Working Class Man

by Jimmy Barnes

  I would hear about new artists coming out of England with their fresh new sound, but somehow it was familiar to me. It took a few years before I made the connection and traced it back to the music my brother had listened to. The music of The Beatles and The Rolling Stones sounded like pale, insipid versions of the songs I’d heard years before, coming from the likes of Howlin’ Wolf and Muddy Waters and of course Chuck Berry. But they were British, just like me, and that, somehow, made it easier for me to relate to them and sing along with them.

  Eventually, I would be singing along with Australian singers, most of whom were immigrants, just like me. These singers would be the real reason that I got into bands. These blokes beat down the doors in this country and allowed singers like me to walk straight through them. Singers like Johnny O’Keefe and of course my favourite, Billy Thorpe. But that would be just the start.

  I REMEMBER HEARING ‘ALL Right Now’ by Free and ‘Black Night’ by Deep Purple on the radio. I think I heard them back to back, and that was it. Whether I was the right age or the songs struck the right chord with me I don’t know, but that day I knew I wanted to be in a band.

  It wasn’t a surprise to me that Cold Chisel would be so influenced by American music. Some of us liked British bands and British musicians, but the core of the music that moved us as a band came from the United States. Not just any American music, but black music. In reality it could all be traced back to blues music. Even the British stuff. I don’t think we set out to be a blues band but that’s what we became. A blues band that was influenced by everything that caught our ears on the radio. Pop, soul, hard rock, even punk. We took it all in and it came back out as some kind of rock fusion, moulded into shape by the gigs we were playing and the people we were playing to. But it was always blues based.

  For years, when it seemed that no one in Australia was getting us, we thought that at some point we would go to the States. They would get us. We were confident of it. But by the time we got around to going there, we were pulling huge crowds here in Australia and were being deeply affected by the places we were playing. Australia became an integral part of the chemistry of the band. So we didn’t really want to leave these shores.

  But for the band to grow we knew deep down that we would have to leave home and try our luck overseas. America was calling us, calling us like sirens, whispering to us to come crashing to our deaths.

  IN JUNE 1981 WE jumped on a plane and headed for Los Angeles, California. The deal that we had signed to WEA in Australia gave them first claim to the band overseas. So we were signed to Elektra Records, a part of WEA International.

  Things started going wrong from day one. We began falling apart at the airport in Sydney. Steve bought himself a huge ghetto blaster from the duty free shop. It was a Sharp twin-cassette deck. Anyway he filled it with enough batteries to power a small village and commenced playing music so loud the whole airport could hear it. People were scowling at him but he didn’t care. Steve had started drinking as soon as he reached the airport, and by the time we went through passport control he was half drunk.

  We got on the plane for Los Angeles via Honolulu and sat in our seats. The women serving on the American carrier didn’t realise how pissed Steve was and continued to feed him full of drinks, much to the dismay of the passengers. Gerry Georgettis, our sound guy, had been selected by the band to sit with Steve and keep him reasonably together. He didn’t succeed.

  About halfway through the flight, one of the hostesses decided it was time to calm Steve down, as he was getting a little rowdy and insisted on trying to place his hand down the front of her blouse every time she served him. So she offered him a pill that would quiet him down, which he took before he even knew what he was doing. It wasn’t long until Steve was weaving up and down the aisles, with his after-show Liverpudlian swagger, looking for trouble or chicks. He didn’t care. Whatever he came across first.

  Gerry tried his best to keep him in his seat, playing New Orleans funk music to him through his headphones. The mixture of the pill, the booze and The Meters seemed to work and he was starting to nod off when the pilot announced, ‘Please fasten your seatbelts and set your seat to the upright position for landing at Honolulu International Airport. We will be touching down in about twenty minutes.’

  Gerry didn’t have long to get Steve to fill in his arrival forms. ‘Come on, Steve. Sit still and we’ll fill in our forms together.’

  ‘Fuck off. I’m not filling in any fucking thing,’ Steve slurred.

  ‘Come on, brother. Don’t fuck around here. We have to fill these in or we won’t get into the country.’ Gerry was becoming a little desperate.

  ‘Shove them fucking forms straight up your fucking Greek arse, mate.’

  ‘Hey, that’s uncool man. Just fill in the fucking forms, would you?’

  ‘Why the fuck would I want to fucking fill in any fucking thing?’

  I could hear Steve’s voice from six rows away over the roaring of the jet engines as the 747 slowed down to landing speed.

  ‘All right. All right. I’ll fill them in for you and you can sign them.’ Gerry was panicking. It was illegal to fill in another person’s forms, but he did it anyway.

  ‘Okay man. Come on, just sign your name on the line here, would you?’ Gerry said, sliding the forms in front of Steve.

  ‘Yeah man, I’ll fucking give you my autograph if you want it, you fucking twat.’ Steve laughed and scribbled his name across half the form, missing the place where he was supposed to write it by a mile.

  ‘Shall I add a couple of fucking kisses?’ He reached for the form again, but Gerry snatched it away just in time.

  ‘Shit man, that’s so uncool.’

  Gerry knew that it would have to do and that he had failed miserably at his job of babysitting Steve. We would be lucky if we got through customs at all.

  We queued up to go through immigration in Honolulu. We were all in the same line, shuffling around, looking guilty even though we hadn’t done anything. Suddenly music started blaring out from Steve’s ghetto blaster.

  ‘Hey man, turn it off or you’ll not get into America,’ Gerry pleaded, but Steve wasn’t listening. He was too smashed to hear him and the music was too loud. He was starting to dance. That always meant trouble.

  We all looked at one another. This was not good. I could see the officer at the top of the queue look down his glasses towards Steve.

  ‘Fuck man. Turn it off!’ Gerry was really starting to panic. ‘You’re going to get us all thrown out of the place. You idiot!’ And he quickly turned off Steve’s music.

  Steve turned white with anger, and lifted the ghetto blaster up over his head. ‘I don’t want to go into their fucking stupid fucking country anyway,’ he shouted at the top of his voice and smashed the cassette player, as hard as he could, onto the ground. The noise was deafening. The whole arrivals hall went silent and turned to us and stared. Myself, the rest of the band and our management immediately moved to different queues, leaving Gerry and Steve alone. They were next to be assessed.

  Gerry grabbed the cassette player – which was miraculously still in one piece – and fumbled around the floor picking up the ten or so batteries that were rolling all over the ground. He shoved them into the machine just in time to hand it to Steve as he walked up to the counter.

  Steve gave his slightly crumpled form to the officer and stood, swaying. The officer looked at the form and then at Steve. Then back at the form again. You could tell he was trying to work out what the scribble across the middle was.

  ‘Ahem.’ He cleared his throat nervously before he spoke to Steve. ‘Sir, did you, er, did you fill in this form yourself, Mr Prestwick?’

  ‘That’s Prestwich.’

  ‘Pardon me, sir?’

  ‘That’s Prestwich.’

  ‘Ah, sorry Mr Prestwich.’ He spoke slowly and purposefully. ‘Did you fill in this form yourself?’ he asked a second time.

  ‘Nope. Not me. I never filled in anything. He fucking
did.’

  ‘But, er, is this your writing, sir?’ The officer couldn’t believe the guy in front of him

  ‘No. I just told you I didn’t fill in anything. He did.’ Steve stood with a glazed look on his face and motioned towards Gerry, who by this point didn’t know where to look, so he looked at his feet.

  The officer shook his head and ran his fingers through his already thinning hair. He didn’t need this. He had a look on his face like he wished he’d stayed at home for the day. He thought for a brief second and then, bang! He stamped Steve’s passport. ‘Have a nice day, sir.’

  And he waved Steve on. We couldn’t believe it. I can only assume that Steve appeared too difficult to deal with and the officer felt it was easier to let him go. Each of us was scrutinised a little but let through without too much trouble, except for Rod Willis. I think they worked out that we were all together and he might be the boss. So they set about giving Rod a right royal grilling.

  In the meantime the rest of us assembled near the duty free shop. Steve swayed and turned the music back on. His ghetto blaster still played as loud as ever. I immediately went into the duty free shop and bought myself the exact same deck. This was a music player that could stand up to the rigours of life on the road.

  We were on American soil, ready to start our US tour.

  OUR FIRST AND ONLY tour of the States was a mismatch of gigs. I don’t think there was really a lot of thought put into it by our American agent, our record company or even our management. Rod had done no work as a manager over there, so, like the band, he was learning the ropes on the fly. America was and still is a very tough nut to crack. It takes patience, time and a lot of luck. All of which we never really had.

  Going from being a successful band in Australia, back to the bottom of the heap in the US, was enough to make me feel sick. I had spent years running away from having nothing at all. I’d been treated like shit for most of my life and I had only just started to gain some confidence. So going from being a big fish in a small pond to being a small fish in a big sewer did not fill me with hope. I only prayed I could keep my head above water.

  Rod was inexperienced but the American agents just didn’t get us or didn’t care. I should have been thankful that we got to play to anyone but I wasn’t happy with the shows they had set up for us. I could almost hear them talking about us in my head. I was sure they’d have said something like, ‘Let’s just throw a few shows together for these guys. They wouldn’t know a good gig from a bad one. They’ll play anywhere. They’re just a little Australian band. What the fuck will they know?’

  In hindsight the agents probably did their best. It wasn’t easy to get a small band from Australia onto shows opening up for big bands in America. But they managed to get us on a few. We should have been grateful. But here we were playing supports again.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  good evening, Red Rocks

  USA, 1981

  OUR FIRST US SHOW was in San Diego. Our agent, John Marx, swore to us that we would be treated well on this bill. John wasn’t a bad guy. He loved music but he was smooth, almost a yuppie compared to us. He liked us but I think we were a bit wild for him.

  Anyway, our first show was with a Canadian band called Loverboy. They didn’t sound like our kind of band but we decided to take the agent’s word and set off for San Diego with an open mind. The bill was Loverboy, headlining, followed by Heart as ‘special guests’, and us in writing so small that you would have had to crash your car into the wall the poster was plastered on to see our name. We arrived backstage at some big baseball stadium a few hours before we were due to go on. Our gear had been sent ahead with our crew. We’d done a million big shows in Australia so we knew how it all worked. We expected to get a little caravan for a dressing room, and not much room on stage to play, but we were ready for it.

  When we found our crew, they were standing near the parked trucks with our gear, sitting in the sun. ‘They wouldn’t let us put our gear on the stage to do a line check. They told us to wait over here until they’re ready for us. That was two hours ago.’

  It wasn’t an ideal start but we tried to stay calm.

  ‘Where’s our dressing room?’ I asked, wanting to get out of the burning sun.

  ‘You’ll have to ask their production manager. They haven’t told us anything. They’re not very helpful.’

  We went to find the production manager. He was sitting in an air-conditioned hut with a few girls in very short skirts, laughing and drinking a beer.

  ‘Hi, we’re the support band, Cold Chisel. Sorry to interrupt, but if you could just point the way to our dressing room, we’ll get out of your hair.’

  He had a lot of hair to get out of, now that I think about it. Anyway he didn’t look happy to see us. We were obviously cramping his style with the girls, so he put his beer down and said, ‘You’re not the support. You’re the fucking opener. You don’t get a room. Now go and stand under the stage and wait until I tell you to play.’

  ‘Sorry, I must have misheard you.’

  ‘No, you heard me fine. Just fuck off until we need you.’

  Now on any other day I would have busted his jaw, but this was the first gig in America. I thought I’d control myself and smash his face in after we played.

  So there we were, standing under the stage, trying to stay calm in the shade. We were told we would be on stage in half an hour and we were in various stages of getting dressed when someone yelled at us, ‘Okay. You fucking Aussies are on.’

  ‘But our gear isn’t even finished being set up yet,’ one of our crew protested.

  ‘Well you’ve been here all day. You should have been ready.’

  Next thing we knew the MC on the stage announces, ‘Would you give a big San Diego welcome to the first band here to play for you. All the way from Australia, Cold Chisel!’

  I had no shoes on and hadn’t put on my shirt. Mossy was still in shorts and none of the guitars had been tuned. We ran up the stairs and onto the stage. I tied my headband around my head as I ran. I was looking for something to drink on the way but there was nothing for us.

  The gear wasn’t ready. We were standing in front of thirty thousand people and we had no leads in our guitars. Our crew ran around frantically, trying to get us ready.

  ‘Come on guys, play some fucking music,’ one of the Canadian stage techs yelled at us. The light on our amps came on so we thought we were ready. But nothing had any microphone on it. No one would hear us. Then the power went off again.

  ‘Play something you fucking guys, would ya?’ someone from the side of stage shouted at us.

  I went up to my mic. It worked. ‘Good afternoon. We’re Cold Chisel and as soon as we have power we’ll play for you.’

  We stood there for ten or fifteen minutes with no power for our guitar amps. The crowd were getting restless and started shouting and booing us. I looked around the stage, trying to work out which one of the crew I was going to kill first.

  After about twenty minutes we had noise coming from the amps. It wasn’t a good noise but we started playing anyway. Halfway through the first song all the power went out again. It seemed to be out forever, but eventually it came back on and we started our next song. We might get a show going after all. Then one of the stage crew called me over and shouted in my ear. I thought I’d heard him wrong.

  ‘What did you say?’ I yelled.

  ‘Your time is up. You guys have to get off.’

  We had only completed one song and even then not everything had worked. We finished the second song and they started playing music through the PA and roadies started tearing our gear down in a hurry.

  I came off stage ready to kill someone. It was then that John Marx pulled into the backstage area. He was driving a Porsche, and he had a girl who looked like a model draped over his arm. He jumped out of the car and walked over carrying a bottle of Champagne, smiling at us. ‘Hey. How did you go, guys? I hear you were great. Sorry I missed it.’

  I ran
at him, grabbed him by the throat and rammed his head into the side of his sports car.

  ‘Where the fuck were you when we needed you? We’ve been treated like shit here.’

  He was stunned. ‘Hey man, it’s not my fault. They promised they’d look after you.’

  Rod, our manager, dragged me off him before I could do any real damage.

  And so our doomed American tour had started. I was ready to quit and go home after the first gig.

  ‘Come on, guys. Hang in there. It has to get better. We’ve got some great gigs coming up. Trust me.’ Rod tried to lift our spirits as we drove away. He had asked us to trust him before and most of the time he came through. So we stuck with it. But it didn’t get better.

  WE DID A LOT of what were politely called the ‘secondary markets’, small towns that really weren’t going to help break us into the bigger markets. It was like the booking agency and record company had something against us. I’ve heard stories as to why that might have been but I don’t know anything first hand so I’ll keep it to myself. Let’s just say a few things might have gone down that fucked up our careers before the band ever got to the States.

  We had our faithful crew, Gerry on sound, Harry on foldback, Mark Keegan on lights and Mark Pope the tour manager with us. They tried to make it work but it was hard. Every town felt like we were in Butt Fuck Idaho. No, I take that back, not every town. There were a few good shows. Austin, Texas, with Joe Ely, The Fabulous Thunderbirds and a young Stevie Ray Vaughan, was one of the highlights of the tour. I remember having a few drinks with them all before the show. They were wild people and I liked them. They loosened me up so much that I climbed the PA stacks. Mark Pope shadowed me in case I fell. He was just below me, feeding me the lead to the microphone. I got to the top and opened my mouth to scream and a huge Texan moth dived into it. I was about forty feet off the ground and I nearly keeled over. My automatic reaction was to spit it out as fast as I could. Unfortunately for Mark, I spat it straight onto him. Along with vodka and anything else I heaved up. I didn’t even know he was there and just kept singing.