Working Class Man

by Jimmy Barnes

  Frank was wary. ‘Have you asked your doctor if you can do it? I can still cancel it if I need to.’

  I told him not to cancel. I would be fine. I rang the doctor. ‘Hi, Doctor. Listen, I feel terrific and I was wondering if it was all right to do a little show. I’ll only sing a little. I’ll have my daughter Mahalia and my son David with me.’

  The doctor was very hesitant. ‘I’m not sure that’s a good idea, Jimmy. You should be in bed taking it easy.’

  But I had made up my mind. ‘Look, Doctor, I’ll take it very easy and if I feel tired I’ll lay down.’ I can be very convincing when I want to be.

  ‘All right then, but just a few songs then back into bed.’

  I hung up the phone. It was on. I had neglected to tell the doctor that the show was in Malaysia and that I was booked to play for one and a half hours. I would be fine.

  We all travelled to Malaysia. Jane wasn’t happy with me. She felt I would be better in bed. But we were going anyway. I got to the show and felt fine. Unfortunately, I was so happy to be singing again that I worked too hard. I screamed and shouted my way through the set. By the time it was over I had bad pains in my chest. I had done too much. The doctor was right and I was wrong. We caught the next plane back to Sydney and I was taken directly to hospital. Fluids had collected in my chest cavity and were pressing on my heart. They would have to open me up and drain the fluids. I was in hospital for four days. The doctor wanted to keep me in but I assured him I would do nothing but rest in my bed. And that’s what I intended to do.

  After another nine weeks or so I felt brand new again and once again I rang my agent. ‘Hey Frank, are there any shows I could do? I’m going fucking crazy sitting in this bed.’

  I talked him into it and soon I was breaking the news to Jane and my doctor that I wanted to work again. Both thought I was crazy but I had made up my mind.

  Frank gave me two shows in Queensland. I told everyone that it would be like a little holiday in the sun. It would be good for me. So on the Saturday night I played a late show in Brisbane. I was a little sore but I was all right. I didn’t tell anyone that I was in pain. The next day we had a second show. It was a mid-afternoon show in the direct Queensland sun. We played for two hours and then I collapsed. The chest pains were back. We travelled to Sydney and the doctor sent me back to hospital. This time they drained the fluids with long needles they stuck into my chest. At least they didn’t have to open me up again.

  This time the doctor was adamant. He was keeping me in hospital for twelve weeks.

  I begged him to let me go home. ‘Please doctor. There’ll be no shows, no singing. I promise I’ll stay in my bed.’

  Jane assured the doctor that she would not let me up again. They sent me home and I was sentenced to twelve weeks in solitary confinement.

  What could I do but sit and watch TV? But even I can’t watch that much TV and I can watch more than most people. Once again I was going crazy, so I grabbed an acoustic guitar and a tape machine and tried to write some songs. After a couple of weeks, I had written an album. It was a different sort of record. I couldn’t scream. I couldn’t even sing loud. So all the songs I wrote were soft and a little mournful. I felt sorry for myself lying in that bed and it came out in the songs. Out in the Blue was recorded as soon as I could get out of bed. I got some help from Nash Chambers and a few of his mates and I think it was a really good record considering I was dying in bed when I wrote it. The cover shot was taken by my good friend Richard Bailey, the other guy Jane visited in the rubber dress. Richard was a guitar player and a surfer, as well as one of the best fashion photographers in the world. He didn’t normally do album covers but for me he made an exception. The cover shows me lying on a marble slab – I had come close to death – with Jane’s name tattooed over my heart. It was as if Jane had been there, calling me back from death’s door. Now that I think about it, she’s been doing that for years. The album, released in November 2007, peaked at number three on the charts, but I didn’t expect it to even do that well. I had survived heart surgery and was still kicking.

  THAT SAME YEAR MY father, Jim Swan, died. Dad and I had managed to work through a few of our issues before he died. I hope we had worked through enough for him to die in peace. After Dad’s visit to John and me at the Largs Pier Hotel – remember I told you about that – things got worse, but they did eventually get better. When he came back into my life, he was drinking way too much. But to his credit, after a few run-ins with Jane and me, he got his life together. My dad died sober. I was proud of him for that. My dad didn’t have to do much to make me proud. I wanted him to be great. Even at his worst, I could only see the Jim I loved.

  He died of emphysema, struggling to get air into his lungs. The Dad I remembered was afraid of no one or nothing, but before he died I could see fear in his eyes. He pretended he wasn’t scared but I think that was for us. We pretended we couldn’t see that he was scared. He died thinking we thought he was brave. And I did think he was brave. He had been forced to face up to a lot of the shit he had done in his life. And he had had to face it sober.

  My brothers and sisters came together for a short time to mourn, but not for long. We couldn’t be close anymore. We were shattered like broken glass, scattered every which way, and we could never be put back together. We would get together only when we had to, if someone died or to celebrate one of Mum’s birthdays.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  your dog is always happy to see you

  A NOTE ON DOGS

  AS A KID, MY dad always had a dog. I think that Dad preferred the company of animals to humans. In fact, even his human friends were like animals when I think about it. Dad would sit out on the back porch after getting home drunk and fighting with Mum, and he would talk to the dog. Maybe the dog was the only one who didn’t judge him. The only one who didn’t talk back. Anyway, Mum wouldn’t let us talk to him when she was fighting with him, so the dog was the only friend he had. My dad was a fighter and never thought twice about hurting another man, but he could never hurt an animal. Dogs were his favourite.

  I DON’T THINK THAT a home is complete without a dog around. They remind me of what real love is. Never judging, your dog is always happy to see you, always ready to run to you and accept you as you are. Maybe that’s why I love them. Because they have never had to forgive me.

  Our first family dog was Theo, a cattle dog-border collie-lab cross. By the time Theo died he was like a coffee table, wide and flat across the back. Theo was gentle and patient with the children. He was never a problem to have around. I even took Theo on tour with me. He would hide in the car until the receptionist wasn’t looking, then I would sneak him in and he would stay in the room with me. He used to lay on the bed and watch TV when I was out working. I used to joke that he could watch Lassie while I was out. When he died the whole family went into mourning. He was one of us and we still think of him. I get misty when I see his photo.

  When the kids were small I got two very big dogs. I thought we needed them for security. But you can’t really have a dog for security and have small children around at the same time. We had Rhontu, a huge Rottweiler. He weighed about twelve stone, maybe more. This was a big, fierce-looking dog. Then I got Jessica. She was a bull mastiff and looked like a short-nosed alligator. Either of these dogs could have killed you. But they were docile and child friendly. The kids used to ride on their backs. But I would never leave them alone. Just in case. One bite could have been fatal.

  THESE DAYS I HAVE two miniature schnauzers. I always wanted big dogs before these guys. The bigger the better. I felt safer when I had them around. I think that was a leftover from my mum’s constant worrying about being attacked. But now I can look after myself. Besides, I have grown out of my fears a little. My boys, Ollie and Snoop, are my best mates. They go everywhere with me. Except on tour. I don’t want them to be away from home. They would miss it too much. I think I am projecting onto them a little here. I got these guys after meeting Jep and Ma
rk’s dog Rufus. Rufus was their big brother and had to be the coolest dog I had ever met. So I decided I would get one. I asked the breeder for a black puppy and when the day came for delivery, she turned up with a basket full of puppies. I was handed my little black dog, who we had decided would be called Snoop Dog. I asked in passing if the others had homes. She looked at me and said, ‘All but this one. No one wants him.’

  There was a little fat guy sitting in the corner alone. He was the runt. I loved him immediately. ‘I’ll take him too. What shall we call him, kids?’ They decided on Oliver Twist because he was an orphan.

  My dogs have sat with me while I wrestled with my childhood. They guarded over me while I recovered from heart surgery. They have watched me fall apart and then watched as I rebuilt my life. They have shared the good, the bad and the ugly with me. Never once have they judged me. Oliver even bit one of my gay friends when he came into my room while I was sick. I laughed and told my mate he was guarding my honour. My mate now tells the world that my dog is homophobic. But he’s not. He just loves me. My dogs have sat and listened as I read my books to them before anyone else. If the dogs liked them, I’d be okay.

  I find that I can’t be away from home now because I miss them too much. Once we were on holidays in Europe. We were staying at one of the best hotels in the world in Paris when I turned to Jane and said, ‘I miss my boys too much. I want to go home.’ Jane laughed at me and started packing. We cut our holidays short by two weeks so we could be home with our dogs. It is very hard to even go on tour these days. And just like my dad and his dog, when Jane and I fight, the boys still talk to me. Thank God for that.

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  we’d had a second chance

  SYDNEY, 2009–11

  COLD CHISEL WAS READY to record again in 2010. It had been a long time between studio albums. The Last Wave of Summer Ringside seemed to have come and gone a lifetime ago. The live recordings had been and gone. We thought that maybe it was time we got into the studio and put something new down. We started making plans. We had a bunch of songs and we had my studio to try them out in. Kevin Shirley, who worked with us mixing The Last Wave, was who we wanted when we really started cutting tracks. But we would start out at my place without him.

  As soon as we hit the studio the magic was there. Right where we left it. The minute we picked up our instruments it came pouring out. We were all excited.

  A year earlier, we had been asked to get together to play the V8 Supercars at Homebush. This was to be a huge party, celebrating the races coming to Sydney. It was the perfect place for Chisel to do a one-off show to whet the appetites of our audience and get them ready for a new record. Fast cars and fast music had always been a good combination for the band. We started our engines.

  But there were a few communication breakdowns at that time, particularly between Rod, our dear friend and long-time manager, and the band. Things were moving fast, too fast for us to take time getting our shit together. We needed to be on, and we needed to be on right now. We made the decision that it was time to change management. This was not an easy decision. Rod had guided us through every step of Chisel’s recording career. And he was a close friend to each one of us. We had shared food and families with each other. But we had been together too long. Things needed to be shaken up, and fast. The split was painful but necessary.

  Now we needed someone to take the wheel. Someone to take our management and crank it up, ready for the next phase of the band’s life. We didn’t find one man to do this. We found two. John Watson is a sharp, music-loving guy who has been involved in record companies, management, journalism and even played bass in a band at one time. John O’Donnell is a man of many talents too. He has been a manager, an editor and writer for major rock music magazines, and he has run the record company side of things too. Like John Watson, he lives for music. Either one of these guys could probably have done the job we needed. Together they took the band to a new level. Each brought something unique to our management. They were part of a new wave of music managers. They knew a lot about the power of social media and the ins and outs of digital music and where it was heading. They were exactly what we needed. Besides this, both of these guys loved Cold Chisel and were ready to put their careers on the line to make it work for us.

  Everything was going to plan. We sold more than fifty thousand tickets for the Homebush show. The band was charging ahead. We prepared to release our back catalogue into the digital world. Cold Chisel would be available on iTunes for the first time, and on our own terms. We had new music coming from each member of the band and the next record was shaping up to be something special.

  The first sessions were great. We had some fantastic recordings that left us excited, ready to get back into the studio and finish them off. I already had an album of my own coming out that year – Rage & Ruin – but we all agreed to set aside the whole of 2011 for Cold Chisel recording and touring. To keep the band sharp we played at the 2010 Deni Ute Muster to another massive crowd. We couldn’t have been more positive. We had a plan and it was taking us all in the right direction.

  IN JANUARY 2011, STEVE was told that he had another brain tumour. He had been complaining of headaches for a while. He tried to shrug them off but we all knew he was worried. I remember him telling me, ‘You know, it’s weird. I have a feeling this is the same thing I had before. I recognise the feelings. I know it’s back.’ Then his fears were confirmed.

  He didn’t make a fuss. He was never fussed about much, unless it was something to do with music. He always knew what he wanted his songs to sound like, what he wanted to play, how he wanted to play it and how he wanted his drums to sound. Steve would fight with producers and anyone else who got in the way of things turning out the way he heard them. But he was quiet about his condition. He had already fought this fight once and the thought of going through it all again must have scared him. It scared me.

  ‘Oh, you know, I don’t think it’s as bad as last time. Don’t worry. I’ll be all right,’ Steve said. But the headaches were bad.

  We all tried to be positive. Steve was tough. He’d be all right. Everything would be okay. The date had been set and he was going in for surgery. Steve didn’t want anyone to go to the hospital with him. He didn’t want to worry us. He was a very private person and besides, he had his children there.

  SUNDAY MORNING, 16 JANUARY 2011, I got the call. My memories of this time are hazy, like a bad dream. It was a typical Sunday morning. A typical any morning actually. Yeah, unfortunately, a typical morning for me meant recovering, because by this time I was off the wagon, so every morning was difficult to greet. I was woken from the haze that was left from the night before when the phone rang.

  It was John Watson. ‘Listen, I hate to be the one to tell you this but Steve’s not going to make it. He’s in a coma and he’s not going to come out of it.’

  I was in shock. I didn’t know what to say. ‘Has anybody told Rod?’

  Rod needed to know before it became public knowledge. I hung up. I sat and tried to process what I’d been told. Steve couldn’t die. He wasn’t supposed to, not yet. He had his children who needed him. They must have it wrong. I was expecting the phone to ring again. I’d be told it was all a big mistake or a sick joke. ‘Steve is going to be fine. He’s come out of it and everything’s all right.’

  But the phone didn’t ring. They turned off the life support around 3.30 that afternoon. We had lost our friend. Our brother. I felt a sense of emptiness like never before. From the day we left Adelaide, it was us against everyone. Even when the band broke up, somewhere in the back of my mind I expected us to play together again. Maybe not straightaway, but some day. And we did. The Last Wave was a fresh start for Cold Chisel. Ringside confirmed that we were back on track. We were lucky. We’d had a second chance to make music. Not every band got this chance. It was an amazing gift to us all. But now that chance was gone.

  EACH TIME I LOSE someone close, I can feel a change come over me. There
is a sense of grief of course, but there is also a sense of nothing ever getting better. Like the loss has brought about a shift that will ultimately take me down too. And it’s not even that it is a bad shift. There is almost a sense of relief about it. ‘Right, it will all be over soon.’

  I first felt this as a child, when my dog was run over right before my eyes. I wanted to leave too. I was afraid of being left behind alone. I knew that my parents would be angry but they would be all right. They wouldn’t want me to feel pain. But it was like a part of me left with the dog and I wanted the rest of me to slip away too.

  Later on in life I lost a few friends and remember similar feelings. When Bon died, way back in 1980, I felt it. Bon was a friend, but not like a brother to me. He was a role model. He was kind and funny and I liked him. But the night I found out that he died, it profoundly affected me. And, as I told you earlier, sitting on the edge of the cliffs overlooking the Pacific Ocean, I was almost overcome by the sense of wanting to leave too. I think that maybe, in my mind, death was almost a better option to living with myself, my pain and my guilt. But it wasn’t enough to make me want to jump. It was just there, below the surface.

  When James Freud died in 2010, I wondered if he was at peace. I hoped he was. I could see the pain and the heartache he’d caused the ones he loved, but he must have weighed that up when he took that final step. And in that moment he thought he made the right choice. Of course I have the benefit of hindsight and can see it should never have been considered. But James was overwhelmed. I had felt like that too.

  Like I said earlier, I never realised that I was suicidal though. I thought I was just a bit crazy. But I had felt that way before. It was there when I ran away from home as a child and thought about swimming out to sea. It was there as I sat alone in a hotel room drinking myself into oblivion. And I remember feeling it again when Steve left us. It felt like the fight was over. And I had lost. But these feelings came and went. They never stayed long enough for me to lay down, but that would change.