Inside Lizzy Hoo's wild life escapades: music, Mongolia and the moments that shaped her

Australian comedian Lizzy Hoo loves an adventure, a trait she reckons she inherited from her mum, who left Toowoomba to go backpacking in the 70s.

"She's the most curious and adventurous person I know," Hoo says.

So, when she jumped on the Take 5 podcast, Zan Rowe tasked her with selecting five songs to fit the theme of Lizzy's Life Escapades. It was a tough ask — there was so much to choose from.

"I had five songs for just one story," she says.

"Music has always been a really big part of my life.

"In primary school, I was a big master of the electronic organ. That was my introduction to 80s music, because I swear they did not make an organ songbook after the 80s. So, it was Fame, Copacabana, A Whiter Shade of Pale, all of them.

"Every Thursday afternoon I would go to the Forte School of Music in Coorparoo and I would play the organ with this guy, we called Mr Ken.

"He also wrote jingles. So the first 10 minutes of every lesson was Mr. Ken telling me about a jingle he'd written for a local shopping centre.

"I still remember this one … 'Redbank Plaza, it's happening now'."

Her tastes did evolve beyond 80s organ classics and 90s South East Queensland shopping commercials. By the time she left home for the first of a string of overseas adventures, she had developed a discerning taste.

In the Take 5, Hoo tells us why Arctic Monkeys will always remind her of driving from Canada to Mexico in a $500 car. How Journey's iconic Don't Stop Believing reminds her of watching Glee (not The Sopranos) and singing karaoke in Japan, and why Camille was the perfect soundtrack to a jog through Nice.

A Mongolian revelation

One unexpected story came from her time in Mongolian capital Ulaanbaatar. Not the first place you'd imagine a young Aussie woman moving to.

"I was working in Brisbane at an accounting firm as a bid and tender writer," she explains.

She applied for a role as a journalist trainer as part of the Australian Volunteers for International Development.

"I got the job, I think because nobody else was applying for these jobs in Mongolia, and it turned out to be one of the best years of my life," she says.

"Did I know anything about Mongolia? Not at all. I had to look up the weather, what language they spoke, and where it was," she laughs.

It wasn't without its challenges — "there were blocks of the year where we didn't have hot water" — but for a woman who loves an escapade, it was perfect.

"Every weekend we were on an adventure," she says.

"We were going horse riding. We'd go out to a family that someone knew, you'd get a driver and they'd drive you out there. You might have to stop halfway to get a sheep out of the boot or something like that.

"It was stunning. It was flat with very beautiful rivers, streams, snow-capped mountains. Cold, cold, cold: like, minus 40 in the winter.

"Didn't stop us going out, though. A lot of vodka was drunk. Everyone drinks vodka there, but it is kind of a survival thing when you're that cold."

And it had excellent music, beyond the droning Tuvan throat singing that it's most known for.

While not a huge amount of Mongolian pop music makes its way to Australia, that doesn't mean it's not out there.

"Mongolian music history is really interesting," Hoo says.

"Of course, you've got the throat singing and the traditional music, but you've also got this modern era.

"They were cut off from the world for so long and then opened up to the world in the 90s. So their modern music has a real 90s vibe. It's real grungy. It's very familiar, but with Mongolian language.

"They're big rappers. An Aussie made this [film] called Mongolian Bling, it's a documentary about the Mongolian rap scene.

"It's such a guttural language. Like, it comes from the throat. It was very hard to learn, but it really sounds good in rap."

But it wasn't a rapper that Hoo fell in love with in Mongolia. Instead, there was a rock band that she'd grown so fond of that she was happy to ditch an indie rock legend to go and see them play.

"They have this music festival called Playtime, it's kind of on the river. It was one of the best festivals," she says.

"Peter Hook was headlining, but we didn't see him, because our favourite Mongolian band was playing."

That band was The Lemons, an indie rock band that formed in the early 2000s and are still going strong today. In her Take 5, Lizzy chose their song Monad, from their third album.

"The Lemons soundtracked our time there, because you get into the local music and everything," she says.

"I chose this particular song because it's like so spacious and it's big and that is what Mongolia is.

"I want you to imagine yourself riding a horse along the steppe. There's a few eagles flying above you. There's streams nearby. Just think of the spaciousness of the wide-open country.

"I just really love their music. I don't know what they're saying. I really love it."

Catch Take 5 on ABC listen, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Lizzy Hoo's new show Says Hoo? is touring now.