Just the two of us: Inside the complicated world of Jono and Ben

Jono and Ben caught up with Karl Puschman for Reset magazine.

Like Penn and Teller, Mary-Kate and Ashley and Beavis and Butthead, broadcasters Jono and Ben have shed the need for a second name and transcended their individual identities to become permanently etched into Aotearoa’s psyche as one multi-headed entity. 

For more than a decade the broadcasting duo have straddled the peaks of the ego-capped mountains of television and radio, conquering both with their well-earned reputations as thoroughly nice guys intact. 

If Judy Bailey is the mother of the nation and Hilary Barry the aunty, then Jono and Ben are our rapscallion older brothers, pulling silly pranks on the fam, staying just on the right side of offensive and making cheeky jokes at everyone’s expense, including their own. The big, permanent grins on their faces ensure their mocking gags are never mistaken for meanness or bullying. 

The pair’s humour while unashamedly matey is not blokey, which is an important distinction. It gives the duo a much wider appeal than their contemporaries from our local rock radio stations, which is where the pair both got their start, albeit separately. Pryor was on-air talent while Boyce worked behind the scenes as a copywriter, penning ads. Ambitious and driven he quickly parlayed this position into his own on-air spot, before making a move to television. 

Hard as it is to believe, joining forces wasn’t even their idea. Instead, a TV exec partnered them up, thinking they’d work well together. Their individual shows, Pryor’s The Jono Project and Boyce’s Pulp Sport, were both canned and in 2012 their powers combined to create Jono and Ben at 10. When the show’s mix of satire, pranks and sketches delivered high ratings it earned a spot in primetime and shortened its name to just Jono and Ben. 

“The plan was to take two crappy shows and make one less crappy show,” Boyce says, laughing, as he recalls their fateful coming together. 

The rest, as they say, is history. The pair have been inseparable and inescapable ever since. There’s been TV shows, radio shows, and high-profile event-hosting gigs. Their big grinning faces have gazed upon us from billboards and from cans of energy drinks. For the past couple of years, the pair have hosted NZME-owned The Hits radio station’s morning show Breakfast with Jono and Ben. This, they say, has been an exciting challenge that has given them a new goal. Current king of the morning Mike Hosking better watch out, they warn, as they are coming for the breakfast radio crown. 

“We have a really big desire to take The Hits to number one, which in radio is such a long play that it’s a five-year-plus plan,” Pryor says. “It’s such a long play that you just keep chipping away at it.” 

All of this has made the pair somewhat ubiquitous. And because their media personas appear to just be their actual personas you can’t help you feel you know them. A feeling enhanced by their welcoming nature, the way they greet and talk to you like an old friend and their constant joking around. 

But this also makes it difficult to bypass the pair’s natural defences. Their banter is so locked in and razor-sharp from years of working together on television and live radio, that they can effortlessly - and I suspect quite subconsciously - deflect any question and turn anything into a joke or gag, usually at their own expense. 

“We’re just very ordinary, run-of-the-mill, boring people,” Pryor says, before admitting, “I hardly like to leave my house.” 

“He doesn’t!” Boyce laughs. “I used to try and drag him out, but now? Nah.” 

After 20-odd minutes of fun but routine chat, I start to fear that they might actually be as nice and boring as they claim. It’s not that they’re being cagey or trying to hide anything, it’s just their natural rhythm. Like any partnership that’s been together for 15 years (“In Hollywood marriage years, that’s bloody three lifetimes,” Pryor quips,) they have an almost telepathic connection. They finish each other’s sentences and slip into booming radio voices to deliver or set up punchlines for the other. 

But then, while answering a question about how the pair have avoided the usual pitfalls and conflict that plague the high-pressure worlds of TV and radio Boyce asks himself the best question of our interview. 

“Who are we, really?” he momentarily muses, before speeding over it in a rush to deliver one of the most unrevealing answers of our interview by saying, “We’re no one super important.”. 

He continues like that for a while, downplaying their achievements and talking about staying humble, and I let him talk, waiting for him to finish so I can outright steal his question. 

“Okay,” I say when he wraps up, “but who are Jono and Ben, really?” 

“It’s a very good question,” Pryor replies thoughtfully after a second or two. “And one I think a lot of broadcasters battle with.” 

Now, I think to myself, we’re getting somewhere. 

To hear them tell it, Jono and Ben are just a couple of mates who like to have fun and “hopefully entertain people”. It’s an answer that gels with their public image of two mates just larking about. Down-to-earth relatability and good-natured humour are, after all, an integral part of their brand. 

But when you do make it past the funny, both are honest and open about everything from struggling with anxiety, their shared feelings of imposter syndrome and dealing with negative reactions from both audiences and industry. 

“I think everyone is talking more about what they’re dealing with mentally these days. It’s good to have those conversations,” Boyce says, noting his open - if exaggerated - on-air battle with anxiety. He also says that imposter syndrome is another big one for him. “A lot of people think they’re not good enough to do what they do or are doubting themselves, like, ‘Oh, geez, should I be here? I shouldn’t be the person to do this. I’m not as good as that person.’ This industry is pretty humbling. It doesn’t help when every show you want to do is passed over. You’ve just got to pick yourself up, keep trying and keep hustling.” 

“The industry does a good job of making you feel like you’re lucky to be there,” Pryor adds, in a rare moment of solemnity. “You could let it overpower you, and then be consumed and scared to death. But you can also use it as a drive.” 

The latter is their chosen path, with long workdays, constant evaluation and re-evaluation of their shows and always working on new concepts and ideas. 

“If you want a pitch document for a TV show, this guy has 49 different pitch documents for TV shows,” Pryor says, pointing at Boyce while discussing their work ethic. 

“Yeah, but none of them will get picked up,” Boyce laughs. 

“It’s an interesting time for every part of media, the way content is digested,” Pryor continues. “It’s something that we’ve had to try and get our heads around.” 

“We love the radio, and it’s been really good to be focusing on that a lot over the past couple of years,” Boyce says. “But outside that, whether it’s online, or writing scripts or TV ideas, we’re trying to get more stuff going and get a few things out there. But there’s a lot more rejection these days.” 

“But you’ve just got to keep on going,” Pryor says. 

“Yeah, one of them might land,” Boyce says, sounding wistful. “It might not but you’ll never know if you don’t get out there and hustle. We’d love to do more TV and we feel like we’ve got a lot to bring to that. But to be honest, it’s been tough to get stuff away over the past little while. Things didn’t go through or got rejected or weren’t wanted and that’s been hard. So it’s nice to have the two of us be there for each other. To go, “All right, let’s try picking up the ball again’. It’s probably easier for the two of us because you know you have someone you can talk to that’s going through the same thing.” 

“You can both sit in the car and cry together,” Pryor says. 

“Yeah, it’s better than crying alone,” Boyce laughs. 

Being alone is something neither has to worry about. They both agree that they’ve spent more time in each other’s company over the past 15 years than with anybody else, including their respective wives and children. The only time they get sheepish during our chat is when asked if there’s any truth to the story that they even holiday together. 

“We have, yeah,” Boyce eventually admits. “Our families did end up going away on holiday. A couple of times we’ve done that. But as much as I love hanging out with Jono, it is nice to have time apart. Especially for content creation as well. If you’re hanging out with each other 24 hours a day, seven days a week, you’re not coming in with different life experiences and stories that you can bring to the table.” 

“It’s not a relationship we’ve had to force or work hard on or have weekly therapy sessions or anything like that,” Pryor says. “But we can’t take the work stuff out because it’s been such a huge part of our friendship. Our relationship is from those experiences. If and when it ends we’ll probably go, ‘Holy s***, that’s a friendship I’ll never be able to replicate again.” 

“We’ve gone through so much together. It’s a relationship that I don’t think either of us will have with anyone else ever for the rest of our lives,” Boyce agrees. “We’ve shared so many experiences and gone through lows and highs and then highs and lows again. We’ve been together so long, you pick up when there’s something going on. Jono will be performing but I’ll know something’s up. You pick up on those things and vice versa. You’re there for each other. It’s a very surreal thing to do life and work with someone so intensely. I feel very lucky. It’s like a marriage. It’s very cool.” 

So what is their secret? What has kept them together for so long? How have Pryor and Boyce stayed Jono and Ben? 

“I honestly can’t put a finger on, it” Pryor shrugs. “I don’t know why it works.” 

“It just does kind of work,” Boyce says. “I guess we could do stuff separately - and we do some stuff separately - but I always feel like our unique thing is that there’s the two of us together as Jono and Ben. It’s our point of difference from so many other people out there doing amazing things.” 

They’d never admit it but they’re also doing great things. The Hits has grown its listenership up to 443,000, setting a record for the station, with 150,000 Kiwis tuning into Breakfast with Jono and Ben each day. But even with this success the pair are still driven and motivated to keep moving and keep creating. 

“That desire hasn’t dwindled at all,” Pryor says. “We’re just gonna keep cracking on until we’re old.” 

Then, with exaggerated exasperation, he adds, “We’ll be 85 and still sending out props!” which causes Boyce to roar with laughter and creates a moment that perfectly illustrates how Pryor and Boyce and Jono and Ben have managed to stay together for 15 years. 

This article was first published on the NZ Herald and is republished here with permission.