Entertainment

Man at work: Aussie rocker Jimmy Barnes on Belfast gig and autobiography

Aussie musical legend Jimmy Barnes will return to Belfast in December. David Roy quizzed the Glasgow-born former Cold Chisel frontman about 45 years of rocking and his award-winning autobiography Working Class Boy

Aussie rocker Jimmy Barnes is bound for Belfast
Aussie rocker Jimmy Barnes is bound for Belfast Aussie rocker Jimmy Barnes is bound for Belfast

HI JIMMY, what are you up to today?

I'm in the Maldives, where I've got a show tonight. It's absolutely beautiful here.

I see from your Twitter you've been learning to surf while you're there?

Haha, yeah that's right. In fact, the Perfect Wave crew who are running this series of shows in the Maldives have already booked me for next year too – so I'll be able to come back and get my surfing mastered then.

I realise you're probably tempted to just stay there at the moment, but are you looking forward to coming back to play in Belfast later in the year?

I'm really looking forward to it. It's been a while since we played there and I think we actually played The Limelight then too. It was awesome, a really good rock and roll crowd.

I've got a lot of great Irish mates so I get on well with the Irish – and they seem to like rock and roll. So I'm looking forward to a good night.

I've got a new book coming out next month so I'll be doing the rounds publicising that for the next while, but we have some shows booked after that as well.

So we'll be sharp for yas in Belfast – ready, match-fit and ready to kill.


Your autobiography Working Class Boy is fairly harrowing in terms of its descriptions of your early life. How hard was it to write about that stuff and how do you feel about the overwhelmingly positive reaction to the book?

It's been interesting. I came from a fairly dysfunctional family, y'know? It was a rough childhood: lots of violence and alcoholism and all that stuff.

I came from a really working class area of Glasgow. After the war, a lot of the men were out of work and there was a lot of depression and violence.

Basically, my parents moved to Australia trying to get a new life but took all their problems with them to the new country. It never got a lot better – but we survived, got through it and we came out the other end. I guess all the things that didn't kill me made me stronger.

But I was very very pleased with the reaction to the book. People seemed to enjoy the way I wrote and a lot of people related to it who maybe went through some similar stuff.

So it connected with people.


You're about to publish the sequel, Working Class Man (named for his 1985 Australian hit penned by Journey man Jonathan Cain), which will cover the start of your music career with Aussie legends Cold Chisel. Have you got the book bug now?

I'm enjoying writing. I've spent 45 years shouting, yelling and singing at people, so to sit back and actually look inside and write just by myself, it's a nice change. I definitely enjoy the process.

To coincide with the first book, you put together a show called Working Class Boy: An Evening of Stories & Songs. How much of an adjustment was that?

It was nerve-wracking at the start: anybody who has seen me live knows I don't talk much on stage. I normally just scream all night! But to do that tour I had to start loosening up and talking to people. It took me a couple of shows but I really started to enjoy it.

It's the same thing as singing really – you get up there and you're trying to communicate with an audience, trying to make them feel emotions and look inside themselves.

So that's just a slightly different way of doing it, and I really enjoyed it. And because I was talking about my childhood, I wasn't tied to just doing my own songs – I did other songs that reflected different periods of my life too. So it was a really interesting process.

You're bringing a full-on rock show to Belfast with a set spanning your solo career and Cold Chisel – how difficult is it to represent over 40 years of music in one set?

We are: it's a really great rock and roll band with my son playing drums, my son-in-law playing guitar and two of my daughters and my wife singing with me. It's going to be a fantastic show – we're going to come and play hard.

Between Cold Chisel and my solo stuff I've got some really big hits that fans love, so they choose themselves. Then I just go through and look for songs that I feel like playing of that I think the audience might relate to.

You change the songs to suit, depending on whether you're playing a club or a stadium and so on. Basically, we just try to make the most interesting set possible.

In a club like The Limelight, the idea is to get up there and smash people between the eyes – hit 'em hard, keep 'em on their toes and keep 'em moving!

You kind of brought that same mentality to Cold Chisel when you joined them in Adelaide in 1973, right?

I jumped all over them! I joined them when I was 16 – they were a good rock and roll band but I was the maniac in the group. I made them play faster and harder and louder, every night I would turn them up when they weren't looking.

On a good night, we were as good as any band in the world.

My introduction to your music came via the two songs you did with INXS that appeared on The Lost Boys soundtrack, Good Times and Laying Down The Law. Any chance of you playing them in Belfast?

They'll be in there – don't worry!


Jimmy Barnes, Tuesday December 19, The Limelight, Belfast. Working Class Boy is out now, published by HarperCollins. Working Class Man will be published here on November 2.