You're listening to Unfiltered with James O'Brien, brought to you by Joe.

Hello and welcome to the first episode of Unfiltered a new interview series for Joe

co. You can find it in all the usual podcast places as well as on the Joe

YouTube channel. I'm James O'Brien and what I'm hoping that we'll do with this is provide people that you're interested in with a little bit more time and space than they ordinarily get.

So do let me know the kind of people you would like to hear me talking to.

And of course if you must you can also let me know what you think of the conversations that we've already had.

So the very first guest that we're having

on is Russell Brand, who is a fascinating interviewee because usually the challenge you face or

the fear you have as an interviewer is whether or not people will have enough to say, whether or not you'll be able to tempt them out of their shell.

In the case of Russell Brandt, you could argue that the opposite is the case.

When I tell people that you were coming in today, what was interesting is how little they

knew about what you'd been up to recently.

So if we were to go back a few months or a couple of years, if you broke wind it would be on on various

front pages whereas you've actually become a father and you've married for the second time and

it hasn't merited or spawned the kind of coverage that we associate with you normally.

How much of that is up to you and how much of that is just the kind of the planet's moving along?

I don't know, but I do know that my personal life has become my absolute priority probably

for the first time in my life so possibly there's a connection between those two things.

And yet it is, I mean, you talk in the book which you're here to discuss recovery, you talk

about becoming disillusioned with money and fame in the same way that you had done with drugs

and alcohol.

That's linked as well, presumably.

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