able to walk to the end of the street for a dip. These days the Brunswick Baths have to suffice.
You play in a band called Wild Meadows. Tell us about the group and what you are working on at the moment.
I hooked up with Wild Meadows sometime around 2017 through James Ross, who I met through Triple R (you might sometimes here him filling in on Far and Wide). They were on the lookout for a guitarist, having put out a couple of EPs, and I was looking to get back into music having not really played for around five years. We’re kind of in the vein of psych, noise-pop, I guess. We released our second full-length album ‘Fear of Sleep’ in 2023 – our first with singer Alana West (formerly of Hideous Towns). Alana joined the band a few years earlier, but Covid really slowed things for us. We recorded a follow-up EP that we’re really happy with and have plans to release sometime soon. Alana has moved to the UK so we’re on a bit of a hiatus but may re-emerge. Watch this space!
I also played in a scrappy garage band called Capital Gains with some childhood friends from around 2017-2020. That was a lot of fun. I suppose this all means I’m now a guitarist in need of a band, so if any Tempo readers out there are on the lookout hit me up!
Do you get out to many gigs in your busy work/life balance?
I do, when I organise myself! One of the more recent gigs I went to was Full Flower Moon Band at Shotkickers in Thornbury. I was also up near Coolangatta recently and ventured out to see Good Morning at The Eltham Hotel, which was great. It’s a kind of sprawling old-school pub with an outdoor stage. I also really enjoyed Moktar’s show for Rising at the Melbourne Town Hall back in June. I try to get along to a few of the Live at Triple R shows on Friday nights in the performance space. Grace Cummings’ show there earlier this year was mesmerising. Looking ahead I’ve got tickets to Viagra Boys in November, but I’m sure I’ll get along to lots of stuff before then.
Finally, who are your favourite local Melbourne bands at the moment or who would you like to see interviewed for Tempo?Â
I’ve been loving Wrong Way Up, who recently released a three-track EP called ‘Full Blast’. They describe themselves as channelling the likes of William Onyeabor and Lijadu Sisters, which is pretty much on the money. On the topic of three-track EPs, I’ve also been really enjoying ‘Be Kind’ by The Male Gays, a DIY queer-pop duo made up of Chapter Music’s Guy Blackman and Bart McDonagh of Domino Records and imprint Amour Foo (half the band is Melbourne-based so hopefully that qualifies!). Would love either to be interviewed by Tempo, as well as Mikey Young and/or Noise in My Head’s Michael Kucyk – because I credit them for putting music on my radar I never would have heard otherwise.
Subscribe & donate here