Working Class Man

by Jimmy Barnes

  ‘He’ll be so pissed that he won’t be able to play, mark my words. Fuck it, I’m getting a beer too. Might as well be pissed, none of you guys take this shit seriously. This band could be huge if you guys pulled your weight. Fuck.’

  ‘I’ll send someone to find him. You just have a beer and calm down,’ I said.

  Well, they found John and sure enough, Bruce was right. He was so drunk he could hardly stand up. He was naked in a shower in one of the upstairs rooms with the publican’s daughter. One of the roadies quickly got her out of there before anyone spotted her and told her dad. He turned the cold water on full and held John under the shower until John could understand his voice, then he dragged him downstairs and into the backstage area just as we were due to go on.

  ‘This is just fuckin’ great. You better play well or this will be the end of this fuckin’ band, I tell you,’ yelled Bruce.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah,’ John slurred at Bruce. He didn’t even have time to dress. He went on stage for the first gig the band ever did dressed only in his underwear. He swayed and staggered as he walked on. One of the roadies pushed him towards his kit and put a bucket next to him in case he threw up.

  ‘Good evening.’ We were off and running.

  The set started with a roar. The audience was jammed up against the front of the stage with their arms in the air, eagerly waiting for our first song. Bang! We hit the first chord of the first song and all the windows of the pub cracked, from the front of the room to the back. Within seconds there was at least thirty yards between us and the front row, who by now had their hands over their ears, trying in vain to save what was left of their rapidly diminishing hearing. Bruce scowled at John for the first ten minutes, hitting him on the head with his bass every time he slowed down, but besides that we were rocking. We assaulted the poor audience that night, from the start of the set until the finish, and they seemed to love it.

  The next day, in the daily paper, was the only review we ever had. It said that we sounded like ‘Deep Purple overdosed on methedrine’. We loved that and stuck it up on the fridge at the Fraternity house until we broke up not long after. We did a tour of Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Whyalla and Port Lincoln and that was about it really.

  In the short time I was in Fraternity I learned more about singing than I had in years. Bruce was a brutal taskmaster and demanded that the singer give everything he had and then some. I can see why Bon was such a good singer; he had been in that band for many years. I believe that Bruce was instrumental in making me the singer that I am today, so if you don’t like it, go and see him.

  ONE DAY, LATE IN 1975, John and I were at the Largs Pier when one of the barmen walked up to me. ‘There’s an old bloke in the front bar and he’s looking for you.’

  ‘Is he a cop?’ I immediately asked, half-serious. It was always better to be safe than sorry.

  ‘No mate, this guy’s not dressed like a cop. He’s a bit pissed too and he’s with some bird who’s swearing like a sailor at anyone who looks at her. You’d better come and see them before they find any trouble.’

  The front bar at the Pier was a good place to find trouble. The locals didn’t take well to strangers. I’d seen many of them thrown out on their arses.

  ‘Why would I go see them? Am I supposed to know them?’ I was too busy recovering from a bad hangover to worry about some old bloke and a strange woman in the bar.

  ‘Well, he reckons he’s related to you.’ John looked at me. Suddenly he looked worried.

  ‘Could be one of the Barnes family,’ I thought. There were a few of them in the area.

  ‘Well if he’s related to me, he knows where to find me,’ I said.

  ‘He reckons he’s your dad and he’s telling everyone in the bar he’s come back to see you.’ The barman didn’t have time to argue with me and left. John and I didn’t say a word.

  Now, I knew that Reg Barnes didn’t drink much, if at all. And he certainly wouldn’t be drunk at the front bar of the Pier. So it wasn’t him. I stood scratching my head. Maybe it was my real dad? Jim Swan. Couldn’t be. I hadn’t seen him since he left years earlier. What was he doing back, and at the Pier as well? I followed John to find out.

  In the bar we spotted him. He still looked like my dad. He always had a kind face unless he was fighting someone. He looked calm and gentle. We could hear his voice across the room; it was soft and a bit raspy, like smooth sandpaper. But I knew the tone and so did John. It was reassuring and warm and he was as charming as I remembered him. I knew it was definitely Dad. He looked a lot worse than when I had seen him last. I remember thinking he looked pretty bad then, so that was saying something.

  Was he all right? I was worried about him, just like I had been all those years before, when he should have been worrying about me. But he still had that look in his eyes. The one that made people trust him immediately. I could tell people were already warming to him in the bar.

  I’d heard stories that Dad had left with another woman from Elizabeth but I never knew it for a fact until then. I remembered her face. Her voice was like a knife. It could be heard across the whole bar. ‘Whose buy is it? Come on, someone get they fuckin’ drinks in. I’m dyin’ of thirst.’

  I tried to ignore her and walked over to Dad. John was already in his arms. I stood still and said, ‘Hi Dad. How are you?’ I think my lip was quivering.

  Dad looked me in the eye, and in that same voice that used to tell me everything was going to be all right, said, ‘Hello ma son. Oh, I’ve missed ye so much. I really have. Gie us a kiss.’

  He put his arms around me. I could smell cigarettes and booze on him, but it didn’t matter. It smelled like him. He had me ready to forgive everything from the first word he spoke. I just wanted to never let him go again.

  Dad went on to tell us how he and Margaret had been living somewhere between Streaky Bay and Whyalla.

  ‘Sometimes we lived right oot o’ the boot o’ the car. It was terrific, boys. Whit freedom we had. Naebody in the world tae tell us what tae dae. As far away from yer ma as I could get.’ Dad could even make living in your car sound like an adventure. He had a way with words. He was probably homeless, but that didn’t matter.

  ‘But I’m back now and here wi’ you two. Maybe I’ll take yous away wi’ me next time. You’ll love it. No a care in the world.’

  I had a lot I wanted to say. I wanted to tell him he should have been around to keep an eye on us, but then I remembered; even when he was around he couldn’t keep his eye on us. I needed a drink suddenly.

  Dad told us stories of his adventures. ‘You should see the fish you catch in Streaky Bay, boys. Big and juicy and they practically throw themsels at ye. You don’t need a boat. You hardly need a line. I tell ye, you’d have to be an eejit not to catch them.’

  It was like I was six years old again, hitchhiking to work with my dad. John and I sat waiting on every word.

  ‘Ye just cook them right there on the beach. And sleep under the stars. It’s a great life, I tell ye.’

  I sat on the edge of the chair on one side of him and John sat on the other side. We were both trying to ignore Margaret.

  ‘Why don’t ye get in a few drinks and I’ll tell ye more.’

  I jumped up without thinking. But I had a bad feeling in my stomach as I walked to the bar.

  ‘There you go, Dad.’

  ‘Right, son.’ Dad lowered his voice. He didn’t want anyone but me to hear this, I could tell. ‘D’ye think you boys can spot me a few dollars? Just until I get settled.’

  I felt sick. Dad hadn’t come back to see us. He was passing through and needed money.

  ‘I was reading the paper and I saw ye were doin’ okay and I just thought ye might be able to lend me a wee bit, just until I get on ma feet.’

  Luckily for us, John and I didn’t have any money or we would have given him the lot. He told us lots of sob stories about how he always meant to be in contact but couldn’t find us. Even though we knew why he was there, we were still happy
to see him.

  Dad stuck around for a short time then headed through to Melbourne. I wouldn’t see much of him until we started touring there a lot more. John stayed in contact. Dad and I had a lot to work out. But it would have to wait.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  this is what you have to be prepared to do

  BACK WITH COLD CHISEL, 1976

  I ENDED UP GOING to see Cold Chisel playing a few gigs when they got back from an Eastern States tour without me. The band had stepped things up a notch or two and were playing better than ever. They had spent a bit of time in Trafalgar Studios in Sydney doing some demos, maybe with Charles Fisher, the producer who would later expose the world to Savage Garden. Anyway, Don seemed to have really got his songs together. They sounded like a new band. I jumped up with them at one or two shows before rejoining permanently in May 1976. During that time people were starting to notice us. In fact Charles Fisher had come to Adelaide a few times to see us, I guess hoping to produce us when and if we got signed. But that didn’t happen. He must have given up on us.

  FIGHTS WERE COMMON AT our shows but very rarely did they spill onto the stage. Occasionally things got out of control while we were playing but most of the fighting went on outside the gigs.

  The audience we were pulling was very mixed. Some were girls, which we all loved, and then there were mad music boffins, who liked our songs or Ian’s guitar playing. But there were also a lot of guys, some of them in gangs, some of them just having a night out. Sometimes these gangs clashed outside the shows and it could get very frightening, especially for the younger fans, worried that they might get caught in the middle.

  I was always trying to defuse the fights inside the halls, but sometimes I failed. One night in Glenelg I saw a scuffle break out in the crowd. Two gangs of skinheads had set upon each other and things were getting pretty rough. The bouncers managed to drag the offenders outside and when I left the gig about half an hour later it was all coming to a head. There in front of me were two guys lying on the ground, getting the living shit kicked out of them by about twenty skinheads.

  Now, I’ve seen a lot of fighting, and I’ve been in gangs, but this sort of behaviour always felt completely wrong to me. So what could I do? I jumped into the middle of it to try to save the guys on the ground. Most of the people involved were part of our audience and had been cheering for us just minutes before, but when I jumped in, they didn’t give a shit who I was. They all turned on me like animals. As hard as I tried, it wasn’t long until I was on the ground and they were kicking into me, too.

  It was raining leather and steel-capped boots on me and I was getting beaten to a pulp when, in a sort of haze, I saw guys flying across the carpark. One by one the guys beating me were being dragged off and were becoming victims. Two very hard-looking blokes, skinheads themselves, were dragging them off and pummelling them one by one. Eventually they got me out and stood me up. Everyone else in the gang stood back, either out of respect for these guys or out of pure fear. Eventually the two of them took me to one side and tried to explain what had happened.

  Apparently, the two skinheads had broken their code by doing something wrong to one of their own gang. I was bleeding from the mouth and nose so I wasn’t really listening but I got the message that they were giving these guys a beating because they deserved it, and I had jumped in to help the wrong guys.

  All right, I had been an idiot for getting involved and they made that very clear, but they liked the way I had jumped in because I thought it was the right thing to do. They became my friends from that day on and none of the Adelaide skinheads ever bothered us or our gigs again. They would turn up en masse to watch us but they were on their best behaviour because of my two friends, Billy and Oscar. Oscar, I found out later, was one of the Pier boys. I hadn’t met him because he had started hanging with the skinhead gang but he was a great guy. He still pops up backstage at gigs in Adelaide, normally working security, and we always have time for each other, to say hello, or have a laugh and talk about the good old days.

  Billy Rowe became a dear friend of mine. I found out later that Billy and I came from the same area out near Elizabeth and that we both had tough childhoods. He started working for Cold Chisel and travelling around Australia with me and the boys from that day on. He was very creative and it seemed he was just waiting for life to give him a break, and it happened that day, when he jumped in to save my arse.

  Life has a way of working out for the better sometimes, but not always. I don’t know if Billy would have survived gang life in Adelaide or if he would have ended up in jail, but that day Cold Chisel found a great friend and he found a friend in us. We also found a great lighting guy. Billy and Big Al became our regular crew, and not a tougher or nicer crew ever worked for a band. They were my best mates. We all came together on the road and all found some sort of escape, even peace, on tour with Cold Chisel.

  AFTER A WHILE THINGS got too hard for Vince and Helen to manage. What with a band, a family and an agency, something had to go and I think we were the first. Our disastrous set of original songs at the Mediterranean might have had something to do with it too. We found new management in the form of a one-time roadie from one of Swanee’s old bands. A guy called Ray Hearn. Ray had come a long way since his roadie days and knew a lot about music. He was passionate about it. I liked Ray because I once saw him single-handedly move a Hammond organ, which is a very hard thing to do.

  Ray was a bit of an alternative guy but he liked us anyway, maybe because we were wilder than most of the other so-called rock bands in Adelaide. He took us to a new agency, CBA, and things were going really well. He got us a couple of gigs with Split Enz, who were touring Adelaide at the same time as a band called Skyhooks.

  Split Enz were a very arty but they played well and wrote very good songs. Tim, the singer, had a beautiful voice. A few years later, Tim’s young brother Neil would join the band and they would rocket even further up the charts, but even before Neil came along they were a cracking band.

  Skyhooks weren’t as good musically and had a lot more attitude. They were arty too – but more like a glam band that didn’t play their instruments that well, although if you look at how well they targeted their audience, you have to admire them. They were one of those bands you either loved or hated. I hated them at first. They were bigger than Ben Hur, partly because they had come along as the TV show Countdown took off. They were the perfect band for these times. They wrote songs about places that people could relate to. Their hometown, Melbourne, seemed to dominate their songs, but kids all over Australia related to their sense of humour. Apart from them and Split Enz, who dressed in outrageous clothing, every other band looked like a blues band – jeans, long hair and T-shirts. They didn’t work to their audiences, they played with their backs to the crowd and jammed self-indulgently for hours on end. Skyhooks had short sharp pop songs, presented by a band dressed up as clowns in satin and silk and wearing far too much makeup. They were perfect for TV and they tore the Australian rock scene apart.

  Cold Chisel didn’t wear any makeup and we didn’t have clothes made of satin. We weren’t on TV. We didn’t have a plan or a direction and most importantly, we didn’t stick our tongues out. We had nothing going for us. I should have been feeling pretty down about life and the music business in general. And then Ray decided to give us a reality check. He took us to see Skyhooks at the Mediterranean.

  He shook his head and looked at us and shouted over the noise of Skyhooks, ‘Well, boys . . .’ Whenever anyone starts a sentence like that, you know it won’t end well. ‘Lads, if you want to make it in the music business today, this is what you have to be prepared to do,’ he said, looking towards the stage. ‘Dress up a bit. Get an image. Something way out. Something catchy.’

  He looked us up and down. We were just off stage and were dressed like most of the audience. I quickly tucked my shirt in.

  ‘The other thing you need to do is write some good pop songs.’ We all looked at Don. This was
his job. We didn’t know how to do it. ‘Write some songs about Adelaide, for instance.’

  This was getting plain uncomfortable now. I looked Ray up and down. He was wearing ill-fitting jeans, thongs and a T-shirt with the name of a bad band on it.

  ‘It probably wouldn’t hurt if you stuck your tongue out occasionally too.’

  No, he never really mentioned tongues but he might as well have. I swallowed all that was left of my drink and tried my best not to hit him with the glass.

  ‘Anything else?’ I was already moving towards the bar.

  ‘Na. That’s about it.’

  ‘Good.’

  We went about finding a new manager to champion our cause. It took a while but the people at the new agency, CBA, were making quite a bit of money from us so sometime in 1976 they put in a good word with a manager who was working with them, a bloke called Geoff Skewes. Now Geoff was as far from our type of person as you could find. He was a bit of a yuppie manager, who drove a BMW and made more money than any of his acts did, which wasn’t really that hard, as his acts didn’t make any money. But we needed someone to do the job, so we took him up on his offer and joined his stable of acts.

  Stable is a pretty good word for it actually. His stable included Stars, another band we had been doing gigs with around the traps. They looked like they should have been playing music on horseback. They were a reasonably good band but, more importantly, they had come up with a gimmick. They wore cowboy hats and boots and badges with their name on them and sang songs about horses and guns and shooting up the town and stuff like that. They might very well have been saving up for horses for all I know. To top things off they looked cute and had more girls following them than we did. With all this going for them, obviously they got preferential treatment from Geoff. This pissed us off, as we had so much belief in ourselves that we couldn’t see why he didn’t think we were the best band he had.