Life With Jonny & the Baptists: ‘Scotland is just a very wonderful place all round’

Musical comedy duo, Jonny & the Baptists (Jonny Donahoe and Paddy Gervers) on their love of Scotland, their new show The Happiness Index and their guilty pleasures. 

Where did you grow up?

Jonny: I grew up in Reading, where many people have changed trains. Queen Victoria hated Reading so much she insisted her statue faced away from the city. 

Paddy: Born in Scotland, raised in Oxfordshire. I’m sort of doing the reverse of Jonny, in that I came into this world in Glasgow, and I imagine Jonny will die there.

Jonny: Soon? 

Paddy: Quite soon. 

Where are you based now? 

J: Five years ago I moved with my young family to sunny Glasgow. I just wanted to be somewhere warm (in people) and very much not warm (in weather). 

P: I’m one of those awful Londoners and I’ve made my peace with that. Did you know that in London you’re never more than a metre away from a disgraced politician?

What were you like at school? Were you a good pupil?

J: No, I don’t think I was. I was late a lot. And sometimes so late I wasn’t there at all. I have ADHD, so it’s definitely not my fault. 

P: I spent an enormous amount of time working out complicated ways to get out of doing things. Far more time than it would’ve taken to just do them. My teachers used to call me ‘Imp’.

Do you have a favourite place in Scotland?

J: All of Glasgow is pretty incredible to be honest. I like the subway, I like the river, I even like the motorway. 

P: It’s just a very wonderful place all round. I have great memories of Dunkeld, Glasgow and Balfron as a kid, and once my leg is better I’d love to do the West Highland Way. I saw a dead seal on the isle of Lismore once. That was bleak. Great times. 

Was music or comedy your first love? What are your earliest memories of both?

J: Both! I wanted to write serious songs as a kid, but I kept adding jokes by mistake. It’s a compulsion. 

P: I was certainly a musician first and foremost – my whole family are. I think that’s what pushed me towards comedy, sort of the lowest stakes artsy rebellion of all time against my older siblings by doing the exact same thing but with gags.

Is there a comedy show/routine or piece of music you wish you had written yourself and why?

J: Covered in Bees by Eddie Izzard!

P: You told me you wrote that?

What can people expect from The Happiness Index?

P: It’s extremely funny. There’s mental health, politics, some songs, lots of fun, quite a lot of bickering and it’s very unusual. Imagine if your two favourite friends livestreamed a breakdown, but were sort of preoccupied with trying to find a lost shoe or something so it became quite charming. 

J: You can’t say fairer than that. 

What do you hope people take away from the show?

J: You can take anything from the theatre if you get it under your coat. Pint glasses, ashtrays, couple of chairs if you’re nifty. A few of the elderly volunteers? Get them in your duffel! 

P: And that’s actually true of a lot of places. It’s wild that people don’t know you can do it! It’s set to explore mental health, something we all struggle with. How has this impacted you over the years?

J: We’ve both taken a lot of antidepressants over the last ten years. If you were to line up all the antidepressants we’ve been given over the years that would be a real problem because we really needed to take them in order to function, and just having a big line of them is of no use to anyone. 

P: But it’s important to remember that were it not for our crippling mental health issues, we wouldn’t be where we are now. We’d be far happier and much more successful. 

What’s your guilty pleasure?

J: Have you ever eaten a whole wheel of Brie, just to yourself? It’s an EVENT. There are real highs. And real lows. But no one can ever say you didn’t do it. 

P: Tablespoons of raw Bovril.

J: Tablespoons? More than one?

P: I’m just following the recipe.

What has been your biggest achievement?

J: We met Alexei Sayle. That was pretty cool. Although is it an achievement? We just were in the same place…

P: I once got bought a KitKat by Annie Lennox but it’s a really really long story.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?

P: Give up on your dream of owning a parrot. 

Do you have a hero?

J: Steve Martin. Bjork. Krishnan Guru-Murthy. Cher. Imagine if the four of them were to collaborate? Ooh, it would be LONG and very weird. But quite sexy. 

P: All of my real answers are too sweet, so I’m going to have to go with the guy who really audibly hits the big funnel on the Titanic when the Titanic snaps in half in the movie Titanic.

J: Was he a real person? 

P: I don’t care. 

Do you believe in ghosts?

J: Who said that? I’m alone here! 

P: I’m real.

Jonny & the Baptists are bring their hit show The Happiness Index to the Tron Theatre on 24 May. The band was formed in 2011 and have since released two studio albums, multiple live albums and several digital singles, as well as their podcast series Making Paddy Happy which began during the Covid pandemic.

Read more from the Life With series here.

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