I’d been ridiculed by various industry insiders, who said that I’d never pull off the event, but Garrett in full force made all the drama worthwhile.
I can’t remember the exact circumstances of first meeting Rod Muir—these were crazy hazy days—but I’m pretty sure it was backstage at a Jimmy Barnes gig at the Entertainment Centre. I’d heard the stories about this enfant terrible, the legendary alchemist of Australian radio, who had an unbeatable track record. He’d brought in huge changes at 2SM back in the late 1960s, and then led the change to FM radio in the 1980s. Legend has it that when he sold one of his companies, he urged a studio engineer to chainsaw an oak boardroom table in half as the new owners looked on in horror.
Rod was an awe-inspiring character, and without him there wouldn’t be contemporary Australian radio as we know it. Because of Rod we musos created one of the twentieth century’s greatest subcultures, Oz Rock.
My first impressions of Rod are still indelibly stamped on my brain; I’m pretty sure he had that effect on everyone who met him. Rod was a wild and crazy guy, yet strangely hypnotic. His eyes accurately mirrored what was going on in his head. He’s one of the most extraordinary human beings I have ever met, and I’ve spent a lot of time with some very remarkable people.
After being introduced, Rod launched into one of his raves about Australia and contemporary culture and the country’s dire need for cultural icons rather than just sporting heroes.
‘You’re the modern day Banjo Paterson,’ he said to me. ‘I’d like to see a book written about you.’
There I stood, trying my best to be polite and keep up with his bombardment of words—the man spat out a hundred ideas per minute. When Rod was passionate about something, everyone had to keep up or piss off.
Rod became the proud owner of the Triple M network in 1980, and he approached me to co-write songs and produce music in honour of his racing yacht, Doctor Dan. (Doctor Dan was the ubiquitous winged guitar-playing satyr from the Triple M logo.) This kickstarted an incredible and sometimes volcanic friendship that endured for some years.
I introduced Rod to Jimmy Barnes, INXS and Jimmy’s sister-in-law Jeppy, who’d marry Diesel in 1989. I coined the phrase ‘welcome to the party that never ends’, because that captured the mood perfectly.
Rod and his wife Kathy lived in a beautiful apartment opposite the yacht club at Darling Point and on Rod’s invitation I became part of the furniture. He’d call at any hour; I was spending more time at Rod’s house than my own flat. Because of the daily ritual of drinking—French champagne, mostly—it became a very long lost weekend.
What made this different from my wild past was that Rod was well on his way to becoming one of the wealthiest people in Australia; we were living in supreme decadence. Rod had a limousine company on speed dial, cases of Dom Pérignon nearby and a kitchen full of the finest foods from all over the world. If he and Kathy felt like getting away, they would simply phone an airline and book themselves off to Colorado or Tokyo or London or New York, to eat in the world’s best restaurants and shop at Harrods or Saks Fifth Avenue. I only caught up on sleep when Rod and Kathy took off overseas.
I took to this fantastic life like a duck to water. Who wouldn’t? I began hanging out with Rod’s new yachtie mates over at the club, and sailed with the crew on the twilight races around Sydney Harbour. They’d christened Rod ‘Mad Max—Beyond Thunderdome’. Rod and I became the definitive odd couple, hanging out together at Benny’s.
One night, after another long session there, I crawled home at about 6 a.m. An hour later there was a terrible banging on my front door. I pretended not to hear. The banging increased in intensity; whoever it was, they weren’t going away. I peeked out of my bedroom to see a large figure looming at the front door. I thought it might have been a cop and I freaked.
Suddenly Rod’s voice came booming through the front door. Still out of it, I struggled down the hall to let him in. He burst inside shouting, ‘Where the fuck have you been? Come on, I want you to come into the station.’
The radio station? He had to be kidding.
‘Fuck off, Rod, I can’t,’ I groaned, explaining that I’d only been asleep for an hour.
‘I know what’ll fix you up, mate,’ Rod said, as he grabbed me and pushed me into a cold shower. I poured myself into some clothes, then we jumped into his Mercedes coupé and sped off to Bondi Junction.
Rod had invited Jack Mundey, the trade union leader and left-wing activist, to lunch in the Triple M boardroom. Rod had his own chef and waiter on call; I now knew them both quite well. By the time Jack arrived, I really wasn’t hungry, but was directed to my place at the table. Jack became increasingly agitated that Rod had white linen and sterling silver cutlery and a waiter in a tuxedo serving several courses of food.
‘Why the fuck do we have to have three forks, Rod?’ he shouted.
‘Well, one’s for the entree, one for main course and one for dessert.’
‘What a fucking crock of shit!’ Mundey thundered across the table. ‘Two-thirds of the world are starving to death and can’t even afford one knife and fork. Waiter, take these away!’
Rod and I also surrendered two of our forks. Then Jack began ranting and raving about the waiter being a slave to the petite bourgeoisie (that’d be Rod and me, in Jack’s eyes). Jack suddenly sprang to his feet, swapped clothes with the waiter, demanded that the waiter be seated—and Jack began serving our lunch. Much to Jack’s dismay, I had to let him know that the waiter actually had several jobs, and had two boys attending a very elite Sydney boarding school.
NSW Premier Nick Greiner came up to the station one day, seeking Rod’s advice about how he could best capture the ‘youth vote’ at the forthcoming elections. Rod and I were both having a grand old time—I could barely conceal my mirth—when Rod grabbed Greiner by the arm and hauled him into the boardroom. He cued up AC/DC’s ‘Highway to Hell’ at painful volume. The premier sat there, his ears pinned back against the boardroom wall, trying to look cool. It was just too much for me. When the track finished, Rod started shouting, ‘Capture the youth vote, Nick? Capture the youth vote? That’s how you’re gonna capture the youth vote, Nick—and you’d better bloody believe it!’
These were extraordinary times. Rod and Kathy and I partied almost every day yet we did regular newspaper, TV and radio interviews—I always seemed to be involved with something or other on Triple M. The scariest thing Rod ever made me do was deliver a speech to all of Triple M’s sponsors. Now, I can sing in front of two million people (as I did one New Year’s Eve on national television), and I bluff my way through TV interviews, but I’m totally unaccustomed to public speaking. I just stood on this podium, speechless and petrified, but the sponsors gave me a hearty round of applause anyway.
‘What are you all clapping for?’ I shouted. ‘I haven’t even said anything.’
More cheers and applause.
I have no regrets about my years with this whirling dervish called Rod Muir; he really taught me all about pushing the envelope. To him, sleeping was a waste of time—and watching TV was a complete waste of life, reserved for losers and no hopers. I was also hanging out with INXS and Jimmy Barnes constantly, along with our entourage of hedonists and crazies. It was really quite a circus.
Chuggie,
who was also a good friend of Rod’s, called me in 1985 to say that Rod wanted the band and me up on Hamilton Island, to play on the final night of the yacht races around the Whitsundays. I was dumbfounded; this was going to cost $15,000 to $20,000. Chuggie shouted me down.
‘Just get things organised, Ralph,’ he told me.
He told me that Rod would pay all my expenses on Hamilton Island for a week or so. I just wasn’t used to anyone having so much money on tap.
I was flown up to the island first class and put up in one of the very pleasant bures. On my first day, I was out on a rented Hobie Cat with Rod, racing against Warwick Rooklyn, a rich mate of his. A very strong wind blew up and we all started getting a bit silly. To my shock, Rod headed straight for the other boat. I assumed he would change tack before we rammed them. No such luck. Welcome to Rod’s world! We rammed Warwick’s boat so hard that we actually speared through its deck. Both boats were virtually written off. Warwick and Rod both thought this was the funniest thing ever.
We pulled ourselves out of the water and Rod and Warwick immediately offered to pay for both catamarans—just like that. Problem solved.
The Whitsundays are decadent enough when occupied by regular people on holiday, but when a few hundred yachties with their respective barbarian millionaire patrons take over, beware. The sun was sweltering one day and Rod ordered us all into the pool. He then ordered a bucket full of Mai Tais—at $600 a bucket. Crazy times.
Rod and Keith Williams, the lord of Hamilton Island, had a nasty falling out about Rod organising the concert with my band and me. Keith just didn’t like the idea. Yet again, no problem. Rod organised for a sand barge to be dragged from Airlie Beach on the mainland, complete with a substantial sound system.
The night was incredible, one of the biggest ever on the island. Several hundred wasted yachties looked on as an equally trashed band played for almost five hours. Rod’s impressive boat Doctor Dan was moored behind the floating stage; we used it as a dressing room. I was told that at various points of the evening I’d stumble off stage and would be found on the boat, hiding down below with Rod.
My drummer was a guy named John Lee, who was originally from the Dingoes. The high point of the evening was John doing a big drum roll at the end of ‘I Am an Island’ and diving straight into the ocean. He then staggered up to my microphone and shouted: ‘Aw shit! I just realised you’ve all been pissing in the water, you scumbags!’
We were still playing when the sun came up, and wound down from the gig with breakfast. We all staggered into the restaurant and I ordered a pitcher of Bloody Marys to go with our Weet-Bix. By now, the epic party was definitely on its last legs. Then I noticed wild flames in the kitchen; I realised that all the restaurant staff were also out of their brains and could barely function.
One kitchen hand shouted to his mate: ‘Fire? What do we do?’
‘Fucked if I know,’ said his fellow kitchen hand.
The staff had no fire extinguishers. This was unbelievable. A few minutes later and the fire was raging out of control. A hopelessly wasted Harvey James was standing on the side of the dolphins’ pool, trying to figure out how he was going to save the poor beasts. The rest of us did our best to save Harvey.
Within 15 or 20 minutes, the fire destroyed the central portion of the resort. Some end to some party.
The following year, 1986, with much of the resort rebuilt, Rod decided to risk staging the concert again. This time I formed a band with Jon Farriss on drums, Garry Gary Beers on bass, Ian Moss on guitar and Murray Burns from the band Mi-Sex on keyboards. Rod was right in the middle of being profiled by 60 Minutes—the crew followed him up to Hamilton Island—so I had Rod and George Negus on backing vocals. Quite a band.
Jon and I arrived with our respective girlfriends several days early, as did Garry Gary, and Michael Long, their tour manager. As soon as we checked in, the new staff was very curt; they warned us that if there was any more trouble, we’d be thrown off the island. Jonnie and I were flabbergasted.
During the first couple of days we were singled out and the staff blatantly discriminated against us. They wouldn’t rent us catamarans or golf buggies and were rude and unreasonable. Apologetic staff later told us that Dire Straits had occupied the island for an extended ‘end of tour’ party and had gone berserk and trashed the place. So we were tarred with the same brush!
The second gig proved to be just as outrageous as the first. Once again we played for about five hours and the band and audience were wasted, absolutely wrecked. At one point I disappeared off stage and left Mossy up there singing lead vocals on ‘I Shot the Sheriff’. Mossy started berating me over the PA; he couldn’t remember the words so he kept singing the chorus over and over again. We just managed to get to bed before the sun came up—and this time the resort didn’t burn down.
I received a phone call from Rod’s secretary; Rod was competing in a yacht race and had summoned me to LA. I protested that this was really going too far (literally) and that I didn’t have a passport or US visa—nor did I have any money. I was mixing with some wealthy people, but I was broker than I’d ever been. But there was no denying Rod Muir. All the documentation was promptly arranged and within a couple of days I was winging my way to Los Angeles.
Rod, Kathy, Eric Robinson and Chuggie were all at LAX to meet me and I was whisked away to the Marina del Rey Hotel. At the bar they broke the news to me that I was sharing a room with Chuggie. The yacht crew was busy most days, so Chuggie and I entertained ourselves. He was still basically my manager, although the lines between business and pleasure had become blurred. Jimmy Barnes was in town recording; his wife Jane was with him, so I spent a lot of time up in Beverly Hills with the Barneses. We were actually quite well behaved—for a change—and I’d usually return to Marina del Rey well before midnight, ready for an early morning wake-up.
One night I got into a taxi with a huge black cab driver. I had about $US30 on me and watched the meter shoot up to $40 and beyond. I was concerned; I knew LA well enough to know you could get murdered for less.
As soon as we pulled up at the door of the hotel, I made the excuse that I’d have to go inside and get the extra $20 from my manager. I rushed into the room and Chuggie was drunk, arguing over the phone with his fiancée in Australia. An empty bottle of cognac was on the table, his mood was ugly.
‘I need some money, Chuggie,’ I said.
He refused. I went back to the taxi and nervously tried to explain the situation to the driver. I feared for my life.
‘Look,’ I said, ‘I don’t have the money. My manager won’t give me any.’
To my surprise, he threw his head back and laughed. He told me that he’d once been a very successful musician and that Chuggie’s behaviour didn’t surprise him at all. He insisted that we forget about it and wished me all the best with my career.
Another lucky escape.
I came back to the room, and Chuggie and I got into the biggest fight.
I stormed out of the room, up to the reception desk and demanded that the hotel get me as far away from my ex-manager as possible. The receptionist told me he’d also been an entertainer—this was LA, after all—and found my situation very familiar. He moved me into a smart new room. Fortunately, by now the 22-man yachtie entourage was about ready to set sail
for Honolulu, competing in what was known as the Transpac Race.
Chuggie and I didn’t speak for days. When Rod and his crew set sail on Doctor Dan, Chuggie and I flew to Hawaii. We boarded a flight packed with holidaying families—it was delayed for five hours. We got so drunk on board we raised hell all the way, shouting and laughing at a lousy Dudley Moore movie.
In Waikiki we checked into a hotel. For the next couple of days I was constantly harangued by street dealers, trying to sell me various drugs. I guess I looked like the archetypal rock muso, with my shades and jeans and T-shirt.
It seemed I couldn’t walk 10 metres without hearing the call: ‘Hey, man, you wanna score? What do you say, brother?’
I either ignored them or shut them down if they persisted.
Chuggie’s bad mood continued. He simply didn’t want to be there. On the Saturday night we went out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant right in Waikiki. Chugg got stuck into the cognac and demanded that I put the bill on my delinquent credit card.
He then apologised for his grumpy mood and explained that someone had promised that he would score him some great pot in California but hadn’t come through. Without something to smoke, Chuggie just wasn’t himself.
The Best Years of Our Lives Page 19