Interview with Henry and Cade, winners of LEGO Masters Australia Season 1

Henry and Cade were crowned champions of LEGO Masters Australia yesterday, in the thrilling Season 1 finale.

I’ll finish my recap soon as part of a wider review of the entire first season of LEGO Masters Australia, but firstly, I wanted to extend a massive congratulations to Henry and Cade for their exceptional work in last night’s episode to clinch the title and $100k in prize money.

I had the opportunity to speak Henry and Cade this morning (thanks Channel 9 and Endemol Shine for teeing this up!) to talk about their win, experience in the competition and what’s next for the talented duo.

To stay up to date with Henry and Cade, be sure to follow them on Instagram @the_lego_dark_knight and @arcade_bricks

How do you both feel after being crowned Winners of LEGO Masters Australia?

Cade: It feels amazing. There were some amazing builds in the finale and to come through with the win, it feels incredible.

Henry: Look, it was tough competition, going into that final. David and G’s theme park was amazing and Jordy and Miller really stepped it up with their space build. It was really hard. You literally didn’t know if you were going to win.

Has it sunk in yet?

Cade: Look, I don’t think it has sunk in yet. It’s been a bit of a whirlwind since we found out and it’s been a little crazy. Come this weekend when I’m able to sit back with the family and relax a bit, it’ll probably sink in.

Any plans to roll around in a hundred grand worth of bills?

Henry: Cade and I are going to have a moneyfight afterwards.

Are your wives finally happy that you’re actually bringing in money from LEGO as opposed to spending it?

Henry: Nah, my wife is not like that at all, she’s really amazing. She’s really supportive of the hobby. First and foremost, she wouldn’t even care about the money at all.

She’s just happy for me. It really gives us a lot of enjoyment as a family. I’ve got 3 sons and two are at that LEGO age and it really brings them a lot of enjoyment.

Cade: My wife is pretty resigned to the whole LEGO thing. In our honeymoon, we had one week in Paris and one week in Billund, Denmark visiting Legoland, so she’s pretty supportive.

She is definitely happy that I came home with a bit of money!

What’s the first LEGO set that you’ll buy with the winnings?

Cade: Mate, I would love to get a Black Sea Barracuda brand new in the box from the 80s.

Henry: Definitely there’s some LEGO sets on the wishlist to purchase. Maybe go on a bit of a family trip to Denmark, to Billund to check out the LEGO House.

I love building robots, and I have a pretty different style of building but after doing that Wild West build, I’ve been obsessed with the theme and would love to collect some of those vintage Wild West sets for a bit of nostalgia.

The chemistry between the both of you has been your biggest strength throughout the competition, but not many people know that you hadn’t met prior to the competition? What was the Henry and Cade origin story like?

Henry: We basically met the day before the show! We got paired up with each other and we didn’t know each other. We literally had one phone call to have a little bit of a chit chat prior. We met the afternoon before we built the tree.

We were getting to know each other at the same as well as learning about each other’s building styles. It became apparent to me very quickly that Cade had very complimentary skills to my own. I couldn’t do what he does and he couldn’t do what I do, which we used to our advantage.

Cade: A big thing for us was, we came into the competition and we were on the same page almost immediately. We were able to have an honest conversation, that we were going to do this together, and we were going to give it our all.

We wanted to make the most out of this opportunity. We were able to put our egos aside and embraced each other’s strengths and weaknesses.

When Henry gave me advice on what I was building, and vice versa, I saw that as an opportunity to make our builds even better, rather than take it as a personal criticism.

What’s your favourite thing about building with each other?

Cade: Henry and I, we joke around on the builds all the time and just had a lot of fun together.

Henry: Totally. It’s just one of those things. I don’t believe in fate but this is the closest thing to fate as possible. It’s like we were just meant to be and had a really good time.

Cade: One of the best things building with Henry was when we would often build different elements, like Henry would be working on the robot and I’d be working on the violin and to be able to turn across the desk and go “wow that is SO cool!” and you’d be pumped to do an even better job with what you were making.

I think that was such an amazing experience and something I had never encountered building with LEGO before – that level of collaboration on a single project.

Henry: A lot of the times, with collabs, you don’t really see what the other person is building. You’re at home and both building different halves and hopefully it all comes together. But having this person building next to you was just wow.

Cade: And also seeing things that you wouldn’t normally see yourself. With the robot and violin when we were attaching those two things together, we went through so many different ways to connect them together. Coming up with crazy ideas together was a lot of fun.

Did you guys find it easier to read each other’s minds as you progressed through the competition?

Cade: Oh it’s pretty funny, if you ask anyone who knows me and told them that I made the tree on the first episode they would say “That’s so you, and that would make sense”.

But the reality was that it was Henry suggested the tree. At that moment, I felt like, wow, that’s totally something I would do. And we were like that from day dot.

Henry: The fact that Cade accepted that idea straight away and didn’t go, “oh why are we building a tree?”. The minute that happened, I knew that we shared the same sense of imagination.

That’s where we meshed, and I knew, okay this is going to work. We were on the same wavelength with LEGO all the time.

How would you describe your building style outside of LEGO Masters?

Henry: I love robots but you’re going to be seeing some Wild West builds coming from me real soon.

Cade: For me, it’s funny because I always thought you had to be like Henry and have that “thing” that you’re known for. For me, I build all sorts of different things, whatever takes my fancy. I love dinosaurs and I made some cool dinosaur skeletons awhile back.

I just love using LEGO and when you see what one piece and start dreaming about what you can use it for. I love doing stuff like that.

Did you learn much from The Brickman, Ryan Mcnaught?

Both: Yes, a 100%.

Henry: The biggest thing I took away was the importance of storytelling. I was never really big on storytelling and would always just build a creation and rely on the coolness of the creation like a giant robot. Cool, admire it.

Ryan added another dimension of storytelling to how I think about builds now.

Cade: I love telling stories and that’s what I do for my job, making video games. That first build was really eye-opening for us. Obviously we made an amazing tree but we didn’t win. We fell short because we had to totally explain our story.

It doesn’t get shown much on the show but Ryan did really mentor all of the contestants and he would challenge us to let the bricks do the talking. If there was anything I would take away from the show, that’s the one thing I’ll apply to all my future builds.

Did you guys have dark ages?

Henry: I definitely had a dark age, which lasted from my teenage years to when I was 30-something. LEGO is still quite new to me. I’ve only been back playing with LEGO for about 5 years now and have been with a LUG for 3 of those.

Cade: For me it’s a little bit different. I’ve never really put down LEGO and I’ve loved it forever. Honestly, LEGO did lead me to my current career as a video game designer – wanting to pursue a creative career.

What are your favourite themes, and what’s your favourite set of all time?

Cade: When I was a kid, my favourite theme had to be Pirates. I just love Pirate LEGO.

Henry: It would be Star Wars for me. I don’t really collect and buy LEGO sets but I’ve always bought LEGO Star Wars because I just love Star Wars and have a huge appreciation of the spaceships that they create.

Henry: For sets, the UCS Slave 1. That’s for me a favourite.

Cade: As a modern set, that’d have to be it – the UCS Slave 1. As a kid, Black Seas Barracuda was a favourite.

So what’s next for Henry and Cade? Will you keep working together or embark on solo careers?

Cade: It’s tricky cause I’m in Brisbane and Henry is in Sydney but I would love to do another collaboration with Henry and get that on display.

It’s just a matter of picking of the right build that will allow us to do it in different places

Will we see you at Brickvention next year?

Henry: Totally, totally. We’ll be there.

Cade: I was disappointed I didn’t make it this year, but we’ll be there.

Congratulations once again to Henry and Cade, what a well deserved win and I couldn’t think of a better duo to represent Adult LEGO fans in Australia.

If you’d like to check out their Grand Finale build, Poseidon, you can view it in person at the Legoland Discovery Centre in Chadstone, Melbourne! You won’t need a ticket or pass to view it as it’ll be on display outside near the store.