STACK #167 Sept 2018

MUSIC

FEATURE

of the team behind us, get them to take sides. It’s like the Hatfields and the McCoys! And I think that’s a very Scottish thing. Jane’s family is mixed-race, with lots of extended family. And I felt right at home there. "When it’s important, Jane’s family will call you out and tell you, and then help you get on with it. If you do the wrong thing, you’re going to be the first to know about it. At the same time, they don’t hold it against you. If you can change, they’ll give you credit, and they’ll encourage you.” The theme of having the gumption to change is what Barnes hopes his story will communicate – although he reels at the thought of being on any kind of pedestal. “I don’t preach about anything! I’ve made so many mistakes in my life,” he says. “When I finished writing the book, I could’ve torn it up – it’d done its job, it was for me, I’d got it out. But by letting [others] read it, I suddenly realised there were a lot of people out there who’d been through degrees of this – some worse, some less. It’s sort of like a tipping point – with #MeToo and the troubles that we have with domestic violence in Australia – where everybody just wants to heal. The conversations are going to start whether you want them to or not, and everybody’s just doing their little bit. And I’m not leading the way here; I just fell along with the rest of the dominos. The message I’ve carried around is: if you can pick yourself up, say you’re sorry, and change what your actions are, things can get better. They might not be the same, they might not go back to the way you want them, but they will get better.”

Jimmy crowdsurfing during the final show of The Last Stand farewell tour, Sydney 1983

too hard,’ and now I get up [on stage with her], and it’s every man for himself. You have to be right on top of your game with her! It’s great because I have my son in the band, all

thought, ‘This is the perfect song, and the perfect moment, to talk to David. This is what I’ll do – this is how I’ll introduce him.’ To share it with him was so emotional. At that point in the film, when he’s up there, and we’re doing this in the public arena like David says – on stage, where we live – I remember at that moment thinking there was nobody else there. It was just him and I.” The film includes interviews with all the pertinent people in

Jimmy and Jane, 1980

my daughters sing with me, my wife sings with me. It takes all the music to a different place, you know?” Jimmy’s son – the lauded musical theatre singer David Campbell, who was conceived when Barnes was just 16 years old – appears on the track Reflections Of My Life (by Glaswegian band Marmalade). Its lyrics could conceivably slot into several places in the Working Class Boy story,

but Barnes chose it to sing with his son for one special reason. “That’s one of the first songs I used to sing with my big brother, when they’d play at parties – I’d sing harmonies with him,” Barnes

explains. “That song’s been a big part of my life. When I put the show together I

if you can pick yourself up, say you’re sorry, and change what your actions are, things can get better

Barnes’ life, including his Cold Chisel bandmates Ian Moss (guitar) and Don Walker

(keyboards). Walker makes the observation that in weaving this fiercely tight

1956 - James Dixon Swan is born in Glasgow, Scotland 1962 - Swan (five years old) and family arrive in Adelaide; the children soon change their surname to Barnes, after their new step-father Reg 1974 - Barnes joins hard rock band Cold Chisel, comprised of Ian Moss, Don Walker, Steve Prestwich and Phil Small 1980 - Cold Chisel are signed by Warner and their popularity soars 1981 - Barnes marries Jane Mahoney; daughter Mahalia is born 1983 - Cold Chisel's The Last Stand farewell tour is an enormous success 1984 - Barnes' first solo album Bodyswerve goes to #1, as do his following several albums, which all receive multiple platinum or gold sales 2016 - Self-penned memoir Working Class Boy is a #1 bestseller for Barnes and wins Biography Of The Year at the Australian Book Industry Awards 2017 - Barnes becomes the first person to win Biography Of The Year twice, with sequel Working Class Man 2018 - The Stories & Songs stageshow tour sells out around Australia; documentary Working Class Boy (directed by Mark Joffe) is released

familial unit, Barnes has created what is essentially a traditional clan. “To tell you the truth, I think I joined a clan,” Barnes laughs. “When I married Jane [Barnes’ wife since 1981], I married her whole family. They were totally the opposite to my family. They were really solid: when they said they’d do something they’d keep their word; they could fight and then let it go, and forgive each other. Whereas my Scottish family, we’d have a fight and then not talk for years. We’d rally and get the rest

Working Class Boy: The

Soundtracks is out now via Bloodlines.

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