‘I don’t drink after gigs anymore’

DESPITE ups and downs in his career and personal life, Shannon Noll is determined to not let the hecklers ruin his comeback.

Shannon Noll: “The jury is our on whether anyone takes me seriously. The thing is, people come to the shows so that doesn’t really matter.” (Pic: Warner Music Australia)

DESPITE ups and downs in his career and personal life, the 42-year-old singer is still going strong, and determined to not let the hecklers ruin his comeback.

Your diary is clear between the release of your new album this week and a tour in May. So are you heading into the African jungle or what?

Not that I know of... I’ve heard a bit about that. Maybe I should? I’ll have to look into it.

You have always been the first to make a joke at your own expense — whether for coming second in Australian Idol or pretending to be arrested at a gig onstage, as you did last year.

Some people think, “He’s making it too easy.” I am always setting it up — the whole time. You have to be able to take the piss out of yourself. That’s what Mum told me.

Shannon Noll, pictured at Oktoberfest Geelong last year, still loves performing. (Pic: Yuri Kouzmin)

Does that mean the title of your new album Unbroken is also a statement of defiance in the face of your topsy-turvy career?

Most definitely. It ebbs and flows with label and management changes. There have been lean times along the way; that’s why it has been seven years since my last album. A few times we really had to crunch numbers to make things work. And then social media came along — the memes and everything — and gave me a shot in the arm. Now it feels like we are moving forward.

Besides the hecklers, do you think the social-media buzz actually made people take you more seriously?

The jury is out on whether anyone takes me seriously. The thing is, people come to the shows so that doesn’t really matter to me. I read an article the other day where some bloke said [I] didn’t know the joke was on [me]. Well, I am selling out shows. Social media brought up my name again, and these things can help you build your audience.

But in the past year, you have shared festival stages with John Farnham, Icehouse and Daryl Braithwaite — your peers at least, are taking you seriously.

I am blown away just to be on the same stage as those guys. I would never have dreamed it might be a chance when I was a young bloke. It’s great to see a real resurgence for live Australian rock music, and gives you some hope you can continue to do it and make a living.

John said some nice things to me about getting the crowd going, and Daryl said ‘What About Me’ is one of those great songs to finish a gig — like he has with ‘The Horses’.

Noll says he is “blown away” to have performed on the same stage as stars like John Farnham and Daryl Braithwaite. (Pic: Warner Music Australia)

Aside from the ups and downs of life as Shannon Noll rock star, the new album also celebrates your Australian identity — songs have titles such as ‘Southern Sky’, ‘Land of Mine’ and ‘Who I Am’.

When I signed with Warner Music, they said they wanted me to write more about my life, and not be a puppet of what other people thought I should do, like maybe I had in the past. I don’t think about whether that’s cool or not. I loved writing with Australians and seeing those songs get up, compared to writing with big international names, like I had, and those songs never seeing the light of day. This album is authentically Australian.

Shannon Noll is in Stellar magazine.

One song even slams the demise of both the infamous B&S balls in rural Australia, and the impact of lockout laws on live music venues in cities.

We used to play a B&S ball back in the day out in rural NSW. I think there used to be about 48 of them in the state; now there’s two because they can’t get insurance for them. I guess that’s similar to what has happened with the lockout laws. And a lot of the RSL clubs now don’t provide riders [for backstage drinks] because some guy somewhere got drunk on the rider and crashed his car on the way home.

After your incident outside the Crazy Horse strip club in Adelaide last January, you said you would stop going out for drinks after gigs. A year on, how is that going?

We don’t do it anymore and not just because of that. Touring is a lot of late nights and then early mornings; 4.30am lobby calls to drive four hours to get a flight. I’m older [at 42] and wiser, and you just don’t bounce back as easily. It’s about my voice, too. I’ve been really proud of how I’m singing and I want to put the emphasis on giving fans the show they deserve for what they have paid.

You said you were in the “doghouse” for a while with your wife Rochelle after that drama. You’ve dedicated a love song on the new album to her.

Yeah, especially the verse about her being the glue holding it all together for our family; the single parent when I would be away for six to eight weeks at a time. She had to run the whole show. I appreciate she saw something in me, believed in me — before the TV thing even happened. She fell in love with me, not the perception of me.

Unbroken is out on Friday. Shannon Noll tours Australia in May; shannonnoll.com.au.

Originally published as ‘I don’t drink after gigs anymore’