Reformed YouTuber JaackMaate’s Happy Hour is currently the most popular British podcast: interviews, confessions, comedy, and most of all three mates chatting into a microphone. Ahead of Happy Hour’s live tour date in Cardiff, Amy Wild got the lowdown from all three: Jaackmaate, Stevie White, and Robbie Knox.

You no longer post on YouTube; what about the podcast format do you prefer over the YouTube format?

Jaackmaate: For me, I’ve just grown up a bit. I’ve stopped caring about advent calendars and how much YouTubers are selling their T-shirts for. I’ve always had a passion for interviewing people, and chatting with people you don’t usually get to speak to, so I think the podcast has helped me grow up a little… well, if you’ve heard the show, you know I haven’t grown up at all. It just feels like more of a job than being known about advent calendars for a living.

What was the main inspiration for the Happy Hour Podcast?

Jack: At first, it was going to be a YouTube drama show. So Happy Hour was a bit ironic… but now we are generally just good mates, and we have a proper laugh. From what it was meant to be to what it is now, it’s two completely different things. It’s something I don’t think any of us ever dreamed it could be.

Did you ever expect the Happy Hour Podcast to become so popular?

Jack: When I got Stevie on, who just worked at Boots, I thought this will only end one way – in the bin. But it’s done really well. Stevie has learnt a lot, and now people actually say they can tolerate him, which is mental.

Stevie White: One day they’ll like me.

Jack: Yeah, yeah.

Is there ever a confession or an urban legend which is too bad to post?

Jack: We did a warm-up show in Norwich a year ago, and this was when we first had a live audience submitting their confessions. We probably shouldn’t admit to this, but we made some up because we thought they would probably be a bit watered down, and we would have to add a bit of colour to them. And then we didn’t actually have to use any of the made-up ones, because people have done a lot more mental stuff than you would imagine.

Any exciting up-and-coming collaborations on the podcast?

Stevie: We’re currently in the process of creating our own studio. So we will create podcasts with us three, and then the guests will start rolling back in, probably in March.

Jack: Yeah, it’s nice to have a little break from the guests while we start this tour out and the new studio. But when we come back in March, April, we will be absolutely smashing the guests! That sounds bad.

Robbie Knox: That will be Jack! I am happily married!

It must be nice to work together as friends, right?

Robbie: Yeah… it’s nice to work with Jack.

Jack: I love working with you, Robbie

Robbie: Yeah, thanks, Jack.

Stevie: I’m just happy to be here.

Happy Hour Live is your first tour – excited?

Robbie: I am. I have three kids, so any chance to get out of the house is an absolute bonus, but yeah, I am looking forward to it. We’re going to York and I’ve always wanted to go to the Railway Museum, so that will be the highlight for me.

Jack: I’m really looking forward to it. At first, when I came up with the idea, Robbie said “we can sell the tickets for £100,” so I was looking forward to buying a Ferrari. Turns out we’re selling them for £19, so I’m not looking forward to it as I once was. But I think it will be a load of fun.

Stevie: I had a dream last night that the first show flopped, so it’s going well in my head mentally.

Robbie: It’s not going to flop… it might flop.

Stevie: More content for us to talk about in the podcast afterwards if it does.

Robbie: Even if it goes really badly, it’s only £19.50, so you can’t get too angry. If it were £50, you would be fuming, but at £19.50 you might not even mention it to your mates.

And what can we expect from the live show?

Jack: Absolutely no refunds is the first one. We’re going to be doing confessions again on a much larger scale as there is going to be a bigger pool of people there.

Stevie: It’s going to be a lot of favourite things that people like from the podcast, and urban legends, but also enough stuff for people who don’t follow the podcast.

Jack: We’ve got some quite city-centric jokes for each show. So, if you’re coming to the Cardiff show, there will be some Cardiff-based things. No two shows will be exactly the same, but we would encourage people to go to multiple. We know some lads that are going to four… that is quite frankly a waste of time.

How do you come up with the material for the show?

Stevie: We tend to make it up as we go along.

Robbie: We’re lucky that we live in Norwich – that in itself is amazing – but we record in London, so we have a two-hour car journey to figure out what is going on in that podcast.

Jack: We are also lucky that we have a human-sized punch bag in the corner, so if we are ever struggling for material, we can just look at Stevie, insult his face or general appearance and we are good to go.

[The interview ends with Jack ‘informing’ me that the Welsh for microwave is ‘popty ping’. It’s not. It’s ‘meicrodon’.]

Happy Hour Live: The Round Sheep Tour, New Theatre, Cardiff, Sat 4 Feb.

Tickets: £23.50 (more than £19, less than £50). Info: here

words AMY WILD