by Jimmy Barnes
COUNTDOWN AND TV WEEK ran the Australian Music and Video Awards. TV Week was a television guide that included one photo of whichever band they chose to fill the centre spot of their cheap magazine each week. Record companies fought hand to hand to get their bands into that magazine. It meant you got free advertising at newsstands and even on television. And of course, this gave the featured band an opportunity to sell more records. So both Countdown and TV Week knew that bands would do whatever they wanted to sell more records. But Cold Chisel knew that they could only push us so far. Then we would turn on them.
By the time East tore up to the top end of the charts and stayed there for six months, we were in the driver’s seat and they knew it. They wanted us to be on the Countdown/TV Week Music and Video Awards show in March 1981 because they knew we would win quite a few of their awards. But we insisted that we’d only play if we could do it completely live, the way real bands do. They were appalled. No one played live on television. Not on their show anyway. But we stood our ground. If they wanted us on, it would be on our terms. The shoe was on the other foot.
They weren’t happy, but what could they do? They had to agree. It was decided that we would go on towards the end of the show and play a song. Not the song they wanted either, but a song that we would choose. We informed them that we would play an album track, not a single, because we were a serious band. We all decided on ‘My Turn to Cry’, a song I had written. It wasn’t the strongest song on the album but we had plans to make it a real show stopper.
We set about buying cheap guitars that we could dress up to look like our real gear. We changed the stickers at the top of the neck, carefully replacing the ones that were there with Fender stickers so they would suspect nothing. Then we went into a secret studio session and rearranged the song to add a little spice to the night.
They never caught on. We had trouble keeping the smiles off our faces on the day when we went in to rehearse the album version of the song for the evening’s broadcast. It all went smoothly. They were happy. Well, as happy as they could be. We weren’t their puppets anymore.
The show started. We had informed them that we would not be picking up any awards we might win, as we wanted to have a big impact when we played live. It would be better television, we assured them. Then, after winning seven of the awards up for grabs, including Most Popular Group and Best Album, we hit the stage. The performance was explosive from the start. If you didn’t know us, like most people, you would have thought we were up to something. I walked on with an open bottle of vodka that I had already half drunk. Phil was dressed in a Nazi uniform. I could see the worried looks of the TV crew as we burst into our song. Then, at a prearranged spot, the band changed the song into something else. It went like clockwork. We went from a song about love lost to me screaming at the cameras like a maniac, telling them,
I never saw you at the Astra Hotel
I never saw you at the Largs Pier Hotel
I never saw you down on Fitzroy Street
And now you want to use my face to sell TV Week.
I then raised my mic stand above my head and smashed it onto the floor. Pieces shattered and flew everywhere. The band all did the same, smashing their respective instruments to pieces. The final words to the song were, ‘Eat this.’
Mossy’s guitar was the last thing to be seen, flying through the air, as the curtain was quickly brought down in an attempt to make us stop. The guitar banged to the floor, barely missing Molly as he walked out with his mouth open. He was speechless. This was a rare occasion. When it was all over there was an awkward silence, except for the noise of our guitars feeding back as the roadies turned off our equipment. It was only quiet for a second and then the crowd went crazy. We walked off stage and straight out the back door, giggling like schoolboys, and left. We didn’t go to the afterparty. I doubt we would have been welcomed. We had organised our own celebration, much bigger and a lot more fun than anything they had in mind. The television world was shocked and angry with us. The punters, the only ones who really mattered, loved us. The night was a great success.
News filtered back to our party. Angry messages were passed on to us. ‘You guys are finished. This is the end of your careers.’
We didn’t give a shit. We had made our statement. We were happy. Our careers weren’t over. In fact, over the last year, the band had become even bigger and thousands more diehard fans turned up every night to see us play music and fight for our rights. Every night I would arrive at our shows and there would be queues of punters lined up around the block and down the street. We were out of control. We played sixty-four shows in eighty-eight days on the Youth in Asia tour, finishing at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney, where we recorded Swingshift, a double live album. Then we went straight out again, on the Summer Offensive Tour. We were like stormtroopers, marching across Australia. We were on top of the world and there was only one way we could go. Down. But that wouldn’t happen for a long time. I drank more, partied harder and pushed the band to play faster and faster. My drug intake was increasing everyday as I woke up wondering what I had done the night before. I smashed up pubs and clubs all over the country, the walls and roofs crumbling down around us. The pace we were keeping was blistering. More towns, more girls, more booze, more drugs, and all in less time. Longer sets, faster songs and even longer drives after shows. Eventually, this pace would bring us to our knees.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
what are we doing with our lives?
BROWN STREET, PADDINGTON, 1981
ONE DAY OUT OF the blue, when Jane and I were lying in bed, she said to me, ‘So what are we doing?’
I wasn’t doing anything. I was just lying there. I didn’t understand what she meant. ‘What do you want to do? I’ll do whatever you want,’ I said, trying to sound enthusiastic.
‘No, I mean what are we doing with our lives? Are we just going to live like this and get stoned all day and night or are we going to get serious about things?’
Jane had obviously been thinking a lot more about our future than I had. I was happy to spend at least the near future, if not longer, just getting stoned, but now that she mentioned it, what were we doing?
‘What do you mean, baby? What do you want to do?’ I was too stoned to respond any better, but I was straightening up rapidly. I sat up and looked at her.
‘Well, if we are not going to get married I might move on and do something with my life,’ she said.
I was wide awake and completely straight now. ‘What do you mean? Why would you go anywhere?’ I was worried.
‘If we’re not getting married I am going to go to America and continue studying.’
I sat thinking for a second. I knew that I couldn’t think about this too long or I would lose Jane. ‘Yeah. I think we should get married too. Let’s do it.’ It wasn’t very romantic of me but I loved Jane. I just hadn’t thought about marriage until that moment.
I WAS WORRIED. NOT about marrying Jane but the idea of the wedding. Surely that meant that my family and Jane’s family would all have to be there? I didn’t want them to be in the same room. My mum was not from the same world as Jane’s mum.
Luckily Jane wanted to get married straightaway. She didn’t want a big wedding. I think she didn’t want our parents getting together either. We looked into a civil ceremony. We would have to apply and wait four weeks. But we didn’t have that long. Cold Chisel was starting a big tour in three and a half weeks and the only way we could speed up the proceedings was to ask permission and show the details of the tour, airline tickets etc. We set a date, 22 May 1981. All we had to do was take in the proof. But we never got around to it. They married us anyway, in the Registry Office that afternoon, and I did a show at the Comb and Cutter Hotel in Blacktown that evening. How romantic of me.
I look back on a lot of these times and wonder how I ended up with such a great girl. Besides feeling unworthy, I was a complete idiot. If I could do it all again I would, but with more style. The style that my Jane alwa
ys deserved.
ONE THING THAT HAPPENED when I was young that changed my life for the better was the birth of my son David Campbell. David was conceived and born before I joined Cold Chisel. I was very young, as was David’s mum, Kim. We found each other one night while leaving a community hall show I was doing with my first band.
Although I never meant to have a child, I see that night as one of the most important moments in my life. We were so young and we ended up in each other’s arms only because we needed to feel loved, even if it was just for one night. But I found a love that night that has been growing stronger ever since, the love I have for my son David. He was adopted and raised by his biological grandmother, Joan. It has been complicated at times – life is complicated – but things worked out for the best. I know this and I see it every time I see him smile.
I told Jane about David before we were married. I was worried about telling her. But I shouldn’t have been. David was important to me, but the fact that I already had a son in Adelaide might, I felt, put Jane off having a relationship with me. I wanted her to know that this was my responsibility and not hers. I would understand if she wanted nothing to do with David. In fact, I would understand if she wanted nothing to do with me. But I underestimated Jane, not for the first or last time. If I had a son, Jane wanted to meet him, be a part of his life. If he was a part of me then she would love him too. If he was a part of me then he was a part of her. It was that simple.
I tried to explain why I hadn’t seen a lot of David, the circumstances that dictated our relationship. She said, ‘Nothing or no one could keep me away from my child. You need to be in his life. He needs you and you need him.’
I felt stupid for not reacting the same way. Of course she was right, but where I came from, and my relationship with David’s mother and his grandmother, Joan, was something Jane knew nothing about. I told her about the circumstances around David’s birth and the relationship or lack of relationship that I had with Joan, who, by the way, David believed was his mother.
I never got on with Joan. I’m sure it was a lot to do with my age and my background but basically I didn’t like her that much. And more importantly, she didn’t like me at all. But she brought David up, and whether I liked her or not, she obviously did something right. You just have to look at him to see that. She never wanted money from me to help look after David. In fact, David was never to know that I had anything to do with him. So how could I bring anything to his life? I couldn’t see him. I had no money to give him and I lived in a different state to him. I lived in a different world to him. But David lived in the world that I had run away from. The world I hated. And I left him in the middle of it. What could I do? I couldn’t look after myself, never mind him. This caused me incredible pain. So I did what I did with everything that caused me pain. I ran from it. This made me feel a new guilt. I was starting to behave the same as my parents. No care and no responsibility. This could have been my family motto. I wonder how you say that in Latin. We could have written it on our coat of arms if we could have afforded a coat to write it on.
Jane pushed me into re-establishing contact with Joan and more importantly, with David. I thought seeing him would hurt but it didn’t. The more I saw him, the better I felt. David was always a good boy. He was soft, gentle and loving. As far as he knew, I was a friend of the family. It must have been confusing for him. I visited whenever I was in Adelaide. I’m not sure he knew what I did for a living but I couldn’t have looked like the rest of the family friends.
I would turn up at the door and be taken to the lounge room and left with him. ‘David, this ’ere is your Uncle Jim. He’s come to spend a bit of time wiff you, son,’ Joan would say in a stern English working-class voice and then leave the room.
I would sit down, not knowing what to say or do. ‘So. How are you?’
David would look at me and say, ‘Hello.’ And then nothing.
‘Are these your toys over here?’ I would say, stating the obvious, trying to get him to talk to me.
Then David would get up and play. ‘Do you want to play with me?’ It was as if David knew how uncomfortable I was and tried to make it easier for me.
‘Yeah. That’d be nice.’
We would spend half an hour talking and playing then I would have to leave. ‘I have to go now but would you mind if I came back to see you again?’
He would look at me with eyes that said he knew who I was, even though he couldn’t have, and say, ‘Yeah, that would be nice.’
He would kiss my cheek. I would make an uncomfortable attempt at a hug and then we’d walk to the kitchen where Joan was waiting, drinking tea.
‘David must never, ever know about you, Jim. You know it would break his little ’eart. And nun of us want that, do we?’ she would say as she saw me out the door.
It was painful but I loved seeing him. He looked like me. Well, he did to me anyway. I could see myself in him. But he was softer, much softer than I was. Maybe it was a good thing he didn’t know me. Or my family. We’d only hurt him too.
By the end of Cold Chisel, I saw him more and more. Jane came with me a few times to meet him. He was immediately more comfortable with her than he was with me. She was great with children. But Joan made it harder each time I went. I would ring and she would be horrible on the phone. Eventually though, we got to spend time with David alone. He came with us for a picnic in the Hills. But as soon as we were away from Joan, David would start to get sick. He would have migraines. Joan would tell me later that they were emotional. ‘It’s too hard on the poor little fing. I don’t fink it’s good for him to be wiff you alone. He’s better off ’ere wiff me.’
I knew that this was going to get worse before it got better.
THE BAND HIT THE road, and married life and Cold Chisel were thrown together. Cold Chisel had always been five guys fighting as one. Every now and then one more body would join the gang: Peter Moss; Alan Dallow; Billy Rowe; Gerry Georgettis, our new sound guy; Harry Parsons, our foldback operator; even Rod Willis. Rod of course was one of us. Once Rod joined he was there for decades. But there were never any girls who could come between us. Girlfriends came and went but when push came to shove, the band always came first. That all changed when I met Jane. From the minute I met her, the band took a backseat. They knew it too and they didn’t like it. This was the beginning of the end.
Jane and I were in it together. Us against the world, and that included everyone, even Cold Chisel, and in particular the management. Jane was the first person to say to me, ‘Hey, considering how many people come to see you and how many records you are selling every day, you don’t make a lot of money. Don’t you think that’s a little strange?’
I’d never really cared that much. I had brought it up once, at that band meeting at the Plaza I told you about, but it was never mentioned again.
‘Yeah. I think you’re right, now that I think about it.’
Jane wanted to make sure I was all right, and not getting taken advantage of. ‘Why don’t you ask for more money? You’re married now and you know we want to have a family sooner or later. You should know exactly where all your money goes. It’s just good business.’
I felt a little stupid. Of course I should know where it all went. But it never mattered really until then.
‘Yeah, I’ll ask about it next time we meet.’ I didn’t. But I would soon, and it would cause problems.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
a small fish in a big sewer
ON THE WAY TO THE USA, 1981
I GREW UP THINKING that American music was the best in the world. I heard my mum and dad sing along with black American singers when I was young, even before we moved halfway around the world to Australia. It seemed nearly everyone in post-war Britain listened to the radio, hoping to hear songs fresh off the American charts. Songs about leaving your chewing gum on the bedpost didn’t cut it anymore. Vera Lynn had been replaced by Ray Charles and Nat King Cole. ‘We’ll Meet Again’ was gone and ‘Your Cheatin’
Heart’ and ‘Hit the Road Jack’ became anthems for women like my mum, who were sick of cheating husbands telling them what they could and couldn’t do. My mum would sing these songs at parties when she’d had a few, her eyes drilling a hole straight through my father while she sang them. He never noticed that these songs were sung especially for him. He was oblivious to anything that my mum felt or cared about. And of course, night after night, he kept singing love songs to anyone else who’d listen. But never to my mum.
So American music was part of the soundtrack of my life even before I took any notice of it. Of course these songs were mixed with Scottish songs too, songs by people like Andy Stewart, singing about bonnie Scotland. These were the songs that my parents would sing together when they’d both drunk enough to put aside their differences and get along with each other. This never happened until the end of the night. Right before they started to really fight.
IT WASN’T UNTIL I was older that I found songs that touched me too. They were songs that I heard on the radio, songs that spoke to me about rebellion and freedom and sex.
My favourite lyrics of all time would have to be ‘Wop bop a loo bop a lop bam boom’. Even the sound of Little Richard’s microphone distorting appealed to me. I didn’t know why it was doing it, that was too technical for me at the time, but I knew he was screaming at the top of his voice and I liked that. I wanted to scream too. And adults couldn’t deal with the rawness of what he was doing. So that was enough for me. I was sold. From then on, anything that irritated my parents appealed to me. Whether it was Wilson Pickett or Chuck Berry, it didn’t matter, as long as it annoyed them.
As I got older I escaped life by listening to rock’n’roll music. First the sound I loved came from America and then, once it had been trodden down by the scared white folk that lived there, it was reinvented by the British.