Jimmy Barnes reveals how tragic stranger made him face his demons in new book Killing Time
Music legend Jimmy Barnes reveals how an encounter with a stranger made him face his own dark demons. Listen to his new podcast. WARNING: Graphic content
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Exclusive: As Jimmy Barnes touched the hand of the stranger who lay lifeless in the carpark of the Sydney apartment building he and wife Jane were staying in, the rocker asked him the obvious question.
“Why did you do this?”
As he recounts in a chapter of his new book Killing Time, just minutes before Barnes had stood on his balcony and wrestled with his own troubled thoughts about the “meaning of life and death” after he and Jane had watched the 1980s mini-series Shogun.
Writing his memoirs Working Class Boy and Working Class Man – in tandem with therapy and the love and support of family and friends – has helped him to identify all the moments from his boyhood and throughout his life when he had contemplated ending his life to escape the demons created by childhood abuse and poverty.
The demons he tried to escape by running away to join the rock’n’roll circus.
But in 1984, as he waited for the ambulance to come, talking and singing softly in the pitch blackness to the dead man who had leapt from another balcony, Barnes had yet to begin his long road to healing.
LISTEN TO JIMMY’S NEW PODCAST EPISODE BELOW:
“We were watching Shogun, (the episode) was about life is a butterfly’s dream, about committing hari kari and dying with honour and (about) suicide and I remember it scared the s … out of me and I didn’t want to know about it. But that was because I hadn’t reached the point where I had to deal with it or face it,” Barnes says.
“As a kid I put myself in so much danger; as I wrote in Working Class Boy, I sat on the jetty thinking about jumping into the sea and swimming off … I never put it all together until writing this book.
“I remember I was downstairs for an hour sitting with him, waiting for an ambulance to come. I didn’t want to leave him alone in this pool of blood. I just sat there with him thinking ‘How could you do this? Why did you do this?’ It was a bit of me talking to myself in a way.
“I remember when I heard about Bon Scott dying, I was at a party in Vaucluse near the Heads there and I took a bottle of vodka and sat on the edge of the Gap drinking. I had to move away because it started to be enticing, you know, thinking of a way out.
“It’s always been something that was there but I didn’t know why and I didn’t know what I was running from or trying to escape. Until I started writing these books, and changing my life, that you realise but for the grace of god.”
Killing Time is a different book to his first two bestsellers. Subtitled “Short stories from the long road home”, it is a collection of sometimes heart-wrenching, often hilarious tales about encounters with fascinating characters – the extraordinary and the ordinary – and his family.
And just when you think you know Jimmy Barnes courtesy of the expansive previous memoirs, Killing Time reveals so much more.
Like the surgery he had in France in 1996 to correct a feature which had bothered him his whole life.
As he reveals in the chapter Ear Today … Barnes had been teased as a kid for his prominent ears; called Dumbo by his older brother John Swan. He is still nicknamed Jimbo by mates back in South Australia.
So for his 40th birthday, he decided to do something about those sticking-out ears he had hid under his mass of curls for decades.
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“I didn’t keep it a secret! Nobody asked me. A journalist did ask once if I had a face lift and I could answer ‘No!’,” Barnes says, laughing.
“Jane and the kids liked it better the way it was. I’m happier with them; before, wearing a pair of sunglasses would look funny, putting a hat on made me look ridiculous.
“I was self-conscious about it. I got teased a lot when I was a kid; most of it was in fun, most people wouldn’t try to take the piss out of me because I would have swung at them.
“But in France, I was turning 40 and I wanted to do it. It was my gift to myself for my 40th birthday.
“It made me feel more comfortable and I could cut my hair short and didn’t have worry or care about photos. This has streamlined me a bit; I’m much more aerodynamic.
“And no, I don’t miss the curls.”
Barnes and his family will stage Australia’s biggest virtual book launch on October 6 as pandemic restrictions on gatherings and border closures rule out his planned national tour of book stores.
The free event will feature Barnes reading excerpts from Killing Time, perform a few songs and answer fans’ questions. You can register to attend via now killingtime.jimmybarnes.com
Check out a sneak preview of the third episode of the Story Time with Jimmy Barnes podcast today at storytimewithjimmybarnes.com.au
Pre-order Killing Time: Short stories from the long road home, released by Harper Collins on October 7, via jimmybarnes.com
If you or someone you know is struggling there is help available.
Lifeline: 13 11 14 or lifeline.org.au
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 or beyondblue.org.au
Beyond Blue’s coronavirus support service: 1800 512 348 or coronavirus.beyondblue.org.au
Kids Helpline: 1800 55 1800 or kidshelpline.com.au
Headspace: 1800 650 890 or headspace.org.au
Originally published as Jimmy Barnes reveals how tragic stranger made him face his demons in new book Killing Time