‘I didn’t sleep’: YouTube star Lachlan Power on how he amassed 23 million followers
He’s mobbed by fans, has his own Fortnite skin and is a multi-millionaire. Lachlan Power reveals how he became one of the world’s most famous gamers.
QWeekend
Don't miss out on the headlines from QWeekend. Followed categories will be added to My News.
It’s fair to say that Logan Mayor Darren Power knows his way around a stoush. Before his 26-year run in local politics – and all the everyday battles that go with that particular career choice – Power was in the Defence Force, where he earned his Green Beret and Parachute Wings.
He then worked as a Federal Police officer at the Turkish consulate in Melbourne during the Gulf War, where, he notes he had a few “close shaves”.
But spend any time with this quietly spoken father, and it’s soon apparent that the 62-year-old doesn’t mind the odd close shave or stoush. Particularly if it means a better deal for the people of the rapidly growing, sprawling city of Logan, sandwiched between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, population 364,000, and growing at a rate of 10,000 new residents a year.
Power loves Logan, not least because it is the place, he says with a smile, that gave him both a life and a wife.
Married to Lynne for 28 years, with four children – Lachlan, 28, Mitchell, 25, Stephanie, 33, and Jacqui, 38 (both unavailable for this interview due to work commitments) – Power has just announced he won’t be running for mayor in the 2024 local government elections. After 22 years as a Logan councillor, and four years as its mayor, he’s opting to bow out of the race.
“I’ve loved this job, and I love this place and its people,” he says. “We are different from Brisbane and the Gold Coast. Logan began its life as housing commission homes set up by the National Party. We were neglected for years, and we’ve always had to fight for everything we get, no matter who’s in charge.”
“But we have produced our fair share of leaders in every field,” he says. “We are true diamonds in the rough”.
For the record, Power has been a member of the Labor and Liberal parties and is now an independent. At home in Shailer Park with Lynne, his sons and two boisterous groodles, Power reflects on his time as councillor and mayor, and his deep fondness for his city – and how this publication played its small part in bringing him here.
“I always wanted to live in Queensland. As a kid, we’d come up here from Melbourne during our school holidays and I just thought it was the most wonderful place,” he says. “I’d had a bit of a rough time. I was 30 and my brother had died in a car accident. I was in a pretty sad sort of place, and I wanted to start afresh.”
Moving to Queensland in 1992, and with nowhere to live, a rental ad in The Courier-Mail caught his eye. Two young women in Logan were looking for a male flatmate, and one of his new housemates had a brother-in-law at Logan City Council.
“He told me there was a job going in the health department at the Logan City Council, but it was only for six weeks. I applied and got it, and it’s been a pretty long six weeks,” he laughs. One flatmate was also responsible for introducing him to Lynne, on a blind date.
Power became embroiled in his first political stoush in 1993, protesting against a proposed tollway for Logan put forward by the then-Goss Labor government.
“I was involved with a wildlife group and we found out about the tollway coming through here and we learnt it would cut through the Carbrook Wetlands and the Daisy Hill forest. It was just a ridiculous idea and we fought really hard against it. We held these enormous rallies, and it was the first time I saw how people’s power could win.”
The tollway didn’t go ahead, the land is now the beloved 196ha nature reserve Cornubia Forest Park and worth, Power says, “every door we knocked on to save it”.
The battle sparked Power’s interest in becoming a councillor and he was elected in 1997. While local politics is where he cut his teeth, Power was thrust into the national spotlight in 2004 when he publicly announced he would not support a 23 per cent pay rise for Logan City councillors.
“I just couldn’t believe it,” he says.
“They said, ‘we are working so hard; we are giving ourselves this payrise’, and I said ‘well, I’m not going to take it’. I voted against it, and it caused a real stir. Eventually they backed down and said ‘OK, we will only give ourselves an 11 per cent pay rise’, but I was still not happy with that, and I said, ‘well I’m not going to take mine’.
“Instead I gave my money to Bravehearts (the child protection organisation founded by Hetty Johnston in 1996). I knew Hetty and her work, and decided the money was better spent on that. Only one other councillor, Aidan McLindon, came on board with me, and after that it was pretty hard going at work, to be honest. I was shunned for three years by my workmates, and no one would talk to me. That was tough.”
But not as tough as 2016, the year Power and three other councillors turned whistleblower, lifting the lid on alleged corruption at council, and voicing concerns about mayor Luke Smith.
“We knew we had to do something,” Power says.
“I was sending letters to ministers, I organised for the Crime and Corruption Commission to come here and take our full statements. It wasn’t easy, but it was right.” Smith would eventually plead guilty to three offences; receiving a secret commission by an agent, failing to update his register of interest, and misconduct in relation to public office. The guilty plea avoided a public trial and he received an 18-month suspended sentence.
That stoush was particularly nasty, but as always, supporting him privately through the public turmoil was his family, sticking together as they have always done. The Power family is a close one – and an unusual one.
Darren is not the only high achiever: wife Lynne is well known in this pocket of South East Queensland as a business powerhouse. In 2004 she partnered with banking identity Kathleen Wallace to bring community banking to Logan when the major players started closing branches.
“It took us two years to set up, identifying the members of the community who would champion it, and the best thing about these banks is, of course, that the community itself becomes the shareholders,” Lynne says.
“We thought we’d have one, but we ended up with four Bendigo Banks here, which is fantastic.” She was owner-manager of the Daisy Hill franchise until 2020.
But while both parents enjoy high profiles, the rising stars of the family are the kids. As Darren Power laughs, while there was a time his boys were known as “Mayor Power’s sons”, these days he is far more likely to be known as “Lachie and Mitchell’s Dad”.
Picture this: Your teenage son is in his first year of university, studying IT and working part-time stacking supermarket shelves. He’s sporty and, like most of his mates, he loves gaming. It used to be Minecraft and Pokemon Go but lately Fortnite is capturing everyone’s imagination. Lachlan is not loving uni but in one course he learns to build his own server, and now he has a proposition for his parents: he wants to drop out of university and become a full-time gamer.
“Of course, we were horrified,” his mother says.
“We said, as most parents would, ‘Well, that’s not a real job’.”
But of course, as millions of gamers around the world know, it is, and Lachlan Power is one of its superstars, with 23 million followers and a multimillion-dollar esports company, PWR. He even has his own “skin” on Fortnite, which means gamers around the world play as him. Lachlan is one of the world’s most famous gamers, mobbed by fans at esports events, and has lucrative sponsorships with companies such as Red Bull.
But before all of this, he first had to convince his parents to let him drop out. “I look back to 10 years ago when I first started, and gaming didn’t really exist as a real job; it was very niche,” says Lachlan.
“But I could see there was an opportunity.”
He grins. “I just really, really hated getting the bus to uni; it was 30 minutes both ways to the Nathan campus ... I went to Mum and Dad in my first semester break with a proposal. I said, ‘Let me leave uni for six months. Let me try to become a full-time gamer and I promise you that if I can earn more than stacking shelves, if I can prove I can make a living from this, I will do it, but if I can’t I’ll go back to uni’.”
In the first six weeks he earned $6000, and has never had to catch the bus again.
“I worked as hard as I could; I didn’t sleep some nights, just kept going, creating content, creating an online community around that content, building subscriptions, but I never imagined it would be this successful,” Lachlan says with a slight American accent, courtesy of recording every day with players in the US, especially in the early days of his career.
“Because of the time difference, I’d play all night, and be going to bed when Mum and Dad got up, and I remember Dad coming into my room to talk me through those kinds of hours. He said it’s not sustainable and he was right, and that’s part of the reason I started PWR, so I could create a business that is more sustainable and also to create a company where other creators can be successful.”
This includes younger brother Mitchell. A competitive swimmer for 10 years, Mitchell says he threw in the towel – literally – at 18 when he realised he was probably not going to beat “the guy I was forever chasing and always coming second to, Olympic gold medallist Zac Stubblety-Cook.
“I was also studying paramedics, because I was really interested in a job where you could really help people, and I still am, but I am loving gaming, and being a part of PWR,” Mitchell says.
His gaming name is Chanzes and his YouTube and Twitch channels playing Fortnite and other games are watched by millions. Like Lachlan, Mitchell says couldn’t do what he does without parental support.
“They just always encourage us,” he says.
“When I was swimming, Dad would be working so hard at council, but he’d get up so early to take me to training, and pick me up – I was doing eight to 10 sessions a week.
“Mum and Dad are our biggest supporters. They understand that gaming is not just a lot of fun – I mean it is – but it’s also a full-time job, creating content, editing, dealing with game developers, business marketing, social media marketing. They are very encouraging to both of us, and they always back us.”
And it goes both ways.
“I don’t know what Dad will do when he’s no longer mayor,’’ Lachlan says.
“I’d like to see him take a break, take a holiday with Mum. But I know he’ll want to be involved in the community, helping out somehow. That’s just who he is. I can’t see him sitting still for too long. I’m going to do a deal with him, ‘OK, I’ll give you a couple of months to decide, but then you have to come back to me with a hobby, or some sort of plan’. That seems to work in our family.”
How I turned a single store in the 90s into $900m
An Aussie entrepreneur says despite having a net worth of $900m, she has no intentions of giving up work because of what she calls her “mongrel” side.
‘Perfect send-off’: Couple’s ultimate wedding day mic drop
A beautiful Sunshine Coast wedding took on an extra dimension during the reception when the groom dropped an absolute bombshell in his speech.