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The melancholy beauty of Cold Chisel · The Front

• 0:05
  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Claire Harvey.
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  Speaker 1: It's Friday, September twenty seven. Jim Chalmers met with his
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  Speaker 1: Chinese counterparts on his first official trip to the People's
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  Speaker 1: Republic on Thursday. Chalmers is the first Australian treasurer to
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  Speaker 1: visit China in seven years. He says it's vital in
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  Speaker 1: rebuilding mutual trust with our biggest trading partner. Will Glasgow
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  Speaker 1: is the only Australian journal resident in China. You can
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  Speaker 1: read his expert analysis right now at the Australian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot u. Nobody does exquisite nostalgia like Cold Chisel,
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  Speaker 1: with a catalog of songs that can make any Australian
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  Speaker 1: tear up from the first note. Today we have a
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  Speaker 1: rare treat inside the rehearsal room as Jimmy Barnes, Charlie Drayton,
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  Speaker 1: Don Walker, Phil Small and Ian Mooss get together to
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  Speaker 1: make the magic happen.
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  Speaker 2: Maybe you.
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  Speaker 1: Know that voice that scream we all do. That's Jimmy
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  Speaker 1: Barnes and this is Cold Chisel playing together. For the
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  Speaker 1: first time in years. The Australian was invited into a
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  Speaker 1: place not even the most hardcore Chisel fans get to
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  Speaker 1: go the rehearsal room for their forthcoming national tour. This
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  Speaker 1: is what Chisel chose to play first, a ballad written
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  Speaker 1: by Don Walker in twenty ten, All for You. Once
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  Speaker 1: upon a time, Jimmy Barnes would have warmed up for
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  Speaker 1: this with a bottle of something hard. In twenty twenty four,
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  Speaker 1: his poison comes in a porcelain cup.
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  Speaker 3: You could get me a coffee would exist a flat
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  Speaker 3: white with white white to please make it sound.
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  Speaker 1: I'm music writer Andrew McMillan sat down with the band.
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  Speaker 3: I am the luckiest man in the world to get
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  Speaker 3: up every night and sing this, this set of songs,
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  Speaker 3: you know, like they sing Don Walker song with every night.
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  Speaker 3: What a blessing, you know. I'm the luckiest going in
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  Speaker 3: Australia to be able to do that, you know.
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  Speaker 1: Barnes, guitarist and Moss, pianist and lyricist Don Walker, bassist
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  Speaker 1: Phil Small and drummer Charlie Drayton last played together in
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  Speaker 1: twenty twenty at the end of their last tour.
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  Speaker 3: I think it's going to be even better than it's
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  Speaker 3: going to be because we've had this chance to think
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  Speaker 3: about why we want to play. We're not coming in
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  Speaker 3: exhausted from a studio recording. I can just feel the
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  Speaker 3: excitement from everybody. I can't wait to get in front
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  Speaker 3: of an audience with this band.
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  Speaker 1: This tour is called the Big five Oho, and it
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  Speaker 1: sees the band older, grayer, yes, but also in Barnes's case,
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  Speaker 1: fresh from a brush with death. He's been through open
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  Speaker 1: heart surgery and two major hip operations, all connected to
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  Speaker 1: a raging staph infection. Barnes has had to strengthen his
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  Speaker 1: battered body, especially his hips, to adopt his classic pose
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  Speaker 1: standing with one foot upstage, one foot downstage, using his
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  Speaker 1: full body to project that remarkable voice.
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  Speaker 3: This tour is going to roll more than it rocks,
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  Speaker 3: you know, which is a really cool thing. I think
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  Speaker 3: it's going to have a lot more swing and a
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  Speaker 3: lot more groove, which it doesn't mean it's going to
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  Speaker 3: be less intense, but it's going to be not as
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  Speaker 3: frantic maybe, which I think is going to be a
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  Speaker 3: really cool thing. My thoughts are singing a just to
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  Speaker 3: back off, you know, half a degree and a load
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  Speaker 3: of the songs to swing a lot more as I
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  Speaker 3: opposed to push in all the band you know, because
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  Speaker 3: normally I want Everton played faster and harder and louder.
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  Speaker 3: I'm going to let them do their own thing and
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  Speaker 3: find the grooves that work for the songs, and then
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  Speaker 3: singing with them.
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  Speaker 1: All for you is especially meaningful for fans and for
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  Speaker 1: the band themselves.
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  Speaker 4: It's a very clearly a love song written from one
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  Speaker 4: to another. Don Walker wrote this for his partner of
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  Speaker 4: the time, Good Shoe. Ginny Barnes loves singing this song
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  Speaker 4: that has since it was written because it's a song
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  Speaker 4: that he sings to Jane Barnes, his wife, all day
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  Speaker 4: and and you can extrapolate that to the listener. It's
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  Speaker 4: easily become any of people's favorite love song because it's
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  Speaker 4: just so direct, and it's written from a man to
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  Speaker 4: a woman who's very earnestly and directly explaining what she
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  Speaker 4: means to him. It's very bald and unpretentious and almost
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  Speaker 4: like a country song in the way in that there's
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  Speaker 4: very little artifice or pretension. It's just very direct. And
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  Speaker 4: John Walker would have been about sixty when he wrote this.
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  Speaker 4: I'm guessing police he's seventy to today, So it's kind
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  Speaker 4: of funny. These great songwriters the all that they get.
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  Speaker 4: Sometimes they strip away the metaphors and the messages and
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  Speaker 4: just say it real straight, and it works just as well.
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  Speaker 1: All for You was the last song the band recorded
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  Speaker 1: with their former drummer, Steve Prestwitch. He died in twenty
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  Speaker 1: eleven after surgery for a brain chew, a loss that
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  Speaker 1: is still raw.
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  Speaker 3: Steve was one of my favorite people in the world,
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  Speaker 3: one of my favorite dramas in the world.
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  Speaker 1: At the time Pressed, which seemed irreplaceable. But then Charlie
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  Speaker 1: Drayton came along, already established as an outstanding drama in
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  Speaker 1: his own right, living in New York, married to another
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  Speaker 1: Australian musical superstar, the the Vinyls Chrissy Amphlet.
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  Speaker 3: Charlie's like a totally different abest, complete to Steve. He's
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  Speaker 3: got the swing in this groove. He's relentless, he doesn't
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  Speaker 3: let you miss it. You know, he's a king of groove. Listen.
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  Speaker 3: If Charlie hadn't joined the band, if we hadn't met
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  Speaker 3: up with Charlie, I don't think cultures or whatever got
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  Speaker 3: back together after Steve died.
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  Speaker 4: Hi, Charlie, Andrew, how you doing.
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  Speaker 1: When Andrew talks to Charlie Drayton. After they rattle through
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  Speaker 1: All for You in the studio, the emotion is momentarily overwhelming.
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  Speaker 1: Back in twenty eleven, Christy Amflet was suffering multiple sclerosis
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  Speaker 1: and breast cancer, which eventually would claim her life.
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  Speaker 4: That was the first time you guys have or five
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  Speaker 4: played together in years. Right, just then, how you feeling.
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  Speaker 2: There's a music that's like medicine in that songbook. Then
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  Speaker 2: there's some healing in us playing together because we play
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  Speaker 2: one way together different to how we play with the
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  Speaker 2: other musicians. So they have just played one song together again.
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  Speaker 2: It's emotional because we've we've been through a lot to
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  Speaker 2: get back here, and I love playing music with these guys.
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  Speaker 2: If you had told me in twenty eleven, he Charlie
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  Speaker 2: have a feeling this, you know, might link up with Coaches,
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  Speaker 2: I'd be like, you're crazy. I was sitting with my wife, Christie,
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  Speaker 2: who had just entered a major change of life. We
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  Speaker 2: were sitting together when we'd heard the news about Steve's passing.
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  Speaker 2: She said, if Coaches decides to play again, they'll come
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  Speaker 2: looking for you. Three days later, she got an email
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  Speaker 2: from Done. She knew, She just knew so, and that's
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  Speaker 2: initially what brought us together. Playing music was about healing.
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  Speaker 2: In every chapter we've come together, we learned the value
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  Speaker 2: of like life.
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  Speaker 4: We have music at the top.
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  Speaker 2: That's the medicine.
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  Speaker 4: But you know.
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  Speaker 2: It's healing right now. That's why I'm feeling some happy.
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  Speaker 1: Joy coming up the meeting behind another of Cold Chisel's
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: deeply moving smash hits. This story is from The Australian's
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Review section. Each week, it's the home of the best reviews,
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: previews and interviews with artists, authors and musicians by some
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: of Australia's best journals. Check us out at Theaustralian dot
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  Speaker 1: com dot au and we'll be back after this break.
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  Speaker 1: On the drums is Steve Prestwich, Cold Chisel's late lamented
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  Speaker 1: drummer kids at bab.
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  Speaker 5: Sad Chispasmafa, I'm just save.
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  Speaker 6: Your Sad.
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  Speaker 1: This is a of course, Flame Trees, the nineteen eighty
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  Speaker 1: four song that never went to number one, but it
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  Speaker 1: has become an enduring part of the soundtrack to Australian life.
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  Speaker 4: Its music was composed by Steve Prestwich, the drummer, and oddly,
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  Speaker 4: the drummer composed it on bass guitar first. From what
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  Speaker 4: I've read, he composed it across many months backstage at
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  Speaker 4: col Chissel shows while they're on tour. He was constantly
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  Speaker 4: playing with a chord progression bassline that became the driving
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  Speaker 4: force of the song, but he never could get lyrics
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  Speaker 4: to it. He also was an eight lyricist a songwriter,
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  Speaker 4: but this one, for whatever reason, eluded him and it
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  Speaker 4: wasn't until I think either Don Walker heard him playing
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  Speaker 4: at backstage or Steve asked him directly, do you want
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  Speaker 4: to write something to this?
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  Speaker 5: Say all the ray man we driver, there's no man else.
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  Speaker 6: Set fatis down.
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  Speaker 4: Gone. Walker got in a nostalgic kind of frame of
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  Speaker 4: mind thinking of his growing up in Grafton and also
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  Speaker 4: just the notion of being a young man on the
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  Speaker 4: cusp of adulthood and what that all represented and worked
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  Speaker 4: into what became this song.
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  Speaker 6: Set Fat.
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  Speaker 4: It's a song of coming and going. As in the
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  Speaker 4: character in the song, the protagonist has left, but he's
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  Speaker 4: coming back for the purposes of this song and seems
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  Speaker 4: to disdain or look back with some regret on what
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  Speaker 4: this town represented to him, and yet he's drawn back
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  Speaker 4: to it. And there's elements that he assuming it's a he.
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  Speaker 4: I mean, it's Betten from a mal perspective, elements that
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  Speaker 4: he can't get away from that kind of magnetic pool
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  Speaker 4: that so many of us have to our hometowns where
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  Speaker 4: we grew up. And it's such a young person's song,
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  Speaker 4: and I suppose that's why it's resonated with Chisel's audience
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  Speaker 4: at that time. And it was released initially young people
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  Speaker 4: who are now what forty years older, which is primarily
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  Speaker 4: the fan base I suppose middle aged people and above.
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  Speaker 4: But it's a young person's song because it's talking about
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  Speaker 4: that cusp of young adulthood where you're trying to find
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  Speaker 4: your place in the world and you come from somewhere
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  Speaker 4: and you're looking back at it with a certain sense
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  Speaker 4: of emotion and you're hoping what's ahead of you is
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  Speaker 4: better than where he came from. But you never really know.
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  Speaker 3: This has never been a band that feels is so
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  Speaker 3: good for me as this band. You know, there's just
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  Speaker 3: something about the way the rhythm section play, the way
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  Speaker 3: that Don approaches a piano. I don't know anybody else
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  Speaker 3: who plays piano like him and Mossy. The interaction between
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  Speaker 3: Mossy and Don sometimes you can't tell where Don's leaving
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  Speaker 3: off and where Mossi's felling in the chords, and that's.
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  Speaker 4: It's really unique.
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  Speaker 3: And as soon as the band starts playing, I just
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  Speaker 3: I feel comfortable and that's where I've literally learned how
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  Speaker 3: it's seen do in that so to be able to
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  Speaker 3: do it fifty years down the track is a real gift.
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  Speaker 4: They acknowledge that these songs mean a lot to a
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  Speaker 4: lot of people. They're currently gearing up to play this
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  Speaker 4: great songbook once again, to reopen the songbook for a
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  Speaker 4: generation of Australians perhaps who didn't get the chance to
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  Speaker 4: see them last time around. That was five years ago,
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  Speaker 4: and with every passing year, more and more people find
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  Speaker 4: this great band because the songs that they've written are timeless.
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  Speaker 1: Andrew McMillan is a music writer with The Australian. You
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  Speaker 1: can read his full interview with Cold Chisel right now
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  Speaker 1: at The Australian dot com dot au. Thanks for joining
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  Speaker 1: us on the front this week. Our team is Kristen Amiot,
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  Speaker 1: Jasper league, Leat Sammaglue, Tiffany Dimak, Joshua Burton and me
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  Speaker 1: Claire Harvey.