Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / Author Jeff Apter (Keith Urban, AC/DC, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cure, Fleetwood Mac, Crowded House, Jeff Buckley) [Episode 158]

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Author Jeff Apter (Keith Urban, AC/DC, Red Hot Chili Peppers, The Cure, Fleetwood Mac, Crowded House, Jeff Buckley) [Episode 158] · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

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We're totally booked rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you. You're
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reading. Little Hans says it's time to rock and roll roll. I totally
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booked. Welcome to Booked on Rock, the podcast for those about to read
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and rock. Find the podcast online at booked on rock dot com, where
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you can find every episode of Booked on Rock, along with links to your
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favorite listening platforms. Exclusive videos, blogs, links to all of the social
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media sites are there, along with the latest rock book releases. It's another
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chapter in the Dialogue series, a chilling chat with authors, fellow podcasters,
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listeners and more. Author Jeff Apter is this episode's guest. He is the
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author of over thirty books about Australian music and musicians, and was on staff
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at Rolling Stone for several years. He's here to talk about his books on
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ac DC, The Red Hot, Chili Peppers, The Cure, Neil Finn
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of Crowded House, Who's now with Fleetwood, Mac, Jeff Buckley, and
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and his brand new book just released. It's the first and only definitive biography
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of country music artist Keith Urban. So let's get right to it. Here
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is Jeff after Hello, Jeff out there in Australia. It's Eric from the
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US. Great to speak with you. I mean looking forward to this.
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It is tomorrow where you are. It's like a time machine. I love
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talking to Sonny and Sonny and heart. So we're going to talk a little
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later about all the bands that you've written about, ACDC, to Cure,
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Breadout, Chili Pepper's, Neil Finn, just to name a few. But
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we got this brand new book out on Keith Urban, the first and only
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definitive biography of Keith Urban. And there's a great story you start the book
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with that took place in nineteen ninety eight. He was just facing the crowd
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back then. Okay, tell us about this and how you got involved with
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the book. Yeah, it was such a it was just a random experience,
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to be honest. I was living in the States and I was doing
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a lot of documenting various Australian artists, you know success or otherwise in America,
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you know, their own particular journeys, and I wanted to go to
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fanfare in Nashville. Now, anybody who doesn't know about fanfare, it's it's
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like the Haj for Muslims, or it's like going to lords for Catholics.
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You know, it's this ridiculous like pilgrimage. It's a country music pilgrimage.
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And when I went there, they used to hold it at the Speedway,
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which was a little bit out of town. I think now they do it
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in a venue downtown, like a purpose built venue in Nashville itself, but
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this was a bit out of town and there was an Australian contingent there.
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You know. Sorry, it's a week long festival country music. It's basically
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the biggest promotional tool for every record company in Nashville to get their new artists
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and their established artists and anybody with a new record in front of a crowd.
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They do these sort of you know, twenty minute sets. It's like
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an infomercial. Basically, I was there covering. There was four Australian artists
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playing a showcase, and to be honest, they you know, they didn't
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stand a chance. You know, the idea that you could crack Nashville by
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doing you know, a twenty minute showcase at the Speedway on a Wednesday afternoon
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and then you know a little acoustic gig at the Bluebird. That's not how
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it works. But I was there to cover them and to provide a bit
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of color and do this story. And I was talking to a friend of
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mine backstage and he was a manager of it and an act there, and
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he said, oh, there's there's Keith, Keith Urban, oh right,
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and he was just a face in the crowd. And he said to me,
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and this is you know, don't tell a journalist this. He said,
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Keith's done it tough, you know. And suddenly I was like,
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ding ding ding ding ding, What do you mean, what do you mean?
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You've got to give me more details, you know, tell me this
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story. And I met him briefly, but you know, he wasn't performing.
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He was just catching up with some people he knew from Australia. And
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I found out this great backstory about how Keith had been in America, in
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and out of America for about ten years, but based there since the early
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nineties. Had a band called The Branch that were managed by Miles Copeland,
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you know, the manager of the Police that had him on this podcast.
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Yeah, yeah, you yeah. I was really a great man. That
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was really hard rocking country three piece with Keith up front, really shredding on
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the guitar and a really solid band they've been touring around. They've got to
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deal with warners. They recorded a debut record, but it just it just
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went to hell. I mean, they were you know, it was that
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classic case of making their first album trying desperately to please their bosses, who
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were then saying that song's great, Now go and record it with a fiddle,
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go and record it with a new guitar solo. And you know,
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if you look at the credits of that album, which surprisingly stands up pretty
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well, they used every single studio in Nashville, and you know within the
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you know, probably one hundred kilometer radius of the city. Songs were recorded
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over and over again, and they brought in different musicians. It was just
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a mess and it all fell apart. You know. They they were they
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were getting great praise from fellow musos who come and see them play in town,
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like they were really a crack band, really an ace band, but
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they didn't fit in. And this is the period in country music with late
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nineties. You know, Garth Brooks is still huge, Shania Twain is still
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huge. It's a very country kind of pop sound. Garth Brooks is doing
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all those big shows, you know, doing well, we've just talked about
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Kiss off air, doing kind of kiss like shows with Piros and the whole
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drama. Here's this rock and three piece playing little clubs and really really impressing
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players. They weren't, you know, they weren't really pulling a big audience,
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and it just fell apart. It just fell apart. And Keith,
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when I met him briefly that first time, I think he'd just been through
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rehab. You know, he really fell apart. But when I went back
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to Australia soon after, you know, my curiosity was really piqued. It
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Just like I knew Keith Urban in Australia through country music circles, and you
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know, basically he left, he gone to America, and you know,
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no one was really sure how it was going. Gradually I went back to
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austraying at a job with Rolling Stone magazine and started to document his rise in
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America because Australian audiences weren't really aware of what was going on. And it
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was just great. I was just there at the right time. You know,
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he got out of rehab, he got a solo deal with Capital,
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he made all the right compromises. You know, he's a good looking guy.
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You know, Previously he was seen as a muso's muso. Well now
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they're sort of pushing him into the mainstream and marketing him as a heart throb,
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a bit of a pin up, you know, but a guy who
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when you go and see him, can shred, you know, and really
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play ac DC covers for God's sakes, you know. So he had this
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sort of he had something for everyone. So I went back to Australia.
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I just was lucky enough to continue charting his rise in America. He'd come
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back to Australia quite frequently, once or twice a year, played these little
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shows with pickup bands. I mean I saw him play a gig with Rose
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tattoo. You know, it was fat. Yeah, he just you know,
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and really, really you could tell this guy's career was just building and
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building and building. And the funny thing about all that, it's, while
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it's the early two thousands, he's playing ten twenty thousand people in America,
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big shows in Australia, he's still playing small clubs. You know, it
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made no sense. So well it's only now, you know, twenty years
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down the line that he's playing big shows, big stadiums in Australia. Whereas
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an America he's been doing it for you know, ten years or more.
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For an Australian success story. His career is almost back to front. You
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did say he's done it tough. That's what somebody told you, and that's
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true. But he would say it's those dark detours that got him to where
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he is now. He came from humble origins. Talk about his childhood days,
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where he was raised and what kind of relationship he had with his parents.
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He didn't come from money, that's for sure, Oh god. No.
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He was raised in the myth amphetamine capital of Australia. You know,
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this is this country town you know, outside it's about, I think about
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an hour out of Brisbane. Brisbane is a capital city, but still a
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big country town. He was raised in an even smaller country town, you
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know. And likelihood of him because he always had this dream of going to
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Nashville and cracking Nashville in particular, was very unlikely. I mean his dad,
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his dad's job was running the local garbage tip. Keith was a high
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school dropout. His you know, his performances. He started playing in shopping
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centers and then progressed to the same kind of beer barns. He started playing
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professional at fifteen, and he was playing the same kind of beer barns and
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you know, well, I guess sort of the Australian equivalent of honky Tonks
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when he was fifteen. And these are the same places where ACDC and In
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Excess and Rose Tattoo and all these bands learned their trade. So you know,
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there's a good history about playing in these venues because they're tough. You
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know, audiences are pretty busy getting drunk, you know, and you've got
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to really hit them over their head to capture their attention. He became really
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really good at doing that, so you know, he's been doing this for
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almost almost forty years now. His dad was a discipline and he was tough.
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His dad was pretty tough. Yeah, But the flip side of that
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is his dad was obsessed with Americana. He drove big American cars, he
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dressed, you know, in what he considered American style, wearing a stetson
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and things like that. And he loved classic American country music. You know,
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he was into Glen Campbell and Johnny Cash and Charlie Pride and all those
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kind of whale and Jennings the standards you know the American Country Songbook. You
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know. The first concert Keith went to Brisbane Festival Hall in nineteen seventy two.
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He's only three years old and he saw Johnny Cash and he said,
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you know, as soon as the lights went down and this single spotlight hit
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this guy on stage who looked like he was carved out of stone, you
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know, and this voice comes out, Oh, I'm Johnny Cash. You
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know, Keith was sold. It was like, I want to do that.
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I want to be something. I don't want to be that guy,
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but I want to have the same impact that he does. And you know
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that he was basically on that path ever since then. So when he moves
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to Nashville, that wasn't overnight success. In fact, it was difficult.
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And this is when he turns to drugs and alcohol. To Colpe yeah,
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absolutely yeah. I mean he thought he thought it was a you know,
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laid down miss Aeria thought, go to Nashville. I've got to have a
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record deal in Australia. You know, I've had some success there. Surely
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it's transferable, you know, And I know this stuff inside out. He
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knew the music, but he didn't understand the game. And you know,
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it took him years, as I said earlier, to make the right kind
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of compromises. Early on, you know, early on, he's a young
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guy. He's full of vigor, and they're probably thinking, why would I
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have to change? Well, you know, anybody who's succeeded, particularly in
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Nashville, because it's a very sort of parochial place, you know, and
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there are certain rules of the game that you have to adhere to. It's
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very rare that real maverick succeed in Nashville, which is why guys like Willie
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Nelson ended up going to Austin, you know, getting out of town because
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it's a very very rigid kind of system. And like I said, Keith
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came to understand that it wasn't just being a good guitar player and a great
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singer and a songwriter. You needed to fit the mold. You need to
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do the right videos, you need to work with the right songwriters, you
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need to get the right management, you need to have the right people at
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the record company who really are championing you to you know, the people are
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going and saw those records. So you know, he got to understand how
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to play that game. It took a few it took several years. I
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mean, it really wasn't until the early two thousands that he really started to
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break through. But you know, there's been other Australian artists who've been there
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and tried. And there's a great story. There's a guy called James Blundell
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who was a big, big star here in Australia. Got to deal with
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Capitol and one of these first recording sessions and engineers said to him, can
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you try singing with an American accent? And he said, yeah, I
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can, but you're not gonna like it, you know, And he did
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it, and the guy and the engineer just said, all right, I
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got your point. His career went nowhere, you know, because you've got
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to compromise. I mean yeah, everybody's had to. The Beatles had to
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compromise for God's sake, you know, it's just part of the business.
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And like I say, particularly the country music business. Chapter twelve in your
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book, it's titled Keith Urban is the Australian heart Throb of American Country And
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the next chapter gets to when Nicole Kidman meets that Australian heart thrub, but
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it's Keith who's nervous to talk and to call. Yeah, yeah, well
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that's that's you know, talking about opposites of tract. Because so it's an
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event, it's an annual event called oh God, I hate this good a
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la. It's so corny. Yeah, I mean, like it's what it
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is. It's a group of successful expat Australians in America who it's not just
12:45
music, it's acts as filmmakers, it's business people, it's all kinds of
12:50
Austrains just get together and basically pat each other on the back and say,
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you know, how much money did you make this year. So they get
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together and they honor people at these events, and at this particular one into
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two thousand and five, Keith and Nicole Kidman were two of the honorees.
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But you got to understand that, like I said, Keith came from very
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very you know, working class roots are very rough and tumble kind of upbringing.
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Nicole Kidman is a list all the way. You know, her father
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was I think a neurosurgeon. You know, her mother was a very well
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educated, sophisticated member of Sydney society. Nicole Kidman's private school educated. These
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people were upscale, uptown, you know, Keith, Keith straight off the
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garbage tip in Kabucher, you know, and his rough he's still rough around
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the edge of He's a guy who had a troubled pass with substance abuse and
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things like that. They were not a very likely couple in a lot of
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ways, and Keith knew that it can be. We tried. We like
13:48
to think of ourselves as kind of classless in Australia, but it's not true.
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You know, there's very clearly defined levels of class. You know,
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if you come from certain parts of Sydney, you know that that person's got
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money. You know that person comes from you know, well healed family.
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That was Nicole, certainly not Keith, and he was very he thought we're
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so different. You know, we're not going to there's nothing between us.
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It's not going to work. But Nicole Kibman had just come off that weird
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relationship with Tom Cruise, who's going through that horrible divorce. It was all
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very public and frankly, you know, Keith was the anti Tom. You
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know, he was grounded. He was a working class guy. He was
14:28
someone who was very not really touched by celebrity in anywhere near the same way
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as Tom Cruise was you know, And I guess, although she never stated
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it openly, Keith was probably the perfect person for her at that time,
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given her circumstances. She wanted someone who was real, you know, and
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you know, of course he was attracted to her anyway, and it just
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it just worked. They just connected. I think they were married within eighteen
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months of meetings, something like that, two thousand steps ago. Almost twenty
15:01
years later, they're still together. They got a family, they got this
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great balance. They seem to be able to dip in and out of each
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other's careers and sort of accommodate each other. It's a really solid relationship.
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And he was still struggling with his addictions. When and how does he finally
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get clean and sober? Yeah, well he'd been by that time, he'd
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done two spells in rehab. My understanding is not long after they got married.
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There was just a brill. It might have just been at one drink,
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you know, it was just a slip, and he realized that he
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had a lot more to lose now, and Boom just checked himself into rehabs
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straight away, and in fact, I think he stayed there for three months.
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I can only imagine that the food must have been really good, or
15:48
maybe the rooms are comfortable. I don't know, but he just said,
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I'm going to stay here until I'm confident that I can step out into the
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outside world and not be tempted anymore. And you know that seems to have
15:58
been the case. So well done him. But it was very early in
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the relationship, you know, I mean, the whispers were there was a
16:06
nose screw up claws in their prenup, you know, and he screwed up.
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But you know, he owned up to it. He didn't try to
16:15
hide the fact that he had some kind of you know, slip, and
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he went known did and you spent three months in rehabbing, came out and
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you know, here we are fifteen years down the line, and you know
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he's still right at the top of the pile, as is she, you
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know, so and they've got a couple of kids. They seem to be
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able to balance their lives really well. Funny story when the whole Chris Rock
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will Smith threw haha, happened a slab, Yeah, the slap. Well,
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Keith and Nicole were at the front, right at the front, at
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a table, right and a guy I know here, a broadcaster who knows
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Keith personally. He said he was watching and he sent him a text as
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it happened and he said, hey, man, you're pretty close to the
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action. And Keith texted him back and said, no, man, I'm
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at ringside. That's right. I remember watching the clip and there's Nicole.
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But it must have felt like the days back in the beer barns in Australia,
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you know, where everybody's up for a fight. He's a regular guy
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in living this irregular life. A friend of mine lives in the same apartment
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building. Well, when I say a friend of mine lives in the same
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apartment building, Keith and Nicole have. They own most of an apartment building
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on the Harbor in Sydney and a friend of mine lives in one of the
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apartments. I think they own ten. And he said, he's just the
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guy. You see he holds the door for you at the lift, you
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see him down in the gym and the pool. It's a guy in flip
17:41
flops and shorts and T shirts. You know, it's really there's no pretension.
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Jeff Aptors. Here to talk about is brand new book titled Keith Urban
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that is out now right. People can yeah, Yeah, that's right.
17:52
This week you were at the dawn of the release, Yes, and he's
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there to share some stories from his previous books. ACDC fans are very familiar
18:03
with Jeff Apter. You've written a handful of books relating to the band members.
18:07
Yes, love this band, and you were a ghostwriter for ACDC bassist
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Mark Evans book Right Dirty Deeds My Life Inside Outside of ACDC. I want
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to ask you about your twenty twenty one book on Bon Scott first, and
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that's titled Bad Boy Boogie, The True Story of ACDC Legend Bond Scott.
18:26
You said in an interview with Australia as the leader at the time you're promoting
18:30
this book that Bond should be remembered for what he did while he was alive
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and not how he died. And you also said that he was the last
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of the great Alaricans. He was in the last generation of Alaricans who could
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get away with being Alrikans. Am I pronouncing Americans right? American? Is
18:47
I'm trying to think of an American American jokester? Yeah, yeah, but
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it's sort of in Australia. It was until I guess, until political correctness
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and wokeness became a big factor. It was it was prized. You know,
19:03
people like Paul Hogan would is the definitive Alaric and you know, he's
19:07
a guy who could get away with certain things with a bit of a wink
19:12
and a smile, you know, and you know, deep down inside,
19:15
if he's gonna if anybody's gonna be hurt, it's himself, not anybody else.
19:18
You know, a guy who would look at life as an adventure,
19:23
you know, and not take himself too seriously. It's really important part of
19:29
Australian culture not to take yourself too seriously. That is Barne. Yeah,
19:33
yeah, absolutely. I mean going back to the first thing about there was
19:37
an there seemed to be a really obsessive quest to find out how he died,
19:42
Did he od did this happen? And I mean who cares? Because
19:47
if he didn't live the life that he did, we wouldn't be talking about
19:51
him anyway. And I thought it was really unfair. Obviously the guy's not
19:56
around to challenge accusation and suggestions and whispers about how he ended up. It's
20:03
a tragedy. He died, it's horrible. I'm sure he didn't want to
20:07
go out. You know, he had a lot of left to give,
20:08
and ACDC, of course, were just on the cusp of exploding. You
20:14
know, the Highway to Hell would come out. They were about to go
20:15
and make back in black. For God's sake, you know, everything was
20:18
happening for him. So I think it's very unfair to really delve into that
20:23
side of his short, sharp life. You know, I wanted to write
20:29
a book that reminded people have just this guy's funny, you know, a
20:33
gifted front man, one of the best ever in my opinion, you know,
20:38
sexy, charismatic swagger, but didn't take himself too seriously and wrote really
20:45
funny and quite often very incisive lyrics. My big problem with everything ACDC posts
20:52
on is that their lyrics suck. I mean they haven't written a funny song
20:57
for forty years and then and Brian actually handed the lyric duties over to Malcolm
21:03
and Angus and then just comes up with catchphrases right, power up, rock
21:11
or bust. I mean, this is not long way to the Top,
21:14
Highway to help crabsody in blue. You know, it's got none of that
21:18
Bond's wordplay. You know, he said he was a street poet. I
21:21
love that, you know, he was he was the guy if you gave
21:23
him a spray can and a blank wall, he come up with something really
21:27
clever and funny, you know. But they don't have that anymore, and
21:32
they haven't had it since he's gone. You know, Brian Johnson's done a
21:34
great job, but in Australia we still think of him as the new boy.
21:37
Oh yeah, for all these years. Yeah forty. It's like work
21:41
experienced guy. You know, he's not Bond Scott. You know. I
21:47
always talk about the story that maybe my favorite, the story that Bian would
21:52
walk around with a bowl constrictor around his neck. You know, that would
21:53
just that was him just going for a walk. That was him. But
21:56
what's the one about him crowing friends and family member at the Atlantic Records offices.
22:03
I'm there, dad, that's that's that's alaricanism, you know, one
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oh one. You know, he go into the office of their American record
22:10
company Atlantic and say, I just want to make a quick phone call and
22:12
he's ringing and this is this is when it used to cost a lot to
22:17
make at what we call a SD international subscriber. Think it cost a lot
22:21
to make these calls bondab be on the phone all day. You know,
22:22
I'm going to ring my family in Freemantle in West Australia. There's a couple
22:26
of people in Sydney are going to catch up with I should ring the Albert's
22:30
office in Sydney and catch up with them. You know, he'd be on
22:32
the phone for hours racking up this bill. But there's a couple of really,
22:37
there's a couple other very funny stories and this, Like I said,
22:41
you mentioned Mark Evans, I was really lucky, you know, I was
22:45
an a CDC fan. I was lucky enough to grow up in the seventies
22:48
here when they were playing you know, local venues and got to see them
22:52
in different you know, really at that early stage with Bond out front when
22:56
they tour here. You know, years down the line. They don't do
23:00
publicity. They don't need to. In all my time at Rolling Stone,
23:03
I interviewed Angus once and that was it for fifteen minutes on the phone.
23:07
They don't need to promote things because everything sells without promotion and they don't like
23:11
doing it anyway. So ACDC we're here on tour and I think it was
23:15
in about two thousand maybe two thousand and ten around there somewhere. And what
23:19
the local newspapers do is, Okay, I'm not going to get Angus on
23:22
the phone, so let's get someone who's connected with the band, and Mark
23:26
Evans for ACDC historians would know that Mark was the guy again to me,
23:32
was in the classic lineup, you know, we bond Scott out front right
23:36
up to the time just before Highway to Hell. But he was there for
23:38
you know, let there be rock and high voltage and a long way to
23:42
the Top, you know, fantastic record, you know, considered the best
23:48
by many ACDC fans, and I, you know, I would agree with
23:51
that, you know. So Mark was there for this. Really, it
23:52
wasn't like he was there for a couple of years. He was there for
23:55
a long time, played lots and lots of shows. So they brought him
23:57
out. A journalist contacted him when ACDC was in town and they said to
24:03
Mark, you know, it's been a while since you've been out of the
24:04
band, and surely it must be a difficult thing for you to see how
24:08
successful they've become. And Mark said, I must write a book because it's
24:12
cheaper than therapy. And I thought this is really good. And it turned
24:17
out he was a friend of a friend and I just reached out to him.
24:19
I said, you really want to write a book, let's do it
24:22
together, and you know, and he'd already started. So I got to
24:25
be his ghost writer, and through him, I just got so many great
24:27
ACDC stories I can imagine, you know, the best. There's two that
24:32
really stick in my mind. There's one where Mark and Bonn are sharing a
24:36
room and they're in Paris. It's about nineteen seventy eight, so they're starting
24:38
to really take off internationally and they've had a big night out with not just
24:44
a big gig, but they've met a couple of very friendly locals. Okay,
24:48
I'm going to put it that way. And you know, they've been
24:49
on the road for six months now or whatever, and they're you know that,
24:53
I've spent time on the road with bands, and it's like a vacuum.
24:56
It's like a cocoon. You know that spinal tap joke about Hello Cleveland.
25:00
I get that. I can see how people after a while have no
25:03
idea where they are. So they get up the next morning and they've had
25:07
this they played a great gig and they met these lovely, very friendly locals.
25:10
And they get up and they're on one of those little balconies in a
25:14
Parisian hotel room and they're looking out and there's the Eiffel Towers just there.
25:19
And Mark's sitting there with this great grin in his face, thinking this is
25:23
fantastic because Mark comes from the same kind of background as Keith Urban did,
25:26
very working class, and Bonds looking at it for a looking out for ages
25:32
and Mark said, what's up mate? And he said, you know,
25:33
it's really funny Mark that tower. They've got one of those in Paris as
25:37
well. He just had no idea where it was. And the other one,
25:44
the other one's a little bit more blue. Shall we say? There's
25:48
no this is not a g rated show. Show there's in Australia, particularly
25:53
in the seventies, you would have a tour program that they still do it
25:56
now, but back then it used to be a really big marketing to and
26:00
you get band members would get one of those standard Q and a's, you
26:03
know, what's your favorite drink, what's your favorite movie? What color do
26:07
you like? And one of the questions on the questionnaire was you know what's
26:12
your personal goal or who would you like to meet and Mark. This was
26:18
Mark's first tour with the band, and when it was published and printed,
26:23
his quote was, I'd like to fuck Britt Eklund and no one even looked
26:30
at it twice and they published it and printed it. And you know acdc's
26:33
audience back then, because there was a show here called Countdown and it's like
26:37
the Top of the Pops in the UK, right, It's a pop show
26:40
ACDC on almost every week and got this big teenage audience. So some kid
26:45
from the show's gone home with a program and shown it to mom and dad,
26:48
who have completely freaked out, rang their local counselor get all these gigs
26:53
were canceled, and of course Mark didn't fill out the questionnaire at all.
26:56
Bond filled it out for Ah. And so they're sitting on the tour bus
27:02
and all this stuff is all these gigs are being canceled, and there's all
27:06
this furor and journalists are chasing them for quotes, and Mark's sitting there and
27:11
he's devastated. He's like, oh man, what's happened to me? I'm
27:14
going to get kicked out of the band. This is terrible. And he's
27:17
sitting on the bus feeling absolutely destraught, and Bond sat down next to him,
27:19
and Mark's thinking, Okay, he's going to come clean. It's all
27:23
going to be fine, you know, because Bond was slightly older than the
27:26
other guys too, so he is sort of seen as the senior member of
27:30
the band. Bond sat down with him and looked at him and said,
27:33
ah, it's a tough time, Mark, but you know, the girl
27:37
does have feelings too, And then he's walked away. He just couldn't own
27:42
it. He just couldn't do it. That goes back to the whole kind
27:47
of Alaric and thing that I was saying Frankster Franks to. Some people can
27:52
get away with it, and some people can't, and Bond could. Interesting
27:55
quote in the oroqu I read you said it, if he lived, I
27:59
don't think the band would still be around today. Why did him feel that
28:02
way? I think he would have he would have seen I don't think he
28:07
would have appreciated being or had any desire to be an aging rock star.
28:12
You know when he died, well, he was more than you know,
28:15
he was more than he was one hundred percent invested in the band. I
28:19
don't think he would have put him more than another ten years or so,
28:23
I think he would have gone. He was a guy who liked his creature
28:26
comforts too. I think when he if he'd been around to make his first
28:30
me and he would have been happy with that. And I don't think there's
28:33
no way he would be you know, we talked about the Stones before.
28:36
There's no way he would have been out front of that band at eighty years
28:38
old. Just it would be an idea that he would have laughed out of
28:42
town. Do you think he would still make music though? Would he be
28:45
recording? Possibly? I see him more. I would have seen him more
28:48
as a Tonight's Show kind of guy, you know, Tonight with Bonn,
28:52
Late Night with Bond. You know, he'd have all his friends around.
28:56
It'd be the best TV show you could ever imagine. You know, he
29:00
invite all these great acts to perform and he just be on the couch just
29:03
cracking wise with people. You know. I think that would have been more
29:07
his line. And he was a smart guy who was well read. You
29:08
know, he might have got into a whole bunch of other things. But
29:11
I do think that the idea of an a being an aging rock star had
29:15
no appeal for him. Whatsoever. The book Done Right podcasts will be back
29:19
after this. Two other extremely important names in ECDC history who are sadly no
29:26
longer with us George Young and Malcolm Young, brothers of Angus. George produced
29:30
the early ACDC albums. Malcolm the rhythm guitarist of ECDC. But more than
29:36
just that, you wrote a book called Friday on My Mind, The Life
29:40
of George Young that came out in twenty twenty. Can you talk about his
29:42
importance to Australian rock music and easy Yeah, George's royalty. George Young and
29:49
Harry Vander they were together in a band called the Easy Beats. Easy Beats,
29:53
you know, Friday on My Mind was a huge hit in sixty five
29:56
sixty six. That were the first band to ever have international success with an
30:02
original song. You know, that was a really big, big moment.
30:07
Both immigrants met and met at an immigration center in Sydney at a time when
30:11
you know, post war immigration was really booming. George in particular, you
30:15
know, he's like the founding father. You know, The Easy Beat went
30:19
overseas, they spaced themselves in the UK, they toured America. They had
30:23
this one great song and made a bunch of really interesting records, but it
30:26
didn't happen for them again because, as George later said, we tried too
30:32
much. We tried to be We saw the Beatles and went, well,
30:34
they're doing it, we should do it too. The reality was their best
30:38
songs were the ones that were really simple and basic, you know, the
30:41
hits that they had here, songs like Sorry and the Wedding Ring and so
30:45
on. These early songs that were really raw and rootsy and bluesy and just
30:49
short, sharp, two and a half minute songs they were going to make.
30:52
These went on to make these quite big orchestrated epics, you know,
30:56
great music, but it just didn't. It wasn't representative of what they really
31:00
were. So anyway, the easy beats fell apart. I mean, you
31:03
know, there's terrible stories. They had all this international acclaim and their final
31:08
tour, you know, they ended up playing to a half empty room out
31:11
in rural Australia. No one was there, and at the end of it
31:15
all, I think they pocketed five hundred dollars each. His thanks for the
31:18
last you know, six years, it's been great. This is basically all
31:22
it's achieve for you. George spent a few years in England working with his
31:26
partner Harry Vander, and they came back to Australia. At this time,
31:30
Malcolm and Angus weren't in a band together. Malcolm was in a band called
31:33
the Odly Enough the Velvet Underground, a Sydney band, not the one with
31:37
Lewin john Car. But he was sort of a high at hand and he'd
31:41
seen the success Malcolm and Angus. Just George wasn't their brother, he was
31:47
their idol. You know. What he'd achieved internationally with the Easy Beats was
31:51
unfathomable. Again, we're talking about real working class guys, guys who came
31:56
over as immigrants, who were high school dropouts. I think Angus had worked
32:00
in a no, sorry, Malcolm had worked in the bra factory for a
32:02
little while Angus had worked packing pornographic magazines. These guys, there's eight children,
32:09
right, A big family. Big family because there was this scheme post
32:15
war scheme here called what we call colloquially the ten pound pom and it meant
32:21
for ten pounds, which was about twenty bucks, you could bring your family
32:23
up from the UK and base and live in Australa, get a job and
32:27
start again. You know, and for anybody who'd lived through World War Two,
32:30
particularly in England, God, do you want to get the hell out
32:32
of there and come to this, you know, strange sunny place at the
32:36
bottom of the world, which is how come we had so we have so
32:38
many great musicians here because so many of them came through this skin anyway,
32:42
So yeah, big family. George had finally come back to austraam in the
32:46
early seventies at the time that Malcolm said to Angus, let's form our own
32:51
band, let's do our own thing, which led to ACDC. Early on.
32:57
George sat down with them and said, look, you know, they
33:00
started to develop their sound. You know this raw again, something that came
33:04
out like Keith Urban came out of the Aussie beer Barnes and it was a
33:07
really primal, hard rocking, hard hitting kind of sound. And they said
33:13
to George, you know, should we try other things? Should we write
33:15
ballads, I don't know, folk songs? And George said, no,
33:19
no, no, don't make the mistakes that we made in the easy beats.
33:22
You got your sound, focus on it, and you know, let's
33:24
face it, they've been doing the same thing for almost fifty years now.
33:28
So it was great advice, and then you know, he was their early
33:30
producer. He produced everything up until Highway to Hell I think, which was
33:35
the first red acord with mut Lane, So you know, he was there
33:38
as they spent, as this band found their sound, developed their sound,
33:43
and established themselves internationally. He was the guy that Malcolm and Angus would always
33:46
go back to for advice, not just musical advice, but career advice,
33:51
because George said to them, don't make the mistakes we made in the Easy
33:54
Beats, keep control of your records. Know who your publisher is. No,
34:00
you know they they I worked with Michael Browne who was their first manager,
34:04
and they sacked him as soon as big international managers started sniffing around,
34:07
because Malcolm and Angus knew that that was how they were going to get exposed
34:12
globally. They needed the heavyweights behind them, which George didn't do with The
34:15
Easy Beats. So it was almost like, you know, everything that George
34:20
had, all the mistakes that George had made. He said to Malcolm and
34:23
Angus, Okay, don't do this, because we did it. We do
34:27
something different. You know, we made these mistakes, don't repeat them.
34:30
So he became a real girl a real sage for the band, and they
34:35
brought him back. They brought him and Harry Vander back much later on to
34:37
produce later records. I think they did Stiff Upper Lip together, you know.
34:42
Yeah, it was one of the last productions that George did before he
34:45
died. As far as Malcolm's concerned, yeah, Malcolm was all a CDC.
34:50
Was always Malcolm's band, you know. Malcolm was Malcolm's idea to form
34:53
the band. It was Malcolm's idea to bring Angus in. Initially, you
34:57
know, he was with older musicians who George knew you and then eventually connected,
35:01
you know, with Phil Rudd, Mark Evans, you know, the
35:05
right guys. They got the right guys and Bond Scott, of course they
35:07
got the right guys, the classic lineup. But it was always Malcolm making
35:12
the big decisions hiring, firing, you know, what songs to record,
35:15
where to record them. But you know, there was never a question up
35:19
until the point of working with Muttlang who they were going to record them with.
35:22
It was always going to be George Young and Harry Vander and it was
35:24
always going to be back in Snear at the studio called Albert Switch is now
35:29
a parking lot man, and it should be it should be a trine,
35:32
you know, it should. It's our Abbey Road. You know so much
35:37
great music was made there. So but the title of your book is apt
35:40
Malcolm Young, the man who made CDC. Yeah, a CDC thing is
35:46
really interesting because you know a lot of people say, hang on the Scottish,
35:50
you know, hang on Brian Johnson's been in the band longer than than
35:53
Bond Scott and all those a valid comments. But I'm interested in roots.
35:59
I'm interested in you know, most of the stories and the books that I
36:01
write, the most intense part of those biographies will be the pre success Where
36:07
do you come from? And how did you get to where you are?
36:10
Now? That's the stuff that really interests me. And for ACDC, if
36:15
they hadn't come with the Youngs, hadn't come to Australia, we wouldn't be
36:16
talking about them. There was this environment here in this particularly in the seventies,
36:22
where bands could play seven nights a week to big crowns in big rooms
36:27
and really learn their trade. You know. It's the environment that produced ACDC.
36:31
It produced in excess, it produced midnight oil, Whodo gurus, all
36:36
these great bands that came out of that time came out of this pub circuit,
36:39
and I think if ACDC hadn't been exposed to that, they wouldn't exist,
36:44
you know, we wouldn't be talking about them. And that book came
36:45
out in twenty nineteen, by the way, got to plug that one.
36:47
Malcolm Young, the man who made ACDC. Another legacy band would be Red
36:52
Hot Chili Peppers. Two thousand and four. You wrote a book called Fornication,
36:55
the Red Hat Chili Peppers Story. That's selling biography of the band.
37:00
By the way, until wrote his book, damn him. Oh yeah,
37:04
yeah, Flee wrote a book. This book has sold hundreds of thousands of
37:07
copies. I mean that's hugely. I think it's sold more copies than about
37:12
the last three or four Chili Peppers records. Combined expectations as an author,
37:16
what's a good number, like, what's a well because you say ten,
37:21
Yeah, oddly the most successful book I've had that I had bigger successes as
37:25
a ghostwriter. But the Angers book that's old about twenty thousand copies, you
37:30
know, and internationally that's they're great numbers, you know, And to be
37:35
honest, I thought the Bond book was better. But you know, I
37:38
know, I'm just the author. Yeah, I was gonna say, like
37:40
five thousand is like the equivalent of like a gold record, ten thousands of
37:45
platinum record. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean the publisher,
37:47
the Peter Bok's got high expectations and I get that because he's got audio,
37:52
so you But my books tend to do in Australia, tend to do around
37:57
ten to fifteen thousand, which is great. Yeah, that's awesome. Blood
38:00
Sugar Sex Magic from ninety one. Maybe there it may be their best album,
38:04
but the Chili Peppers have so many great ones. But that was supposed
38:07
to be a double album. Yeah. I was surprised too when I started
38:09
researching that they recorded so much. I mean, it was probably the first
38:13
time, to be honest, that they had their shit together. Frankly,
38:17
you know, I got a story. I think it was from Cliff Martinez
38:22
Jack Schman. I think it was Cliff Martinez told me about recording, you
38:24
know, in Detroit with George Clinton. That was what freaky Styley, and
38:29
you know, he said, we'd never been we hadn't spent much time in
38:31
Detroit. We couldn't work out why there was all this earthenware, stuff for
38:36
sale everywhere, Crack pipes man, everybody. Crack was an epidemic, you
38:42
know, and young guys in a studio with George Clinton and probably a reasonable
38:46
amount of money. You know, when most of that went. I think
38:50
by the time they got together with Rick Rubin, you know, they knew
38:52
that they had to take this seriously. They recorded I think it was like
38:57
twenty five songs. There's a bunch of covers. There was that song sold
39:00
Squeezed, which came out surprisingly not on the record. To be honest,
39:06
generally speaking, I okay, Well, when I'm writing a book, I'm
39:10
investing a lot of myself for twelve months at least in listening to not just
39:15
the music, but reading everything I can, talking to as many people as
39:19
I can, kind of immersing myself in their world. I'm going to be
39:22
honest. When I'd finished the Chili Peppers book, I was happy to walk
39:25
away from it. Really, there's some really, yeah, there's some really
39:28
heavy fuel there, particularly Anthony Keeters. I think he runs on some really
39:34
And I don't mean this, This is not a negative comment. It's just
39:37
an observation. Is that guys like that, and I think Keith Richards might
39:42
have a bit of it too. They run on like really heavy fuel.
39:46
It's hard to explain. They the band is their obsession. And in Keeters's
39:52
play instance, it was probably because you know, his father was a nasty
39:57
piece of work and he came from some pretty sordid background and you know it
40:01
was his baby and he wanted and you know he's still doing it now,
40:07
but it meant a lot of people suffered along the way. Like Hilloslovak was
40:12
dead, John Freshandy might as well have been dead after Sugar he was.
40:17
There's the video of him when he was at it worst, and Flea saved
40:22
that guy's life. Man. You know, if it wasn't for Flea support,
40:27
because when he when Freshanny, you know, I think it happened in
40:29
Japan, he fell apart. I remember interviewing the manager, Lindy Getz,
40:31
and he said, yeah, he just crumbled like a cook. He just
40:35
fell apart. You know, it was drugs and it was pressure, and
40:37
it was success and it was money and all these kind of things came together.
40:40
And yeah, you see footage from that time. I mean he was
40:44
a terrible wreck. You know, Flee hung in there. Flee I think
40:46
was the only one in the band who really supported him, and more power
40:52
to him, and he you know, got him back in because he also
40:53
knew that fre Shandy to me was the spark you know, creatively, he's
40:58
the magic in that band. Oh yes, such a great guitarists and such
41:00
great with melodies. Every time he's in the band, they make great records,
41:05
and every time he's out, they make a flop. You know,
41:07
work that one out. But yeah, there was something about writing about them.
41:10
I thought I'm done. I've never revisited that book. I've probably it's
41:15
well overdue for an update, but I just, I just I don't think
41:19
I want to get back into that world because it was I found it a
41:22
bit just a bit heavy. Yeah, it's a real tragedy there. It's
41:24
a real not just death, but you know, people whose careers have been
41:28
ruined, and you know, it just I don't know, it just felt
41:34
sort of it was almost like there was some kind of curse. I don't
41:37
know what it was. It just it just felt weird. Yeah, yeah,
41:42
yeah, And you know, you can tell, I best put this,
41:45
You could tell that that band was being driven by something more than just
41:52
you know, the desire for success. It was like without that band,
41:55
particularly people like Keius, you know, you've got to wonder what they're going
41:59
to hang on to, right right, Tell me about the Cure, because
42:02
I would think maybe this was the band. You know. I spent a
42:07
lot of time with Lowell Tollhurst. Yeah, yeah, to write that the
42:10
two thousand and five book, by the way, the Story of Never Enough,
42:15
the Story of the Cure. Yeah, that's right. And Lowell,
42:16
I noticed it, has just written a new book on goth so you know,
42:20
he's getting around. But his experience that he related to me was that
42:24
was pretty dark, you know, alcoholism again. You know, guys that
42:29
came from a very blue collar kind of background who had all this great success
42:34
and weren't quite sure how to deal with it. Loll in particular, he
42:37
was kind of like the Brian Jones of the band out right. Yeah that's
42:42
not bad. Yeah, well, I think I think he got a push,
42:45
but Lowell was ready to jump anyway, I think, yeah, yeah,
42:50
I think he could see what was going on with himself and how bad
42:52
it was, and you know, he knew that he needed help. But
42:54
you know, he's been invited back into the band for various anniversaries and so
42:59
on since obviously he's still got a really good relationship with Robert Smith, which
43:01
is that's great to hear, Yeah, because it did kind of it was
43:05
kind of an ugly end there, Like he was on drums, he was
43:07
part of the songwriting process. Then he's kind of not anymore, and yeah,
43:13
Disintegration, he's kind of like, you know, let's just throw them
43:15
a bone and put him on the keyboards. It's like it was weird.
43:17
Yeah, yeah, you know, speaking to him about that, and he
43:21
said disintegration was the perfect title because that's exactly what was happening to me at
43:24
the time. Yeah, you know, but you know, he's a survivor.
43:29
Robert Smith is the ultimate survivor. You know, I didn't really I
43:32
didn't spend any time with him. He was the only one that was resistant
43:37
or was unavailable. I mean, it's just speaked to everybody else, but
43:40
I would say, he's someone again who the band, that that thing,
43:45
the cure of the brand. The cure is his lifeline. That's his not
43:50
his reason for being, but it's the most central part of his life.
43:53
What is it about Robert Smith? Because there's so many lineup changes, people
43:58
leaving coming back. Simon Gallup has really he's been there most of the time.
44:02
But even he had a falling out with Robert, even though they were
44:06
like best men at each other's wedding River But what is it about Robert?
44:09
Is he? Is he difficult to work with? Is he a perfectionist?
44:12
Is he what's the what's the reason for all the I think he's one of
44:15
those guys who would expect everybody involved with his band and it is his band,
44:22
to be as dedicated as he is, as completely obsessive about it as
44:28
he is. And it's probably you probably couldn't say that about all the other
44:30
guys, you know, yeah, probably, you know, I don't think
44:32
I don't think Robert has kids or anything like that. You know, the
44:36
Cure is his baby, So I would think that was the problem, is
44:40
that, you know, he would expect a certain level. It's like Fleetwood
44:44
Mac. You know, when Ninsey Buckingham said, you know, I've got
44:47
my solo record, I don't want to tour well to Mick Fleetwood. That
44:52
would be blesphemy. Do you want to do what right? You know?
44:55
Because that way too? Yeah, yeah, I mean you invest in Mick
44:59
Fleetwood's case, what is fifty years, Well, it's the same with Robert
45:01
Smith. Actually, Mick Fleetwood. It's closer to sixty, isn't it.
45:04
My god, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember Stevie next saying,
45:07
you know Nick Is he's the guy man he keeps this band going because he
45:12
kept him going through the lean years when they were playing clubs in the early
45:15
nineties before the big reunion. Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, I know.
45:20
So you know, you go back to the late sixties too, when
45:22
you know they had more members in that band than they you would have.
45:24
You could make a couple of soccer teams out of the members ex members of
45:28
Fleetwood Mac. You know, there were seven and weird stories, you know,
45:32
Peter Green, you know, finding God, someone else finding LSD,
45:36
you know, and going off in these weird tangents where they just didn't just
45:40
drop out of Fleetwood Mac, they dropped out of life, you know,
45:44
they just disappeared. So again, there's a band that was probably running on
45:49
some pretty heavy fuel too at certain times. What was I'm interested in getting
45:52
your thoughts now because you've written books on the Finn brothers and Neil Finn.
45:58
You wrote a book on Neil Finn too, so what do you think of
46:00
Neil Finn in Fleetwood Mac. How do you like that? Well, this
46:05
side of the planet. It was a complete shock, you know. It
46:07
was like I think Neil put out a tweet it said something about mysteries of
46:12
Stonehenge revealed and yes I am joining Fleetwood Mac. You know what. But
46:19
as I dug into it for my book, it turns out that him and
46:21
Mick were friends. Mick had been with the traditional, the classic version of
46:27
Fleetwood Mac in New Zealand a few years ago on tour, met Neil at
46:30
an awards show and they just clicked, you know, a couple of old
46:34
troopers, you know, probably swapping war stories about life on the road,
46:37
and they just found they became really good friends. Mick had worked with Neil
46:43
on a couple of solo projects. He said, yeah, can you just
46:45
come in and play some drums, no problem. And then when the whole
46:49
you know, ship fight with Lindsay Buckingham occurred before this last tour. As
46:52
soon as Buckingham said I'm not in, you know, Nick Flewood immediately thought
46:57
I'll get Neil and Mike Campbell. Of course, you know he's telling though
47:00
that they needed two people to replace one. But you know, that's another
47:04
story. But Neil, there were friends, and I think for Neil it
47:08
was just like, what is you know, a bizarre possibility, you know,
47:14
to go and play with such a big band because crowded house. For
47:15
all this success and split ends, they weren't playing the fifty thousand people each
47:20
night Fleetwood Mac do and you know, to have that experience, it's a
47:23
once in a lifetime experience to be able to do that. So I can
47:27
understand why he did it. The money would have been fantastic. As I
47:30
understand, he bought a house in La with the proceeds. Yeah, well
47:35
done him. And did they play don drum It's over? Did they include
47:37
crowded house tunes on that fleet This is the big thing. This is the
47:42
big thing, you know. This is a band who could play for three
47:45
hours and every song's a hit to crowds of fifty thousand and upwards who were
47:50
just you know, worshiping at the house of Fleetwood Mac. And Mikas said
47:54
to Neil, I want you to do don't dream It's over, And on
47:57
some nights he did. I got you as well, he said, I'm
48:00
going to give you your own spot and Stevie Nicks would join him and they
48:04
perform together, and that was one of the highlights of the shows. You
48:07
know. So it says EON's about the respect that Neil has from fellow musicians,
48:13
and also, you know about the simple power of that that particular song,
48:16
Don't Dream It's over. You know, it's a it's an anthem,
48:20
it's the universe. It's one of those songs that just connects with everybody.
48:25
You know. I always though I'm not a musician, but if I was,
48:30
and I could be given ten songs that I'd like to claim, you
48:34
know, having written, that'd be one of them. So, you know,
48:37
it says so much that every night Mick would say, right, here's
48:39
Neil spot and then it wasn't just Neil solo. Stephen Nicks would join him.
48:44
You know, it was it was really powerful stuff. Yeah, well,
48:46
what are they going to do now with Christine McVeigh gone. I mean,
48:50
I think again going back to the Mick Fleetwood, the idea that he
48:53
can't go on without Fleetwood Max. So I think he's gonna He's going to
48:59
bring him back. A weird one, isn't it. It's it's a c
49:00
DC without Malcolm. You know, it's it's a it's a strange situation where
49:05
they went on with that her before. Remember when she retired like flying,
49:09
she was just done and she came back. Yeah, it's weird. I
49:14
don't know. I mean, I think Neil would be in the mix.
49:19
But then again, I would imagine Lindsay Buckingham would probably say to Honor Christine
49:22
he wanted to do something himself. So yeah, look, I mean I
49:27
honestly, I couldn't comment professionally. I could only just pass a personal kind
49:30
of observation. Would be if they if for some reason they wanted to go
49:37
back to this this line up including Neil, you know, and Lindsay Buckyham
49:40
said no, Neil would definitely be in the mix. Damn, Mike Campbell
49:44
my favorite guitarist. Have him in your band. You're doing okay and not
49:47
a bad songwriter. Yeah, yeah, he sort of lived in Tom Petty's
49:52
shadow or at the book Done Right. Podcast will be back after this.
50:00
I want to plug all your books here. We want to try to get
50:02
to few. But you got the Dave Grohl's story from O six. I
50:06
mentioned the Finn Brothers. The story of the Finn Brothers Together Alone, Split
50:10
Ends, Crowded House and Beyond, and then you have Don't Dream It's Over,
50:15
the first biography to focus exclusively on Neil Finn and what else. Well,
50:21
he got the Jeff Buckley Yeah, two of them, right, two
50:24
books. Yeah, Well, I mean I had the original book and I
50:28
got the rights back and I rewrote it and I did a book with the
50:30
photographer Mary Seer as well. I was involved with the Jeff Buckley Tim Buckley
50:35
tour here in Australia with Gary Lucas. Yeah, there's something about, particularly
50:39
with Australia. Jeff Buckley. You know, he wasn't around for a long
50:43
time, but what is it that these musicians who have such respect for him.
50:47
He made one album, Sadly Dies Young. It's a really powerful connection
50:52
in Australia for Jeff Buckley. He toured here twice, you know, and
50:55
he wasn't it wasn't like he was on the road for a long time.
50:58
You know, the guy was thirty when he died. But there was great
51:00
radio support here in Australia, the sort of alternative radio that gets big coverage
51:07
here, a station called Triple J which comes out of Sydney, but there's
51:09
a nationwide station, and you know it's the station that all international tourists will
51:14
go to immediately once they reach Sydney. You know, they'll go play a
51:17
set in the studio or be interviewed on aeron Triple J because it has such
51:21
influence. You know, it's like a cross between I don't know, NPR
51:25
and you know, whatever your coolest alternative station is. You know, it's
51:30
got that reach. And you know he did sets with them and that got
51:34
really great coverage and suddenly the shows are falling, these booking more shows.
51:37
There was something about obviously his voice, he's on stage charisma. Ladies loved
51:45
him. You know, there were amazing stories about the cues of women waiting
51:51
to see Jeff after shows in Australia. You know, there's also great I
51:54
got to told this story. You've got to understand Australia, the pub culture
51:59
is pretty strong. When you play live. If you're not playing in a
52:01
theater or an arena, you're playing in a pub, and you know,
52:06
people as time is divided between watching the band and getting drinks. In one
52:09
venue that Jeff played in, they turned off the bar, they turned off
52:13
the cash register while he was playing and in Australia, that's the biggest accolade
52:16
you could ever imagine. Right, we don't want to think about anything except
52:21
the guy on stage. You know, I've never heard of that happening before,
52:24
so it just connected really powerfully with an audience here. A lot of
52:29
stuff happened to him here. The band that he was in, you know,
52:32
with mcgrndole and Matt Johnson and Michael Tryon, it fell apart in Australia
52:37
that second tour. By the end of that they were done. Matt Johnson,
52:40
you didn't even last the final show. My understanding is you just got
52:44
up from his drum kit, walked out the door while they were playing,
52:46
didn't come back. You know. Things again, things got quite heavy.
52:51
I think there was a lot of music industry people kind of circling and buzzing
52:54
around Jeff. You know, he was going to be this superstar, you
52:59
know, but in Australia the connection was much more pure. You know,
53:02
people just really related to his music and his performances. And you know,
53:07
when he died, I mean it was that was Kurt Cobaine level here,
53:09
you know, that was you know, it was big news. Drowning really
53:14
yeah, it was seen as it great Janick talk about him here twenty five
53:19
years down the line. You know. You know even last year there was
53:22
another Gary Lucas came out and was playing Jeff Buckley songs again, you know,
53:25
so you know that was this year. So you know, it's pretty
53:29
strong the connection here. So for me to write about him, it wasn't
53:32
It was interesting because I got to write about that Australian experience quite yeah,
53:37
strongly. So one album nineteen ninety four is Grease one album. It's incredible,
53:40
isn't it. Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean it's
53:43
you know, even Hendricks recorded half a dozen Yeah, and then that mess
53:46
of the second record, which you know should never have been released. You
53:50
know, it had some good moments, but it should never have been It's
53:52
called what Sketches for My Sweetheart the Drunk. That's the posture first posthumous or
53:59
that was was working on when he died and it wasn't ready. Grace sold
54:02
something like half a million copies here in Australia, which is just staggering numbers.
54:07
I understand. Australia and France were his two biggest audiences. Yeah,
54:10
well and here in the States, I hear a lot about him too.
54:13
I mean, there are musicians in the States that have such respect for him,
54:15
and that the two books you wrote. Twenty sixteen is a pure drop
54:20
the life of Jeff Buckley, and then there's twenty five years of Grace and
54:22
anniversary tribute to Jeff Buckley. That was interest. That's more about Mary C's
54:27
photography, which you know, just my words is just wrapped around these beautiful
54:30
images. My god, the book is just stunning. I'll send you a
54:34
copy. It's fantastic. Oh that'd be nice man. Thank you. So,
54:37
the first and only definitive biography of country music star Keith Urban's out now
54:40
through Citadel Books. You can find it wherever books are sold. And where
54:45
can people find you online? Jeff, you have a website? I think
54:47
I do, yes, Just Jeff Apter, jf ap t E dot com
54:52
dot au ad the AU at the end for Australia. Right, I'm looking
54:57
at it here and it's got all your books, so people can pick up
55:00
copies of all the books there. Yeah. Look, and I'm you can
55:04
email me compliments of welcome insults as long as they're respectfully words. I'm ocome
55:13
to that, you know. Yeah, money, you know, professional services.
55:16
I'm here for you. You know how many books and all of you
55:20
written at the top of your wow, yeah, yeah, yeah, I
55:24
mean, you know it's it's there's a funny thing here in Australia when whenever
55:28
you write a new book, my publisher sends me a questionnaire. Right,
55:30
you filled in and the first question is what is your profession? Because in
55:36
Australia it's really hard to make a living as a writer. It's really I
55:39
mean that's a localized phenomenon. I think there's the same all around the world.
55:45
It's hard. So I take on a lot of projects. I take
55:47
on ghostwriting projects. I've worked with a number of different people who's a ghost
55:51
writer, and I really love it because it's so different to writing under my
55:53
own name. It's it's a totally different process. Writing under your own name.
55:58
Is the lead guitar man, you're out front right right ghost writer,
56:01
you're a rhythm guitar. You might even be the bass player. You know,
56:05
you're in the band. You're just keeping the beat and you've got to
56:07
just make sure you get to the finish line. So it's a totally different
56:10
experience and I really enjoyed it. Thanks man, this was so great,
56:14
and I hope to have you back on again down the line, because I'm
56:16
assuming you will have more books to talk. Next time will be man O
56:21
Mano in the studio together. Okay, I've got reasons. I can't wait
56:25
to get back a she. I want to come back and have a look
56:27
at some of the places that you know, my wife and I spent a
56:30
bit of time in and where we got married, and you know, we
56:32
used to go up to Toad's place all the time. And yes, man,
56:37
I saw I saw thinking. I saw Chris Whitley play there. I
56:42
saw Pat Bennettar played there. Pat Benattar was you know how the stage is
56:45
really low. You couldn't see Pat Benattar because she's so sure. I understand
56:49
where is she? I know I can hear it. I saw Frank Black
56:52
played there. I saw some great The Stone's Surprise gig there in nineteen eighty
56:55
eight, played there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, because when you got
57:00
when you see all the pictures of the artists who've been there, you know,
57:01
George, Yeah, and it's just a great funky room, you know,
57:05
I really really like that was one of the best gigs I would go
57:07
to regularly. If I wasn't going down to New York, I go up
57:09
to Toad's you know whoever was playing, because it was always that. I
57:13
love that you get people before they played the big New York show. Yes,
57:17
so you know they're a little looser, but they're also they want to
57:21
prove themselves, and you can tell they're just getting into a real good groove
57:23
by the time they get the Toad's place. Yeah, And it's great because
57:27
there's some great stories from people that that. Well, I've been there many
57:30
times, but my cousin Andy told me the story. He went to a
57:32
friend of his says, Hey, we're going to see uh, We're to
57:36
go and see Beck, and he thought it was Jeff Back. So he
57:38
gets there and it's Back, you know, but this is like pre fame
57:42
back, this guitar. But the Beck happens to be sitting out there be
57:45
pre show okay, but he's unknown, and he's chatting it up with my
57:50
cousin, and my cousin's like, I'm bummed, man, I thought I
57:52
was going to see Jeff Back, some guy named Back and and Beck didn't
57:58
say anything. And then my and goes inside and there's the dude he was
58:01
just chatting with on stage. That's so funny. That reminds me when we
58:06
were you know, A part of my whole experience as a writer has drawn
58:09
from a lot of things that happened to me when I was a teenager.
58:12
I guess it's the same for most people writing about music or sport, you
58:15
know. And when I was a teenager, the big gig that we used
58:20
to go to before we were old enough to go into pubs was this radio
58:22
station I mentioned, Triple J. They used to be called Double J when
58:25
they were just in Sydney, and they used to host Tuesday night live performances
58:30
in the studio. And their studio was up on the edge of King's Cross,
58:34
which is the red light part of town. It's forty second Street.
58:37
It's really a forty second street in the seventies, Okay, get the picture.
58:40
Yeah, you know, and we were kids in the suburbs. We
58:44
were way out in the boonies. It was like living in Long Island or
58:46
somewhere where we came from. We'd leave school, go home, get changed,
58:50
get on the train, go into town and as as a trip,
58:53
it took about an hour, you know, and we'd find we're all fifteen,
58:58
and we'd find the older. The guy with the most stubble in our
59:01
group would be the guy who goes into the pub before we get to the
59:05
venue, you know, and he come out with ten drinks. You know,
59:07
well we're standing out soide. Anyway, I remember one night we got
59:09
to the show and you never knew who was going to play. It was
59:13
always a surprise, and it was a live to wear a gig, and
59:15
we'd sit in this little studio and we're sitting there and I remember you get
59:20
on the floor and this guy in front of me this one night, and
59:22
he's gone on this big straw hat, and I remember thinking, damn,
59:25
I hope he's not here during the gig because I can't see a thing,
59:28
you know, this guy's straw hat is in the way. So the band
59:30
gets on stage, plugs in. The guy in front of me stands up,
59:34
takes off his straw hat. It's Peter Garrett, it's me. And
59:37
this was nineteen seventy six. They were an unknown quantity then, and I
59:43
remember going wow, firstly, no one had a shaved head back in night.
59:46
I was gonna say, he's covering up that bald head and he's about
59:51
eight foot tall. He's like this giant on the stage. And Midnight Oil
59:54
is a great band. Yeah, and we went there was a band that
59:57
we followed for years and years and years just on the Rankless thing that.
1:00:00
But I just remember sitting there going, who is this guy? Don't get
1:00:02
my way, man, Oh you're all right, Jeff, thanks man,
1:00:08
fantastic, Thank you so much for your time. Eric M. That's it.
1:00:19
It's in the books.