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Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob left Sex podcast

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Speaker 1: recorded Love Australian Musical. My guest today is manager Extraordinar

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Speaker 1: John Watson. John, good to have you here, Thanks for

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Speaker 1: having me. So we were working at Sony. How did

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Speaker 1: you decide to leave to manage Silver Chair. Well, they

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Speaker 1: already had a record that was exploding all around the world,

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Speaker 1: so it wasn't really that hard. Now usually it is.

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Speaker 1: I mean you have the security of you know, a

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Speaker 1: weekly paycheck or by weeek paycheck, and so for you

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Speaker 1: it was really no problem. Look, when John Adunlan and

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Speaker 1: I first saw the band, we saw them. You know

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Speaker 1: it's a proverb your gig with six people and four

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Speaker 1: of them are watching a TV a place called Jewels

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Speaker 1: Tavern outside of new Castle, and they did three sets

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Speaker 1: and included most of the folk Stomp album that you

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Speaker 1: know we're gone to sell three minute around the world.

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Speaker 1: And as we were driving home that night, I said

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Speaker 1: to John, I love my job here, but if I

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Speaker 1: was ever going to leave to manage a and this

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Speaker 1: is the one I remember saying it in the car

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Speaker 1: driving my Mitsubishi Magna back down the highway. Well, you know,

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Speaker 1: it's really funny, because that's how the music business is.

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Speaker 1: If you stay with your are, it's a game of

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Speaker 1: musical cheers. If you stay where you are, eventually you

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Speaker 1: tend to be out. It's very true. Yeah, okay, yeah,

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Speaker 1: they can't shoot a moving target. Okay, So how did

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Speaker 1: silver Tare get signed to Sony so Um? Silver Chair

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Speaker 1: had won a demo competition that SPS had had run.

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Speaker 1: In the first instance, it was sort of what we

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Speaker 1: were a little bit slower for those people don't know

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Speaker 1: what is SPS. So Silver Chair had one a demo

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Speaker 1: competition that had been run by a national public broadcaster

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Speaker 1: called SPS, and it was in many ways the blueprint

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Speaker 1: for what Triple J would go on to do with

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Speaker 1: their Unearthed program, finding unsigned artists and giving them profile.

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Speaker 1: So Um, the prize for winning this demo competition was

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Speaker 1: a day's recording at the Triple J studios, and so

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Speaker 1: we had got a tip off that this band had

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Speaker 1: been in on the weekend and they've done this song

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Speaker 1: and everybody at Triple Jay was talking about it are

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Speaker 1: probably going to actually start playing it, which was a

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Speaker 1: very rare thing to plan unsigned band at that time.

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Speaker 1: And so we got the call, you know to to

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Speaker 1: check it out. We loved the song. We called them up,

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Speaker 1: actually we called their mums up because they were fourteen

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Speaker 1: and fifteen at the time, and we John and I

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Speaker 1: was John's second day working at Sony. We started up

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Speaker 1: this Murmur label and he was literally sharing my office,

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Speaker 1: so sitting across from my desk, and we called up

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Speaker 1: the parents and we said, well, great, we'll come up

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Speaker 1: and see them play. And they were playing on playing

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Speaker 1: two shows, one on the Tuesday night, one on the

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Speaker 1: Friday night. The Tuesday night we couldn't go because the

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Speaker 1: head of Sony International was in town, so it was

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Speaker 1: put on a suit and go out to dinner with

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Speaker 1: the boss um. But we said we're coming up on

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Speaker 1: the Friday. Mushroom went up on the Tuesday. That was

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Speaker 1: my next question, was there any competition? So Mushroom went

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Speaker 1: up on the Tuesday and um and then Michael Godnsky

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Speaker 1: got told by the Mushroom people who've been up there

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Speaker 1: about it. He flew up on the Wednesday, and so

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Speaker 1: on the Thursday, John and I call up just to

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Speaker 1: confirm the times for the gig on the Friday, and

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Speaker 1: we're told, look, you shouldn't you probably shouldn't buy the card. Um,

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Speaker 1: you know we're going to be signing with Mushroom Like, well,

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Speaker 1: we're coming anyway. So we went up on the Friday,

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Speaker 1: and then you know, it proceeded to be a sort

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Speaker 1: of an interesting bidding war situation thereafter. So how did

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Speaker 1: you convince them to go with Sony? Well, it's a

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Speaker 1: good question. Peter Carpins in the audience today. He was

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Speaker 1: my boss at at Sony at the time, and so

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Speaker 1: we had started this new independent label, alternative label. It

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Speaker 1: was the early nineties. Everybody had an alternative label to

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Speaker 1: get their Nirvana um and the whole point of that

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Speaker 1: label was that it couldn't get into sort of financial

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Speaker 1: bidding wars. So we had to find a different way

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Speaker 1: to provide an incentive. And there were two options. One

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Speaker 1: was to do a one album deal, so make it

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Speaker 1: so that the parents was a low bar for them

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Speaker 1: to jump. You know, when the kids turnading, they can

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Speaker 1: make up their own mind. Then the other was to

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Speaker 1: do an Australia only sort of deal give them which

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Speaker 1: is very important as you would been talking to other

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Speaker 1: people about lots of Australian artists don't like to sign

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Speaker 1: for the world out of Australia. So I went to

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Speaker 1: Peter and I said, look, we've got these two options.

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Speaker 1: I'm thinking we should probably just sign them for Australia.

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Speaker 1: They're gonna be too young to tour internationally anyway. That's

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Speaker 1: you know, there's already a lot of bands that sound

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Speaker 1: like this in America. Difficult for them to compete over there.

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Speaker 1: And Pete with sort of the longer ranged perspective, when yeah,

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Speaker 1: but there's always little river band meaning an Australian band

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Speaker 1: that sounds so much like an American band that they

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Speaker 1: beat them at their own game. Follows you. I'd go

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Speaker 1: the other way, and in that one statement probably made

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Speaker 1: so many tens of millions of dollars um. So we

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Speaker 1: offered them a one album deal. My few with that

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Speaker 1: was that they would think that we were saying, um,

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Speaker 1: we don't have long term faith in you. Was Our

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Speaker 1: pitch was the exact opposite. Our pitch was always, if

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Speaker 1: they're capable of this at fifteen, imagine what they'll do

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Speaker 1: at twenty five if they're just given the chance. So

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Speaker 1: our pitch was very much, look it's a one album deal.

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Speaker 1: There's options which you guys have that you can exercise.

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Speaker 1: For more albums. Were definitely keen for more albums um

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Speaker 1: and then A Eventually that deal was extended. So we

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Speaker 1: we competed with Geninski, not by sort of throwing money

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Speaker 1: at the band, by by by throwing greater control and

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Speaker 1: a greater long term vision. And I guess the fact

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Speaker 1: that John and I at the time was sort of

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Speaker 1: the younger guys that you could give them, you know,

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Speaker 1: unreleased pearl jam c d s and stuff like that,

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Speaker 1: gave us a little bit of an edge. And as

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Speaker 1: I say, the deal flexibility helps a lot as well. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so did Mushroom really come back and try to get

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Speaker 1: the band or Mushroom Mushroom were definitely could be other

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Speaker 1: labels and then came to the party, and there were

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Speaker 1: people around the band, as there always are, who are

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Speaker 1: sort of leaning them one way, leaving them the other.

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Speaker 1: So but Mushroom with the main competition. Others subsequently came along,

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Speaker 1: but it was always sort of U saw them and

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Speaker 1: then so we signed them in the I think that

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Speaker 1: the Juno July by the August September of ninety four

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Speaker 1: tomorrow had gone to number one in Australia. It stayed

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Speaker 1: there for six weeks April. The following year, Frog Stomp

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Speaker 1: came out here in March April and debut at number one.

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Speaker 1: And that's in That song was the most played song

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Speaker 1: on modern rock radio in America for the year. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so a little bit slower. So you signed the band,

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Speaker 1: you make the deal, what do you do about the recording? Um?

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Speaker 1: So they had the first DP had already been done

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Speaker 1: at Triple J with Yeah. Look, it was their first

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Speaker 1: recording in a studio and Phil mccally did a great

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Speaker 1: job with them. Um. There was a guy called Kevin

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Speaker 1: Shirley who went on to do a Millionaires Journey, a

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Speaker 1: million aero smith and he now does cultures or for

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Speaker 1: us and Jimmy Barnes. He's now based back in Australia,

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Speaker 1: South African originally, but he's been around the world. Um,

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Speaker 1: we thought Kevin was perfect because he had a really

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Speaker 1: no frills, lean kind of rock approach. And the other

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Speaker 1: thing is the fastest engineer producer I've ever seen, Like,

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Speaker 1: you've never seen somebody who can capture a sound for

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Speaker 1: a band like this guy. And they were teenagers. They

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Speaker 1: had teenage attention spans. You know, if you didn't get

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Speaker 1: it in the first twenty minutes to half an hour.

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Speaker 1: You are going to get it. This band needed to

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Speaker 1: make please Please me. You know, they needed to get in,

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Speaker 1: make a record, fast, get out. They had the songs,

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Speaker 1: it just needed to be captured and sound great, and

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Speaker 1: so Kevin, and Kevin was a big kid himself, so

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Speaker 1: they'd get in. You know. We sent him in for

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Speaker 1: a day to sort of do a tryout with keV.

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Speaker 1: They walked out with two completely finished masters in a day,

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Speaker 1: which is pure massacre and a song called leave Me

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Speaker 1: Out that was the B side of it, and and

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Speaker 1: then Kevin did the record in. He did it about

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Speaker 1: nine days, but three of that was chause Daniel blew

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Speaker 1: his voice out from all the singing. He really did

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Speaker 1: it in six and then mixed it thereafter. So it

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Speaker 1: was super fast. And all the songs were written before

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Speaker 1: they went in the studio. Yes, yeah, they had every

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Speaker 1: single pretty much every song and time on that album.

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Speaker 1: There's like two or three that they wrote after we

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Speaker 1: signed them, but none of the singles. All the singles

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Speaker 1: were there the first time we saw. So the album

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Speaker 1: was finished. How long after it finished does it come out?

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Speaker 1: So the album's finished really quickly because tomorrow was already

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Speaker 1: exploding in Australia and we're starting to get buzz around

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Speaker 1: the world. Um, the band was on the big day out,

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Speaker 1: so it was probably only eight to ten weeks between

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Speaker 1: delivery of master and first CD going in the shop.

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Speaker 1: It's always funny because labels have their schedule, but if

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Speaker 1: the change of priorities, they can get things out much

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Speaker 1: very true, very true. I think about that Silver Chair

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Speaker 1: arc now and you know it was all super quick

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Speaker 1: at the time. It was explosive, right, but it still

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Speaker 1: took the better part of twelve months for this song

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Speaker 1: to travel from its first Triple J spins to the

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Speaker 1: band getting played on k Rock. And but once it's

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Speaker 1: played on Triple G at that point, it's breaking in

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Speaker 1: all of Australia, right correctly, it's a national station. At

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Speaker 1: what point do you quit? Sony, I don't leave until

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Speaker 1: like the formally until the June of ninety. I'm I'm

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Speaker 1: in every manager's dream situation. I am a secret agent

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Speaker 1: withinside the record company, um, knowing that I'm probably going

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Speaker 1: to leave in six months or so to manage this band.

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Speaker 1: So you could have a meeting we sort of should

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Speaker 1: we fire this band to Europe to do a few

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Speaker 1: promotional shows. Yes, we very much should um, but it

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Speaker 1: worked out pretty well for everyone. Okay, so they didn't

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Speaker 1: have a manager at the time. Now the mums, Well,

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Speaker 1: we had this situation where each of the band's mother's,

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Speaker 1: the band's agent Owen, authored their lawyer, Brett Oton, John O'Donnell,

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Speaker 1: and myself between us kind of divided the management responsibilities

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Speaker 1: and their accountant. So it was sort of management by

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Speaker 1: committee for a while, with most of the career direction

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Speaker 1: stuff that record company side, the global strategy side stuff

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Speaker 1: coming out of John and I Are the touring stuff

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Speaker 1: coming out of Owen. Brett was kind of looking after

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Speaker 1: the band members interests and the moms were kind of

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Speaker 1: helping with a lot of the sort of the day

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Speaker 1: to day organizing and just making sure that they were

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Speaker 1: kept ask of the theoretical fifteen percent. Did that all

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Speaker 1: out up to well? There was There was no one

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Speaker 1: really getting paid for the management first period. No one

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Speaker 1: was getting paid for it. It was just everybody was

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Speaker 1: doing it. It was a labor of love for everybody. Okay,

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Speaker 1: sure the record explodes in Australia in terms of international

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Speaker 1: they find you or you pitch them so my I

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Speaker 1: had two roles at Sony Australia. I was by then

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Speaker 1: I was a and R and I was international marketing,

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Speaker 1: which sounds strange from an American perspective. It's like think

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Speaker 1: of the assembly line on the first step in the

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Speaker 1: last step. UM Melissa, who's the general manager of my

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Speaker 1: company has been ever since, was the domestic marketing person.

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Speaker 1: So between us we sort of had the assembly um.

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Speaker 1: So we had UM through that international marketing role. I

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Speaker 1: was already had been spending a few years traveling around

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Speaker 1: the world meeting people at Sony. We've had some success

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Speaker 1: with Tina Arena around the same time she had a

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Speaker 1: top ten hit in the UK. UM there were other

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Speaker 1: artists that we had had sort of worked, probably with

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Speaker 1: less success, but it had helped me build some relationships

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Speaker 1: and I've been able to kind of slipstream on the

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Speaker 1: very back of Midnight Oils global career, sort of walk

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Speaker 1: in where you know, they were already a very established band.

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Speaker 1: Was just a kid walking around bumping into things who

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Speaker 1: knew nothing. But it was a great way to meet

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Speaker 1: people and build relationships. So by the time Silver Chair

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Speaker 1: came along, after two or three years of doing that job,

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Speaker 1: I was really well placed to be able to find

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Speaker 1: the right supporters in Sony. So David Massey had just

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Speaker 1: taken on his role um at Epic working for Richard

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Speaker 1: Griffiths at the time, and he was a big early

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Speaker 1: champion for it. And simply in some other territories, it's

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Speaker 1: always the type of record if you pleaded for somebody

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Speaker 1: once they got it. Yeah, and I think the Australian

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Speaker 1: successful well yes and no, I mean Tomorrow obviously sounded

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Speaker 1: a lot like Pearl Jam And you know, there was

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Speaker 1: always that thing of like, oh was it a teenage

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Speaker 1: novelty act, you know, so that most people could see

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Speaker 1: the commercial opportunity in it. That wasn't what we were

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Speaker 1: looking for, though. We were looking for people who could

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Speaker 1: actually sort of see something more than that, who could say,

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Speaker 1: hang on, if they're capable of doing this at fifteen,

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Speaker 1: imagine what they'll do at twenty five if they're given

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Speaker 1: the chance. So those were the kind of believers we

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Speaker 1: were looking for. It wasn't hard to find people who

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Speaker 1: thought they could make a quick buck. It was hard

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Speaker 1: to find people who thought they could make a long buck.

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Speaker 1: And did it end up on Sony labels all over

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Speaker 1: the world or did you make deals with other independence. No,

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Speaker 1: it was a worldwide signing to Sony because of how

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Speaker 1: the deal went down in the first place, So other

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Speaker 1: Sony affiliates released. It was just a matter of convincing them.

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Speaker 1: There's no if the Sony affiliate in some country didn't

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Speaker 1: want it, you couldn't take it independent. Um. Well, look,

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Speaker 1: had they not wanted, I suppose we could have taken independent,

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Speaker 1: but it just was never necessary because of the um,

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Speaker 1: you know, the heat that the song happened. So it's

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Speaker 1: happening in Australia. Where's the first other country it happens, Um, America.

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Speaker 1: And it's a great question, Um, it happens in This

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Speaker 1: is a great example of how breakouts happen in slow motion.

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Speaker 1: Now they happen in such fast motion that it's hard

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Speaker 1: to go back and figure out. You know, did the

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Speaker 1: blog happen one minute before the playlist dad, or did

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Speaker 1: it happen two minutes after the you know? Um, it

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Speaker 1: was more slow motion in those days, so you could

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Speaker 1: actually see it was that then it was that, then

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Speaker 1: it was that. So there were three separate American radio stations,

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Speaker 1: one of which is notionally on the Canadian side of

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Speaker 1: the border. But it plays him to Destroit who all

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Speaker 1: started playing the record. So it's key rock now, I

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Speaker 1: don't know it's it's not the ones you expect. So

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Speaker 1: Brian Phillips at the time was programming x in Atlanta,

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Speaker 1: which was the big alternative station in Atlanta. He had

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Speaker 1: been flow in to Australia on a junket to see

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Speaker 1: the Cruel Sea, an Australian band that probably aren't familiar

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Speaker 1: to your overseas listeners, but of familiar to everybody that's

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Speaker 1: here today. M Brian had come to Australia seeing the

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Speaker 1: Cruel Sea, hadn't been that impressed with them, but it

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Speaker 1: heard tomorrow on the radio. I thought this is fantastic,

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Speaker 1: went back home and played it, added it to his station,

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Speaker 1: as said of his souvenir of being in Australia. Completely

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Speaker 1: different record company. By the way, so PolyGram have paid

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Speaker 1: to flame down. He's picked up the Soniac, gone home

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Speaker 1: and added that. And that was before the record was

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Speaker 1: even out in America. Yeah, way before, way before um.

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Speaker 1: He then decided to call his radio show the Big

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Speaker 1: Day Out as well. So he had had a really

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Speaker 1: good to Australia. Poley gramp brilliant. Um. Meanwhile c I

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Speaker 1: M x n X, which was north of Detroit, as

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Speaker 1: I say, on the Canadian side of the border, but

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Speaker 1: played into the Detroit market. Um, someone there had a

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Speaker 1: There was a person who had a sibling who was

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Speaker 1: backpacking in Australia. I was a brother or a sister.

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Speaker 1: The siblings sent them the CD and they added it,

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Speaker 1: and um, then we had and they were the two

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Speaker 1: that went first. And then there was also air play

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Speaker 1: in Chicago. Um from another coincidence of that sort that

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Speaker 1: I'm just blacking on at the moment, but it was

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Speaker 1: an equal Oh, I know what it was. People had

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Speaker 1: flown to Australia. We we'd flown down on a junk

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Speaker 1: at some people from a trade mag from like in

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Speaker 1: those his album network and Gaps and those sorts of things. Yeah. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So a couple of those people had come to Australia.

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Speaker 1: They had picked up I'd sent some of them the

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Speaker 1: music they'd come down before to see other artists, and

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Speaker 1: so I had given them some music. They had shared

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Speaker 1: it with the end in Seattle and m Q and

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Speaker 1: one in Chicago at the time, and so they started

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Speaker 1: playing it as well. So epic is getting um these

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Speaker 1: calls from radio programmers saying, this is our number one UM,

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Speaker 1: you know phones record, this thing is, why don't you

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Speaker 1: release it? So it's the perfect world and it led

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Speaker 1: to a situation for us that was highly unusual, which

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Speaker 1: was that within epic Um, the promotion department was actually

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Speaker 1: the band's biggest fans. Usually the promotion department, of course,

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Speaker 1: is the hardest one to sell exactly. But you know,

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Speaker 1: Sue Burgan and Ron Serrito and Jackie Saton, Evan Prague,

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Speaker 1: those people were all very instrumental in the band's career

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Speaker 1: across all three records that we put out on Epic

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Speaker 1: and even when sort of other people within the company

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Speaker 1: were may be less interested in them because they were

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Speaker 1: an inherited project, they were foster kids, not firstborn's. Um.

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Speaker 1: They we still had the promotion department out there working,

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Speaker 1: and we had supporters in radio, so we sort of

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Speaker 1: work backwards into a record company. Okay. The perception from

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Speaker 1: my viewpoint across the pond is that it breaks up,

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Speaker 1: breaks out immediately, you know, I get the record, etcetera.

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Speaker 1: But it didn't appear that the Subjequent records were as

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Speaker 1: successful in America. Is that true or just my perspective. Well,

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Speaker 1: it's true, but they were still successful. So the second one,

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Speaker 1: the third one was more successful than the second one

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Speaker 1: because they had a big TRL video top ten TRL

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Speaker 1: video at the time on MTV. UM. They both gold records,

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Speaker 1: well and truly gold records. The first one was double platinum. UM.

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Speaker 1: The other thing that was interesting with it with that

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Speaker 1: band is because k Rock was late to the party.

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Speaker 1: They were one of the latest stations. They never felt

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Speaker 1: the same ownership that they did on many other artists.

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Speaker 1: So Silver Chair had the opposite as well. Very inside baseball,

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Speaker 1: but the Silver Chair had the opposite kind of career

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Speaker 1: in America to most international artists. They were much bigger

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Speaker 1: in the middle than they were on the coasts. Um.

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Speaker 1: So the BIGG in Chicago, Detroit, Atlanta, UM, you know,

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Speaker 1: not as big in New York and l A. They're

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Speaker 1: always proportionately quite weak market, so the industry perception of

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Speaker 1: them was always probably a little weaker than what the

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Speaker 1: reality was. But yes, the second and third records were

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Speaker 1: not as big. The band had had a successful career there.

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Speaker 1: Of course. The difficulty was that being at high school,

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Speaker 1: they just weren't able, and they did go through all

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Speaker 1: of their school and they finished the first two records

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Speaker 1: came out while they were still full time high school students.

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Speaker 1: UM So they weren't able to do anywhere near the

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Speaker 1: same sort of touring they were doing here. So our

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Speaker 1: ability to convince people that this is a really good

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Speaker 1: rock and roll band that you should see live, um

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Speaker 1: was diminished in America compared to what we were able

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Speaker 1: to do in this market, where they had very different

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Speaker 1: standing in Canada because it was a smaller market and

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Speaker 1: we were able to play more. They're probably twice as

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Speaker 1: strong per capita there. So it's very much about our

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Speaker 1: ability to have people see the band play live. Once

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Speaker 1: they saw them play live, they're like, oh, it's not

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Speaker 1: a novelty act that this is a seriously So in

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Speaker 1: a couple of years when they were still in high school,

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Speaker 1: how many deeds would they do in a year? Well,

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Speaker 1: it depend how long school holidays were, um, so they

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Speaker 1: only worked on the schoolhole And I'm being a little

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Speaker 1: bit but like it's largely yeah, I mean, you know,

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Speaker 1: they we were touring probably a fifth to a quarter

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Speaker 1: as much as your average rock and roll band would

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Speaker 1: have been touring, particularly at that moment. Now didn't whose

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Speaker 1: idea was to stay in school, the parents, the kids,

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Speaker 1: probably not the kids. Um, I think it was everybody

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Speaker 1: else's idea other than the kids to some extent. Although

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Speaker 1: having said that, you know, as things got nutty for them,

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Speaker 1: and it did get unbelievably nutty, tabloid photographers camped outside

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Speaker 1: the school taking photos to put on the front page

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Speaker 1: of the Sydney tabloids and all that stuff. Um, having

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Speaker 1: that some sort of anchor within the school environment was

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Speaker 1: pretty good for them, you know. I mean they turned

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Speaker 1: down playing with the Chili Peppers at Wembley in order

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Speaker 1: to go to a mates sixte birthday party in Newcastle.

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Speaker 1: So during this run, would you say they remain relatively

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Speaker 1: well adjusted? Yeah? Um, I think Daniel was always going

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Speaker 1: to um. And you know, if you listen to the

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Speaker 1: lyrics on frog Stomp, which were all written before he

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Speaker 1: was famous, clearly you know he was a guy that

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Speaker 1: felt things deeply and was battling with some issues. Um.

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Speaker 1: Those issues were not helped by the pressures of fame,

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Speaker 1: and despite everybody's intentions, best intentions, the best efforts to

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Speaker 1: try to kind of protect him from from all of that, stuff.

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Speaker 1: There's no doubt all of that. You know, it took

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Speaker 1: a toll as well. Okay, so as they say, we're

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Speaker 1: in America, we're very focused there. How about the rest

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Speaker 1: of the world in terms of the records acceptance, they

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Speaker 1: did well on the continent. The UK never liked, the

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Speaker 1: UK never likes anybody Australia from Australia, and really, well,

402
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Speaker 1: it's a two sorts of Australian artists that that's that's

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Speaker 1: that's not what I meant. There's two sorts of Australian

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Speaker 1: artists that succeed in the UK in my opinion, artists

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Speaker 1: that they can laugh at. Look at those silly bit

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Speaker 1: of Australians that can make kangaroo jokes, you know in

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Speaker 1: their way, Kylie, Rolph harr It was a couple of examples,

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Speaker 1: Kylie minog Rolf Harris, um you know more than novelty

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Speaker 1: pop band Peter Andre, the pop stuff that they can

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Speaker 1: sort of almost giggle about, you know, stuff that has

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Speaker 1: a neighbors connotation the TV show neighbors or artists that

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Speaker 1: they think are way too cool and smart to be

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Speaker 1: Australian and that only the English could appreciate them. So

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Speaker 1: if you go Betweens or the Saints in the early days,

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Speaker 1: wolf Mother and Jet and the Vines stuff. That's you know,

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Speaker 1: the enemy can get but you know Australians couldn't possible

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Speaker 1: because they're you know, all just sport playing, you know, convicts.

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Speaker 1: Um So, if you but if you go back historically

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Speaker 1: and look at them, the sort of the middle of

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Speaker 1: Australian artists, they've typically sort of done very poorly in

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Speaker 1: the UK compared to everywhere else. Meant at work, it

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Speaker 1: was the last territory in the world. Peter could speak

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Speaker 1: to it and he signed them. But you know, the

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Speaker 1: it's one of the last territories in the world to

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Speaker 1: have success. They did have success with them, but it

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Speaker 1: was the last to get there in excess. Same thing.

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Speaker 1: It was only you know, when Michael and Paula got together,

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Speaker 1: it was X that was the record. They're not kick

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Speaker 1: with Midnight Oil. Diesel and Dust sold six and fifty

430
00:21:04,400 --> 00:21:07,480
Speaker 1: thou copies in France and twenty thousand copies in the UK.

431
00:21:07,600 --> 00:21:09,440
Speaker 1: I mean you can swim from one country to the other.

432
00:21:10,160 --> 00:21:13,320
Speaker 1: Um so you know I could go on so for

433
00:21:13,359 --> 00:21:15,840
Speaker 1: Silver Chair, Yeah, the UK, they had a support there

434
00:21:15,840 --> 00:21:18,080
Speaker 1: from Koreng and whatnot, but it was always you know,

435
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:21,359
Speaker 1: koala and kangaroo jokes. Germany and France were much stronger

436
00:21:21,400 --> 00:21:23,960
Speaker 1: for them, and that's often the case for Australian rock bands. Okay,

437
00:21:24,000 --> 00:21:27,840
Speaker 1: So in the US it seems like a period of

438
00:21:27,880 --> 00:21:30,280
Speaker 1: time for silver Ture, But I was talking to people

439
00:21:30,359 --> 00:21:32,960
Speaker 1: last night and they see Silver Ture could do multiple

440
00:21:33,000 --> 00:21:37,960
Speaker 1: arenas in Australia. So bring us up to now in

441
00:21:38,040 --> 00:21:40,720
Speaker 1: terms of the Beyond's career. So that the really sad

442
00:21:40,840 --> 00:21:44,679
Speaker 1: part of Silver Chair's career, um is so they had

443
00:21:44,720 --> 00:21:49,959
Speaker 1: three albums on Sony. The third of those albums, as

444
00:21:50,040 --> 00:21:52,200
Speaker 1: I say, had a big TRL hit on Up brought

445
00:21:52,200 --> 00:21:54,040
Speaker 1: a lot of audience and there's a lot of fans

446
00:21:54,040 --> 00:21:56,280
Speaker 1: you panick of the disco fall, that boy, that sort

447
00:21:56,280 --> 00:21:59,800
Speaker 1: of vintage of bands, the good Charlotte. That third album,

448
00:21:59,800 --> 00:22:01,760
Speaker 1: Near ball Room is considered a classic for for a

449
00:22:01,800 --> 00:22:06,000
Speaker 1: lot of those sorts of musicians. Four years later, um,

450
00:22:06,040 --> 00:22:08,960
Speaker 1: they made an album called Diorama, which most Australians would

451
00:22:08,960 --> 00:22:12,000
Speaker 1: say is their classic album. Atlantic had signed them for

452
00:22:12,080 --> 00:22:15,600
Speaker 1: America for that record. Unfortunately, Daniel got a condition called

453
00:22:15,640 --> 00:22:19,199
Speaker 1: reactive art writers, which is a genetic predisposition where um,

454
00:22:19,320 --> 00:22:23,560
Speaker 1: your hands and feet swelled terribly. It's very painful, completely debilitating.

455
00:22:24,240 --> 00:22:26,000
Speaker 1: It hit him about a month before the album came

456
00:22:26,000 --> 00:22:28,520
Speaker 1: out and didn't a bait until nearly a year after

457
00:22:28,560 --> 00:22:30,639
Speaker 1: the album came out, so they were basically unable to

458
00:22:30,640 --> 00:22:32,760
Speaker 1: tour and promote it. In America. It went on to

459
00:22:32,920 --> 00:22:35,640
Speaker 1: win heaps of Area awards here and you know, it's

460
00:22:35,640 --> 00:22:39,479
Speaker 1: considered a classic Australian album. Um. Van Dyke Parks did

461
00:22:39,480 --> 00:22:42,359
Speaker 1: a lot of work on it. It's a record that

462
00:22:42,960 --> 00:22:45,720
Speaker 1: unfortunately most people overseas, if you weren't already a fan

463
00:22:45,800 --> 00:22:49,199
Speaker 1: of the band, haven't heard, but most Australians would tell

464
00:22:49,200 --> 00:22:50,680
Speaker 1: you it is worth checking out. Very different from what

465
00:22:50,760 --> 00:22:53,760
Speaker 1: you expect, sort of a a strong beach boys kind of

466
00:22:54,040 --> 00:22:57,720
Speaker 1: touching things. Um, they're quite quite original. It's the album

467
00:22:57,760 --> 00:22:59,879
Speaker 1: that you know, I think we were always trying to

468
00:23:00,040 --> 00:23:02,760
Speaker 1: get to know. In their mid twenties, and then in

469
00:23:02,800 --> 00:23:04,600
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven they made an album called Young

470
00:23:04,640 --> 00:23:06,439
Speaker 1: Modern which had a song called straight Lines on it,

471
00:23:06,520 --> 00:23:09,920
Speaker 1: which was next to Tomorrow their biggest hit um here

472
00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:11,480
Speaker 1: and probably around the world. It was a top five

473
00:23:11,520 --> 00:23:14,560
Speaker 1: modern rock radio hitten in America. K Rocks sparted a

474
00:23:14,600 --> 00:23:16,920
Speaker 1: lot actually what was aliable then, so then we put

475
00:23:16,960 --> 00:23:19,480
Speaker 1: out through I LG. So Stu Bergen, who had been

476
00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,520
Speaker 1: our guy at EPIC was then running ILG and so

477
00:23:22,720 --> 00:23:24,439
Speaker 1: he picked it up and did a great job with

478
00:23:24,560 --> 00:23:28,520
Speaker 1: his team. And you know that record did quite you

479
00:23:28,560 --> 00:23:31,359
Speaker 1: know that the song did very well, um, and it

480
00:23:31,440 --> 00:23:34,880
Speaker 1: was again a big success here. So in Australia, yeah,

481
00:23:34,880 --> 00:23:37,480
Speaker 1: they're perceived and sort of they've won more Area Awards

482
00:23:37,560 --> 00:23:39,560
Speaker 1: WI our Grammys. They've won more Area Awards than any

483
00:23:39,600 --> 00:23:43,000
Speaker 1: other artist. Um, you know, they've had five number one records.

484
00:23:43,080 --> 00:23:46,360
Speaker 1: But in America there is any most other territories. Understandably,

485
00:23:46,760 --> 00:23:49,080
Speaker 1: people remember the fifteen year old version. They don't remember

486
00:23:49,080 --> 00:23:52,959
Speaker 1: what happened in all twenties. You're the manager, what about today?

487
00:23:53,000 --> 00:23:56,120
Speaker 1: What do you do well? Unfortunately, the band after two

488
00:23:56,160 --> 00:23:59,000
Speaker 1: thousand and seven has sort of imploded in terms of

489
00:23:59,000 --> 00:24:01,280
Speaker 1: the internal relationship since Daniel has gone through a lot

490
00:24:01,280 --> 00:24:05,600
Speaker 1: of struggles. So, um, you know, we no longer manage

491
00:24:05,680 --> 00:24:07,960
Speaker 1: daniel solo career. We did, you know for for a

492
00:24:07,960 --> 00:24:10,960
Speaker 1: long period of time, um and released a solo album

493
00:24:11,000 --> 00:24:14,560
Speaker 1: from Dan. But you know, um, there probably needs to

494
00:24:14,560 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: be lots of changes, you know, at at a human

495
00:24:17,359 --> 00:24:20,400
Speaker 1: level in order to get the band, you know, back

496
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:22,600
Speaker 1: into a place where they can actually work together. Usually

497
00:24:22,640 --> 00:24:25,400
Speaker 1: they call that money. When pop'll run out of money,

498
00:24:25,480 --> 00:24:29,919
Speaker 1: they'll do a Guns and Roses, Black Crows. You know.

499
00:24:30,680 --> 00:24:33,719
Speaker 1: The one thing that you could never say about, you know,

500
00:24:33,920 --> 00:24:36,560
Speaker 1: Daniel in particular, the band, you know, the band as

501
00:24:36,560 --> 00:24:38,639
Speaker 1: a whole, Danna particular, you could never say he did

502
00:24:38,640 --> 00:24:40,560
Speaker 1: stuff for the money. You know, Please God, I wish

503
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:42,600
Speaker 1: he had done more of it. Um. But you know,

504
00:24:42,640 --> 00:24:46,800
Speaker 1: he was avowedly all about the work and the art

505
00:24:47,080 --> 00:24:50,880
Speaker 1: and doing the things that felt right to him. And

506
00:24:51,160 --> 00:24:53,600
Speaker 1: you know, they're probably the last band on earth that

507
00:24:53,640 --> 00:24:56,959
Speaker 1: would get back together for the money. Okay, So just

508
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,159
Speaker 1: going back through history, how did the end up in

509
00:24:59,280 --> 00:25:05,760
Speaker 1: Atlantic UM? So after three records UM on Sony Australia

510
00:25:05,800 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: that was released by Epic, we wanted to have a

511
00:25:10,080 --> 00:25:13,720
Speaker 1: direct relationship with an American label. Our view was that

512
00:25:14,080 --> 00:25:18,080
Speaker 1: just to go back there because historically it was fifty

513
00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:20,760
Speaker 1: cents on the dollar and other territories. Was it still

514
00:25:20,800 --> 00:25:23,480
Speaker 1: that deal at your time? Yeah? There was. You know.

515
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: So there's a number of problems that come when you're

516
00:25:27,040 --> 00:25:30,880
Speaker 1: signed to a satellite come from UM. The first is financial,

517
00:25:30,920 --> 00:25:33,800
Speaker 1: which is that you know, the a the artist. There's

518
00:25:33,840 --> 00:25:37,440
Speaker 1: there's three picks in the trough instead of two. There's

519
00:25:37,480 --> 00:25:40,960
Speaker 1: the American record company, the Australian record company, and the artist.

520
00:25:41,520 --> 00:25:45,119
Speaker 1: So obviously both everybody, well the artist in the American

521
00:25:45,160 --> 00:25:47,720
Speaker 1: record company both make less money than they would make

522
00:25:48,080 --> 00:25:52,760
Speaker 1: if the artist was directly signed for American label. So, um,

523
00:25:52,880 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: there's a financial reason that you would want to be

524
00:25:55,440 --> 00:26:01,000
Speaker 1: directly signed, but there's also a more sort of intangible

525
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:06,480
Speaker 1: emotional reason which is that obviously, um, you know, everybody

526
00:26:06,520 --> 00:26:09,760
Speaker 1: wants to support the things that they strongly personally identify with.

527
00:26:09,800 --> 00:26:11,720
Speaker 1: They want to know people want to break the act

528
00:26:11,760 --> 00:26:14,760
Speaker 1: they signed. It's a priority, you know, it's an emotional

529
00:26:14,760 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: investment that you know, when when Richard Griffiths saw not

530
00:26:17,960 --> 00:26:19,760
Speaker 1: a single Richard because he was a great supporter, but

531
00:26:19,800 --> 00:26:23,000
Speaker 1: when understandably as a man from England, when Richard Griffiths

532
00:26:23,000 --> 00:26:25,520
Speaker 1: saw Oasis his name going up the charts and he

533
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,479
Speaker 1: and David Massey knew that they had signed Oasis, of

534
00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:31,400
Speaker 1: course they couldn't help but feel very personally proud of that.

535
00:26:31,880 --> 00:26:33,600
Speaker 1: In a way, that wasn't really going to be the

536
00:26:33,600 --> 00:26:35,359
Speaker 1: case with Silver Chair. As much as they were happy

537
00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:37,880
Speaker 1: for us they hadn't been directly, If they hadn't been

538
00:26:37,920 --> 00:26:41,119
Speaker 1: the ones driving to Newcastle and competing with Mushroom for

539
00:26:41,240 --> 00:26:43,080
Speaker 1: and in the studio with the band, it's a different

540
00:26:43,119 --> 00:26:46,399
Speaker 1: type of involvement. You're a foster child rather than you know,

541
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,280
Speaker 1: a firstborn. So what we wanted at the end of

542
00:26:49,280 --> 00:26:51,159
Speaker 1: those three Sony records was we wanted that kind of

543
00:26:51,160 --> 00:26:53,280
Speaker 1: skin in the game. We wanted someone behind a desk

544
00:26:53,320 --> 00:26:57,800
Speaker 1: in New York and all a who's who were likely

545
00:26:57,840 --> 00:27:00,320
Speaker 1: to get a bonus if we had a hit and

546
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:03,080
Speaker 1: likely get fired if we didn't, and was that person.

547
00:27:03,280 --> 00:27:07,879
Speaker 1: So Sony were not willing to allow the band to

548
00:27:07,960 --> 00:27:10,080
Speaker 1: kind of do that because I guess it would invite

549
00:27:10,119 --> 00:27:13,880
Speaker 1: mutey from every other artist signed to overseas territories. So

550
00:27:14,480 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 1: we were forced to look elsewhere. So we signed with

551
00:27:17,760 --> 00:27:20,560
Speaker 1: Craig Calman, Kevin Kevin Williamson and Tom Storms with the

552
00:27:20,560 --> 00:27:22,840
Speaker 1: A and R guys, and Craig Calman sort of was

553
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,000
Speaker 1: driving the deal out of Atlantic once again huted it

554
00:27:25,080 --> 00:27:28,840
Speaker 1: in with Sony because of Sony. We we said at

555
00:27:28,840 --> 00:27:30,400
Speaker 1: the end of three albums with a three album deal

556
00:27:30,960 --> 00:27:33,920
Speaker 1: um with with Murmur of the Australian label as I said,

557
00:27:33,960 --> 00:27:36,280
Speaker 1: it was a short term deal. He said it was

558
00:27:36,359 --> 00:27:38,560
Speaker 1: the uption of the arcs, so that's right. So there

559
00:27:38,640 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: was that was sort of formalized that not long afterwards

560
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:45,159
Speaker 1: into a three album deal. Um so, as it was

561
00:27:45,160 --> 00:27:47,920
Speaker 1: a three album deal, the band had filled it and

562
00:27:48,240 --> 00:27:50,600
Speaker 1: we then swered right, well going forward, we're real happy

563
00:27:50,640 --> 00:27:53,680
Speaker 1: to stay signed to Sony in Australia, um, but we

564
00:27:53,720 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: would like to be signed directly to Epic or in

565
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:59,880
Speaker 1: America and they were not willing to do that deal,

566
00:28:00,400 --> 00:28:03,400
Speaker 1: so which is fine that they're prerogative, and so we

567
00:28:03,440 --> 00:28:07,360
Speaker 1: went and looked for other options. So um Atlantic were

568
00:28:07,359 --> 00:28:11,840
Speaker 1: the keenest to sign the band, um and and so yeah,

569
00:28:11,880 --> 00:28:14,159
Speaker 1: we we signed there for the Diorama album, which, as

570
00:28:14,200 --> 00:28:17,800
Speaker 1: I say, was unfortunately you know what label did it

571
00:28:17,840 --> 00:28:20,440
Speaker 1: come out in Australia. So then we started our own

572
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:23,840
Speaker 1: label in Australia called Eleven. John O'Donnell, who I had

573
00:28:23,840 --> 00:28:26,240
Speaker 1: worked with as I said in signing the band, not

574
00:28:26,320 --> 00:28:29,760
Speaker 1: long afterwards, ended up running am I here. Tony Harlow

575
00:28:29,800 --> 00:28:32,080
Speaker 1: had done the deal to bring the Eleven label to

576
00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:35,040
Speaker 1: em I in Australia, and so Eleven released the band's

577
00:28:35,080 --> 00:28:37,960
Speaker 1: recordings in Australia from that point forward. Okay, so you

578
00:28:38,040 --> 00:28:41,880
Speaker 1: leave Sony, you're managing Silver Chair, you're on the rocket ship.

579
00:28:42,440 --> 00:28:44,760
Speaker 1: At what point do you say, hey, I want to

580
00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:51,160
Speaker 1: get another raft? Um. It's a good question. Um. So

581
00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:54,440
Speaker 1: I think that the period from ninety five through two

582
00:28:54,440 --> 00:28:57,240
Speaker 1: thousand was really sort of my apprenticeship, I suppose in

583
00:28:57,320 --> 00:28:59,640
Speaker 1: being a manager. You know, we'll stop there for a second.

584
00:29:00,120 --> 00:29:05,280
Speaker 1: In retrospect, how ignorant or bad were you? Um? Great

585
00:29:05,360 --> 00:29:08,840
Speaker 1: question to um. I think that I was good on

586
00:29:08,960 --> 00:29:11,000
Speaker 1: the label side of things. I was good on the

587
00:29:11,080 --> 00:29:13,600
Speaker 1: music side of things. I was okay on the personal

588
00:29:13,600 --> 00:29:16,280
Speaker 1: side of things. I was weak on the touring side

589
00:29:16,280 --> 00:29:19,320
Speaker 1: of things. Because my background was I was good on media.

590
00:29:19,400 --> 00:29:23,479
Speaker 1: So my background, um, was that I had done media.

591
00:29:24,040 --> 00:29:27,680
Speaker 1: I'd worked in record stores. I've been in a band, um,

592
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: I had worked at a record company. I've done a

593
00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:32,760
Speaker 1: bit of promotion. So I understood those sides of the

594
00:29:32,760 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 1: business well or you know, reasonably well. Um. But I

595
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 1: hadn't really, I didn't come from being on the road.

596
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:40,600
Speaker 1: I wasn't someone who came out of you know, six

597
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:43,440
Speaker 1: years as a tour manager or being a booking agent.

598
00:29:43,800 --> 00:29:45,920
Speaker 1: So the live side of things was my weakness. Now

599
00:29:45,920 --> 00:29:48,240
Speaker 1: that was probably less of an impediment in a way

600
00:29:48,280 --> 00:29:52,040
Speaker 1: with Silver Chair because they weren't being driven by touring. UM.

601
00:29:52,080 --> 00:29:54,960
Speaker 1: But I was learning the touring business as I went, So,

602
00:29:55,480 --> 00:29:58,400
Speaker 1: you know, in hindsight, there were definitely things that I

603
00:29:58,440 --> 00:30:00,400
Speaker 1: did or didn't do with their tour ring that I

604
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,960
Speaker 1: would do differently now. But I don't know that it

605
00:30:03,160 --> 00:30:06,480
Speaker 1: made that big a difference really, And I think that

606
00:30:07,280 --> 00:30:09,760
Speaker 1: what I would like to think that sort of what

607
00:30:09,800 --> 00:30:11,560
Speaker 1: I brought to it in terms of having that longer

608
00:30:11,680 --> 00:30:13,920
Speaker 1: term vision and so forth for them more than made

609
00:30:13,960 --> 00:30:15,920
Speaker 1: up for sort of the downside. What were the couple

610
00:30:15,920 --> 00:30:20,120
Speaker 1: of lessons you learned? Um? I think I've probably gone

611
00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:23,360
Speaker 1: harder when it was there to be had. Um. You know,

612
00:30:23,440 --> 00:30:27,440
Speaker 1: the band went very quickly into a second album and

613
00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,240
Speaker 1: thinking probably more from a label mentality of like let's

614
00:30:31,240 --> 00:30:34,280
Speaker 1: get another album out, um, where probably what they should

615
00:30:34,280 --> 00:30:37,840
Speaker 1: have done was going to spend a summer touring in

616
00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:41,960
Speaker 1: America make the money while it was there to be made. UM.

617
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:47,000
Speaker 1: I probably also tried to please multiple territories rather than

618
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:50,240
Speaker 1: sort of doubling down in the areas where we were successful. Realistically,

619
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: in hindsight, we because the band was so impeded in

620
00:30:54,880 --> 00:30:57,640
Speaker 1: terms of being able to tour um we were never

621
00:30:57,640 --> 00:31:00,360
Speaker 1: going to break everywhere, So it was a waste of

622
00:31:00,400 --> 00:31:02,720
Speaker 1: time going and doing a gig in Manila, as as

623
00:31:02,760 --> 00:31:05,280
Speaker 1: interesting as that was, you know, it was a waste

624
00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:09,680
Speaker 1: of time investing in UH shows in Austria or even

625
00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:13,160
Speaker 1: getting to Scandinavia. What we should have done was being

626
00:31:13,200 --> 00:31:15,719
Speaker 1: more targeted our touring and doubled down and actually just

627
00:31:16,000 --> 00:31:19,360
Speaker 1: properly served a smaller number of markets, which we did

628
00:31:19,400 --> 00:31:27,480
Speaker 1: do in Canada and it really worked to what did

629
00:31:27,520 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 1: we in retrospect you think you were ripped off of

630
00:31:29,800 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: the touring sphere. I'll probably the usual amount because there's

631
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:36,280
Speaker 1: a lot of where everybody you know, takes years to

632
00:31:36,320 --> 00:31:38,640
Speaker 1: figure out what's going on there. But anyway, you have

633
00:31:38,840 --> 00:31:41,840
Speaker 1: those five or so years with Silver Cheer, the cloud

634
00:31:41,880 --> 00:31:45,600
Speaker 1: starts to lift, and you think the cloud starts with

635
00:31:45,680 --> 00:31:47,520
Speaker 1: the band quitt breaking up like has happened. So at

636
00:31:47,520 --> 00:31:49,479
Speaker 1: the end of the third album, you know, Daniel was

637
00:31:49,680 --> 00:31:51,240
Speaker 1: for a while going out, hadn't enough I want to

638
00:31:51,240 --> 00:31:55,000
Speaker 1: do this anymore. So that's that's sort of an existential threat.

639
00:31:56,240 --> 00:31:58,920
Speaker 1: So we had our label just as I say, three

640
00:31:58,960 --> 00:32:01,000
Speaker 1: Am I. So we started looking to sign other artists.

641
00:32:01,680 --> 00:32:04,239
Speaker 1: Had you signed any ortists previous? Paul Mac? We were

642
00:32:04,280 --> 00:32:06,840
Speaker 1: managing hers sort of an early E d M act

643
00:32:06,840 --> 00:32:09,480
Speaker 1: in Australia, real dance music piety. And when the band

644
00:32:09,560 --> 00:32:12,400
Speaker 1: breaks up, there's someone I wanted. You work at Sony

645
00:32:12,640 --> 00:32:15,720
Speaker 1: five years are you start worrying about the weekly paycheck?

646
00:32:17,080 --> 00:32:20,080
Speaker 1: I was never. I've never really been sort of a

647
00:32:20,160 --> 00:32:23,240
Speaker 1: financially driven person, and I guess I've always been egotistical

648
00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: enough to figure out that. So you feel you would survive,

649
00:32:26,080 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: that it'll be fine later. I had one of those

650
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:32,800
Speaker 1: moments that you're looking for. So in two so when

651
00:32:32,880 --> 00:32:36,000
Speaker 1: Daniel got the react of arthritis. So we've got we

652
00:32:36,080 --> 00:32:38,320
Speaker 1: have at this point signed Mr Higgins, which we can

653
00:32:38,360 --> 00:32:40,960
Speaker 1: come back to, but she's not released anything when she's

654
00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,040
Speaker 1: off backpacking. We've got Paul Mac, who's done well, but

655
00:32:44,080 --> 00:32:47,280
Speaker 1: it's not going to put food on the table um

656
00:32:47,320 --> 00:32:50,840
Speaker 1: in any major way. We've got her. I've just my

657
00:32:50,880 --> 00:32:53,960
Speaker 1: wife and I have had our first child. He doesn't

658
00:32:53,960 --> 00:32:56,240
Speaker 1: start for a second. How did you meet your wife?

659
00:32:56,840 --> 00:32:59,600
Speaker 1: She worked at Sony and in fact, and in fact

660
00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,240
Speaker 1: first silver Jet too of America, which was we went

661
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:05,040
Speaker 1: and did Atlanta, Detroit, and Chicago. We went in. That

662
00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:06,920
Speaker 1: was the other unusual thing we did with them in

663
00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:08,600
Speaker 1: the start, which we went to just the markets where

664
00:33:08,600 --> 00:33:10,560
Speaker 1: they were strong, and we made it people from New

665
00:33:10,640 --> 00:33:12,480
Speaker 1: York and l A fly to those markets where the

666
00:33:12,520 --> 00:33:16,360
Speaker 1: shows were sold out to see them, which really worked. Um.

667
00:33:16,440 --> 00:33:18,320
Speaker 1: She came on that trip because the band didn't have

668
00:33:18,320 --> 00:33:20,560
Speaker 1: a manager, so you know, we were wearing multiple hats.

669
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:22,560
Speaker 1: She was the promotions person of the year for Sony,

670
00:33:22,960 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: so the prize was an overseas trip and she got

671
00:33:25,280 --> 00:33:29,440
Speaker 1: to come along and help wrangle these teenagers. So um,

672
00:33:29,480 --> 00:33:31,400
Speaker 1: you know, at a pancake parlor and Detroit, I thought

673
00:33:31,440 --> 00:33:34,240
Speaker 1: to myself, this could be good. And at what point

674
00:33:34,240 --> 00:33:36,960
Speaker 1: did she leave son She left soon after that. She

675
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:38,680
Speaker 1: then worked in New York for a number of years,

676
00:33:38,680 --> 00:33:42,280
Speaker 1: actually with Wendy Lacester in managing Aero smith and managing

677
00:33:42,320 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: Tena Arena for a while, and then there was a

678
00:33:45,080 --> 00:33:47,560
Speaker 1: long courtship. Yeah, yeah, we had a place together in

679
00:33:47,600 --> 00:33:49,360
Speaker 1: New York. It took a little while to figure out

680
00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:52,840
Speaker 1: the opportunity she was missing, but she got there eventually. Okay,

681
00:33:52,840 --> 00:33:54,960
Speaker 1: so an even you can see the sun setting on

682
00:33:55,120 --> 00:34:00,360
Speaker 1: silvery chair, you have your label. So it's that I'm

683
00:34:00,360 --> 00:34:02,440
Speaker 1: seeing the sun setting. It's the opposite of that. Diorama

684
00:34:02,480 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: has come along. We've spent years doing these new deals

685
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:08,200
Speaker 1: with Atlantic. We're ready to take on the world, and

686
00:34:08,239 --> 00:34:11,600
Speaker 1: then Daniel gets really sick. The record comes out, you know,

687
00:34:11,760 --> 00:34:15,000
Speaker 1: it plummets down the charts in Australia and Jet come

688
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:20,359
Speaker 1: along and Um. There was a management company that I

689
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,960
Speaker 1: had sort of helped out informally who had been managing

690
00:34:23,960 --> 00:34:25,640
Speaker 1: the Vines, who are the hot new thing at the time,

691
00:34:26,400 --> 00:34:28,680
Speaker 1: and it came down to either that management company or

692
00:34:28,719 --> 00:34:31,440
Speaker 1: myself to be the co managers of Jet was the

693
00:34:31,480 --> 00:34:34,279
Speaker 1: other manager. So it's a company called Windhaman Goldstein. So

694
00:34:34,680 --> 00:34:38,719
Speaker 1: three friends of mine, Andy Kelly, Andy Castle and Pete Lusty. Um,

695
00:34:39,280 --> 00:34:41,440
Speaker 1: good guys, and you know, we've sort of talked informally

696
00:34:41,440 --> 00:34:43,080
Speaker 1: around the Vines. I was a fan, you know, but

697
00:34:43,080 --> 00:34:44,520
Speaker 1: I've been sort of a little bit of a mentory

698
00:34:44,680 --> 00:34:47,160
Speaker 1: sort of thing at different times to them and definitely

699
00:34:47,200 --> 00:34:48,920
Speaker 1: felt like, Okay, I've got more runs on the board

700
00:34:49,000 --> 00:34:51,480
Speaker 1: right at that moment. They've gone on to be phenomenally

701
00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,480
Speaker 1: successful with all sorts of artists. Um, but at that

702
00:34:54,560 --> 00:34:57,200
Speaker 1: moment I felt like, you know, well, if I'm competing

703
00:34:57,200 --> 00:35:00,080
Speaker 1: with him, I should probably get this. But the it

704
00:35:00,160 --> 00:35:03,399
Speaker 1: went with the Vines guys because they were the cool ones,

705
00:35:03,600 --> 00:35:06,080
Speaker 1: you know, and we had a newborn baby at home

706
00:35:06,440 --> 00:35:10,200
Speaker 1: two months old. Um, the Silver Chair record was eighty

707
00:35:10,200 --> 00:35:13,640
Speaker 1: in the charts with an anchor American Atlantic wasn't even

708
00:35:13,640 --> 00:35:16,480
Speaker 1: sure they were going to release it. And that was

709
00:35:16,520 --> 00:35:19,520
Speaker 1: the That was the moment where I thought, Okay, I'm

710
00:35:19,520 --> 00:35:21,480
Speaker 1: going to have to go back and you know, call

711
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:23,239
Speaker 1: up Dennis Handle and so, Dennis, would you please give

712
00:35:23,239 --> 00:35:26,120
Speaker 1: me a job, go back to work at Sony because

713
00:35:27,200 --> 00:35:30,719
Speaker 1: now they won lots of arias a few months later,

714
00:35:31,200 --> 00:35:34,480
Speaker 1: Missy exploded. Everything turned around, and you know, but that

715
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:37,440
Speaker 1: six months in two thousand and two was was my

716
00:35:38,360 --> 00:35:40,239
Speaker 1: h There was a very It's amazing. I think the

717
00:35:40,280 --> 00:35:42,319
Speaker 1: ringer must have been broken on my phone. It just

718
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:46,560
Speaker 1: went really quiet. Oh yeah, so how do you sign

719
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:50,200
Speaker 1: Missy Higgins? So Missy not dissimilarly from Silver Chair. Really,

720
00:35:50,200 --> 00:35:52,160
Speaker 1: Triple J had been a fantastic A and R department

721
00:35:52,160 --> 00:35:56,960
Speaker 1: for US. Um Missy one Triple jown Earth And because

722
00:35:57,040 --> 00:35:58,759
Speaker 1: she was still at high school, I tended to get

723
00:35:58,760 --> 00:36:00,879
Speaker 1: the phone calls every time somebody had a kid who

724
00:36:00,880 --> 00:36:02,680
Speaker 1: with that guy. I was that guy, like the lawyer

725
00:36:02,719 --> 00:36:04,440
Speaker 1: would call and hey, we've got another high school band.

726
00:36:04,440 --> 00:36:06,520
Speaker 1: Would you give them some advice on you know, all

727
00:36:06,560 --> 00:36:08,799
Speaker 1: the things not to do. And by this point my

728
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:11,800
Speaker 1: advice was don't be in a hurry, you know, please

729
00:36:11,840 --> 00:36:14,239
Speaker 1: take your time. Given all the struggles that we had

730
00:36:14,280 --> 00:36:16,879
Speaker 1: had with Silver Chair, it was like, just make sure

731
00:36:16,920 --> 00:36:20,799
Speaker 1: you're really wanted it. They wanted the big success. No,

732
00:36:20,960 --> 00:36:23,560
Speaker 1: I don't know that they did, know. I think that

733
00:36:24,560 --> 00:36:26,440
Speaker 1: I think lots of artists think they want success, and

734
00:36:26,480 --> 00:36:29,120
Speaker 1: when they discover what it is, they very quickly decide

735
00:36:29,160 --> 00:36:31,160
Speaker 1: they don't want it, or you know, they get ambivalent

736
00:36:31,200 --> 00:36:34,120
Speaker 1: about it. Truthfully, they just love the noise it made

737
00:36:34,160 --> 00:36:36,960
Speaker 1: when they played in the little space above Ben's garage.

738
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:40,160
Speaker 1: You know that they loved making music and everything else,

739
00:36:40,440 --> 00:36:43,160
Speaker 1: and and so all the success that came to them

740
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:45,239
Speaker 1: was not really what they got into it for. It's

741
00:36:45,280 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: quite unusual, like, you know, success to them was like

742
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:52,560
Speaker 1: a bicycle to a fish, you know. Um so, so, no,

743
00:36:52,640 --> 00:36:55,200
Speaker 1: they didn't want it, and that a lot of you know,

744
00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:57,600
Speaker 1: or at least they are ambivalent about it, and a

745
00:36:58,040 --> 00:37:00,440
Speaker 1: lot of the problems that ensued really in shoot from

746
00:37:00,480 --> 00:37:04,800
Speaker 1: that basic core disconnect and so Missy when when she

747
00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:07,480
Speaker 1: first won Triple Janna okay, but if the fact that

748
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:09,960
Speaker 1: she even enters the contest would tend to indicate that

749
00:37:10,000 --> 00:37:13,160
Speaker 1: she has an interest in having a career. Her sister

750
00:37:13,320 --> 00:37:17,640
Speaker 1: editor um in the contest, um, So she didn't know

751
00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: even what the contest was um at the time. She

752
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 1: was at school. She was at high school. They've done

753
00:37:22,760 --> 00:37:25,480
Speaker 1: a demo. The school had bought in a little mobile

754
00:37:25,520 --> 00:37:27,279
Speaker 1: recording studio and allowed a few of the kids to

755
00:37:27,320 --> 00:37:29,719
Speaker 1: make recordings. So she'd done a demo of this song

756
00:37:29,760 --> 00:37:35,000
Speaker 1: off Believing, and Triple J picked it up and UM, yeah,

757
00:37:35,080 --> 00:37:36,960
Speaker 1: I got a phone call from from the mother and

758
00:37:37,040 --> 00:37:38,479
Speaker 1: I had heard the song on the radio. I really

759
00:37:38,480 --> 00:37:42,000
Speaker 1: liked the song, and they sent me a live when

760
00:37:42,000 --> 00:37:44,240
Speaker 1: when she had one on Earth, they've done a little concert,

761
00:37:44,280 --> 00:37:45,800
Speaker 1: you know, to sort of celebrate. It was like she

762
00:37:45,920 --> 00:37:48,000
Speaker 1: done four or five songs just acoustically on the piano,

763
00:37:48,280 --> 00:37:50,480
Speaker 1: just a live recording, And so she sent out that

764
00:37:50,560 --> 00:37:53,640
Speaker 1: CD and I never forget sitting out the back of

765
00:37:53,719 --> 00:37:55,680
Speaker 1: the Terrorice house we were in Surry Hills at the time,

766
00:37:55,719 --> 00:37:58,160
Speaker 1: putting that CD in the car while I was waiting

767
00:37:58,239 --> 00:37:59,880
Speaker 1: for Melissa to come out and get in the car

768
00:38:00,080 --> 00:38:03,000
Speaker 1: or off to a meeting, and it was forty five

769
00:38:03,040 --> 00:38:04,799
Speaker 1: seconds into the first song and Melbourne to the car.

770
00:38:04,880 --> 00:38:09,880
Speaker 1: I said, if this girl is even halfway sane, we

771
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:12,560
Speaker 1: are so going to do this. Not only was she

772
00:38:12,600 --> 00:38:14,640
Speaker 1: halfway saying, turns out she's about the same as Statust

773
00:38:14,680 --> 00:38:20,200
Speaker 1: have ever met, um you know, and unbelievably blessed association

774
00:38:20,320 --> 00:38:23,960
Speaker 1: for us. So yes, so we then signed her. But

775
00:38:24,000 --> 00:38:26,919
Speaker 1: which does anybody else want her in any competition? Yeah,

776
00:38:27,120 --> 00:38:31,799
Speaker 1: Sony actually, um so that was very competitive, very competitive,

777
00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:36,480
Speaker 1: but our ability to use eleven as a device to

778
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:42,359
Speaker 1: split deals became really fundamental to getting that a little

779
00:38:42,360 --> 00:38:45,480
Speaker 1: bit slower. So what would you offer? So she would

780
00:38:45,520 --> 00:38:48,560
Speaker 1: sign to eleven in Australia, her masters would revert to

781
00:38:48,640 --> 00:38:51,000
Speaker 1: her UM some years down the track, but she would

782
00:38:51,040 --> 00:38:53,960
Speaker 1: own her own masters with us. Our deal would specify

783
00:38:54,000 --> 00:38:56,880
Speaker 1: full creative control, because if we're managing her realistically, she's

784
00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 1: going to have it anyway, and she's going to get

785
00:39:00,360 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 1: control over where those masters are assigned internationally, so she

786
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:06,200
Speaker 1: gets to pick who her overseas label is going to be,

787
00:39:06,320 --> 00:39:10,719
Speaker 1: Unlike what Silver Chair had in those first few records. So, um,

788
00:39:11,320 --> 00:39:14,200
Speaker 1: those are three pretty compelling advantages. And she's going to

789
00:39:14,280 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: make more money because whereas managers, we are not taking

790
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:20,960
Speaker 1: a piece of the recording revenue, so she's saving the

791
00:39:21,000 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: management commission on her recording revenue and royalties and getting

792
00:39:24,520 --> 00:39:27,279
Speaker 1: a higher royalty rate as well. And who distributed leaven

793
00:39:27,440 --> 00:39:32,200
Speaker 1: in Australia. My okay, so you signed her? You see

794
00:39:32,200 --> 00:39:34,319
Speaker 1: you want to go more slowly this time since she's

795
00:39:34,360 --> 00:39:37,279
Speaker 1: in high school. Yes, So when when she's she's one

796
00:39:37,320 --> 00:39:40,240
Speaker 1: unearthed and she's only got a small handful of songs

797
00:39:40,360 --> 00:39:42,320
Speaker 1: and she's not really sure she even wants to do

798
00:39:42,440 --> 00:39:45,480
Speaker 1: this as a career. Um, she loves making music, but

799
00:39:45,560 --> 00:39:48,640
Speaker 1: she's like, I'm not really ready yet. And she and

800
00:39:48,719 --> 00:39:50,600
Speaker 1: her best friend had been planning for years to go

801
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:53,600
Speaker 1: backpacking around Europe and do a gap year after high school.

802
00:39:53,840 --> 00:39:55,759
Speaker 1: We're like, you should totally do that. Don't get on

803
00:39:55,800 --> 00:39:59,200
Speaker 1: the merry, go around until you're ready. Um, even when

804
00:39:59,200 --> 00:40:01,320
Speaker 1: you think you're ready, you're dobably not ready, but certainly

805
00:40:01,400 --> 00:40:03,880
Speaker 1: not ready. If you think you're not ready, um, so

806
00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:09,279
Speaker 1: I said triple j Unusually for media, organizations are the

807
00:40:09,400 --> 00:40:11,600
Speaker 1: kind of organization that will still support you in a

808
00:40:11,640 --> 00:40:14,399
Speaker 1: couple of years time when you come back. Everybody else

809
00:40:14,480 --> 00:40:18,319
Speaker 1: was telling her, telling her getting now while it's hot,

810
00:40:18,360 --> 00:40:20,160
Speaker 1: you know. So we were the hey, sign with us,

811
00:40:20,160 --> 00:40:21,520
Speaker 1: will stick the contract in a drawer for a year,

812
00:40:21,520 --> 00:40:23,320
Speaker 1: We'll see you when you get back from Europe, and

813
00:40:23,800 --> 00:40:28,560
Speaker 1: that's what we did. But then what was funny was that, um,

814
00:40:29,560 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 1: I think it was Rob Scott, who's here today as well,

815
00:40:32,560 --> 00:40:35,719
Speaker 1: sent that same live recording that I had heard, the

816
00:40:35,760 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 1: Triple J live recording to Sat Bisla, who was then

817
00:40:40,320 --> 00:40:44,160
Speaker 1: working at Album Network, and Sat shared it around to

818
00:40:44,239 --> 00:40:47,000
Speaker 1: a few friends in l A, including Chris to Readis,

819
00:40:47,000 --> 00:40:50,600
Speaker 1: who was a caseyr W, and casey W started playing

820
00:40:51,320 --> 00:40:54,200
Speaker 1: off the live version of All for Believing, Chris in

821
00:40:54,280 --> 00:40:58,040
Speaker 1: particular and CASEYRW being one of those stations that lots

822
00:40:58,040 --> 00:40:59,920
Speaker 1: of taste makers listen to. All of a sudden, the

823
00:41:00,000 --> 00:41:05,279
Speaker 1: own started ringing. So mrs backpacking around Europe and it's high.

824
00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:08,439
Speaker 1: It's Warner Music High. Its Craig Kelman again. I know things.

825
00:41:08,600 --> 00:41:10,480
Speaker 1: You know, we've already got this going on with Silver Chair,

826
00:41:10,520 --> 00:41:13,440
Speaker 1: but which interesting talking about this Miss Higgins artist. Hi,

827
00:41:13,560 --> 00:41:16,000
Speaker 1: I'm calling from Mr Davis's office. Would you know so

828
00:41:16,440 --> 00:41:20,480
Speaker 1: Missy literally at one point Um went from a backpackers

829
00:41:20,520 --> 00:41:24,440
Speaker 1: hostel in Amsterdam. Um Clive Davis was then running the

830
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,920
Speaker 1: J label. His his J label, which had this incredible

831
00:41:28,000 --> 00:41:31,479
Speaker 1: office directly opposite the Plaza Hotel looking over Central Park

832
00:41:32,200 --> 00:41:36,440
Speaker 1: with a grand piano in it. Um and Missy got

833
00:41:36,520 --> 00:41:41,200
Speaker 1: flowing business class from the backpackers hostel in Amsterdam to

834
00:41:41,400 --> 00:41:44,960
Speaker 1: New York to play for Mr Davis and we sat

835
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:47,200
Speaker 1: in the room on the grand piano gazing out at

836
00:41:47,239 --> 00:41:49,480
Speaker 1: the at the Plaza Hotel. She then got back in

837
00:41:49,520 --> 00:41:52,040
Speaker 1: the very nice car. We drove down to the Empire

838
00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:54,279
Speaker 1: State Buildings so that you know, she could actually see

839
00:41:54,320 --> 00:41:55,719
Speaker 1: something in New York, went back to the airport, she

840
00:41:55,760 --> 00:41:58,520
Speaker 1: went back to stay in a backpackers hostel in Amsterdam.

841
00:41:59,120 --> 00:42:02,640
Speaker 1: So it was a very surreal sort of process finding

842
00:42:03,239 --> 00:42:06,080
Speaker 1: a label. It did come down to ja Or Warner brothers,

843
00:42:06,480 --> 00:42:09,080
Speaker 1: Andy Elephant and James Dowdle with a sort of the

844
00:42:09,239 --> 00:42:12,440
Speaker 1: then R Point People was Tom Walli's era there and

845
00:42:13,000 --> 00:42:16,640
Speaker 1: we signed to Warners and on a similar developmental basis.

846
00:42:17,160 --> 00:42:19,680
Speaker 1: And so then she spent about a year going through

847
00:42:19,719 --> 00:42:21,840
Speaker 1: the the writing and co writing thing and looking for

848
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:24,560
Speaker 1: producers and made that record in l A. And of

849
00:42:24,640 --> 00:42:26,920
Speaker 1: course the other benefit to having a split deal for

850
00:42:27,040 --> 00:42:32,520
Speaker 1: her was that all of those costs were quarantined in America.

851
00:42:33,280 --> 00:42:36,359
Speaker 1: So from the first record she sells in Australia, she's

852
00:42:36,400 --> 00:42:40,160
Speaker 1: making royalties, and all those costs are quarantined against the

853
00:42:40,239 --> 00:42:42,719
Speaker 1: royalty she's making in America. So it's a very beneficial

854
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:45,040
Speaker 1: range for her, getting all of the A and R

855
00:42:45,120 --> 00:42:50,440
Speaker 1: expertise of the American label and the songwriting help and

856
00:42:50,480 --> 00:42:53,480
Speaker 1: so forth, but without having to sort of recoup it

857
00:42:53,520 --> 00:42:57,879
Speaker 1: out of your Australian success. Okay, what did Close see?

858
00:42:59,000 --> 00:43:05,480
Speaker 1: What did Claride Nevers? He liked it and he was positive.

859
00:43:05,560 --> 00:43:08,360
Speaker 1: But I don't think that the problem miss always had

860
00:43:08,400 --> 00:43:12,680
Speaker 1: in America was that there was no gimmick, Mrs Gimmick,

861
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:15,440
Speaker 1: was that there was no gimmick, and that was a

862
00:43:15,640 --> 00:43:19,520
Speaker 1: very hard thing to convince people in America, partic of

863
00:43:19,600 --> 00:43:21,399
Speaker 1: the time the height of you know, the big pop

864
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:24,840
Speaker 1: music boom. About later when you saw the success of Adele,

865
00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:26,879
Speaker 1: who of course is very different vocally and everything else.

866
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:32,840
Speaker 1: But authenticity can be an amazingly powerful connector to audiences

867
00:43:33,280 --> 00:43:37,440
Speaker 1: you don't necessarily have to have, you know, um, some

868
00:43:37,680 --> 00:43:39,640
Speaker 1: other gimmick, which we won't need to sort of you know,

869
00:43:39,719 --> 00:43:41,600
Speaker 1: explore the other artists. But you don't have to have

870
00:43:41,760 --> 00:43:44,880
Speaker 1: something else if you've got an authentic ability to connect

871
00:43:44,880 --> 00:43:48,920
Speaker 1: to an audience. And that proved to be you know

872
00:43:49,400 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: true in Australia where her albilem end up going nine

873
00:43:52,719 --> 00:43:56,640
Speaker 1: times platinum. Um, but in America they always struggled with,

874
00:43:57,320 --> 00:43:59,960
Speaker 1: you know, what's the gimmick? And so miss I think

875
00:44:00,040 --> 00:44:02,360
Speaker 1: Mr Davis struggled with what's the gimmick because usually he

876
00:44:02,480 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 1: wants also to change the music too, which is something

877
00:44:05,400 --> 00:44:07,759
Speaker 1: acts from me and not be willing to do. So

878
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,279
Speaker 1: if we jump forward to today, you're still involved with

879
00:44:10,320 --> 00:44:13,839
Speaker 1: Missy today. Uh. So she put out Guard a couple

880
00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 1: of years ago. There's great video and song having to

881
00:44:16,520 --> 00:44:20,000
Speaker 1: do with the environment. What do you do with someone

882
00:44:20,080 --> 00:44:23,359
Speaker 1: like Missy today? So Missy has had an incredible career.

883
00:44:24,040 --> 00:44:26,880
Speaker 1: She's actually probably got the perfect career. Um, you know,

884
00:44:26,960 --> 00:44:29,000
Speaker 1: we just put some shows up in Melbourne. She sold

885
00:44:29,200 --> 00:44:32,279
Speaker 1: nine thousand tickets in a week, you know, across three shows. Um.

886
00:44:33,280 --> 00:44:37,120
Speaker 1: She's she toured with Ed Sheeran doing stadiums here last year.

887
00:44:37,520 --> 00:44:41,600
Speaker 1: You know, Um, she can she's got two young children.

888
00:44:41,680 --> 00:44:44,080
Speaker 1: So she's not really that interested in sort of trying

889
00:44:44,160 --> 00:44:46,320
Speaker 1: to have a global career anymore. But you can have

890
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:48,400
Speaker 1: a really great career in Australia. She can get to

891
00:44:48,400 --> 00:44:50,759
Speaker 1: speak out on issues that are important to her. You know,

892
00:44:50,920 --> 00:44:54,279
Speaker 1: she's done a lot of stuff with refugees. Her father

893
00:44:54,360 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 1: is very active in the refugee support groups and as

894
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:02,319
Speaker 1: is she is very in active on environmental causes. UM.

895
00:45:03,040 --> 00:45:06,359
Speaker 1: So really the thing with Missy is that there's something

896
00:45:06,440 --> 00:45:08,640
Speaker 1: about the way that her voice wraps itself around a

897
00:45:08,760 --> 00:45:13,800
Speaker 1: song that um connects deeply with people. It connects in

898
00:45:14,080 --> 00:45:17,120
Speaker 1: a one. I'm a fan and so there was a

899
00:45:17,239 --> 00:45:19,279
Speaker 1: moment in l A I mean in the United States

900
00:45:19,320 --> 00:45:21,439
Speaker 1: and there was no more product and I certainly follow.

901
00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:25,320
Speaker 1: I know she's married, has kids, etcetera, etcetera. But is

902
00:45:26,480 --> 00:45:31,320
Speaker 1: the lack of international exposure because of her domestic life

903
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:34,880
Speaker 1: or is it something that's a choice, well this we

904
00:45:35,000 --> 00:45:37,759
Speaker 1: have this. It's both of those things. But it's something

905
00:45:37,840 --> 00:45:39,560
Speaker 1: more than that, which is that says she had two

906
00:45:39,600 --> 00:45:42,920
Speaker 1: records on Warners UM Sound of White in two thousand

907
00:45:42,960 --> 00:45:44,879
Speaker 1: and five six and On a Clear Night in two

908
00:45:44,920 --> 00:45:48,880
Speaker 1: thousand and seven UM. And then at the end of

909
00:45:48,960 --> 00:45:52,280
Speaker 1: on a clear night, which just when you kindly wrote

910
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:55,200
Speaker 1: your first great thing about her, and I had two

911
00:45:55,640 --> 00:45:57,200
Speaker 1: emails from all around the world, all of whom thought

912
00:45:57,239 --> 00:45:59,480
Speaker 1: they were the only person that read your news. Later. Um,

913
00:46:00,480 --> 00:46:03,239
Speaker 1: and on the back of that, because she'd got to

914
00:46:03,239 --> 00:46:04,759
Speaker 1: the point where she could sell out, you know, sort

915
00:46:04,800 --> 00:46:07,080
Speaker 1: of two three thus capacity venues across America, we had

916
00:46:07,120 --> 00:46:09,400
Speaker 1: a gold single like we were for someone that had

917
00:46:09,440 --> 00:46:11,520
Speaker 1: never really had a radio hit in America. We'd built

918
00:46:11,560 --> 00:46:13,600
Speaker 1: it through sync, we'd built it through a touring, pretty

919
00:46:13,640 --> 00:46:18,480
Speaker 1: much the opposite of the silver chair approach. Um. She

920
00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:20,360
Speaker 1: decided that she no longer wanted to do it. She

921
00:46:20,440 --> 00:46:24,399
Speaker 1: took me out for for breakfast and said, anytime your

922
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:26,719
Speaker 1: Melbourne call up, I'd love to see you. Just please

923
00:46:26,760 --> 00:46:28,520
Speaker 1: don't call me about work anymore. I'm out. I'm going

924
00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:31,759
Speaker 1: to UNI. I'm going to study Indigenous relations. And so

925
00:46:31,920 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 1: she did, and she did that for about eighteen months,

926
00:46:35,000 --> 00:46:38,239
Speaker 1: and then we got a phone call about her doing

927
00:46:38,239 --> 00:46:39,920
Speaker 1: a week of Little of Fair dates. And she'd always

928
00:46:39,960 --> 00:46:42,040
Speaker 1: loved Little Fair was right near the end of her affair.

929
00:46:42,920 --> 00:46:45,120
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, if ever something is going

930
00:46:45,160 --> 00:46:47,720
Speaker 1: to sort of tempt her back, it's this, And plus

931
00:46:48,760 --> 00:46:50,360
Speaker 1: it's a little fair. It would be wrong not to

932
00:46:50,440 --> 00:46:52,240
Speaker 1: tell her about because I know she's a massive, massive

933
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:57,680
Speaker 1: fan of Sarah McLaughlin and the whole. So she went

934
00:46:57,760 --> 00:46:59,879
Speaker 1: over and did it and sort of had that sort

935
00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:02,040
Speaker 1: of great Road to Damascus moment of like what am

936
00:47:02,040 --> 00:47:04,040
Speaker 1: I doing with my life? I love playing piano, these

937
00:47:04,080 --> 00:47:06,920
Speaker 1: people love what I'm doing. Um, And so she decided

938
00:47:06,960 --> 00:47:11,840
Speaker 1: to make another record. But that from that point forwards,

939
00:47:12,400 --> 00:47:14,839
Speaker 1: she was always making music because she loved making music

940
00:47:15,160 --> 00:47:17,239
Speaker 1: for the audience that she had and for anybody else

941
00:47:17,280 --> 00:47:20,759
Speaker 1: that wanted to join in. She wasn't interested in, you know,

942
00:47:21,320 --> 00:47:25,840
Speaker 1: trying to go climb the mountain. She was quite happy

943
00:47:25,920 --> 00:47:27,759
Speaker 1: to just do the show she was doing and have

944
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:29,200
Speaker 1: the career that she was having, and it was a

945
00:47:29,280 --> 00:47:31,120
Speaker 1: great career. You know, she makes a really good living.

946
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:33,760
Speaker 1: She gets to do. She doesn't have to do anything

947
00:47:33,800 --> 00:47:36,480
Speaker 1: that sucks. You know, the people who haven't been around

948
00:47:36,920 --> 00:47:39,920
Speaker 1: artist day to day don't understand how much stuff artists

949
00:47:40,280 --> 00:47:42,719
Speaker 1: asked to do. It really does suck. You know, when

950
00:47:42,719 --> 00:47:44,239
Speaker 1: you've been up till two or three in the morning

951
00:47:44,239 --> 00:47:45,520
Speaker 1: on two and you've gotta get up at five to

952
00:47:45,560 --> 00:47:47,759
Speaker 1: do breakfast radio and you go in and they don't

953
00:47:47,760 --> 00:47:49,440
Speaker 1: know the name of your song, and you know they

954
00:47:49,520 --> 00:47:52,120
Speaker 1: ask you to play pluck a Chicken with them. Um,

955
00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:55,520
Speaker 1: Like it's pretty sole destroying, you know, day after day

956
00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,040
Speaker 1: after day and a thousand other things like it. You

957
00:47:58,080 --> 00:48:00,320
Speaker 1: know you're gonna let your song be used. We really

958
00:48:00,360 --> 00:48:01,759
Speaker 1: want to use it in this ad. It's going to

959
00:48:01,840 --> 00:48:04,080
Speaker 1: be great exposure for it. That's not I wrote that

960
00:48:04,160 --> 00:48:08,359
Speaker 1: about that heartbreak. It wasn't really designed for toothpaste. Um.

961
00:48:09,080 --> 00:48:12,520
Speaker 1: So you know, there's a there's a liberation of freedom

962
00:48:13,040 --> 00:48:15,279
Speaker 1: that comes from going I just choose not to play

963
00:48:15,400 --> 00:48:18,400
Speaker 1: that game. And there's also a power that goes to

964
00:48:18,880 --> 00:48:20,960
Speaker 1: what the audience, how the audience is that at some

965
00:48:21,120 --> 00:48:22,960
Speaker 1: level the audience that might not necessarily know that you're

966
00:48:22,960 --> 00:48:25,880
Speaker 1: doing that, but they can sort of smell it. The believer.

967
00:48:26,080 --> 00:48:27,759
Speaker 1: I mean they always say I think a lot of

968
00:48:27,800 --> 00:48:30,680
Speaker 1: people are percentage partners and they say do this, do this,

969
00:48:30,880 --> 00:48:33,520
Speaker 1: the agent, the manager or whatever. They can always get

970
00:48:33,560 --> 00:48:36,120
Speaker 1: a new client. But the act is the act all

971
00:48:36,200 --> 00:48:38,640
Speaker 1: the time, and the average person is not being asked

972
00:48:38,640 --> 00:48:41,080
Speaker 1: to endure something. And I think credibility is key. But

973
00:48:41,200 --> 00:48:45,520
Speaker 1: staying with Missy, will there possibly be another attempt to

974
00:48:45,840 --> 00:48:49,640
Speaker 1: have further exposure. You think you're just on this path. Look,

975
00:48:49,680 --> 00:48:53,040
Speaker 1: I think it's unlikely. She's far too balanced. You know,

976
00:48:53,160 --> 00:48:57,080
Speaker 1: she's she's a healthy she's mentally healthy, she's emotionally healthy.

977
00:48:57,160 --> 00:48:59,560
Speaker 1: As a person. She doesn't need to hear people call

978
00:48:59,640 --> 00:49:01,680
Speaker 1: her name. And I think that at some level it

979
00:49:01,719 --> 00:49:04,600
Speaker 1: takes a certain amount of dysfunction to want to, you know,

980
00:49:04,840 --> 00:49:07,080
Speaker 1: to go Madison Square Gardens wasn't big enough. I need

981
00:49:07,160 --> 00:49:09,759
Speaker 1: Shay Stadium, you know, like you actually need a certain

982
00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:12,279
Speaker 1: level of dysfunction to drive that. She doesn't agree more

983
00:49:12,360 --> 00:49:13,920
Speaker 1: and she and you know, and the and I mean

984
00:49:14,000 --> 00:49:16,080
Speaker 1: it as the greatest possible compliment when I say she

985
00:49:16,160 --> 00:49:18,919
Speaker 1: doesn't have that dysfunction. Okay, but at this point in time,

986
00:49:19,400 --> 00:49:23,160
Speaker 1: she can live comfortably on her music revenues. Yeah, absolutely, Okay,

987
00:49:23,440 --> 00:49:29,359
Speaker 1: tell us the good years story. Um So Gautier had

988
00:49:29,480 --> 00:49:33,400
Speaker 1: a Gootier as as we call it here, has had

989
00:49:33,440 --> 00:49:36,960
Speaker 1: had success in Australia's an independent artist with his album

990
00:49:37,200 --> 00:49:40,080
Speaker 1: like Drawing Blood Hearts and mess um It's a classic

991
00:49:40,160 --> 00:49:42,520
Speaker 1: song in Australia. Were involved, No, I was not involved

992
00:49:42,560 --> 00:49:49,120
Speaker 1: that requisit? Danny Rodgers managed Wally his real name managed

993
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:51,680
Speaker 1: Wally through that period and Hearts and Mess was a

994
00:49:53,080 --> 00:49:58,120
Speaker 1: very very acclaimed, much loved song in Australia. UM in

995
00:49:58,239 --> 00:50:04,760
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven or thereabouts, UM he had Danny

996
00:50:04,800 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 1: wanted to partner up. He wanted some help on the

997
00:50:07,280 --> 00:50:09,840
Speaker 1: management side, so I co managed, took on while his

998
00:50:09,960 --> 00:50:12,120
Speaker 1: co management with Danny. Danny was going to be based

999
00:50:12,120 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: in the UK, so I'd be based in Australia. I'd

1000
00:50:14,000 --> 00:50:16,240
Speaker 1: sort of America, where I spent most of my time working.

1001
00:50:16,560 --> 00:50:19,640
Speaker 1: Danny was kind of going to largely focus on Europe. UM.

1002
00:50:20,120 --> 00:50:21,880
Speaker 1: I'd kind of do the label stuff, Danny would do

1003
00:50:21,920 --> 00:50:24,400
Speaker 1: the touring stuff. It was a pretty good yin Yang

1004
00:50:24,719 --> 00:50:28,799
Speaker 1: and eleven signed while his next record for Australia, UM

1005
00:50:29,120 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 1: took him forever to make it, quite as long as

1006
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:32,520
Speaker 1: it's taken to make the follow up, but it still

1007
00:50:32,520 --> 00:50:36,800
Speaker 1: took him a long time. UM and he had Somebody

1008
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:39,719
Speaker 1: that I used to know, which we all thought was

1009
00:50:40,600 --> 00:50:43,840
Speaker 1: a good song, potentially a big Triple J hit. We

1010
00:50:43,880 --> 00:50:46,120
Speaker 1: thought it would struggle to get played on mainstream radio

1011
00:50:47,480 --> 00:50:49,680
Speaker 1: because if you listen to it, the arrangement is actually

1012
00:50:49,800 --> 00:50:51,880
Speaker 1: quite unconventional. It takes a long time to get to

1013
00:50:51,920 --> 00:50:54,680
Speaker 1: the chorus. It has a long intro on it UM.

1014
00:50:55,400 --> 00:50:57,439
Speaker 1: Pretty much every A and R person when we played

1015
00:50:57,480 --> 00:50:59,080
Speaker 1: that song from the first time went yeah, it's great,

1016
00:50:59,080 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 1: but I'll need an edit for video. UM. And so

1017
00:51:03,600 --> 00:51:06,800
Speaker 1: we then Melissa worked with a very talented video director

1018
00:51:07,280 --> 00:51:09,279
Speaker 1: and Wally to come up with the idea for the video.

1019
00:51:10,400 --> 00:51:12,320
Speaker 1: UM And this is sort of a good story of

1020
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:15,480
Speaker 1: the kisms stupidity of the music business. So we have

1021
00:51:15,600 --> 00:51:17,520
Speaker 1: the video for something that I used to know, and

1022
00:51:17,960 --> 00:51:20,920
Speaker 1: it's going to be premiered on the Triple J website

1023
00:51:21,120 --> 00:51:23,239
Speaker 1: on a Thursday, because we really want to lock down

1024
00:51:23,239 --> 00:51:24,840
Speaker 1: Triple J because we think this is a big Triple

1025
00:51:24,920 --> 00:51:29,040
Speaker 1: J track A little did we know? Um On the Tuesday,

1026
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,680
Speaker 1: somehow other it's put on a website that's like someone

1027
00:51:32,760 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: sticked the wrong box and the video is visible on

1028
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 1: the back of this website. You have to know to

1029
00:51:37,560 --> 00:51:39,640
Speaker 1: look for it. Someone looks for it within twenty four

1030
00:51:39,680 --> 00:51:41,920
Speaker 1: hours without anyone actually saying it's available. It's had a

1031
00:51:41,960 --> 00:51:45,400
Speaker 1: minion views. It's invisible, this thing, right, And I can

1032
00:51:45,440 --> 00:51:47,239
Speaker 1: remember on the Wednesday, it means that the Triple J

1033
00:51:47,360 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: premiere is now off the table of the video. I

1034
00:51:50,239 --> 00:51:53,360
Speaker 1: remember our marketing person in the office literally sopping because

1035
00:51:53,400 --> 00:51:56,680
Speaker 1: of this mistake has destroyed the project. Right, it's all over.

1036
00:51:57,160 --> 00:52:00,440
Speaker 1: It's never going to have rules, and we've screw it up.

1037
00:52:00,600 --> 00:52:02,800
Speaker 1: You know, the videos leaked. I remember saying to it

1038
00:52:02,880 --> 00:52:04,200
Speaker 1: just to try and make it feel better. Really, I

1039
00:52:04,239 --> 00:52:06,600
Speaker 1: didn't mean it, Um, I just said, you know, well,

1040
00:52:06,760 --> 00:52:08,800
Speaker 1: sometimes these things turn out to be a blessing, you know,

1041
00:52:08,880 --> 00:52:10,360
Speaker 1: sometimes it just sort of takes on a life of

1042
00:52:10,400 --> 00:52:13,600
Speaker 1: its own. Well, of course, you know, hundreds of millions,

1043
00:52:13,600 --> 00:52:16,960
Speaker 1: in fact, over a billion views later, the video continued

1044
00:52:17,040 --> 00:52:18,920
Speaker 1: to sort of carry the song to the world, and

1045
00:52:19,200 --> 00:52:22,880
Speaker 1: and um it was Record of the Year at the

1046
00:52:22,920 --> 00:52:26,480
Speaker 1: Grammys and an extraordinary success. But again, you know, I

1047
00:52:26,560 --> 00:52:29,239
Speaker 1: do seem to specialize in artists who don't want to

1048
00:52:29,280 --> 00:52:34,719
Speaker 1: be successful. Um so whally much like, in fact, more

1049
00:52:34,800 --> 00:52:39,080
Speaker 1: so than anyone else I work with, is um completely

1050
00:52:39,160 --> 00:52:43,040
Speaker 1: was making music for his own self expression. UM, and

1051
00:52:43,920 --> 00:52:46,320
Speaker 1: I really wanted to control every facet of the process

1052
00:52:46,880 --> 00:52:52,440
Speaker 1: and struggled greatly with the inherent compromises in working with

1053
00:52:52,480 --> 00:52:57,480
Speaker 1: a different PA every night, or um, you know, radio

1054
00:52:57,600 --> 00:52:59,560
Speaker 1: stations taking it upon themselves to do a mix of

1055
00:52:59,640 --> 00:53:03,000
Speaker 1: his train, you know, and things like that, which which happens,

1056
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:07,120
Speaker 1: Um that that's that's it's quite poorly with him, but

1057
00:53:07,280 --> 00:53:10,400
Speaker 1: so he he um. He struggled at different points, but

1058
00:53:10,440 --> 00:53:13,839
Speaker 1: we had a phenomenally successful run. My my usually when

1059
00:53:13,840 --> 00:53:15,200
Speaker 1: people ask me about go to Here, and I say,

1060
00:53:15,239 --> 00:53:17,560
Speaker 1: the story is very simple, ten times fifty times bigger

1061
00:53:17,600 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 1: than we thought it would ever be and ten times

1062
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,080
Speaker 1: smaller than it could have been because had he been

1063
00:53:23,520 --> 00:53:27,560
Speaker 1: willing to, for example, include Hearts a Mess on that record,

1064
00:53:28,640 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 1: which we then got into the basil Iman version of

1065
00:53:31,960 --> 00:53:35,040
Speaker 1: Great Gatsby, but it came much later that it was

1066
00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:37,279
Speaker 1: supposed to come, so that was we didn't really have

1067
00:53:37,400 --> 00:53:39,520
Speaker 1: the opportunity. But had we been able to follow up

1068
00:53:39,719 --> 00:53:41,360
Speaker 1: somebody that I used to know with Hearts and Mass,

1069
00:53:41,920 --> 00:53:44,080
Speaker 1: which most Australians would say is at least as good

1070
00:53:44,120 --> 00:53:48,680
Speaker 1: as song Um, it could have people could have discovered

1071
00:53:48,680 --> 00:53:51,040
Speaker 1: the artistry of the guy. Because he's a real genuine artist.

1072
00:53:51,880 --> 00:53:53,680
Speaker 1: He's quite relaxed with the fact that he's sort of

1073
00:53:53,920 --> 00:53:56,280
Speaker 1: perceived as as a one hit wonder, has been beavering

1074
00:53:56,320 --> 00:54:01,240
Speaker 1: away in a really intense way on follow up project

1075
00:54:01,320 --> 00:54:05,160
Speaker 1: that's massive and sprawling and brilliant um in two thousands,

1076
00:54:05,400 --> 00:54:08,080
Speaker 1: So this was all two thousand eleven twelve, the Gurtier thing.

1077
00:54:08,560 --> 00:54:11,200
Speaker 1: By about two people were saying, where's the follow up?

1078
00:54:11,239 --> 00:54:13,319
Speaker 1: And my joke used to be it was a joke.

1079
00:54:13,840 --> 00:54:17,520
Speaker 1: He's making up the album of the year, and I

1080
00:54:17,560 --> 00:54:20,279
Speaker 1: think I might have fallen one year short. I think one.

1081
00:54:20,360 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 1: But he's so yeah, you know, he bet again. He

1082
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,319
Speaker 1: just wasn't made for these times in the in the state,

1083
00:54:26,440 --> 00:54:29,320
Speaker 1: but it was if he hadn't had such a huge success.

1084
00:54:29,400 --> 00:54:31,280
Speaker 1: Do you think the next album would have come sooner?

1085
00:54:32,440 --> 00:54:36,240
Speaker 1: That's a great question, you're probably, I don't know. Yeah, probably,

1086
00:54:36,320 --> 00:54:40,080
Speaker 1: but not for the reason that you would expect, only

1087
00:54:40,160 --> 00:54:43,719
Speaker 1: in that he now has just about unlimited resources to

1088
00:54:43,920 --> 00:54:46,279
Speaker 1: explore his creativity. Well, we've seen this movie a couple

1089
00:54:46,360 --> 00:54:49,239
Speaker 1: of times. We saw the Guns and Roses. RAXL Rose

1090
00:54:49,360 --> 00:54:51,359
Speaker 1: essentially got rid of all the band members, took ten

1091
00:54:51,440 --> 00:54:55,080
Speaker 1: years to make Chinese Democracy, which was perceived as a failure.

1092
00:54:55,880 --> 00:54:58,400
Speaker 1: And then we have the situation of Atlantis War Asset,

1093
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:00,799
Speaker 1: who had made two records in cana but they had

1094
00:55:01,000 --> 00:55:04,680
Speaker 1: with a different sound, you know, the most gigantic debut

1095
00:55:04,920 --> 00:55:09,320
Speaker 1: essentially since something in the seventies, Angie could never equal it.

1096
00:55:10,080 --> 00:55:14,839
Speaker 1: So I was wanting to what degree he's inhibited after

1097
00:55:14,960 --> 00:55:19,640
Speaker 1: this monumental success. Look, there's probably a dose of that,

1098
00:55:19,840 --> 00:55:23,120
Speaker 1: but I don't because he wasn't doing it for the success.

1099
00:55:23,280 --> 00:55:25,640
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't think he feels a need to

1100
00:55:25,719 --> 00:55:27,840
Speaker 1: match the success. I think he feels a need to

1101
00:55:27,920 --> 00:55:31,759
Speaker 1: do a better piece of work. Now it's not as

1102
00:55:31,800 --> 00:55:35,840
Speaker 1: different Michael Jackson needed the same level of success. But

1103
00:55:35,960 --> 00:55:39,080
Speaker 1: certainly as an artist who works, you know, Michael Jackson

1104
00:55:39,080 --> 00:55:42,680
Speaker 1: was all a collaboration anyway with Q etcetera. Something like this,

1105
00:55:43,239 --> 00:55:45,960
Speaker 1: you feel the pressure to artistically, you know, go to

1106
00:55:46,080 --> 00:55:48,560
Speaker 1: that level to artistically excited. I mean, you know that.

1107
00:55:48,719 --> 00:55:52,800
Speaker 1: The probably unfair shorthand for it is to say, you know,

1108
00:55:53,239 --> 00:55:55,480
Speaker 1: Mike Love wants the next record to be Biggert, Brian

1109
00:55:55,520 --> 00:55:58,160
Speaker 1: Wilson wants an ext record to be better. Right, So

1110
00:55:58,440 --> 00:56:00,960
Speaker 1: while he's from the Brian Wilson camp of you know,

1111
00:56:01,280 --> 00:56:03,320
Speaker 1: I want it to be better and if that, if

1112
00:56:03,400 --> 00:56:06,160
Speaker 1: that means that I can spend as he did, do

1113
00:56:06,840 --> 00:56:12,200
Speaker 1: months in a cave in Virginia miking up this amazing

1114
00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:15,000
Speaker 1: naturally occurring organ that plays on Stella tites and Stella

1115
00:56:15,120 --> 00:56:17,799
Speaker 1: mtes just for example, that sounds amazing. The stuff he's

1116
00:56:17,840 --> 00:56:20,719
Speaker 1: done in there Um, then he'll do that because he can.

1117
00:56:21,440 --> 00:56:25,440
Speaker 1: And it's very interesting when you put someone in a

1118
00:56:25,480 --> 00:56:28,359
Speaker 1: position where they can do absolutely anything that they want

1119
00:56:28,400 --> 00:56:31,120
Speaker 1: to do. They can do anything, What do they choose

1120
00:56:31,160 --> 00:56:33,839
Speaker 1: to do? Do they go to the Bahamas, get a coke,

1121
00:56:33,920 --> 00:56:39,400
Speaker 1: habit and you know, fly in supermodels? Do they know

1122
00:56:40,000 --> 00:56:43,879
Speaker 1: swan around New York? You know in limousines? Do they

1123
00:56:44,800 --> 00:56:47,400
Speaker 1: go and try and save the world? Do that? When

1124
00:56:47,440 --> 00:56:49,640
Speaker 1: you can do anything, when you move all the boundaries,

1125
00:56:50,560 --> 00:56:52,680
Speaker 1: who are you in that moment? I think the fact

1126
00:56:52,719 --> 00:56:54,720
Speaker 1: that Wally has chosen to double down on the artistic

1127
00:56:54,800 --> 00:56:56,719
Speaker 1: and creative side of what he's doing says a lot

1128
00:56:56,719 --> 00:56:59,320
Speaker 1: about who he is as a person. I really genuinely

1129
00:56:59,440 --> 00:57:04,719
Speaker 1: don't think that the motivator for him was charts. It

1130
00:57:04,800 --> 00:57:07,440
Speaker 1: was never was, so it never is. But if this

1131
00:57:07,600 --> 00:57:09,680
Speaker 1: record in his mind and to him and to the

1132
00:57:09,760 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 1: handful of peers that he respects, if this next record

1133
00:57:12,440 --> 00:57:14,759
Speaker 1: is on a better record than Making Mirrors and like

1134
00:57:15,280 --> 00:57:18,480
Speaker 1: drawing Blood, then he will feel he has failed. But

1135
00:57:18,600 --> 00:57:21,320
Speaker 1: just to look back, to what degree do you think

1136
00:57:21,920 --> 00:57:26,400
Speaker 1: the record would be successful without that video? Yeah? I

1137
00:57:26,440 --> 00:57:28,959
Speaker 1: have no idea. I mean, it's it's it's like saying

1138
00:57:29,040 --> 00:57:31,520
Speaker 1: you know, how essentially is your left leg to walking right.

1139
00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:35,520
Speaker 1: The video without the song is nothing. The song without

1140
00:57:35,520 --> 00:57:39,000
Speaker 1: the video is less than it would otherwise be. Um So,

1141
00:57:39,360 --> 00:57:41,720
Speaker 1: I think the song the song is still the engine,

1142
00:57:41,840 --> 00:57:46,040
Speaker 1: but you know, the video is definitely part of the train, right. Okay,

1143
00:57:46,040 --> 00:57:48,520
Speaker 1: So how did you get involved with Midnight Oil? So

1144
00:57:48,640 --> 00:57:53,000
Speaker 1: the Oils, I've literally gone with both minight o land

1145
00:57:53,040 --> 00:57:55,560
Speaker 1: cultures or from having their posters on my bedroom wall

1146
00:57:55,560 --> 00:57:57,160
Speaker 1: as a kid to having those same posters on my

1147
00:57:57,280 --> 00:58:00,720
Speaker 1: office wall as their manager and co manager respectfully. Um

1148
00:58:00,960 --> 00:58:05,120
Speaker 1: I did work with the Oils sort of somewhat peripherally

1149
00:58:06,080 --> 00:58:08,120
Speaker 1: during my time at Sony in the in the in

1150
00:58:08,160 --> 00:58:10,880
Speaker 1: the nineties the early nineties. Um So, I knew them

1151
00:58:10,920 --> 00:58:13,600
Speaker 1: a bit from that, and I knew Pete a bit

1152
00:58:13,960 --> 00:58:17,400
Speaker 1: from from politics and from sort of being involved in

1153
00:58:17,480 --> 00:58:20,160
Speaker 1: some issues. In two thousand and five we put on

1154
00:58:20,200 --> 00:58:23,440
Speaker 1: a huge benefit gig at the SCG for the tsunami

1155
00:58:23,440 --> 00:58:26,040
Speaker 1: the Asian tsunami called Wave Aid, which a number of

1156
00:58:26,600 --> 00:58:29,480
Speaker 1: our clients played at and Midnight or reformed for that show.

1157
00:58:30,320 --> 00:58:33,960
Speaker 1: So um and Jim mcgeanie had had worked with a

1158
00:58:34,000 --> 00:58:35,560
Speaker 1: little bit on He'd be contributed to a few of

1159
00:58:35,560 --> 00:58:37,720
Speaker 1: the Silver Chair Records, so I'd sort of had dealings

1160
00:58:38,720 --> 00:58:42,080
Speaker 1: when Pete left politics. You know, we started having breakfasts

1161
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:44,120
Speaker 1: and lunches which seemed to have no agenda, which I

1162
00:58:44,160 --> 00:58:47,160
Speaker 1: figured meant there was an agenda, and one thing led

1163
00:58:47,160 --> 00:58:49,560
Speaker 1: to another, and when the band decided they were going

1164
00:58:49,600 --> 00:58:52,640
Speaker 1: to get back to zero, yeah, well we knew each

1165
00:58:52,680 --> 00:58:56,640
Speaker 1: other already. And Gary, their former manager, had stood down

1166
00:58:56,760 --> 00:59:00,400
Speaker 1: in or fourteen, so he had been to the picture

1167
00:59:00,440 --> 00:59:03,240
Speaker 1: for a few years after having been there pretty much

1168
00:59:03,280 --> 00:59:05,520
Speaker 1: from the start, a couple of years from the early eighties,

1169
00:59:06,000 --> 00:59:08,560
Speaker 1: late seventies, early eighties where he stepped out, but otherwise

1170
00:59:08,600 --> 00:59:10,600
Speaker 1: he had managed been effectively the six member of the

1171
00:59:10,640 --> 00:59:14,360
Speaker 1: band throughout their career. Um. So when they wanted someone

1172
00:59:14,400 --> 00:59:16,840
Speaker 1: to put together, you know, this kind of reunion to

1173
00:59:17,000 --> 00:59:19,320
Speaker 1: a thing, um, they came to me, and you know,

1174
00:59:19,400 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 1: I'm kind of made a pitch for what I thought

1175
00:59:21,200 --> 00:59:24,480
Speaker 1: they should be doing, and you know, many lengthy band

1176
00:59:24,560 --> 00:59:33,560
Speaker 1: meetings and shoot. So is there anybody else we've missed

1177
00:59:33,600 --> 00:59:36,840
Speaker 1: in this story? Well, from an international standpoint, the other

1178
00:59:36,880 --> 00:59:39,680
Speaker 1: success we had was wolf Mother on their first album.

1179
00:59:40,040 --> 00:59:41,919
Speaker 1: I only looked after them on their first album. Okay,

1180
00:59:41,920 --> 00:59:44,360
Speaker 1: well that was the only album that meant anything in America.

1181
00:59:44,880 --> 00:59:48,480
Speaker 1: So why did you start working with them? Usually they

1182
00:59:48,600 --> 00:59:52,520
Speaker 1: fire you, but you know, no, I stepped down. Um.

1183
00:59:53,680 --> 00:59:56,040
Speaker 1: The band, I think is all three of those guys

1184
00:59:56,120 --> 00:59:59,120
Speaker 1: would admit, was a very dysfunctional band. Like all bands

1185
00:59:59,120 --> 01:00:03,960
Speaker 1: are dysfunctional, but they were a very dysfunctional band. And

1186
01:00:04,680 --> 01:00:09,520
Speaker 1: um that made it a very stressful process. Individually they

1187
01:00:09,560 --> 01:00:15,000
Speaker 1: are reached fine, but collectively it was just really really difficult. Um.

1188
01:00:15,920 --> 01:00:19,120
Speaker 1: So at the end of that album, the drummer and

1189
01:00:19,200 --> 01:00:23,720
Speaker 1: bass player, based players, keyboardist left the band, So Andrew

1190
01:00:23,800 --> 01:00:27,280
Speaker 1: was sort of left without those two guys, and we

1191
01:00:27,400 --> 01:00:29,800
Speaker 1: had just had our third child and I was like,

1192
01:00:30,080 --> 01:00:33,160
Speaker 1: I can't saddle up for more of this. So um,

1193
01:00:33,600 --> 01:00:37,320
Speaker 1: there we stood down from from the process we had organized.

1194
01:00:37,320 --> 01:00:38,760
Speaker 1: We had a great team around that band. They had

1195
01:00:38,800 --> 01:00:42,080
Speaker 1: really good and our people and agents that deals were

1196
01:00:42,120 --> 01:00:44,760
Speaker 1: well set up. Um, they had a great base in America.

1197
01:00:44,840 --> 01:00:47,480
Speaker 1: You know, I was just saying to someone yesterday. You know,

1198
01:00:48,240 --> 01:00:50,760
Speaker 1: with lots of international artists they do that too, which

1199
01:00:50,840 --> 01:00:55,040
Speaker 1: is Vancouver, down to San Diego, fly to Denver, fly

1200
01:00:55,160 --> 01:00:57,920
Speaker 1: to Chicago, and then sort of zip up around Toronto

1201
01:00:58,000 --> 01:00:59,480
Speaker 1: and come back down the East coast and they think

1202
01:00:59,520 --> 01:01:01,640
Speaker 1: they've toured America. They haven't. You know, that's the Blue

1203
01:01:01,680 --> 01:01:05,680
Speaker 1: States Tour of America. UM, wolf Father actually broke America

1204
01:01:05,680 --> 01:01:08,200
Speaker 1: because they they in the Blue States, they were sort

1205
01:01:08,200 --> 01:01:11,840
Speaker 1: of viewed as kind of ironic postmodern neo rock thing,

1206
01:01:12,200 --> 01:01:14,720
Speaker 1: whereas in the Red States it was like fantastic, We're

1207
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:16,920
Speaker 1: still listening to Zeppelin and Sabbath, you know, So they

1208
01:01:17,000 --> 01:01:19,640
Speaker 1: got taken both ways. Um. But by the end of

1209
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:22,640
Speaker 1: that tour, we we did Bonnaru and then had to

1210
01:01:22,680 --> 01:01:27,680
Speaker 1: do Milwaukee Summerfests. So you know, Tennessee up to Wisconsin,

1211
01:01:27,800 --> 01:01:29,919
Speaker 1: straight up the middle of America, and there's a week

1212
01:01:29,960 --> 01:01:32,080
Speaker 1: in between. So that's literally dartboard touring, right. You just

1213
01:01:32,120 --> 01:01:34,080
Speaker 1: got to fill the nights, which is why we ended

1214
01:01:34,120 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: up in Tulsa, Oklahoma on a Tuesday, and they did

1215
01:01:37,400 --> 01:01:39,840
Speaker 1: two thousand people in Tulsa on a Tuesday. And you know,

1216
01:01:39,960 --> 01:01:42,200
Speaker 1: when you do two thousand people in Tulsa on a Tuesday,

1217
01:01:42,200 --> 01:01:46,160
Speaker 1: you've broken America absolutely. So anything you're working on now

1218
01:01:46,320 --> 01:01:50,040
Speaker 1: that you think we'll have international success, now, I've made

1219
01:01:50,040 --> 01:01:54,400
Speaker 1: a really deliberate decision after good here to pull back

1220
01:01:54,480 --> 01:01:57,320
Speaker 1: from working internationally. UM. It had been my passion for

1221
01:01:57,400 --> 01:02:00,800
Speaker 1: over twenty years, and I do really miss being engaged

1222
01:02:00,840 --> 01:02:02,640
Speaker 1: in the American business. Like a lot of friends there,

1223
01:02:03,160 --> 01:02:07,800
Speaker 1: there's definitely a sense that you know, um, that's the

1224
01:02:07,880 --> 01:02:10,680
Speaker 1: main game, and so it's more engaging, it's more challenging,

1225
01:02:10,720 --> 01:02:15,080
Speaker 1: it's more stimulating. Um. But with three young kids, my

1226
01:02:15,120 --> 01:02:17,040
Speaker 1: wife went back after having worked a regular company, she

1227
01:02:17,120 --> 01:02:19,560
Speaker 1: went back and studied medicine. So she graduated as a

1228
01:02:19,640 --> 01:02:22,240
Speaker 1: doctor two years ago and is now out working in hospitals.

1229
01:02:22,560 --> 01:02:24,440
Speaker 1: So I made a really deliberate decision to sort of

1230
01:02:25,040 --> 01:02:28,440
Speaker 1: work just in this market and only have very sporadic

1231
01:02:28,560 --> 01:02:30,880
Speaker 1: kind of you know it or did to our overseas

1232
01:02:30,920 --> 01:02:32,800
Speaker 1: and that was great, but it wasn't like they're trying

1233
01:02:32,800 --> 01:02:35,040
Speaker 1: to break overseas markets. Was more about going over and

1234
01:02:35,120 --> 01:02:37,880
Speaker 1: reconnecting with an audience that was fun to do. UM.

1235
01:02:38,680 --> 01:02:43,160
Speaker 1: So we've sort of quite deliberately engineered a business and

1236
01:02:43,200 --> 01:02:45,280
Speaker 1: a career that works in this market. So in addition

1237
01:02:45,320 --> 01:02:47,920
Speaker 1: to the artists, we discussed cultures and Jimmy Barnes have

1238
01:02:48,000 --> 01:02:50,680
Speaker 1: been a big, big part of the last you know,

1239
01:02:50,840 --> 01:02:53,400
Speaker 1: sort of decade for me. Not a band that that

1240
01:02:53,520 --> 01:02:56,520
Speaker 1: sort of would be familiar to most of your overseas listeners,

1241
01:02:56,600 --> 01:03:00,320
Speaker 1: but their household names in Australia like quite literally um

1242
01:03:01,000 --> 01:03:06,840
Speaker 1: and so that's been phenomenal on every level for me. Um.

1243
01:03:07,160 --> 01:03:09,120
Speaker 1: We look after a band called Birds of Tokyo who

1244
01:03:09,160 --> 01:03:12,120
Speaker 1: had a minor sort of success in America not long

1245
01:03:12,160 --> 01:03:14,640
Speaker 1: after go It' Here with a song called Lanterns. But

1246
01:03:14,760 --> 01:03:16,920
Speaker 1: again that the singer from that band is in two bands,

1247
01:03:17,320 --> 01:03:20,720
Speaker 1: so that impedes their ability to tour and they're a

1248
01:03:20,760 --> 01:03:22,920
Speaker 1: bit older now. They're very successful in Australia, but they

1249
01:03:22,920 --> 01:03:26,680
Speaker 1: don't really have international aspirations. And we also managed the Precess,

1250
01:03:26,760 --> 01:03:29,160
Speaker 1: but we've got an American co management for them, so

1251
01:03:29,280 --> 01:03:33,520
Speaker 1: we've quite deliberately scaled back. Um. You know what we're

1252
01:03:33,560 --> 01:03:36,240
Speaker 1: seeking to do, and it's my version. You know the

1253
01:03:36,320 --> 01:03:37,920
Speaker 1: reason I agreed to do this by other than being

1254
01:03:38,840 --> 01:03:41,240
Speaker 1: grateful for the support you've given Missy many times over

1255
01:03:41,280 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 1: the years and aware of your reach. It don't like

1256
01:03:43,280 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 1: doing sort of personal promo stuff. I'm a big fan

1257
01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:48,440
Speaker 1: that behind the scenes people beg believer that behind the

1258
01:03:48,480 --> 01:03:51,600
Speaker 1: scenes people should stay behind the scenes. But I loved

1259
01:03:51,640 --> 01:03:55,960
Speaker 1: your Jim Gurno podcast and if anybody hasn't listened to it,

1260
01:03:56,120 --> 01:03:58,640
Speaker 1: they should press stop now and go and listen to

1261
01:03:58,720 --> 01:04:03,320
Speaker 1: that instead. Um. It's phenomenal. And you know, a lot

1262
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:05,880
Speaker 1: of the things he grappled with in terms of you know,

1263
01:04:06,120 --> 01:04:10,560
Speaker 1: work life balance and um, you know, keeping meaning your

1264
01:04:10,600 --> 01:04:12,280
Speaker 1: life as you get into your fifties and everything else,

1265
01:04:12,320 --> 01:04:15,840
Speaker 1: I've grappled with two And because of that podcast, I've

1266
01:04:15,880 --> 01:04:18,760
Speaker 1: made a real dent on me. And so when you

1267
01:04:18,960 --> 01:04:20,680
Speaker 1: asked me to do this, I'm like, well, given how

1268
01:04:20,760 --> 01:04:23,200
Speaker 1: much I've got from that, they can't say no. Um

1269
01:04:23,480 --> 01:04:25,560
Speaker 1: but I think that. So what I've chosen to do

1270
01:04:25,920 --> 01:04:28,000
Speaker 1: with my career is draw a different kind of boundary.

1271
01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:32,240
Speaker 1: Jim went back. For those who spoiler alert, Jim basically

1272
01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:35,080
Speaker 1: have to having managed nine inch nails and no doubt

1273
01:04:35,200 --> 01:04:38,240
Speaker 1: and back and the offspring. He now teaches maths in

1274
01:04:38,280 --> 01:04:42,960
Speaker 1: San Diego. Um and you know, I'm not planning to

1275
01:04:43,040 --> 01:04:47,480
Speaker 1: teach maths anywhere, which is good for everybody. Um but um,

1276
01:04:47,920 --> 01:04:51,040
Speaker 1: but I have made a real decision and conscious choice

1277
01:04:51,480 --> 01:04:53,960
Speaker 1: to try to find a way to work to live

1278
01:04:54,080 --> 01:04:58,240
Speaker 1: rather than live to work, and narrowing your boundaries to

1279
01:04:58,280 --> 01:05:01,800
Speaker 1: working in Australia only has been my way of doing that. Um.

1280
01:05:02,520 --> 01:05:05,120
Speaker 1: And you know it's I missed the challenge. I missed

1281
01:05:05,120 --> 01:05:08,240
Speaker 1: the engagement, and I think that the times right now

1282
01:05:08,360 --> 01:05:10,760
Speaker 1: would have been much better for me. Um. You know,

1283
01:05:10,840 --> 01:05:14,720
Speaker 1: we've talked today about a number of different Australian success

1284
01:05:14,760 --> 01:05:19,959
Speaker 1: stories from two thousand and twelve, from Gortier through missrs

1285
01:05:20,000 --> 01:05:23,439
Speaker 1: Higgins and wolf Mother, sorry, from Silver Chair through missr

1286
01:05:23,520 --> 01:05:26,600
Speaker 1: Higgins and wolf Mother onto gort here, and the velocity

1287
01:05:27,080 --> 01:05:29,160
Speaker 1: at which those if you look at all of those,

1288
01:05:29,200 --> 01:05:31,840
Speaker 1: the velocity of which the Australian story translated internationally was

1289
01:05:31,840 --> 01:05:34,960
Speaker 1: getting quicker and quicker across that time. Now it's quicker

1290
01:05:35,000 --> 01:05:37,040
Speaker 1: than it's ever been so tones and I can go

1291
01:05:37,240 --> 01:05:40,720
Speaker 1: from you know, unknown here and unknown there to know

1292
01:05:40,840 --> 01:05:42,960
Speaker 1: and everywhere in the space of weeks. You know, what

1293
01:05:43,040 --> 01:05:45,120
Speaker 1: took Silver Chair a year now takes a week or two.

1294
01:05:45,520 --> 01:05:49,720
Speaker 1: And you know, there's still those incense successes like Lord whatever.

1295
01:05:50,080 --> 01:05:53,400
Speaker 1: But generally speaking, even though you can reach the world

1296
01:05:53,920 --> 01:05:57,640
Speaker 1: in an instant, everything including stuff that's domestic in the

1297
01:05:57,800 --> 01:06:02,200
Speaker 1: United States, takes longer break. I think it takes longer

1298
01:06:02,280 --> 01:06:05,160
Speaker 1: to break big right, Like she takes longer to get

1299
01:06:05,240 --> 01:06:07,600
Speaker 1: to home base, But you get to first and second

1300
01:06:07,640 --> 01:06:11,520
Speaker 1: base so much faster than you used to. Um, you know,

1301
01:06:11,600 --> 01:06:13,360
Speaker 1: it's interesting is Your Big Lord as a case in point,

1302
01:06:13,400 --> 01:06:15,680
Speaker 1: because you know, there's so much development time behind that, right,

1303
01:06:15,880 --> 01:06:17,640
Speaker 1: the years that went into it to get her to

1304
01:06:17,680 --> 01:06:19,840
Speaker 1: the point where she could be an overnight success. But

1305
01:06:20,320 --> 01:06:23,960
Speaker 1: the difference is this right from Perhaps this is sort

1306
01:06:23,960 --> 01:06:30,080
Speaker 1: of irrelevant to most American listeners, but um, it used

1307
01:06:30,080 --> 01:06:32,680
Speaker 1: to be that there are a great many records released

1308
01:06:32,920 --> 01:06:34,720
Speaker 1: around the rest of the world that never got hurt

1309
01:06:34,720 --> 01:06:39,080
Speaker 1: in America because there was some overweight, middle aged white

1310
01:06:39,120 --> 01:06:40,840
Speaker 1: guy behind a desk in l A and New York

1311
01:06:41,160 --> 01:06:44,439
Speaker 1: who just said, nah, you know, I own the rights

1312
01:06:44,560 --> 01:06:48,480
Speaker 1: and I choose to say no. Um. And we all

1313
01:06:48,800 --> 01:06:50,920
Speaker 1: know as Australian music fans, we can go through and say,

1314
01:06:50,960 --> 01:06:53,160
Speaker 1: I just cannot believe that they know in excess and

1315
01:06:53,240 --> 01:06:55,560
Speaker 1: they know not all, but they don't know Cold Chisel,

1316
01:06:56,080 --> 01:06:58,680
Speaker 1: you know, um, well that they know beds are burning,

1317
01:06:58,760 --> 01:07:01,240
Speaker 1: but they don't know the tent to one album by

1318
01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:05,080
Speaker 1: the Oils, you know. Um. And this was largely because

1319
01:07:05,080 --> 01:07:07,960
Speaker 1: the gatekeepers, right, and the business has changed, as you know,

1320
01:07:08,040 --> 01:07:11,400
Speaker 1: and you talk about a lot um, it's changed so

1321
01:07:11,560 --> 01:07:16,560
Speaker 1: phenomenally now that gatekeepers are largely following audience rather than

1322
01:07:16,600 --> 01:07:20,560
Speaker 1: dictating towardsience. And so the fact that the audience is

1323
01:07:20,600 --> 01:07:22,520
Speaker 1: now more in the artist and the audience now have

1324
01:07:22,600 --> 01:07:24,400
Speaker 1: more power than they ever had before is a great

1325
01:07:24,440 --> 01:07:27,280
Speaker 1: thing for when you're an international artist, because it means

1326
01:07:27,400 --> 01:07:30,400
Speaker 1: that you can show you don't have to rely on

1327
01:07:30,560 --> 01:07:32,880
Speaker 1: Brian Phillips happening to be in Australia on a junket

1328
01:07:33,200 --> 01:07:35,360
Speaker 1: to get your song exposed in Atlanta. You know you're

1329
01:07:35,400 --> 01:07:37,720
Speaker 1: gonna put it on SoundCloud and within sixty two someone

1330
01:07:37,760 --> 01:07:40,919
Speaker 1: in Atlanta can be listening to it. Um. And that's

1331
01:07:41,080 --> 01:07:43,760
Speaker 1: that's a radically different and a really wonderful world. It

1332
01:07:43,840 --> 01:07:46,480
Speaker 1: predingts its own challenges, of course, brings its own challenges

1333
01:07:46,560 --> 01:07:48,960
Speaker 1: of you know, if you can be discovered overnight, then

1334
01:07:49,040 --> 01:07:51,520
Speaker 1: how do you actually take time to get ready? Um?

1335
01:07:51,960 --> 01:07:54,360
Speaker 1: If you're going to attract attention, how do you sustain

1336
01:07:54,480 --> 01:07:56,360
Speaker 1: that attention once you've got it in the first instance,

1337
01:07:56,400 --> 01:08:00,640
Speaker 1: when there's so much competition for evil is ears and eyeballs, um,

1338
01:08:01,520 --> 01:08:04,680
Speaker 1: And you know, are the humans behind it ready for

1339
01:08:04,760 --> 01:08:06,680
Speaker 1: the success when it comes to them? Mother do they?

1340
01:08:06,800 --> 01:08:09,400
Speaker 1: And how much capacity do they have for all the

1341
01:08:09,520 --> 01:08:12,280
Speaker 1: extra work they now have to do to sustain these

1342
01:08:12,280 --> 01:08:16,439
Speaker 1: audience connections? Not just writing songs and making records, but

1343
01:08:16,840 --> 01:08:19,479
Speaker 1: taking great photos for Instagram and being pithy on Twitter,

1344
01:08:19,600 --> 01:08:21,640
Speaker 1: and you know, making great videos on YouTube and all

1345
01:08:21,680 --> 01:08:24,200
Speaker 1: the other stuff. It's it's a great time if you're

1346
01:08:24,200 --> 01:08:27,920
Speaker 1: an artist and a manager who wants to be engaged

1347
01:08:28,040 --> 01:08:29,680
Speaker 1: in a challenging time. If you're not, you know, the

1348
01:08:29,720 --> 01:08:32,360
Speaker 1: good news is you can do more than you um

1349
01:08:33,040 --> 01:08:34,920
Speaker 1: could ever do in the past for your own career.

1350
01:08:35,280 --> 01:08:36,840
Speaker 1: The bad news is you've got to do more than

1351
01:08:36,880 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 1: you ever had to do in the past for your

1352
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:42,559
Speaker 1: own career. And so um, as somebody who's always been

1353
01:08:42,640 --> 01:08:46,120
Speaker 1: very motivated and been engaged by the creative process, I

1354
01:08:46,600 --> 01:08:52,160
Speaker 1: find now actually a lot more. I feel more opportunity

1355
01:08:52,479 --> 01:08:54,400
Speaker 1: now than I felt then. I think it's a better

1356
01:08:54,479 --> 01:08:56,760
Speaker 1: time for a strained artists, or English artists, of German

1357
01:08:56,840 --> 01:09:00,360
Speaker 1: artists or any artists to be able to get hurt globally.

1358
01:09:00,400 --> 01:09:02,160
Speaker 1: And you can see it in Australian music. There are

1359
01:09:02,240 --> 01:09:05,840
Speaker 1: artists who are making waves internationally that we just never

1360
01:09:05,960 --> 01:09:07,840
Speaker 1: got hurt before. You know, they might not be artists

1361
01:09:07,880 --> 01:09:10,320
Speaker 1: that are broken big. So if you take Tash Sultana,

1362
01:09:10,560 --> 01:09:13,960
Speaker 1: where you take Rufus still soul Um, these are not

1363
01:09:14,080 --> 01:09:16,080
Speaker 1: artists who are household names in America. But they can

1364
01:09:16,160 --> 01:09:18,760
Speaker 1: sell out red Rocks. They can sell out you know,

1365
01:09:18,840 --> 01:09:21,320
Speaker 1: there's a lot of tickets they have. They And the

1366
01:09:21,439 --> 01:09:24,320
Speaker 1: thing that people don't understand when they come from other

1367
01:09:24,400 --> 01:09:27,320
Speaker 1: markets is, you know, when you're in a small market

1368
01:09:27,400 --> 01:09:30,600
Speaker 1: like Australia, it can be like So there are a

1369
01:09:30,680 --> 01:09:33,840
Speaker 1: lot of artists whose careers end up getting stifled by

1370
01:09:33,840 --> 01:09:35,680
Speaker 1: the fact they're like fish that grow too big for

1371
01:09:35,760 --> 01:09:38,280
Speaker 1: the tank. They have no new challenges, they have no

1372
01:09:38,400 --> 01:09:42,400
Speaker 1: new stimulation, they have no new m mountains to climb.

1373
01:09:43,000 --> 01:09:47,360
Speaker 1: So the Australian artists that endure are those historically I'm

1374
01:09:47,400 --> 01:09:50,599
Speaker 1: old now, so you know, going back, the Australian artists

1375
01:09:50,600 --> 01:09:52,640
Speaker 1: who have endured and made the best records and had

1376
01:09:52,680 --> 01:09:57,120
Speaker 1: the long careers are those who've been engaged in working internationally. Um,

1377
01:09:57,479 --> 01:09:59,720
Speaker 1: they're not always broken around the world, but they've been

1378
01:10:00,280 --> 01:10:03,200
Speaker 1: still climbing the mountain. They've gone and play at a festival,

1379
01:10:03,680 --> 01:10:05,000
Speaker 1: you know in Europe in the middle of the day,

1380
01:10:05,080 --> 01:10:07,000
Speaker 1: got their ass kicked and thought we need to get better.

1381
01:10:07,520 --> 01:10:09,680
Speaker 1: You know. They didn't just set off for working in

1382
01:10:09,760 --> 01:10:11,880
Speaker 1: the same studio with the same producer that they always

1383
01:10:11,920 --> 01:10:14,160
Speaker 1: work with here, they went overseas and found someone new

1384
01:10:14,640 --> 01:10:18,040
Speaker 1: who you know, poked them with a stick. Um, they

1385
01:10:18,080 --> 01:10:21,160
Speaker 1: were challenged. And that's the thing that happens when you're

1386
01:10:21,200 --> 01:10:23,800
Speaker 1: engaged globally. It doesn't happen if you just stay working

1387
01:10:23,880 --> 01:10:26,800
Speaker 1: in a smaller market. And so the process of being

1388
01:10:26,840 --> 01:10:29,719
Speaker 1: internationally engaged it's more than financial, you know, it's also

1389
01:10:30,720 --> 01:10:35,160
Speaker 1: part of the creative um challenge for artists. So I

1390
01:10:35,560 --> 01:10:37,479
Speaker 1: really you know, as you can tell from how I

1391
01:10:37,520 --> 01:10:39,600
Speaker 1: talk about it, that the process of of working a

1392
01:10:39,680 --> 01:10:42,360
Speaker 1: train artists around the world, you know, is something that

1393
01:10:42,720 --> 01:10:44,760
Speaker 1: I believe. Australia makes great music. We have a lot

1394
01:10:44,800 --> 01:10:48,519
Speaker 1: of music that hasn't been heard overseas that should be heard. Um.

1395
01:10:49,040 --> 01:10:50,800
Speaker 1: But it's being heard more now than it's ever been

1396
01:10:50,840 --> 01:10:53,080
Speaker 1: and that's a great thing. So if you achieve your

1397
01:10:53,160 --> 01:11:01,679
Speaker 1: dream mm hmm, I hope not. Um, you know, let's

1398
01:11:01,760 --> 01:11:05,320
Speaker 1: change a little bit where you were today when you started.

1399
01:11:05,560 --> 01:11:07,320
Speaker 1: Did you always want to be in the music business?

1400
01:11:09,439 --> 01:11:12,400
Speaker 1: So my my time, my glib line on this is that,

1401
01:11:12,720 --> 01:11:14,360
Speaker 1: you know, my career in the music business has been

1402
01:11:14,400 --> 01:11:18,320
Speaker 1: one long downhill spiral. So I began working in record

1403
01:11:18,360 --> 01:11:20,519
Speaker 1: stores part time when I was still high you were,

1404
01:11:20,640 --> 01:11:22,720
Speaker 1: You were that guy. You were very passionate about it. Yeah,

1405
01:11:22,720 --> 01:11:25,160
Speaker 1: I just I was. You know, spring if you've seen

1406
01:11:25,200 --> 01:11:29,679
Speaker 1: Blinded by the Light, I was the North Queensland, Tropical

1407
01:11:29,880 --> 01:11:33,519
Speaker 1: Australia remote version of the Pakistani kid in that movie.

1408
01:11:33,800 --> 01:11:35,920
Speaker 1: I cannot begin to tell you how much that was.

1409
01:11:36,200 --> 01:11:38,080
Speaker 1: My wife and I was that. She just kept laughing

1410
01:11:38,240 --> 01:11:41,160
Speaker 1: at poking be the average. It's you, it's you. It's

1411
01:11:41,240 --> 01:11:45,160
Speaker 1: so true. It's me. It's me. Um. Springsteen was telling

1412
01:11:45,200 --> 01:11:48,679
Speaker 1: me everything you know, Um, as Jimmy Barnes once said

1413
01:11:48,680 --> 01:11:51,200
Speaker 1: to me, but you know, I was describing the feeling

1414
01:11:51,240 --> 01:11:53,240
Speaker 1: of being trapped in North queens and he said, yeah,

1415
01:11:53,240 --> 01:11:54,599
Speaker 1: I get it. I said, this is one my favorite

1416
01:11:54,640 --> 01:11:56,600
Speaker 1: record was darks on the Edge of Town You know,

1417
01:11:56,640 --> 01:12:00,000
Speaker 1: a whole album about being trapped in the whole album

1418
01:12:00,000 --> 01:12:02,320
Speaker 1: about needing to escape right until you get into the street,

1419
01:12:02,760 --> 01:12:06,040
Speaker 1: Utah desert. It's so great. But you know so, and

1420
01:12:06,280 --> 01:12:08,120
Speaker 1: I say to him, this record about being trapped, you know,

1421
01:12:08,200 --> 01:12:09,640
Speaker 1: it just spoke to me as a teenager in a

1422
01:12:09,720 --> 01:12:11,519
Speaker 1: way that, um, you know, you can't believe you get you.

1423
01:12:11,600 --> 01:12:14,040
Speaker 1: I get it. Darkness on the Edge of Townsville, that

1424
01:12:14,160 --> 01:12:15,479
Speaker 1: if I was if I was if I was going

1425
01:12:15,600 --> 01:12:17,400
Speaker 1: to do a I never would. But you know, if

1426
01:12:17,400 --> 01:12:18,560
Speaker 1: I was ever going to write a book would be

1427
01:12:18,560 --> 01:12:21,320
Speaker 1: the title. But so I grew up in North Queensland

1428
01:12:21,360 --> 01:12:24,559
Speaker 1: work in a record store, and um, as as I said,

1429
01:12:24,600 --> 01:12:26,800
Speaker 1: it's been a long downhill road ever since. Anybody who's

1430
01:12:26,800 --> 01:12:29,559
Speaker 1: ever sort of worked in a record store, um knows

1431
01:12:29,640 --> 01:12:31,920
Speaker 1: that that's kind of the height of purity. You know,

1432
01:12:32,000 --> 01:12:34,280
Speaker 1: you get to be Jack Black in high fidelity right

1433
01:12:35,120 --> 01:12:37,519
Speaker 1: and all working in playing an independent band. So I

1434
01:12:38,200 --> 01:12:41,320
Speaker 1: had bands in my early university years. One of them

1435
01:12:41,360 --> 01:12:43,400
Speaker 1: started getting plaid on Triple j We threw everything in

1436
01:12:43,439 --> 01:12:46,519
Speaker 1: a car and we drove off. What did you blow?

1437
01:12:46,760 --> 01:12:49,400
Speaker 1: I played bass? Of course, Were you any good? No?

1438
01:12:49,520 --> 01:12:51,680
Speaker 1: It was pretty average, But the songs got played on

1439
01:12:51,720 --> 01:12:53,560
Speaker 1: Triple joke, Yeah, songs got played on Triple JA. We

1440
01:12:53,600 --> 01:12:55,680
Speaker 1: got to support a lot of good bands, um, like,

1441
01:12:55,800 --> 01:13:00,800
Speaker 1: who did you support? Du Gurus, Stems, the Saints, loads

1442
01:13:00,800 --> 01:13:03,640
Speaker 1: of Was it a lark or in the back of

1443
01:13:03,640 --> 01:13:08,160
Speaker 1: your mind to say, well, maybe I just couldn't believe

1444
01:13:08,280 --> 01:13:11,560
Speaker 1: we were actually getting to, you know, make music and

1445
01:13:11,640 --> 01:13:13,800
Speaker 1: be around music. I just wanted to be around music.

1446
01:13:13,960 --> 01:13:16,439
Speaker 1: I loved it, you know it was magical. So you're

1447
01:13:16,439 --> 01:13:18,719
Speaker 1: working in the record store. You graduated from high school?

1448
01:13:18,760 --> 01:13:22,360
Speaker 1: Then what did I start studying at university? Studying politics

1449
01:13:22,479 --> 01:13:26,880
Speaker 1: and education? My gliblind being a degree in politics has

1450
01:13:26,920 --> 01:13:31,080
Speaker 1: coming hand in the music industry. That's good, so we

1451
01:13:32,280 --> 01:13:34,200
Speaker 1: we they've the band. I dropped out of union at

1452
01:13:34,200 --> 01:13:35,760
Speaker 1: the end of my third year. I subsequently finished the

1453
01:13:35,760 --> 01:13:38,400
Speaker 1: degree down here. But story you dropped our way to

1454
01:13:39,240 --> 01:13:41,160
Speaker 1: chase the dream. Yeah, well, we went off to Sydney

1455
01:13:41,200 --> 01:13:43,439
Speaker 1: for sort of you know, the summer with the band

1456
01:13:43,960 --> 01:13:45,760
Speaker 1: was what we told our parents, but we knew we

1457
01:13:45,800 --> 01:13:49,560
Speaker 1: weren't coming back. Um, so so yeah, you know, we

1458
01:13:49,640 --> 01:13:53,200
Speaker 1: started from the position of greatest purity work in a

1459
01:13:53,240 --> 01:13:56,640
Speaker 1: record store, being in a band. Anybody who's been in

1460
01:13:56,680 --> 01:14:00,599
Speaker 1: a band knows that the greatest arseles on earth journalists.

1461
01:14:00,640 --> 01:14:03,640
Speaker 1: They write those ill informed, idiotic reviews. So after you

1462
01:14:03,800 --> 01:14:05,519
Speaker 1: or two of playing in a band, I started mouthing

1463
01:14:05,560 --> 01:14:08,360
Speaker 1: off to someone at a magazine about this. They threw

1464
01:14:08,439 --> 01:14:09,920
Speaker 1: some records at me and said, if you think you're

1465
01:14:09,920 --> 01:14:12,240
Speaker 1: so smart, go and review them. So I became a

1466
01:14:12,360 --> 01:14:16,439
Speaker 1: music journalist. Anybody who's been a music journalist knows that

1467
01:14:16,560 --> 01:14:18,840
Speaker 1: the real scum of the earth R and R people

1468
01:14:19,360 --> 01:14:21,840
Speaker 1: they signed the idiots that are putting this stuff out.

1469
01:14:22,880 --> 01:14:28,440
Speaker 1: So having slipped from musician to journalists, I then succumbed

1470
01:14:28,479 --> 01:14:31,280
Speaker 1: to being an R person. And then if you're an

1471
01:14:31,280 --> 01:14:34,080
Speaker 1: A and R person, you know that the true sporn

1472
01:14:34,120 --> 01:14:36,479
Speaker 1: of Satan A managers, they're the ones that drive your

1473
01:14:36,560 --> 01:14:39,200
Speaker 1: nuts all day. So eventually I became a manager. So

1474
01:14:39,320 --> 01:14:41,160
Speaker 1: my only career options the reason I've done it for

1475
01:14:41,240 --> 01:14:43,240
Speaker 1: so long since then, my only career options from here

1476
01:14:43,280 --> 01:14:46,080
Speaker 1: are like acts murderer, Okay, just when did you go

1477
01:14:46,160 --> 01:14:50,760
Speaker 1: back to college? So from my band, because we left

1478
01:14:50,760 --> 01:14:54,080
Speaker 1: Towns at the end of my band was sort of

1479
01:14:54,120 --> 01:14:57,800
Speaker 1: active for a couple of years eight and then through

1480
01:14:57,920 --> 01:15:03,000
Speaker 1: that period ninety I did six or seven different jobs

1481
01:15:03,040 --> 01:15:05,280
Speaker 1: around the music industry to avoid getting a real job

1482
01:15:05,600 --> 01:15:07,519
Speaker 1: works as a music journalists. Still worked in a record

1483
01:15:07,600 --> 01:15:10,559
Speaker 1: store on a Sunday, managed independent band, did a bit

1484
01:15:10,600 --> 01:15:14,240
Speaker 1: of free lance publicity um for people, work for an

1485
01:15:14,280 --> 01:15:16,920
Speaker 1: indie label for a while servicing their records the Triple

1486
01:15:17,000 --> 01:15:19,960
Speaker 1: j Just hustling around the fringes doing anything I could

1487
01:15:20,000 --> 01:15:21,640
Speaker 1: to be able to get given free cd s and

1488
01:15:22,000 --> 01:15:25,479
Speaker 1: be on a guest list. And then in the end

1489
01:15:25,520 --> 01:15:27,040
Speaker 1: of ninety or start of ninety one is when I

1490
01:15:27,040 --> 01:15:29,280
Speaker 1: got my job at Sony and then, as I said,

1491
01:15:29,439 --> 01:15:31,560
Speaker 1: I left in ninety five to manage Silver Chair. But

1492
01:15:31,640 --> 01:15:34,679
Speaker 1: when did you go about you? Well, so I didn't

1493
01:15:34,680 --> 01:15:37,519
Speaker 1: answer your question, Um, I should be in politics. Um.

1494
01:15:38,000 --> 01:15:42,640
Speaker 1: The So through ninety I was also studying So I

1495
01:15:42,720 --> 01:15:45,479
Speaker 1: finished a diner honest degree in politics. I started studying law.

1496
01:15:45,640 --> 01:15:48,840
Speaker 1: But did you go back because you said, wait a second,

1497
01:15:48,920 --> 01:15:51,680
Speaker 1: here this music that using go on the road way? No,

1498
01:15:52,160 --> 01:15:58,120
Speaker 1: definitely not. I needed one subject to get my arts degree,

1499
01:15:58,880 --> 01:16:01,200
Speaker 1: like if I've done three years, needed one more subject.

1500
01:16:01,439 --> 01:16:03,640
Speaker 1: So I went back and studied politics just so that

1501
01:16:03,720 --> 01:16:06,280
Speaker 1: I could get the arts degree, and then really enjoyed it,

1502
01:16:07,080 --> 01:16:09,840
Speaker 1: and so did a full time honors year while working

1503
01:16:09,880 --> 01:16:11,840
Speaker 1: full time doing all these other things. Probably in the

1504
01:16:11,880 --> 01:16:14,320
Speaker 1: first instance of I'm being honest about it, did the

1505
01:16:14,400 --> 01:16:17,559
Speaker 1: extra subject to make my mom happy and to stop

1506
01:16:17,600 --> 01:16:20,920
Speaker 1: her from nagging me about it. Um. But you know

1507
01:16:21,040 --> 01:16:23,200
Speaker 1: then I actually really enjoyed it. And I've always enjoyed

1508
01:16:23,240 --> 01:16:26,840
Speaker 1: the studying process. I studied um towards an m b A.

1509
01:16:27,000 --> 01:16:28,800
Speaker 1: I've studied law, I've done a lot of different study

1510
01:16:29,640 --> 01:16:31,400
Speaker 1: the thing about the music, but just to be clear,

1511
01:16:31,680 --> 01:16:35,000
Speaker 1: you have an m b A, so the NBA units

1512
01:16:35,240 --> 01:16:38,320
Speaker 1: at the Union New South Wales. You have to do

1513
01:16:38,400 --> 01:16:41,000
Speaker 1: twelve units from MBA and you can cash in for

1514
01:16:41,280 --> 01:16:44,160
Speaker 1: for a graduate Certificate in Management, eight for a Graduate

1515
01:16:44,240 --> 01:16:47,439
Speaker 1: Diplomary Management, or twelve is the Masters. I've done the

1516
01:16:47,520 --> 01:16:49,759
Speaker 1: eight units, so I have the Graduate Diploma ym Management.

1517
01:16:49,840 --> 01:16:51,840
Speaker 1: But to do the last four you had to do

1518
01:16:51,920 --> 01:16:54,000
Speaker 1: a residential component. You have to go live on campus

1519
01:16:54,040 --> 01:16:57,160
Speaker 1: for three weeks and I had three kids under the time.

1520
01:16:57,560 --> 01:17:00,000
Speaker 1: Just like this freaksy record otherways said you get still

1521
01:17:00,000 --> 01:17:03,519
Speaker 1: to go back there still time? And then what about

1522
01:17:03,520 --> 01:17:05,760
Speaker 1: the legal aspect of it? I'm thinking about the Roxy

1523
01:17:05,800 --> 01:17:09,240
Speaker 1: sepy eight boot leg with that UM sorry the legal also,

1524
01:17:09,240 --> 01:17:12,439
Speaker 1: I studied law um as after I did the honors year,

1525
01:17:12,560 --> 01:17:15,320
Speaker 1: I then did two years of night school law, so

1526
01:17:15,439 --> 01:17:18,880
Speaker 1: I got about the way through a law degree. And

1527
01:17:18,960 --> 01:17:21,479
Speaker 1: then when I got the job at Sony UM, I

1528
01:17:21,640 --> 01:17:23,519
Speaker 1: kept trying to study for about a year, but I

1529
01:17:23,560 --> 01:17:25,720
Speaker 1: was working at Sony, so there's an overlap there where

1530
01:17:25,760 --> 01:17:28,960
Speaker 1: I was studying at nights while it's Sony and but

1531
01:17:29,040 --> 01:17:30,960
Speaker 1: it just became untendable to be an an R guy

1532
01:17:31,000 --> 01:17:32,960
Speaker 1: and studying at night Okay, how did you get the

1533
01:17:33,040 --> 01:17:36,320
Speaker 1: job as an n R guy? UM? A few different things, really.

1534
01:17:36,400 --> 01:17:40,120
Speaker 1: I think I had the guy who had had a

1535
01:17:40,200 --> 01:17:43,120
Speaker 1: previously was a previously a part time job, and they

1536
01:17:43,160 --> 01:17:45,840
Speaker 1: wanted to make it full time, and he had other commitments.

1537
01:17:46,560 --> 01:17:48,360
Speaker 1: And I knew him from round the traps, so he

1538
01:17:48,479 --> 01:17:51,880
Speaker 1: recommended me to Peter Carpon. I was working in a

1539
01:17:51,920 --> 01:17:55,040
Speaker 1: record store in the city and the woman who managed

1540
01:17:55,120 --> 01:17:56,680
Speaker 1: I managed it on a Sunday, and the woman who

1541
01:17:56,720 --> 01:17:58,599
Speaker 1: managed at the rest of the days her husband worked

1542
01:17:58,600 --> 01:18:01,280
Speaker 1: at Sony. And she said to me, you should send

1543
01:18:01,640 --> 01:18:04,360
Speaker 1: an application into Dennis handlet as well, send him a

1544
01:18:04,439 --> 01:18:08,479
Speaker 1: personal um application. And she mentioned to her husband as well.

1545
01:18:09,160 --> 01:18:12,000
Speaker 1: So I think the fact that Dennis, Dennis always you'd

1546
01:18:12,040 --> 01:18:14,000
Speaker 1: like to say, he loved getting the application that I had.

1547
01:18:14,320 --> 01:18:15,800
Speaker 1: Hadn't just sent it to the address in the ad.

1548
01:18:15,840 --> 01:18:18,200
Speaker 1: I had sent it to him as well. Um. So

1549
01:18:18,400 --> 01:18:21,040
Speaker 1: Peter and Dennis gave me the child there. And what

1550
01:18:21,160 --> 01:18:23,840
Speaker 1: did your parents do for a living? Um, My dad

1551
01:18:23,960 --> 01:18:28,400
Speaker 1: was a builder, had a small contracting company in Townsville.

1552
01:18:28,840 --> 01:18:31,560
Speaker 1: My mom had worked in the public service. But you know,

1553
01:18:31,680 --> 01:18:33,800
Speaker 1: as was the want in those days, as soon as

1554
01:18:33,800 --> 01:18:36,160
Speaker 1: you got married, you weren't allowed to be employed anymore.

1555
01:18:36,240 --> 01:18:39,960
Speaker 1: So how many kids in the family, only child? Only child?

1556
01:18:40,520 --> 01:18:43,120
Speaker 1: So you were like the angel or you got the

1557
01:18:43,200 --> 01:18:47,519
Speaker 1: abuse or what was it? So look, you know, I'm

1558
01:18:47,680 --> 01:18:50,840
Speaker 1: probably a little touchy on this point, but the the

1559
01:18:51,920 --> 01:18:54,080
Speaker 1: my dad had a stroke when I was nine, and

1560
01:18:54,600 --> 01:18:57,880
Speaker 1: um and became disabled, and then had another stroke when

1561
01:18:57,880 --> 01:19:00,439
Speaker 1: I was fifteen, died when I was sixteen. So while

1562
01:19:00,479 --> 01:19:03,120
Speaker 1: I had a lot of the advantages of being an

1563
01:19:03,120 --> 01:19:06,080
Speaker 1: only child in terms of my mom's focus, I also

1564
01:19:06,200 --> 01:19:09,040
Speaker 1: had to grow up at a very early age. There

1565
01:19:09,080 --> 01:19:11,280
Speaker 1: wasn't really room for much in the way of teenager rebanion.

1566
01:19:11,320 --> 01:19:15,360
Speaker 1: It came much later, as described with running away in

1567
01:19:15,479 --> 01:19:18,920
Speaker 1: my union years. So, um, I had a great child

1568
01:19:19,000 --> 01:19:21,000
Speaker 1: with my mom, you know, did an amazing job to

1569
01:19:21,120 --> 01:19:24,240
Speaker 1: ensure that I wasn't really compromised as much as I

1570
01:19:24,320 --> 01:19:26,519
Speaker 1: could have been by all that stuff. But my whole

1571
01:19:26,600 --> 01:19:28,720
Speaker 1: life has been spent with people sort of thinking I'm

1572
01:19:28,760 --> 01:19:30,640
Speaker 1: older than I am. You Usually it said like this,

1573
01:19:30,880 --> 01:19:33,960
Speaker 1: oh you're only X age. I thought you were older

1574
01:19:34,520 --> 01:19:36,960
Speaker 1: long pause, or not that you look at So I've

1575
01:19:37,000 --> 01:19:38,439
Speaker 1: had that my entire life. So I've had to be

1576
01:19:38,520 --> 01:19:40,360
Speaker 1: I've always had to be sort of the responsible one.

1577
01:19:40,439 --> 01:19:42,679
Speaker 1: That's sort of you know when everybody else's off their heads.

1578
01:19:42,800 --> 01:19:45,360
Speaker 1: When your father driving, when your father pause was their

1579
01:19:45,439 --> 01:19:48,439
Speaker 1: financial stream, there was big financial stream. When he had

1580
01:19:48,479 --> 01:19:55,360
Speaker 1: the first stroke, we ended up his partners didn't do

1581
01:19:55,560 --> 01:20:00,360
Speaker 1: the right thing and so he was on a disability pension. Yeah,

1582
01:20:00,360 --> 01:20:04,200
Speaker 1: it was pretty difficult. And is your mother? Was your mother?

1583
01:20:04,240 --> 01:20:06,200
Speaker 1: If you still here, I'm not sure. She passed away

1584
01:20:06,240 --> 01:20:08,960
Speaker 1: to three years ago. Okay. Was she proud of you? Yeah,

1585
01:20:09,320 --> 01:20:12,639
Speaker 1: very proud and she had always loved you love show

1586
01:20:12,720 --> 01:20:16,519
Speaker 1: business her version of show business. As my parents were

1587
01:20:16,600 --> 01:20:18,439
Speaker 1: quite old as well, so my dad was forty eight

1588
01:20:18,479 --> 01:20:20,679
Speaker 1: when I was born, my mom was thirty eight resolved

1589
01:20:20,720 --> 01:20:25,240
Speaker 1: for six. Um, so my mom's version of show business

1590
01:20:25,360 --> 01:20:28,320
Speaker 1: was you know, Sinatra and the rat Pack and the

1591
01:20:28,400 --> 01:20:30,439
Speaker 1: movies and Judy Garland and all that stuff. So I

1592
01:20:30,479 --> 01:20:32,400
Speaker 1: always grew up around you know, she was always playing

1593
01:20:32,479 --> 01:20:34,360
Speaker 1: musicals at home and all that sort of stuff. So

1594
01:20:34,439 --> 01:20:39,040
Speaker 1: she loved she loved the entertainment side of things, um,

1595
01:20:39,520 --> 01:20:42,400
Speaker 1: but probably the rock and roll thing was a little

1596
01:20:42,400 --> 01:20:45,040
Speaker 1: bit much for her. As a good Catholic lady from

1597
01:20:45,520 --> 01:20:48,120
Speaker 1: from rural Australia growing up in the north of Australia's

1598
01:20:48,120 --> 01:20:50,360
Speaker 1: like growing up in the South of America being the

1599
01:20:50,439 --> 01:20:53,679
Speaker 1: land down under. Everything's upside down, So so we're kind

1600
01:20:53,720 --> 01:20:57,360
Speaker 1: of the you know, the rednecks, I suppose of the

1601
01:20:58,040 --> 01:21:00,519
Speaker 1: of the piece. But you know, it was certainly not

1602
01:21:00,720 --> 01:21:02,920
Speaker 1: common in that part of the world. You know, when

1603
01:21:02,960 --> 01:21:05,760
Speaker 1: you're living two thousand miles away from from anything else,

1604
01:21:05,880 --> 01:21:07,920
Speaker 1: was not common to run off and join the circus

1605
01:21:07,960 --> 01:21:10,320
Speaker 1: as I did. And once you were successful in the circus,

1606
01:21:10,760 --> 01:21:14,960
Speaker 1: did you make any grand gestures, any purchases for your mother? Um?

1607
01:21:15,320 --> 01:21:17,840
Speaker 1: Mom got to fly around a lot um so she

1608
01:21:18,000 --> 01:21:21,200
Speaker 1: loved to travel. So she came to New York when

1609
01:21:21,240 --> 01:21:23,040
Speaker 1: Silver Chair did Saturday Night Live. She was in the

1610
01:21:23,080 --> 01:21:27,320
Speaker 1: audience for that. Um she Yeah, she did a lot

1611
01:21:27,360 --> 01:21:29,439
Speaker 1: of She got to see a lot of things like that,

1612
01:21:29,600 --> 01:21:31,880
Speaker 1: you know, around for a lot of the great Missy

1613
01:21:32,000 --> 01:21:36,360
Speaker 1: moments and so forth, and she loved she She was

1614
01:21:36,400 --> 01:21:39,519
Speaker 1: a big Tina Arena fan. And so my wife, managing

1615
01:21:39,560 --> 01:21:41,920
Speaker 1: Tina Tina sang at our wedding. My mom just thought

1616
01:21:41,960 --> 01:21:45,759
Speaker 1: it was the coolest thing that ever happened. So what dreams,

1617
01:21:45,920 --> 01:21:48,679
Speaker 1: what what would you make to do with the thirty

1618
01:21:48,800 --> 01:21:50,840
Speaker 1: or forty years you have left on this mortal coil

1619
01:21:50,880 --> 01:21:51,880
Speaker 1: or do you think it will be still be in

1620
01:21:51,960 --> 01:21:55,400
Speaker 1: new music or what do you think? Yeah, that's that's

1621
01:21:55,479 --> 01:21:58,280
Speaker 1: the challenge and why the Gym Gurno podcast made such

1622
01:21:58,280 --> 01:22:00,200
Speaker 1: an impact on me. You know, I definitely feel like

1623
01:22:00,320 --> 01:22:04,200
Speaker 1: there's more to life than than this. UM. I definitely

1624
01:22:04,320 --> 01:22:07,320
Speaker 1: feel like I'd like to do more with my mind

1625
01:22:07,680 --> 01:22:12,360
Speaker 1: than the music sometimes allows. UM. I definitely I've always

1626
01:22:12,360 --> 01:22:15,880
Speaker 1: been interested in politics and causes and you know, UM

1627
01:22:16,800 --> 01:22:18,840
Speaker 1: have pretty strong and disturb views about a lot of

1628
01:22:18,840 --> 01:22:20,320
Speaker 1: things that's going on in the world and would like

1629
01:22:20,439 --> 01:22:21,920
Speaker 1: to try to kind of you do your bit to

1630
01:22:22,000 --> 01:22:26,200
Speaker 1: help push that rock up the hill UM as opportunities arise. UM.

1631
01:22:26,760 --> 01:22:29,240
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't think that the next thirty or

1632
01:22:29,280 --> 01:22:31,439
Speaker 1: forty years looked like the last thirty years for me.

1633
01:22:31,640 --> 01:22:35,360
Speaker 1: You know, but our kids are now seventeen, fifteen, and twelve,

1634
01:22:35,920 --> 01:22:38,120
Speaker 1: so we're also entering a very different chapter with that.

1635
01:22:38,280 --> 01:22:40,519
Speaker 1: You know, another five or six years that will all

1636
01:22:40,560 --> 01:22:43,360
Speaker 1: be behind us, and not that it's ever behind you,

1637
01:22:43,520 --> 01:22:45,840
Speaker 1: but you know that the day to day uper driving

1638
01:22:45,880 --> 01:22:47,640
Speaker 1: that I currently seem to spend half my life doing

1639
01:22:47,720 --> 01:22:51,560
Speaker 1: for my kids, UM will be behind me. And you

1640
01:22:51,640 --> 01:22:54,000
Speaker 1: know that will open up an opportunity as well to

1641
01:22:54,080 --> 01:22:57,519
Speaker 1: hopefully return to being overseas more. You know, I love

1642
01:22:57,560 --> 01:23:00,160
Speaker 1: living in Australia. I've had many opportunities to live in

1643
01:23:00,160 --> 01:23:02,360
Speaker 1: New York. We still have a place in New York, um,

1644
01:23:03,240 --> 01:23:06,240
Speaker 1: but we've always resisted living there full time because we

1645
01:23:06,320 --> 01:23:09,679
Speaker 1: love the quality of life here. However, there is definitely

1646
01:23:09,680 --> 01:23:13,320
Speaker 1: a sense of engagement that you get from being in

1647
01:23:14,040 --> 01:23:16,720
Speaker 1: particularly for US New York as well, particularly for US

1648
01:23:16,760 --> 01:23:18,439
Speaker 1: New York, that you just don't get here, you know.

1649
01:23:18,560 --> 01:23:20,519
Speaker 1: Like so when I was a kid growing up in Townsville,

1650
01:23:20,560 --> 01:23:23,360
Speaker 1: you know, we very rarely got to come to Sydney, UM,

1651
01:23:24,040 --> 01:23:26,200
Speaker 1: but I can vividly recall the times that we did,

1652
01:23:26,520 --> 01:23:29,559
Speaker 1: you know. And later in my teenage years, I'd save

1653
01:23:29,640 --> 01:23:31,280
Speaker 1: up every cent for the whole year and come to

1654
01:23:31,320 --> 01:23:34,360
Speaker 1: Sydney for two weeks and see bands, go to see

1655
01:23:34,360 --> 01:23:36,519
Speaker 1: plays and by records. That's been my whole year's worth

1656
01:23:36,560 --> 01:23:38,600
Speaker 1: of wages in two weeks, and then go back and

1657
01:23:38,760 --> 01:23:40,719
Speaker 1: work for another fifty weeks to come and do it again.

1658
01:23:41,560 --> 01:23:43,360
Speaker 1: The first time I went to New York in the nineties,

1659
01:23:44,800 --> 01:23:46,200
Speaker 1: the first couple of days and say, oh my god,

1660
01:23:46,280 --> 01:23:49,000
Speaker 1: this feels familiar. Okay, not my believer in sort of

1661
01:23:49,040 --> 01:23:50,960
Speaker 1: past lives or something. But it was really like, I

1662
01:23:51,120 --> 01:23:53,839
Speaker 1: have felt this feeling before. Why does this feel so familiar?

1663
01:23:54,240 --> 01:23:56,080
Speaker 1: Not for two days I realized it was exactly the

1664
01:23:56,160 --> 01:23:57,840
Speaker 1: same feeling I used to have when I went from

1665
01:23:57,880 --> 01:23:59,639
Speaker 1: Towns for the Sydney. All of a sudden the fences

1666
01:23:59,680 --> 01:24:01,560
Speaker 1: were further back. So they're feeling you get at the

1667
01:24:01,600 --> 01:24:03,640
Speaker 1: airport where you step onto the moving walkway, you know,

1668
01:24:03,760 --> 01:24:08,360
Speaker 1: whish um And yes, so New York still gives me that.

1669
01:24:08,439 --> 01:24:11,559
Speaker 1: It gives me this energized feeling. Um. You know, there

1670
01:24:11,600 --> 01:24:13,240
Speaker 1: are things you'll see when you go out at night

1671
01:24:13,400 --> 01:24:15,439
Speaker 1: or during the day, or just when you go out

1672
01:24:16,000 --> 01:24:18,320
Speaker 1: that you will not see anywhere else. And I love that.

1673
01:24:18,400 --> 01:24:20,920
Speaker 1: I love the sense of you know, when when John

1674
01:24:21,000 --> 01:24:23,560
Speaker 1: Lennon moved to New York, people said, someone said to me,

1675
01:24:24,320 --> 01:24:27,160
Speaker 1: how could you possibly leave England behind? He said, but

1676
01:24:27,240 --> 01:24:29,880
Speaker 1: I've lived in ancient times. I've lived in Greece, if

1677
01:24:29,920 --> 01:24:32,400
Speaker 1: I lived round the birth of Christ in Rome. It's

1678
01:24:32,439 --> 01:24:34,200
Speaker 1: the twentieth century. So I'm going to live in New York.

1679
01:24:35,439 --> 01:24:38,639
Speaker 1: And so that's still you know, our our sort of dreams.

1680
01:24:38,640 --> 01:24:40,439
Speaker 1: Some people have the dream of you know the kids

1681
01:24:40,520 --> 01:24:42,080
Speaker 1: leave home when they go up the coast. When our

1682
01:24:42,120 --> 01:24:43,559
Speaker 1: kids leave home, we're going to New York for three

1683
01:24:43,600 --> 01:24:46,240
Speaker 1: months a year. We'll see you on the card to them,

1684
01:24:46,520 --> 01:24:48,519
Speaker 1: thanks so much for doing this job, and you will wonderful.

1685
01:24:49,000 --> 01:24:49,200
Speaker 1: Thanks