British Comedy Guide

2012 Edinburgh Fringe

Jonny and the Baptists interview

Jonny and the Baptists. Image shows from L to R: Paddy Gervers, Amy Butterworth, Jonny Donahoe

From politics to romance, comedy blues band Jonny and the Baptists - aka Jonny Donahoe, Amy Butterworth and Paddy Gervers - are prepared to tackle anything. Here, Lucy Wood finds out more about them...

How did Jonny and the Baptists form?

Jonny and Paddy met at a wedding and bonded over a mutual love of comedy, blues, and the cheese table. Forming Jonny & The Baptists as a double act, we met Amy at our first gig; we were all playing as part of Colin Hoult's band. She loved our stuff and demanded to be involved.

Tell us about your careers as individuals.

Jonny has worked in comedy - as a performer, writer and director - for ages, and was last at the Fringe with double act The Roaring Boys. Amy freelances as a violinist and actor. Paddy, as the youngest, is fresh from (dropping out of) music college.

What inspires your songs? And do you have favourites to perform?

Things we care about inspires our songs: political issues, romance, children's authors. We don't have favourites, you can't do that to your kids.

When was the moment you knew you had something good going on?

Jonny made us a fantastic soup.

Tell us more about your 'song a day' project...

We wanted to do a challenge that no one had done, and one that was specific to the Fringe. It was also a way to hone our writing skills and comment publicly about what we care about. Many of them we have been lucky enough to perform on Marcus Brigstocke's Early Edition, due to its topical nature, which has been a real honour.

You can see them all on YouTube

How would you sell your show to a stranger on the Royal Mile?

From a distance: we're scared of The Royal Mile.

What's next after Edinburgh?

Paddy's off to hospital, Amy's off to Barbados, Jonny's off to bed. Then we tour.

Keep up with what we're doing at www.jonnyandthebaptists.co.uk and @jonny_baptists


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