James Johnston swings by to plug the album (jamesjohnston.com), cop a well-earned black hat W, and field guest questions: the autograph he’d chase (hello, Garth Brooks), why phone-free shows feel magic in a noisy world, and his two biggest blow-ups—singing the wrong carol on live TV (Jingle Bell Rock instead of Santa Claus) and a PBR rodeo set where the track slowed, key dropped, and he bailed out with a crowd-only chorus of “Horses.” Raw lessons on owning mistakes, reading a crowd, and keeping it human. Proper True Yarn.

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Global wanderer James Johnston parks the music chat and unloads travel mayhem and magic: a Barcelona blackout (five tequilas → beach wake-up → taxi sprint → passport rescue → somehow Thailand), a 2000km scooter run from Ho Chi Minh to Hanoi with a guitar on his back, and a night in a Vietnamese tin shack where a stranger literally snipped his roof to fix James’s bike and refused payment. The thesis: most people are good—treat the CEO like the cleaner. Plus: cab-running confessions, backpack budgets, and Dad-mode reflections on surviving your twenties. Wild, human, life-affirming. Proper True Yarn.

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Australia’s country rocket James Johnston unloads his wildest gig yarns: a DIY “50 gigs in 50 days” van tour (including a bowling-alley Tuesday and a campsite show for one bloke’s dog), then the leap to CMC Rocks main stage in front of 20,000. We go deep on manifestation (five years of crowd-watching and note-taking), the post-high crash the next day, and the moment he ditched covers, wrote 250 songs, and found the one—“Raised Like That.” It’s grit, graft, and the quiet people who keep you grounded. Proper lessons. Proper laughs. Proper True Yarn.

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Australia’s hottest country act James Johnston drops a bucket-list yarn from South Africa—from armed escorts and stadium shows to a spur-of-the-moment duet sung in English and Afrikaans. We trace the weird radio magic that blew his songs up, the handshake hustle that got him there, a whiskey-room write that turned into a national chant, and the moment 30,000 people in Cape Town sang his brand-new track back at him—word for word. Plus: shooting an elephant gun (500 Nitro), the strangest “tradition” you’ll hear this year (looking at you, springbok poo spitting comp), and why connection beats borders every time. Proper wild. Proper heart. Proper True Yarn.

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Aussie country star James Johnston rolls in hot the week his new album Where You’ll Find Me drops. We talk going “all in” during COVID, buying the farm (literally), and writing in the now. James breaks down lead single “One More”—dreamed up for a scissor-lift, main-stage, 20k-voices moment—and the heart-punch ballad “Can I Keep Talking To You?” written after his grandma’s funeral.

We preview Strumming Bird (32,000 on the Sunny Coast), swap road stories, and launch our CTC x James Johnston limited-edition cap collab: 250 hats only, each bundled with an album download. Keep an eye on socials for the merch stand meet-and-sign time. Big hooks, bigger hearts, proper laughs.

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From a WA cattle station and gold mine to live radio in Whakatāne and seven years inside TVNZ’s Good Morning—Melanie Kerr unpacks how she “just had a go” and became a familiar Kiwi face. We cover advertorial hosting, big-money commercial days, the shift to social media, and the truly unhinged products she had to demo (hello, metal weight-loss belt and the infamous Wonder Whisk motion 😳). Plus: airport double-takes, on-set wardrobe… solutions, a brutal lesson in online bullying, and the immortal sign-off flub: “pureas dot com.

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On NZ’s infamous Crate Day, a routine sober-driver night flips fast. Broadcaster/funeral celebrant Melanie Kerr recounts how a friendly lift request turned into a mongrel mob confrontation, a king-hit that knocked her partner unconscious, and a street-side triage while waiting for police clearance. We get the wild backstory (a stolen Uber, a cop’s party, and a shirt-off metamorphosis), the sound of a skull on bitumen, and the aftermath: hospitals, court calls, and the eerie coincidence of a memorial post for another victim tied to the same offender. Mel also shares a later run-in at a rugby club—defusing tension with a hug… and a Justin Bieber gag. Heavy yarn, big heart, and a masterclass in staying human when it gets feral.

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TV/radio fave Melanie Kerr returns with a raw origin story: growing up Pākehā on the Māori side of the 1860s confiscation line in Ruatoki/Tāneatua (Tūhoe country). We unpack what that line actually was, how colors mapped to gangs (Mongrel Mob red, Black Power blue), why the primary school uniforms ended up road-worker orange, and what it felt like to be a blonde farm kid in a staunch community. Mel leaves home at 14, heads to WA’s outback (cattle stations, gold mines), then lands in Dunedin—a world of bagpipes, churches, and culture whiplash. Plus: the anatomy of Crate Day and a very Kiwi idea for “upgrading” it with an Aussie pool challenge… right before it all goes sideways. Proper history, proper laughs, proper true yarn.

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On this episode of the Proper True Yarn Podcast, Tooney takes us across the ditch for one of the wildest trips of his Army rugby career. From smashing the Navy at Sydney Football Ground to representing the Australian Defence Force in Wellington, the yarns roll thick and fast. Hear about training like a pro, flying into windy Wellington, and the goosebump moment when an Iroquois helicopter split the Anzac Day dawn fog. Add in hard scrums, Kiwi hospitality, drunken chaos in town, and even a naked streak through base, and you’ve got a yarn that’s pure gold.

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Ambassador Melanie Kerr joins us fresh from Dunedin’s K9MD lab, where specially trained dogs are being used in research to detect cancer via urine samples. We swap the “fluffy mic” mix-up story for a deep dive on how scent detection works, why negative results matter as much as positives, and what a real research session looks like (controlled, peer-reviewed, and nothing like a pooch sniffing your bits). We talk early detection, blokes avoiding checkups, and why this world-first program could one day sit alongside standard bloods—simple, non-invasive, life-saving. Plus: foster families, doggy buses, Labrador legend “Hogan,” and a shout to the mates who couldn’t make the trip. Raw, hopeful, and genuinely inspiring.

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