Speaker 1: Approche Production. Welcome to Secrets of the Underworld. I am
Speaker 1: Neil the Muscle comments.
Speaker 2: In this episode, I speak with one of the biggest
Speaker 2: drummers in Australia, Jackie Barnes.
Speaker 3: I get recognized just as much for the Wiggles and
Speaker 3: Now as I do working with Dad and other artists.
Speaker 3: They didn't put in any of the rock bands. Rose
Speaker 3: to do any of those bands I'd worked with. One
Speaker 3: of the stage riggers had the stairs up to my
Speaker 3: drum kit together prop and they collapsed when I walked
Speaker 3: up the stage. I was up there, you know, playing
Speaker 3: for thousands of people, and I've got no bas drum,
Speaker 3: no spare pedal. So I ended up doing the gy.
Speaker 1: So before we get into all the nitty gritty, let's
Speaker 1: get into.
Speaker 2: You about growing up, schooling, growing up in the family
Speaker 2: and you.
Speaker 1: Know what area and all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I was I was born in Sydney and
Speaker 3: grew up in the Southern Highlands about an hour and
Speaker 3: a half south of Sydney towards Canberra, so in a
Speaker 3: town called Mittigong. So I spent the first eight years
Speaker 3: of my life living there, but also kind of living
Speaker 3: on the road. They had I think I was two
Speaker 3: weeks old when I first flew overseas to meet him
Speaker 3: for the first time. He was on tour and I
Speaker 3: think it was in Chicago at the time. When I
Speaker 3: first met him, I was two weeks old. My mom
Speaker 3: flew me in to join his tour and I slept
Speaker 3: in a road case for the first few months of
Speaker 3: my life on the road. And he was doing a
Speaker 3: tour with zz Top, and funny enough, Pat Stewart, who
Speaker 3: was the drummer at that time in Dad's band, sent
Speaker 3: me a photo a few weeks ago from that from
Speaker 3: that tour, and I'm probably about two or three weeks
Speaker 3: old sitting on Mum's lap backstage somewhere in Illinois.
Speaker 1: What was it like going around on tour? Was the
Speaker 1: schooling for you?
Speaker 3: I was once it got to kind of schooling. We
Speaker 3: would be home for the school terms, and then in
Speaker 3: holidays we'd travel on the road, and Mum and Dad
Speaker 3: had a couple of nannies that would travel on the
Speaker 3: road when we were on tour, and a couple of
Speaker 3: times I do remember as a kid flying solo and
Speaker 3: that was exciting as well, because the airlines would really
Speaker 3: look after you and do that kind of unaccompanied minor travel.
Speaker 3: But then once it came to actual schooling, then we'd
Speaker 3: stay in you know, I went to boarding school for
Speaker 3: most of high school, but we moved around, so I
Speaker 3: changed schools a lot. So when I was eight years old,
Speaker 3: we moved to the south of France for three years.
Speaker 1: Did they affect you with friends kind of think and
Speaker 1: growing up with friends as a.
Speaker 3: Kid, I think, yeah, definitely, Like I'm one of those
Speaker 3: kind of people that I have my kind of core
Speaker 3: group of friends that are my really close friends, but
Speaker 3: they might not see me for anywhere from weeks to years,
Speaker 3: Like sometimes it can be a few years and I'll
Speaker 3: just be on the road constantly, and then the kind
Speaker 3: of friends that stay in my life are the ones
Speaker 3: that they can accept that, Yeah, because I've always just
Speaker 3: been one of those guys that's always on the move.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So I've reconnected with friends from my childhood and some
Speaker 3: of them have become really good friends. Yeah, but it
Speaker 3: was kind of pretty random as a kid because we
Speaker 3: would I would establish a group of friends and then
Speaker 3: we'd move and so I kind of always was I
Speaker 3: felt like a bit of a lone wolf in that
Speaker 3: in that sense, like I didn't have a group of friends.
Speaker 3: I just would kind of float amongst all the different
Speaker 3: groups of people.
Speaker 2: And yeah, what age were you when you realized how
Speaker 2: bigy that was.
Speaker 3: I guess it would have to be pretty early, because
Speaker 3: you know, we were in stadiums with him, watching shows,
Speaker 3: and you know, being side stage, even going on stage
Speaker 3: as photos of me as a little kid with headphones
Speaker 3: on being put on dad's shoulders and you know, so
Speaker 3: I guess it would have to be early. But at
Speaker 3: the same time, to me, it was normal. So I
Speaker 3: grew up with that as a completely normal thing, and
Speaker 3: having you know, camera crews following us and people taking
Speaker 3: photos of us everywhere, and it was just kind of
Speaker 3: like that was to me, what normal.
Speaker 1: Is You performed at four years old? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, what was that?
Speaker 1: Like?
Speaker 3: Amazing? I mean I think, look, I wouldn't say it
Speaker 3: was a very good performer at that point. Definitely. I
Speaker 3: definitely had the energy and the kind of charisma. But
Speaker 3: you know, at the time when we were in the Tinler's,
Speaker 3: you know, we thought we were the best thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you always wanted to like as a kid, is
Speaker 2: that what you want? You want to follow in your
Speaker 2: dad's footsteps? Performing or lead your own path.
Speaker 3: I never really wanted to be a singer, so to speak.
Speaker 3: I was always wanted to be a drummer because I
Speaker 3: would watch Dad's drummers as a kid and just think
Speaker 3: that looks like the most fun thing on earth. And
Speaker 3: then I've always been obsessed with sports, so I wanted
Speaker 3: to play sports. Oh wow, sports, and I did for
Speaker 3: a while. I was a football fan, a die hard
Speaker 3: football fan, real football and you know, so I grew
Speaker 3: up playing soccer. I was a goalkeeper. I did go
Speaker 3: when I was about sixteen. I went over to Scotland
Speaker 3: and did six months with Dundee Football Club in the
Speaker 3: youth system there, and then I was also playing first
Speaker 3: grade Shire cricket in Sydney at the same time when
Speaker 3: I was coming back. But then, look, I would have
Speaker 3: loved to have been either a cricketer or a footballer.
Speaker 3: But at the same time, mid season I would get
Speaker 3: off as for gigs and go on to the coaches
Speaker 3: and the management would be kind of like, well, you
Speaker 3: need to kind of pick pick one. And then I
Speaker 3: kind of quickly realized that you know.
Speaker 1: What was putting the money in your pocket.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it was much more fun. You know, I
Speaker 3: could party more and at the time, you know, and yeah,
Speaker 3: I just I was definitely better at drums than I
Speaker 3: was a footballer or a cricketer, even though you know,
Speaker 3: in my in my heart, I wanted to be a sportsman.
Speaker 3: And look, it's funny. Over the years, I've gotten to
Speaker 3: know a bunch of different sports people and they've always
Speaker 3: come to shows and gone, I want to do what
Speaker 3: you do. And I've gone and watched them playing gome
Speaker 3: and I want to do it.
Speaker 1: You do.
Speaker 3: The grass is always greeny, you know. And at the
Speaker 3: same time, you know, being thirty eight years old, now,
Speaker 3: i'd be coming to the end or at the end
Speaker 3: of a career in sports if I'd gone down that path.
Speaker 3: So whereas now I feel like my career in drums
Speaker 3: is it's just it's just a it's a freight train
Speaker 3: that keeps going, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, tell me, tell me about tin lids.
Speaker 3: The tin lids. So it was kind of like I
Speaker 3: never knew how it formed or anything. I think it
Speaker 3: was just one of those things that you know, because
Speaker 3: we were surrounded by music, and my dad had music
Speaker 3: people around all the time, and he had the studio
Speaker 3: at home in the Southern Highlands where he recorded big
Speaker 3: records and other people recorded records. We just kind of
Speaker 3: fell into it was kind of like a thing to
Speaker 3: do when Dad was off tour. We could do it
Speaker 3: with him, and it's been a lot of fun though.
Speaker 3: It was great fun. You know. We used to go
Speaker 3: around all the like all the shopping malls, the west
Speaker 3: Fields and stuff, and do gigs in the in like
Speaker 3: the fore courts and stuff, and in the attriums and
Speaker 3: stuff like that. And I remember just always being a performer.
Speaker 3: And the things I hated were the like the clothes
Speaker 3: that my mum would dress this thing. I found them
Speaker 3: super uncomfortable away. I still don't wear jeans to this
Speaker 3: day because I found them incredibly uncomfortable as a kid.
Speaker 3: And then also I remember we had to do choreography,
Speaker 3: and I remember like just hating doing choreography. We've never
Speaker 3: been good dancers in our family.
Speaker 1: When you when you finished high school, you became taught
Speaker 1: what your dad? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I finished school and I look I auditioned
Speaker 3: a few times through his band unsuccessfully, and looking back,
Speaker 3: I definitely wasn't ready.
Speaker 1: So you're auditioned. Yeah, So who said no?
Speaker 3: Dad?
Speaker 1: Really?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Yeah? He said, look, you're nowhere near ready. You
Speaker 3: need to go out and you know, do some other
Speaker 3: tours with other artists and get some work under your belt.
Speaker 3: And it's not going to come easy, you know, because
Speaker 3: his band, he's always seen that as the you know,
Speaker 3: the the best band in the country, one of the
Speaker 3: best bands in the world. It's got to be like perfection,
Speaker 3: just absolute perfection, and regardless of whether your family or not,
Speaker 3: you have to pull your weight and you have to be,
Speaker 3: you know, at the top of your game all the time.
Speaker 1: How did I feel when you used to reject you
Speaker 1: from it?
Speaker 3: I always kind of took it as like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm just going to work hard. Yeah, And I guess
Speaker 3: I got that work ethic from him, you know. And
Speaker 3: at that point I had I'd started getting up and
Speaker 3: playing one song in his set from when I was
Speaker 3: about ten years old, and it was always the same
Speaker 3: song as a song called hard to Handle Otis Redding's song,
Speaker 3: and we did kind of like the Black Crows version,
Speaker 3: and I would get up and play that one song
Speaker 3: whenever I was on school holidays or at the show,
Speaker 3: and then I would kind of start asking more, can
Speaker 3: I play two songs you know, I was always being
Speaker 3: his ear. I would ask him questions like, you know,
Speaker 3: if your drummer was to fall down the stairs and
Speaker 3: break his legs, would you let me play? And so
Speaker 3: I always wanted to be there, and so I guess
Speaker 3: when the opportunity came to audition the first couple of times,
Speaker 3: I wasn't as prepared as I should have been, and
Speaker 3: that was one of the lessons I learned from the rejection.
Speaker 3: And then I went and did the football thing in
Speaker 3: Scotland and playing cricket in you know, coming back playing cricket,
Speaker 3: and then the opportunity came to join the band as
Speaker 3: the key board player before drums. So basically there were
Speaker 3: some issues with a keyboard player at the time, and
Speaker 3: I was basically just you know, at home on the
Speaker 3: piano and I just kind of like, as Dad was
Speaker 3: coming in, I just start playing his songs showing that
Speaker 3: I knew the song forms. It's like, ah, do you
Speaker 3: want to come and fill in for some gigs? And
Speaker 3: so I did that for like a couple of months.
Speaker 3: And look, I was classically trained as a piano player,
Speaker 3: and I'm definitely a competent pianist, but as a kind
Speaker 3: of like rock keyboard player. I don't have those kinds
Speaker 3: of chops, and you know, I didn't have the you know,
Speaker 3: improvisation and all that sort of stuff, but I played
Speaker 3: the parts, you know, so I did a decent job there.
Speaker 3: And then I started sneaking percussion into the setups. I'd
Speaker 3: have the keyboard and like congas and tambourines and stuff,
Speaker 3: and I just start like doing whatever I could a
Speaker 3: cow bell. And then the drummer at the time some
Speaker 3: issues came up with him, and then Dad said, well,
Speaker 3: I'm going to audition drummers again. And then I said,
Speaker 3: this time, I'm going to get it. And I made
Speaker 3: sure that I was really over prepared that time, and
Speaker 3: that was just enough. Like Dad said, look, I'm going
Speaker 3: to give you a shot.
Speaker 1: But you know, how many people with the audition for that,
Speaker 1: I don't know, Like.
Speaker 3: I remember seeing like at least five or six guys
Speaker 3: come through the studio. But then you know, in the
Speaker 3: years since, you know, because I've been his drummer now
Speaker 3: over twenty years, and in the years since, I've bumped
Speaker 3: into guys who've gone, oh yeah, we got approached about
Speaker 3: auditioning around then, and you know, I prepared stuff, but
Speaker 3: they've never never got the final call, so maybe there was. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm guessing all the different members and management and all
Speaker 3: the record labels had kind of put forward their names.
Speaker 3: And then I think finally I impressed that enough where
Speaker 3: he gave me a shot and said, look, it's not
Speaker 3: yours yet, but you've got to earn it, but I'm
Speaker 3: going to give you a chance to do this next
Speaker 3: kind of you know, six months, and I just made
Speaker 3: sure that no.
Speaker 1: Mother fucker came around.
Speaker 3: Exactly. And the thing is, the first this gig was
Speaker 3: fucking horrendous for me. It was horrible. I remember at
Speaker 3: that point. You know, this is before I had all
Speaker 3: my endorsements with gear and like, even before I was
Speaker 3: really technical in terms of maintenance of gear and stuff.
Speaker 3: So I went out with Tony Brock, who was dad's
Speaker 3: drummer when I was growing up a kid that he
Speaker 3: left for me, which was an old eighties tamer, a
Speaker 3: beautiful collectible kit, and I remember like getting that out
Speaker 3: of storage and it was all dusty and bits were
Speaker 3: falling apart, and I was like, I had to work
Speaker 3: and I didn't really I hadn't learned how to tune
Speaker 3: drums at that point, And do you actually.
Speaker 1: Have to tune drums? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did.
Speaker 3: Ye got the top and bottom skins, and you've got
Speaker 3: to tune them to each other and specific notes and
Speaker 3: tones and what kind of sound you want to go for.
Speaker 3: It's a really big process, and it's something that I've
Speaker 3: spent the last you know, twenty five years developing skills
Speaker 3: in that, much like you would in any anything, you know,
Speaker 3: like you train a certain way to kip and all
Speaker 3: that sort of stuff, you know. So I honed that
Speaker 3: craft over the next couple of years. But the first gig,
Speaker 3: I remember the bass drum pedal that hits the bast drum,
Speaker 3: it just fell apart. It was an old vintage one
Speaker 3: that hadn't been maintained. The chain snapped, the footboard kind
Speaker 3: of the pins came out, and it just collapsed in
Speaker 3: the first song. So I was up there, you know,
Speaker 3: playing for thousands of people, and I've got no bass drum,
Speaker 3: no spare pedal. So I ended up doing the gig
Speaker 3: hitting the floor tom as a bass drum, and it
Speaker 3: was just like I just felt absolutely I'm like I'm
Speaker 3: gonna last one gig. And my dad came up after
Speaker 3: the show. He said, I know what happened. I saw
Speaker 3: that and I heard it. He said, don't worry, You're
Speaker 3: not You're not out, but make sure it never fucking
Speaker 3: happened again. He said, anytime stuff like this happens, learn
Speaker 3: learn a lesson, be better, and never let it happen again.
Speaker 3: So Ever, since that first gig, I've always had too
Speaker 3: some times even three backups for everything, space, snare, drums,
Speaker 3: space symbols. It's like, you know, I even when I'm
Speaker 3: traveling overseas, I travel with lots of spare parts because
Speaker 3: little things like rental kits and stuff, they're never maintained properly.
Speaker 3: So yeah, there's always little things that you need to replace.
Speaker 3: So I always travel with everything since that first gig.
Speaker 1: Wow, that was going to be my next question. Have
Speaker 1: you ever fed anything ever fucked up?
Speaker 3: Well that that's definitely the most that The kind of
Speaker 3: biggest lesson I learnt was that first gig. But you know,
Speaker 3: I've had stuff where like I remember I was on
Speaker 3: tour with a group called the ten Tennas in Europe
Speaker 3: and one of the stage riggers hadn't put the stairs
Speaker 3: up to my drum kit together properly, and they collapsed
Speaker 3: when I walked up onto stage and I ended up
Speaker 3: doing the ligaments in my ankle. It was really bad.
Speaker 3: So I had like the first kind of a few
Speaker 3: weeks of that tour with my right foot in a
Speaker 3: bucket of ice.
Speaker 1: Oh my god.
Speaker 3: And I had double pedals at that point, so I
Speaker 3: was playing all the lead pedal with my left foot
Speaker 3: because fuck. Well that recovered. So, you know, shit stuff
Speaker 3: that people don't see from the front, but you know, wow,
Speaker 3: I was getting like physio needling, all that sort of
Speaker 3: stuff done in between broken that ankle a few times before,
Speaker 3: so it was like it was like horrible and this
Speaker 3: was like at the start of a four month tour. Wow.
Speaker 3: But you know, at the same time, when all that
Speaker 3: sort of stuff happens, you got to make sure that
Speaker 3: people in front don't notice notice and it happens.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 1: Who's your Who's your favorite artist?
Speaker 2: Yeah, you would like to when you're growing up as
Speaker 2: an idol or something like that, besides your dad.
Speaker 3: Well dad was obviously, as always and still is my
Speaker 3: hero and wherever learned the most. But Bruce Springsteen's definitely
Speaker 3: a big favorite of mine. And you know, I've been
Speaker 3: fortunate enough to see him, play many times, open for
Speaker 3: him with Dad, meet him several times, and get to
Speaker 3: know a lot of the band as well.
Speaker 1: Is there a band that you'd love to play with.
Speaker 3: That that band? That's definitely one of them. Look, so
Speaker 3: many bands, I like, a really big variety of music,
Speaker 3: and there's so many artists that I've gotten to know
Speaker 3: over the years that you know, Look, I'm pretty fortunate
Speaker 3: that I've played with a lot of them. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: I'm very lucky in that regard. But yeah, Bruce would
Speaker 3: be a dream gig.
Speaker 1: See I was waiting for you to say the Wiggles.
Speaker 1: I was actually waiting for you to say the Wiggles.
Speaker 1: I seen that and I went, oh, fucking hell.
Speaker 3: I get recognized just as much for the Wiggles now
Speaker 3: as I do working with Dad and other artists. So
Speaker 3: it was great. You know, like we've always come across
Speaker 3: those guys over the years and gotten to know them,
Speaker 3: and I think the last meeting with those guys before
Speaker 3: I actually started working with them was in Darwin and
Speaker 3: it was a day off and we were just walking.
Speaker 3: I was walking with Dad and Mum trying to find
Speaker 3: somewhere to eat, and bumped into a few of those
Speaker 3: guys Anthony and stuff, and and we just kind of
Speaker 3: like we'd always bumped into each other on the road.
Speaker 3: But then we're like, let's catch up in Sydney and
Speaker 3: actually do something. And at that point Dad was it
Speaker 3: was in the process of writing a children's book. It
Speaker 3: was a kind of a character based around my nephew,
Speaker 3: and so my dad was talking to them about that
Speaker 3: and they said, oh, won't you come into wiggles HQ.
Speaker 3: Will you know, animate it, write some music for it,
Speaker 3: make an album.
Speaker 1: But they didn't give you a color T shirt to wear.
Speaker 3: Nah. No, I think Dad did like a he did
Speaker 3: a like a charity gig with them. He got up
Speaker 3: as a special guest years ago and I think he
Speaker 3: had a black skivvy. So but so we went up
Speaker 3: to wiggles HQ and started kind of working on the
Speaker 3: music from that album and from that children's book, which
Speaker 3: ended up it was called the GNU and ended up
Speaker 3: winning an Area for Best Children's Album. And you know,
Speaker 3: my kids have grown up, you know, with the Wiggles
Speaker 3: and with those books and those albums and those songs,
Speaker 3: and then that kind of like working with them on
Speaker 3: that project. Then they're like, oh, we really like you
Speaker 3: do you want to work on some other stuff with us?
Speaker 3: And I ended up I think I did. Like I
Speaker 3: remember one of the days, I must have recorded about
Speaker 3: fifty five sixty songs. It's like just like you know,
Speaker 3: all little kind of like you know, short short pieces,
Speaker 3: but and they work you hard, but they do good work.
Speaker 3: I still know all those guys, they're all good friends.
Speaker 3: And yeah, it was a wonderful time. And then Anthony
Speaker 3: at the time, he approached me and said, oh, look,
Speaker 3: we're doing a barbershop quartet for the next series. And
Speaker 3: I don't want to be in it. He's like, so
Speaker 3: I want you to be me in that, and I'm
Speaker 3: like what. And so the next thing I knew I
Speaker 3: was I was on camera. I remember like six am
Speaker 3: call makeup. I'm like, oh, as a rock drummer, fuck that.
Speaker 3: I'd played in New Car the night before and had
Speaker 3: no sleep and got there at six am, got done
Speaker 3: up and like put in a suit that was way
Speaker 3: too big and they just like pin stuff to make
Speaker 3: it look okay and filmed until like ten pm that night,
Speaker 3: and the whole season wow, in one day. And and
Speaker 3: then you know, so then that next series, every every
Speaker 3: episode they'd go to this barbershop quartet and I'm in there,
Speaker 3: and that's what I get recognized for. If I'm walking
Speaker 3: around a Westfield, mum and their kids will come up
Speaker 3: and like you, you're the barbershop quartet guy. And back
Speaker 3: to Chin Lid's a funny, funny story about that. I
Speaker 3: recorded a record with the Dead Daisies, which is like
Speaker 3: a hard rock supergroup, and I remember when we recorded
Speaker 3: the record, they did all the press releases for all
Speaker 3: the magazines in Europe and around the world. And these
Speaker 3: magazines what they do is they google you and they
Speaker 3: find out who you've worked with, and so like when
Speaker 3: they did the press release for this album. This is
Speaker 3: like a hard rock heavy like almost metal, it's like
Speaker 3: and it had like you know, John Krabi, Motley Crue,
Speaker 3: Marca Mendoza, Thin Lizzie Richard Fordes, Guns N' Roses, Jackie Barnes,
Speaker 3: the Tin Lids. They thought that was the most metal
Speaker 3: sounding band that I'd worked with, and they didn't they
Speaker 3: didn't look into the band. They didn't put any of
Speaker 3: the they didn't put any of the rock bands, Rose Tattoo,
Speaker 3: any of those bands I'd worked with. They put Tin Lids.
Speaker 3: So there's all these heavy metal magazines around Europe that
Speaker 3: had me in there.
Speaker 2: The tin Lids, I was actually good because you brought
Speaker 2: up the Tentators.
Speaker 1: What was that? Like? A bit different?
Speaker 3: Very and look it was that came at a point
Speaker 3: where I just graduated from college in Boston, which I
Speaker 3: went to Berkeley College of Music over there, lived there
Speaker 3: for four years, loved it, and I was back there
Speaker 3: in Boston and I got a call from a friend
Speaker 3: of mine who works a drummer and he worked previously
Speaker 3: worked in cruise with us as a stage tech, and
Speaker 3: he was like, Oh, there's this group, the Ten Tenners
Speaker 3: that are looking for a drummer. Do you mind if
Speaker 3: I give them your name. I'm like, I'd heard of them,
Speaker 3: but never really kind of like it wasn't on my
Speaker 3: radar because of the world I was in. And I
Speaker 3: was like, yeah, cool, absolutely, I'm always up for challenges,
Speaker 3: and you know, that's much more of a classical pop
Speaker 3: crossover thing and a lot of chart reading, which I
Speaker 3: was doing at the times. I was like, it's going
Speaker 3: to be a good challenge working with an orchestra. And
Speaker 3: then literally like I think it was like five or
Speaker 3: six hours later, I got a like I was on
Speaker 3: Skype with the manager of the group and he just
Speaker 3: like laid out the next year of work. I was like,
Speaker 3: it's pretty much just a year solid, and I was like, cool,
Speaker 3: if you want me to do it, let's do it.
Speaker 3: And I literally it went from getting a message from
Speaker 3: my mate to like twelve hours later having the next
Speaker 3: year of gigs locked in with. Yeah, and that took
Speaker 3: me to that took me to all around Europe. I'd
Speaker 3: done small europe European tours at that point with Dad,
Speaker 3: like you know, two three week runs, but we did
Speaker 3: like a we were out on the road pretty solid
Speaker 3: for three to six months. Yeah, So it was pretty
Speaker 3: It was pretty great, you know, being on tour bus
Speaker 3: getting you know, it was a really intense schedule because
Speaker 3: we had like, you know, five six shows a week
Speaker 3: at least, and big travel days. We bounced between Europe
Speaker 3: and the US as well. But it was great and
Speaker 3: I made great friends on that. It was a great challenge. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it was one. It was a Yeah. I still keep
Speaker 3: in touch with a lot of those guys. Yeah, it
Speaker 3: was a great project. They're still doing great shows, they're
Speaker 3: still doing big tours and you know, the door is
Speaker 3: always open.
Speaker 2: What's the most what's the most memorable thing that you've
Speaker 2: done that's that's always stuck in your mind and you're
Speaker 2: really proud of it.
Speaker 3: Oh that's a hard one because I've I've been pretty
Speaker 3: lucky to do a lot well this year. I mean
Speaker 3: I played a festival in about three hours outside of
Speaker 3: Rio de Janeiro in Rio Disastrous in Brazil with the
Speaker 3: Lucky Dolly group, and you know, that was our first
Speaker 3: show in South America with that group, and we went
Speaker 3: there kind of not knowing what to expect and kind
Speaker 3: of is there even a scene for us there? And
Speaker 3: we ended up playing for like thirty thousand people on
Speaker 3: a main stage and just the fandom there and just
Speaker 3: the people were just so up for it and they
Speaker 3: just you know, we were just getting stopped constantly for
Speaker 3: photos and people just that loved the show. Had never
Speaker 3: heard of us, but they just love music and the
Speaker 3: love group of music. And so that was a big
Speaker 3: highlight because it was kind of like, you know, going
Speaker 3: to a new region that we'd never played in, to
Speaker 3: a place that we've always wanted to play and being
Speaker 3: received like that. You know, So that's just as that's
Speaker 3: just as good as you know, going to play a
Speaker 3: big festival for one hundred thousand people or more.
Speaker 1: What kind of music do you like? What is it?
Speaker 3: What are you into? Everything I look up. My taste
Speaker 3: in music is super diverse because you know, I grew
Speaker 3: up listening to all different stuff, where it'd be hard rock, pop,
Speaker 3: classical music, you know, as a classically trained piano player,
Speaker 3: So it depends on the mood. But I think for
Speaker 3: the most part, anything that's got really good pocket, good groove.
Speaker 3: You know, I love funk music, especially like sixties seventies
Speaker 3: funk and rock, but you know, I like it all.
Speaker 3: There's like, yeah, I wouldn't say one particular style, but
Speaker 3: obviously rockers in the DNA, you know, bands like Deep
Speaker 3: Purple that I grew up with those kind of hard
Speaker 3: rock bands and Springsteen. But yeah, I I listened to
Speaker 3: different playlists every day. Sometimes I'll get in my car
Speaker 3: and you know, there's lots of traffic output on, like
Speaker 3: depending on the mood, output on like rackman of piano
Speaker 3: concertos and like get that kind of you. And then
Speaker 3: sometimes it'll be like, you know, prog prog medal, prog rock.
Speaker 3: It just depends and you know, so my my, yeah, my, yeah,
Speaker 3: my kids probably hear so many different styles of music
Speaker 3: when I'm playing music at home, and which is good.
Speaker 3: You know. My dad played me a big variety of music.
Speaker 3: That's why I have a diverse taste. You know, a
Speaker 3: lot of people would think Jimmy Barnes, being who he is,
Speaker 3: would listen to, you know, hard rock. But you know,
Speaker 3: he introduced me to funk music. He introduced me to soul,
Speaker 3: He introduced me to some classical stuff and like even
Speaker 3: jazz stuff.
Speaker 2: What's funny though, because when I came over to Australia
Speaker 2: in ninety two, I'd never heard of Jimmy Barns. I
Speaker 2: never heard of them because it doesn't get played in
Speaker 2: the UK, you know what I mean. It it's very
Speaker 2: it's not on the radio.
Speaker 3: It's quite like a cult following. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: So when I came over it and you're just hearing it.
Speaker 2: And I came to Wollongong when I first came in here,
Speaker 2: so it was constantly played all the time in Wollongong,
Speaker 2: w kind of music, and then he just it gets clingy.
Speaker 1: It's just like whoa, you know what I mean. And
Speaker 1: then I found out he's got Scottish heritage.
Speaker 2: I'm going, well, how come he's never been played in
Speaker 2: fucking England when I've been there?
Speaker 1: But it was just it does it? Actually?
Speaker 2: It actually caught on with me his music and I've
Speaker 2: never that's twenty the way I've never been in that
Speaker 2: kind of music.
Speaker 1: Then it catches onto you.
Speaker 3: Because where do you come from. I'm from Liverpool, Liverpool,
Speaker 3: and we've played Liverpool and it's it's a very it's
Speaker 3: similar to like those northern towns in the UK, Glasgow, Newcastle, Liverpool. Man,
Speaker 3: they're all kind of like it's that, you know, it's
Speaker 3: that kind of working class thing that dad grew up
Speaker 3: with and that kind of desperation and that comes out
Speaker 3: in his in his in his music and in his voice.
Speaker 3: And you know who he is. And he was so
Speaker 3: young when he came here. He was five years old.
Speaker 3: But you know, he's still got he's still got an accent.
Speaker 3: He's still got quite a strong accent.
Speaker 1: Probably stronger than mine. Tell me about.
Speaker 2: When your dad went into surgery and then a couple
Speaker 2: of months later he went in for immediate surgery again,
Speaker 2: Like how did that go? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1: When you went in for the heart surgery and then
Speaker 1: the surgery.
Speaker 3: So there's been a couple of you know this, this
Speaker 3: is going back years now, so before what happened last year,
Speaker 3: over the last two years. It was two thousand and
Speaker 3: seven when he had his first open heart surgery, and
Speaker 3: I really remember it vividly because I just moved to
Speaker 3: Boston and I was in my first semester at Berkeley
Speaker 3: and I was in class on my computer and I
Speaker 3: knew that Dad was going in for surgery but hadn't
Speaker 3: heard from him. And I opened up my computer in
Speaker 3: class and like a news pop up, I'm saying Aussie
Speaker 3: rock Ledge and dyes of heart failure in Sydney hospital.
Speaker 3: And I just like kind of got chills and I
Speaker 3: couldn't open the article. But I closed my computer and
Speaker 3: left class, and I called my mum, like what happened
Speaker 3: to Dad? And she's like, oh, he's right here. Do
Speaker 3: you want to say a loader. I'm like, I just
Speaker 3: read an article that he died, and I was like,
Speaker 3: who died? And she was like, oh, Billy Thorpe died
Speaker 3: and he had had he'd had a heart attack and
Speaker 3: they passed each other in the in the cardiac Unitow
Speaker 3: in Saint Vincent's and and so it was obviously a
Speaker 3: relief that Dad hadn't passed, but also, you know, I
Speaker 3: was friends with Billy, we'd work together and he was
Speaker 3: a close friend of Dad's and an icon, and so
Speaker 3: he was kind of like bittersweet. But then yeah, he
Speaker 3: had that surgery that kind of you know, did the
Speaker 3: job for years and probably would have still it was
Speaker 3: still working until he got staff infection last year. So
Speaker 3: he had had a hip replacement two years ago. And
Speaker 3: then towards the end of last year, I remember I
Speaker 3: finished up a tour with him, and I had a
Speaker 3: sub coming in for a couple of shows because I
Speaker 3: was going to Europe with the Lucky Dolly group. I
Speaker 3: was in Europe, and I remember talking to my drum
Speaker 3: tech about the shows because he was filling in for
Speaker 3: the for my sub, and he said, oh, yeah, your
Speaker 3: dad was like really sick on these two shows. And
Speaker 3: I was like, oh, he goes. I've never seen him
Speaker 3: look that kind of like white and pale. And he'd
Speaker 3: done he'd done like a regional festival, he had the
Speaker 3: Mushroom fiftieth anniversary gig, and then he was meant to
Speaker 3: get on Rock the Boat, a cruise to do shows
Speaker 3: on there as a headliner, and I spoke to my
Speaker 3: sister and my mum after the Mushroom fiftieth show and
Speaker 3: they were like, oh, he's like really, really sick. And
Speaker 3: I was like, should he even get on this cruise?
Speaker 3: And so then we were all kind of like i'ming
Speaker 3: and a ring and kind of you know, and ultimately
Speaker 3: we said no, he shouldn't get on it because he's
Speaker 3: obviously really sick. And thankfully he didn't because he went
Speaker 3: to hospital and he had pneumonia. He was septic, so
Speaker 3: he had sept to seemia and they were finding traces
Speaker 3: of staff infection. So if he'd gotten on that cruise,
Speaker 3: he would have died. And the problem with that is
Speaker 3: that he's got a really crazy threshold for pain, and
Speaker 3: so when by the time he complains to you, it's
Speaker 3: usually it's something like fucking sept to seemia. Yeah, He's like,
Speaker 3: I've got a little bit of a thing going on,
Speaker 3: and he's fucking dying. So then they got on top
Speaker 3: of the sept to see he got on top of
Speaker 3: the pneumonia, which is great, but then this staff infection kept.
Speaker 3: They were trying to find where it had kind of
Speaker 3: gone to. They initially found it in his spine and
Speaker 3: so had back surgery, and then later found it in
Speaker 3: his heart, so he had to have emergency heart surgery,
Speaker 3: which was while I was flying back from Europe. So
Speaker 3: i'd finished the tour and I was on the plane
Speaker 3: from London to Singapore while he was doing the open
Speaker 3: heart surgery and had no WiFi on the plane, so
Speaker 3: I was just fucking stressed. Got to Singapore, my mum
Speaker 3: called me and said he's okay. I'm like, thank fuck.
Speaker 3: Got back to Australia. I literally dropped my bags and
Speaker 3: went straight to the hospital and saw him and he
Speaker 3: was like trying to walk around the ward and I
Speaker 3: was like, just lie down and rest. Look, we're relentless
Speaker 3: in this family, like we don't like to be still.
Speaker 3: But thankfully it was okay, and then he started working
Speaker 3: again a few months later and all was well. We
Speaker 3: were touring in the middle of the year, and then
Speaker 3: I went to the US with the Locky Dolly group
Speaker 3: in June July and was meant to come back and
Speaker 3: go straight onto tour with him. Rejoined the tour. I'd
Speaker 3: had to sub for a couple of shows, and then
Speaker 3: right towards the end of the US tour with Lockie,
Speaker 3: Dad called me and said, look, they've found some more
Speaker 3: staff infection. We're gonna have to investigate, so we're probably
Speaker 3: gonna have to postpone these shows. Turned out that it
Speaker 3: had gone into the hip that he'd had replaced, so
Speaker 3: they took that hip up and he's now got a
Speaker 3: temporary hip in at the moment while he finishes Cold Chisel. Wow,
Speaker 3: he has to get a new hip early in the
Speaker 3: year ship. Yeah, So it's been a it's been a
Speaker 3: rough couple of years for him, but but fuck, he's
Speaker 3: tough watching him on this Cold Chisel too, because I've
Speaker 3: been because I don't drum with Cold Chisel, Charlie Drayton does.
Speaker 3: So I've been on the road with him as his
Speaker 3: tour manager and kind of his guy, you know, driving him,
Speaker 3: making sure everything's looked after for him, and just watching him,
Speaker 3: you know, go through that process, even in the amount
Speaker 3: of pain he's in, is pretty incredible and inspiring, you know.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's he's man. It's just like I can't
Speaker 3: wait for him to get that new hip because he
Speaker 3: must the pain must be just yeah, because he's complaining
Speaker 3: about the pain, and obviously that means it's pretty fucking severe.
Speaker 1: Must be on some pain killers for that, jeez.
Speaker 3: And I think he's just Panele it's really as well.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I remember after his heart surgery, he just
Speaker 3: like went back, I'll just take Panda. I'm like, I
Speaker 3: didn't even think Pandel did anything.
Speaker 1: Any of regrants.
Speaker 3: I'm not like that, you know, it's and Dad's not
Speaker 3: like that. It's obviously there's things that we probably would
Speaker 3: change if we could. But at the same time, and
Speaker 3: Dad's always told me this is that you know, everything
Speaker 3: you do leads to where you are, and if you're
Speaker 3: happy with where you are and where you're going, then
Speaker 3: why change. So I'm proud of the gigs that I've done,
Speaker 3: the people I've worked with, the relationships I've made. I'm
Speaker 3: proud that, you know, in all the years I've been
Speaker 3: working in this industry, you know, I haven't really burnt
Speaker 3: any bridges. You know, a lot of the bands that
Speaker 3: I've worked with, even though I don't work with them anymore,
Speaker 3: I'm pretty sure for the most part, i'd be welcome
Speaker 3: back if the opportunity arise. Yeah, No, I'm.
Speaker 2: Describe you in two words, onward, relentless.
Speaker 1: And what what's what the future hole for you?
Speaker 3: Then, well, after years of not having one, I've just
Speaker 3: gotten a US visa, So getting more involved working over
Speaker 3: there with bands over there, you know, which is kind
Speaker 3: of what I was trying to do ten fifteen years
Speaker 3: ago when I went to when I'd finished college. You know,
Speaker 3: had I not started working with the ten Tennas, I
Speaker 3: probably would have stayed in the US and moved there.
Speaker 3: So I've kind of always got had this kind of
Speaker 3: itch to scratch in terms of like breaking into the
Speaker 3: market over there with bands, you know, because obviously I've
Speaker 3: built a good reputation here and Europe and and amongst
Speaker 3: musicians in the States as well. Kind of similar to Dad.
Speaker 3: You know, he's obviously he's massive here, but he's got
Speaker 3: these kind of like, yeah, the musicians all know him
Speaker 3: over there. So yeah, I kind of want to break
Speaker 3: into those markets a bit more and tour with bands
Speaker 3: from over there, and you know, that's a thing that
Speaker 3: I've got to kind of find the balance between family
Speaker 3: life and doing that, and but yeah, that would be
Speaker 3: the biggest goal, would be to break into that US
Speaker 3: market a bit more and then you know, I've been
Speaker 3: writing a solo record singing, so I've done I've had
Speaker 3: some projects over the last ten to fifteen years that
Speaker 3: have been like kind of duo things and you know,
Speaker 3: just slowly getting myself out there because I do sing,
Speaker 3: but never really saw myself as a front man. But
Speaker 3: now I've kind of gotten to that point where I'm like,
Speaker 3: I'm ready to step out from behind the kit and
Speaker 3: do something as well. So there's that goal of putting
Speaker 3: out my own record, which I've mostly written. I just
Speaker 3: need to record it, kind of put it out the
Speaker 3: right way, which is a really daunting prospect. And it's
Speaker 3: a very it's an intense family to be a singer in,
Speaker 3: so you know, there's a lot of expectation, and you know,
Speaker 3: I definitely don't have his voice. I've got a very
Speaker 3: different voice. But yes, I've just been writing a lot.
Speaker 3: I want to put out some more of my own
Speaker 3: music and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go from here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all about just you know, keep working with
Speaker 3: the people I've been working with, and as new opportunities arise,
Speaker 3: take them too good. As long as I'm always busy,
Speaker 3: always making music, I'll be happy. That's cool.
Speaker 1: Well, thanks brother, for coming.
Speaker 3: On, Thanks for having me I, thank to be honest.
Speaker 3: Pleasure Bro, Absolutely pleasure.
Speaker 1: Thanks Bro,