Early morning starts come with the territory when you are a morning radio host. Erica Mallett likes to think of herself as a morning person - but her co-host quickly butts in.
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"Yeah that week we [filled in for Ben & Liam], you weren't a morning person," Sally Coleman laughs.
The pair make up Sally & Erica, the new Triple J breakfast team taking over from Ben Harvey and Liam Stapleton, who are returning to their home city of Adelaide to join Nova.
The offer to host the breakfast show was so out of left field, they didn't even know their predecessors were leaving the station.
"It was very surreal, and I think it still is. I just remember thinking 'wait, back up...what? Where are Ben and Liam going?' It was sprung on us," Mallett said.
It's been a decade since musicians were last in the Triple J breakfast slot. Frenzal Rhomb's Jay and the Doctor held the post between 2005 and 2009.
"We might be slightly different to breakfast hosts in the past in that we aren't comedians, we've never been comedians," Mallett said.
"First and foremost, we're musicians. We might try to do a range of content that's a bit more of a spectrum. We like talking to a musician, but then a scientist, or someone whose snake escaped."
The pair grew up a suburb apart, Coleman the year above Mallett at the same high school in Canberra. But they met through Mallett's cousin, who was travelling through India with Coleman.
"Pretty quickly we realised we had heaps in common," she said.
Coleman said that it was "one of the first times I'd been able to talk about hip hop with someone who equally nerded out on some of the underground elements."
Their mutual love of hip hop spawned a career - under their group Coda Conduct, the pair have performed at music festivals Groovin' The Moo, Spilt Milk and Listen Out, and appeared on stage with Hilltop Hoods at Splendour in the Grass.
Their second EP is due out next year.
But the pair have also worked across a variety of roles at Triple J in the past three years, at all hours of the day, filling in on Breakfast, Drive, Good Nights, The Hip Hop Show, House Party and Summer Arvos, before taking over Weekend Arvos last year.
"I don't think we ever had a dream job," Coleman said. "We fell into Triple J so accidentally, we never set out to have a radio career."
"I think we got this role because, in the very beginning, we just talked about music and that connected with people," Mallett said.
Mallett said their new role would be easier for them than someone who was "parachuted in" from outside the network, because of their existing rapport with listeners.
"You should always be prepared for criticism, but we are very lucky in that we have gotten a chance to know the audience, and they've had a chance to get to know us."
Coleman said there was a "fine line" between constructive and frivolous criticisms.
"It's always tricky in a job like this, on one hand you ignore what people think, if they don't like you it's their prerogative, but on the other, the audience is your boss, and you are there to make them feel good about themselves and feel good about the music you're bringing them."
But despite the pair's knowledge of music, Coleman said they weren't going to shy away from the more serious issues.
"It's about finding stories that are meaningful and moving, and just fascinating. Just because we have a youth audience doesn't mean they're not interested in [serious issues]," she said.
"We see ourselves as facilitators for music, but also for our audience. We kind of just want to be the glue that brings lots of different elements together."
- SMH/The Age
