Brett Blake was charged with inciting a riot as a teen. But he got a second chance
Brett Blake knows he sucked as a kid.
The WA-born, Victoria-based comedian even named his 2025 festival show Little Turd after his adolescent behaviour (although he did have to change it to Little Scallywag for his Edinburgh Fringe Festival run – delicate sensibilities over there).
Blake grew up in Forrestfield, a working-class suburb in the inland Western Australia town of Kalamunda. The comedian admits that when he was growing up it was a bit of a "rough area" with "a lot of fights".
But if there's one describer Blake would give the suburb it would be "boring".
"You had to find ways to entertain yourself or find your own excitement," he says.
Teen Blake's pursuit of excitement as a youth led to him not just being charged with inciting a riot, but also to his Melbourne International Comedy Festival Most Outstanding Comedy-nominated show.
The Kalamunda riot
One weekend, when Blake was 17, he and his friends attended a party in the more affluent suburbs of Kalamunda.
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There had been another party in the area two weeks before, which had gotten out of hand.
"A lot of those kids were blaming Forrestfield kids for coming up and we weren't there. The next weekend, there was a party, which we thought were invited to," Blake explains.
But as the group descended onto the house party, they quickly realised they weren't welcome. Thanks to word of mouth (or, rather, word of text message), the party had grown too large, too uncontrollable. Next thing Blake knew, dozens of police officers in riot gear had arrived.
"To be honest with you, I got ADHD, so when the cops came with the riot gear, the helicopters, it was pretty exciting," Blake says.
"At this point, we didn't even know that it was for us. We saw like 20 police officers and thought, 'Oh, there must be someone around here that's done something wrong.'"
As the police clashed with the partygoers, tensions escalated and Blake made a split-second decision that he would quickly come to deeply regret.
"A police officer hit a friend with a riot shield so I threw a brick at them, which is so dumb, I know. I'm 17 and making bad decisions," Blake says.
Before the night was out, teen Blake was in handcuffs. He would soon be charged with disorderly conduct, inciting a riot and assaulting a police officer.
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"I was just so excited to tackle something that was very challenging because to make a riot and assaulting a police officer funny is quite hard," Blake says.
(
Supplied: Chris Hillary
)
In the weeks following his arrest, Blake was informed he was staring down a possible 10-year prison sentence for his actions.
But the immediate fallout hit his family the hardest.
"[My parents] were devastated. We had news crews out the front of our house that were all over the front of the West Australian newspaper by the next day saying: 'Bad kids, bad family,'" Blake says.
"That wasn't fair. I made a mistake. My parents didn't but they got dragged across it as well."
Due to being under the age of 18, Blake couldn't be personally identified in the media, but that didn't keep the targets off his back.
"I've got news clippings saying they wanted to publicly flog me. A One Nation MP said, 'Bring back the birch' — they were just out for blood."
Second chances
A mainstay in the comedy scene for more than a decade, Blake was looking for a personal challenge when he started writing Little Turd — but he also wanted to challenge people's preconceived notions of youth offenders.
The proclaimed rise in youth crime remains a hot political topic, despite latest data showing that youth
In late 2024, Queensland Premier David Crisafulli led the Liberal Party to power in the state on the slogan: "Adult Crime, Adult Time". Australian Bureau of Statistics data shows that Queensland's youth crime rate has almost halved across the past 14 years.
Around the same time, the
Photo shows
a woman next to a sign
Youth crime rates have plummeted in Queensland despite claims from both major parties that the state is in the grip of a crisis.
"Everyone wants a solution. They say throw them in jail but that's not the answer. We need to go further — what's going wrong at home? Is it something else going wrong at school?" Blake says.
"People always counter with, 'What about that one kid who walks into a house with a machete? He needs to go to jail.'
"It's like, yes, but let's stop him before a kid finds that [to be] normal behaviour. We needed to go back further so we never get to the point where holding a machete in a lounge room is normal behaviour."
Blake is keeping tight-lipped on the outcome of his early-2000s court case ("That's the big bit at the end of the show"), but the moment had a significant impact on his life.
"It was a reality check. I thought more about my actions after I got a second chance," he says.
"But I tell a story in my show about another kid that went to my school and was at that party. He didn't get a second chance, and his entire life was, loosely, ruined."
For Mum, Love Brett
After a 20-plus-night run at this year's Melbourne International Comedy Festival, Blake was honoured with a nomination for the festival's top award: Most Outstanding Show.
It's a momentous milestone for any comedian, but Blake says it actually wasn't the highlight of his run.
"My favourite part is when I see a mum in the audience with a young boy. They'll bring in their 15-year-old, 14-year-old who is a bit of a tearaway," he says.
Ultimately, Blake says, he wrote the show for his own mum — for sticking by him when he was in his little-turd era.
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"When I was younger, I could never really communicate how much this one moment meant. I got to write this show so she could hear my version of what happened and how much she meant to me," he says.
The comedian says Little Turd is not an opportunity to preach, but rather is a lived-in perspective from a former youth offender.
"[After people see the show] I hope when people see these news articles on A Current Affair or on Facebook, they just remember there's a mum and a dad behind that, and approach it with a little bit of heart and compassion."
Brett Blake will perform Little Turd at the Brisbane Comedy Festival from May 1 to May 4 before heading to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in July.
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While 71 per cent of listeners love to hear Australian tunes, and two thirds want to hear more, only one in three music fans make an effort to seek out new Australian music. It's a big contradiction revealed in landmark research by Music Australia, the federal government's music development and funding body. A massive 98 per cent of local listeners discover musicians via streaming, but more than half (51 per cent) don't think about whether an artist is Australian when they are looking for new tunes. Of the top 10,000 artists streamed in Australia during 2024, just eight per cent were Australian, while more than half were from the US, according to entertainment analytics firm Luminate. It seems the sheer convenience of personalised playlists delivered via an algorithm might be stopping music fans discovering Australian artists - and that's a problem for musicians like Sara Storer. The ARIA-award winning country musician is releasing her eighth solo album titled Worth Your Love, and says the music industry has completely transformed since her first release back in 2001. "For a young person, especially a young Aussie artist trying to get out there, I'd be terrified. Where do you start?" she said. Despite building an inter-generational audience over decades, the Darwin-based musician can no longer rely on album sales, and even solid streaming figures don't add up to a viable income. "There's no income from streaming. It looks good on paper and you think, well, I should be making a few bucks, but you don't see anything," said Storer. "All my money is made through live performance. I rely heavily on ticket sales, which is like a roller coaster." The contradiction between listener sentiment and behaviour could be the basis of a campaign for actively discovering local music - a bit like the 'Life. Be in it' health campaign of the 1980s - suggested Music Australia director Millie Millgate. "We can remind Australian audiences what these bands are doing overseas and encourage them not to miss out - like, don't miss out on your own party," said Millgate. "There's no one single bullet, but if audiences can be mobilised to do their part and really seek out Australian new music, it would go an incredible way." And the Music Australia research suggests we could potentially Aussify Spotify: listeners like the idea of a dedicated Australian music streamer, with 42 per cent saying it's something they would pay for. Melbourne rock band Amyl and the Sniffers are one act making it big on the global stage, and when the band appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon recently, singer Amy Taylor's top was made from two classic Aussie thongs. It's a big effort to demonstrate a sense of national pride - but it seems many Aussie musos are actually getting more love overseas, with more than 80 per cent of royalties for local musicians coming from international listeners in 2024, according to figures from Spotify. The research also found radio still plays a role. A quarter of music fans still tune in to discover new music, with ABC station triple j a popular source. An economic snapshot of the local sector showing a direct contribution of almost $3 billion to the national economy was part of three industry research reports released on Thursday. Aussie music lovers feel a sense of pride when they hear Australian music, but their playlists are actually dominated by pop from the US and Britain. While 71 per cent of listeners love to hear Australian tunes, and two thirds want to hear more, only one in three music fans make an effort to seek out new Australian music. It's a big contradiction revealed in landmark research by Music Australia, the federal government's music development and funding body. A massive 98 per cent of local listeners discover musicians via streaming, but more than half (51 per cent) don't think about whether an artist is Australian when they are looking for new tunes. Of the top 10,000 artists streamed in Australia during 2024, just eight per cent were Australian, while more than half were from the US, according to entertainment analytics firm Luminate. It seems the sheer convenience of personalised playlists delivered via an algorithm might be stopping music fans discovering Australian artists - and that's a problem for musicians like Sara Storer. The ARIA-award winning country musician is releasing her eighth solo album titled Worth Your Love, and says the music industry has completely transformed since her first release back in 2001. "For a young person, especially a young Aussie artist trying to get out there, I'd be terrified. Where do you start?" she said. Despite building an inter-generational audience over decades, the Darwin-based musician can no longer rely on album sales, and even solid streaming figures don't add up to a viable income. "There's no income from streaming. It looks good on paper and you think, well, I should be making a few bucks, but you don't see anything," said Storer. "All my money is made through live performance. I rely heavily on ticket sales, which is like a roller coaster." The contradiction between listener sentiment and behaviour could be the basis of a campaign for actively discovering local music - a bit like the 'Life. Be in it' health campaign of the 1980s - suggested Music Australia director Millie Millgate. "We can remind Australian audiences what these bands are doing overseas and encourage them not to miss out - like, don't miss out on your own party," said Millgate. "There's no one single bullet, but if audiences can be mobilised to do their part and really seek out Australian new music, it would go an incredible way." And the Music Australia research suggests we could potentially Aussify Spotify: listeners like the idea of a dedicated Australian music streamer, with 42 per cent saying it's something they would pay for. Melbourne rock band Amyl and the Sniffers are one act making it big on the global stage, and when the band appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon recently, singer Amy Taylor's top was made from two classic Aussie thongs. It's a big effort to demonstrate a sense of national pride - but it seems many Aussie musos are actually getting more love overseas, with more than 80 per cent of royalties for local musicians coming from international listeners in 2024, according to figures from Spotify. The research also found radio still plays a role. A quarter of music fans still tune in to discover new music, with ABC station triple j a popular source. An economic snapshot of the local sector showing a direct contribution of almost $3 billion to the national economy was part of three industry research reports released on Thursday. Aussie music lovers feel a sense of pride when they hear Australian music, but their playlists are actually dominated by pop from the US and Britain. While 71 per cent of listeners love to hear Australian tunes, and two thirds want to hear more, only one in three music fans make an effort to seek out new Australian music. It's a big contradiction revealed in landmark research by Music Australia, the federal government's music development and funding body. A massive 98 per cent of local listeners discover musicians via streaming, but more than half (51 per cent) don't think about whether an artist is Australian when they are looking for new tunes. Of the top 10,000 artists streamed in Australia during 2024, just eight per cent were Australian, while more than half were from the US, according to entertainment analytics firm Luminate. It seems the sheer convenience of personalised playlists delivered via an algorithm might be stopping music fans discovering Australian artists - and that's a problem for musicians like Sara Storer. The ARIA-award winning country musician is releasing her eighth solo album titled Worth Your Love, and says the music industry has completely transformed since her first release back in 2001. "For a young person, especially a young Aussie artist trying to get out there, I'd be terrified. Where do you start?" she said. Despite building an inter-generational audience over decades, the Darwin-based musician can no longer rely on album sales, and even solid streaming figures don't add up to a viable income. "There's no income from streaming. It looks good on paper and you think, well, I should be making a few bucks, but you don't see anything," said Storer. "All my money is made through live performance. I rely heavily on ticket sales, which is like a roller coaster." The contradiction between listener sentiment and behaviour could be the basis of a campaign for actively discovering local music - a bit like the 'Life. Be in it' health campaign of the 1980s - suggested Music Australia director Millie Millgate. "We can remind Australian audiences what these bands are doing overseas and encourage them not to miss out - like, don't miss out on your own party," said Millgate. "There's no one single bullet, but if audiences can be mobilised to do their part and really seek out Australian new music, it would go an incredible way." And the Music Australia research suggests we could potentially Aussify Spotify: listeners like the idea of a dedicated Australian music streamer, with 42 per cent saying it's something they would pay for. Melbourne rock band Amyl and the Sniffers are one act making it big on the global stage, and when the band appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon recently, singer Amy Taylor's top was made from two classic Aussie thongs. It's a big effort to demonstrate a sense of national pride - but it seems many Aussie musos are actually getting more love overseas, with more than 80 per cent of royalties for local musicians coming from international listeners in 2024, according to figures from Spotify. The research also found radio still plays a role. A quarter of music fans still tune in to discover new music, with ABC station triple j a popular source. An economic snapshot of the local sector showing a direct contribution of almost $3 billion to the national economy was part of three industry research reports released on Thursday.
