Musicians’ lives an open book
WE LOVE THEIR SONGS BUT THEIR OWN COLOURFUL, OFTEN TRAGIC, TALES ARE EVEN MORE FASCINATING
You know their music but do you know their story? Need some inspiration for a rocking Father’s Day gift? Here’s some top memoirs written by our finest singers and songwriters (and Molly Meldrum).
CHRISSY AMPHLETT: PLEASURE AND PAIN
An Australian icon gone too soon, Chrissy’s memoirs not only document her incredible life and career, but serve as a what-not-to-do story for aspiring musicians. There’s bad contracts, bad intra-band relationships, signing away vital publishing, and management dramas as the band took on the world in the 80s. Chrissy’s writing about kicking her addictions in a monastery in New York is something else.
TINA ARENA: NOW I CAN DANCE
“Tiny” Tina has literally grown up in the public eye. Brutal honesty is her charm, so her memoirs dive deep into the highs and lows of her career and personal life – and the danger of mixing the two. You forget how much amazing work she’s done all over the world.
JIMMY BARNES:BARNES WORKING CLASS MAN
Barnsey has really found his niche as an author – they don’t make Aussie rock stars like him any more. After the public therapy of sharing childhood trauma in Working Class Boy, this sequel doesn’t shy away from colouring in the lazy cliches of him as the vodkaswilling, self-destructing rock star. And his memory is impressive. A third book, Killing Time: Short Stories From the Long Road Home, will be released next month.
CLARE BOWDITCH: YOUR OWN KIND OF GIRL
Fun fact: on tour in Australia last year, Rick Astley heard about this book, bought it and was so moved by Bowditch’s unflinchingly honest memoir he posted a fan letter online. As well as feeling like a square peg in the Australian music scene, Bowditch’s inspiring book shares a breakdown and subsequent rebuilding through the power of self-belief.
KATE CEBERANO: I’M TALKING
Here she finally tells her own story in print not lyrics, right back to her grandmother working as housekeeper for L Ron Hubbard’s wife, being scouted and dismissed by Malcolm McLaren as a teen touring the UK with I’m Talking and how working on the first X Factor with Mark Holden was a “blood sport”.
STUART COUPE: PAUL KELLY
The musician wrote his own “mongrel” memoirs in How to Make Gravy. Writer Coupe, who managed Kelly during the ’80s, fills in the blanks. Many of those gaps come in Kelly’s early career (including the two albums he now disowns) and his laser-focused drive to succeed while balancing trysts with women and being a highfunctioning drug user. There’s plenty of curtain-lifting over his music v the music business.
JESSE FINK: BON – THE LAST HIGHWAY
This book stirred up Bon Scott fans who weren’t ready to have the AC/DC-approved story of his death questioned. Fink’s mythbusting involved tracking down some of Scott’s lovers, drug buddies and friends to take a forensic look why he died alone in a car in London.
ROBERT FORSTER: GRANT & I
This is a glorious literary love letter to Grant McLennan as a man and a musician by his Go-Betweens bandmate Robert Forster. There’s brilliantly-written chronicles of the much-loved group relocating to the UK, how the songwriting team fell apart and reunited. Forster writing about
McLennan’s untimely death is heartbreaking.
JAMES FREUD: I AM THE VOICE LEFT FROM REHAB
The late James Freud detailed his solo career and life in Models in his first book, 2002’s I Am the Voice Left From Drinking. Sadly while promoting it his addictions switched to alcoholism. That’s the tale told in graphic, painful but potentially helpful detail in 2007’s I Am the Voice Left from Rehab. Sadly three years after its release Freud would end his life. RIP.
STEVE KILBEY: SOMETHING QUITE PECULIAR
The frontman of the Church has a way with words, making his autobiography captivating. Nothing is off limits, from dating newsreader Jennifer Keyte to dysfunctional relationships in-built into the Church and the creation of Under the Milky Way. The chapter on losing everything when he and mate Grant M McLennan of the GoB Betweens became h heroin addicts is jawd dropping.
M MOLLY MELDRUM/ JEFF JENKINS: THE NEVER, UM, EVER ENDING STORY
Molly Meldrum’s own life has been more interesting than many of the rock stars he interviewed for Countdown. This book also serves as an inside history of the TV industry.