 While Hughes has focused on his comedy career since the early 2000s, he said in a 2010 interview with "Post Modern Ink" magazine that music remained his first love.Hughes first tried comedy in 1994, shortly after having joined the band Nazxul, and
started performing at The Comedy Store in Sydney.Hughes quit Nazxul and left Australia for Ireland in 1999, living for a time with members of the band Primordial, then moved on to London, then on to Manchester where he stayed in a house with fellow Aussie comic Jim Jefferies before finally settling in Manchester in 2002.