WORDS BY NIKKI SORBELLO
Simon and Garfunkel. Sonny and Cher. Lennon and McCartney. Matty and Trace.
The last pair may be not be quite in the same stratosphere as some of music’s true legendary duos, but their genuine friendship is why they excel at what they do.
It is obvious when you hear Matty Ambrose and Tracey Sergiacomi on the radio that their banter comes naturally and when they give each other a hard time it comes from a familial place.
“Matty is just so easy to get on with. He’s not a diva, he doesn’t think he is better than anyone else. During the show we can lean on each other and trust each other. It really is like an on- air marriage,” Trace said.
For the past three years, the pair have bought their lives to the listeners of the HitzFM breakfast program, dominating the Bundaberg Region airwaves.
“Every team is different. While we prepare the topics we are going to talk about, we don’t pre-prepare what we are going to say. When the mic is open, what gets said is as much a surprise to us as anyone else,” Matty said.
“So for us, that is effectively the bare bones of the show – it’s authentic, it’s quite real.
“Trace is great at just being herself. It sounds so easy, but the reality is with microphones in your face and with people listening, to be truly yourself in that dynamic, is hard. There is a real skill and real art to being yourself, and Trace is that.”
Celebrating 10 years on air in July 2020, Trace has copped her fair share of jokes about her revolving door of co- hosts over the years – part and parcel of regional radio programs. But Matty isn’t moving on anytime soon, having recently bought a house.
“It’s almost this unspoken thing that you have to get to the next best thing. But I have had the opportunity to work in a smaller cap (sic) city and it was a toxic work environment. It showed me if you wind up at the wrong place, you’ll fail,” he said.
“I don’t think the secret to life is to strive, strive, strive to get to the ultimate job. You might get there and find out it is not necessarily everything you thought it would be. This is the most harmonious work environment I’ve ever been in, so why would I want to leave this and go to something else that isn’t like this. What would be the point?”
So for Trace it’s now about finding some new material to stick it to Matty.
“When Matty started I had my go-to jokes for him. He was single, hadn’t had a girlfriend for 10 years, got a scooter –
I just had a field day with all these jokes. But now, he’s bought a house, got a girlfriend, he is slowly killing all my jokes off, so I don’t’ know how much longer it will be before the scooter goes and they ship me off to 4BU,” Trace said.
“We call the scooter the last of the johekians!” Matty said.
The Making of a Centrefold
In 1972, women’s magazines experienced a renaissance. No longer content to be extolling the virtues of simple domesticity, the magazines embraced feminism and sexuality for the first time by featuring nude male centrefolds. Doing what their men’s magazine counterparts had done for decades, US magazine cosmopolitan featured Burt Reynolds with Australia’s Cleo soon following suit with a photo of Jack Thompson.
While controversial, the magazines sold out print runs and turned their nude subjects into household names, launching their careers and seeing them be mobbed in the streets by adoring female fans.
Crush Magazine is a women’s magazine, and Matty is no Burt Reynolds or Jack Thompson, but we all thought it would be fun to give a nod to print publications that weren’t afraid to push the envelope.
And Matty said he’s okay with getting mobbed in the street!