David Campbell: Learning from mistakes make you a better parent
The showman admits he will always have his dad’s back - especially on this.
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Usually known for his upbeat, positive personality and joking nature, stage and screen star David Campbell was angered when certain sections of the media suggested his dad, Cold Chisel singer Jimmy Barnes, wasn’t a fit recipient of their joint 2024 Australian Father of the Year award.
It was the first time that a father-son duo had been recognised as the award’s co-winners, even though Barnes – who fathered multiple children before settling with his wife Jane – was not present for much of Campbell’s Adelaide upbringing.
Campbell, who was raised by his maternal grandmother and grew up initially believing his actual mother was his sister and that Barnes was a family friend, is quick to spring to his father’s defence.
The singer, actor, Today Extra TV co-host and Smooth FM presenter, who will bring his show Good Lovin’ & More to this year’s Adelaide Cabaret Festival, says he now understands that Barnes’s absence was “out of necessity” for his own life and career.
“I understand what they’re saying … with my father and his history, and what we know and what gets revealed,” Campbell says. “But I think it’s a bit of a cheap shot, because what you are doing … is saying, not just to my dad, but to a lot of guys out there who have made mistakes in the past, that there is no redemption.
“(Saying) that trying to improve from those mistakes doesn’t make you father of the year … I kind of think that’s bullshit.
“Everybody has the right to learn from their mistakes … that actually makes you a better person and a better parent.”
Campbell and his wife Lisa’s first child Leo was born in 2010, in the middle of their own three-year tenure as artistic directors of the Cabaret Festival, and was joined five years later by twins Betty and Billy. Because of his own childhood experience, Campbell says it is “vital that I am in my kids’ lives”.
“I want to be present and bear witness to them growing up, because that’s the greatest privilege.”
The Australian Fathering Awards had emphasised when jointly naming Barnes and Campbell as recipients that it was specifically because they “didn’t follow the typical father-son dynamic” but instead represented the often difficult path to reconnection and repair.
“I had to do a lot of therapy to get over my issues with that, my relationship with my dad,” Campbell says. “The example that my dad has set for me, that I now take, is his constant, almost mania of evolution.
“Even at 69, he has two tours booked this year … then he’s constantly asking ‘How are you, how are the kids, when can I see them, what are they doing?’ He is trying to invest more into my kids … that’s the important relationship now.
“I think he and other dads like him should be given the grace and the space to make up and do those things. That’s what humanity is all about.”
Campbell says Barnes has been an incredibly involved father to the now adult children he and Jane share.
“My brothers and sisters have a different connection to him than I do, and it’s enviable, but I love how close they are with him now.
“He’s a rock’n’roller who should have been dead 12 times over, and we all still have him – and that is a miracle.”
Campbell, now 51, had his own problems with frequent binge drinking early in his career, and says it was fatherhood that made him quit alcohol.
“In entertainment, you are always being fed free booze … the weekend for us would be like a Tuesday night.
“It didn’t take over my life … I looked into the dark room of it, but I luckily stood on the edge.
“I’ve been 11 years sober this year, and it’s the greatest gift I could give to myself, to my career, to my wife, to my family, to my father – because you take accountability for yourself.”
The turning point was when Leo was still a toddler, and Campbell says he had a hangover which almost prevented him getting on a plane for a family holiday. “I grew up around alcohol and the abuses of it … I was like, ‘That’s it, I’m done’.”
Campbell is delighted to be returning from Sydney to his hometown for the Cabaret Festival, recalling that its current artistic director Virginia Gay was part of his 2010 opening night line-up.
“I’ve known Virginia since she was in high school – she was at a performing arts college and I would go in there and help with musicals and help stage things,” he says.
His advice to Gay when she took on the festival job? “Get comfortable shoes … because you’ll be running between everything.”
“Aside from bringing out incredible acts, the thrill was always being in the foyer, seeing people come out: That immediate reaction, so you can gauge what Adelaide audiences are feeling and thinking at the time. You can then help shape what’s to come. That was always the most rewarding part for me.”
The title of his show comes from Good Lovin’, the third album Campbell did for Sony Music after his two hit Swing Sessions CDs.
“We were trying to find a bridge from swing to Shout! (the hit musical in which Campbell played 1950s Australian rocker Johnny O’Keefe). So we were going down this route of ’60s music,” he recalls.
After a long period away from live concerts, Campbell found those songs were fun to play and well received at corporate work, so he used Good Lovin’ as the basis for his setlist when he was offered a return to doing gigs.
“These ’60s songs we were just having fun with again … we’ll add some Bobby Darin/Dream Lover stuff to it, and we’ll add some Shout! to it, and other songs that I’ve built in.
“It’s a really big show, it’s a fun show, it’s a very high-energy show, there’s a lot of hits and singalongs. There’s still a lot of cabaret in it, because I tell stories and everybody hears about my life and my stupid jokes.” Between doing stage musicals like Shout! and Dream Lover, cabaret performances, and appearing on what was then an abundance of variety TV shows, Campbell says he got to try his hand at a lot of mediums early in his career.
“I would get on the Midday Show and sing with the big band … then eventually make my way to the couch and become a guest, and I got to learn how to be on that side of the camera.”
After the success of Shout! and before he recorded his first swing CD for Sony, Campbell even recorded a pop album which – apart from a couple of singles – never got released.
“I remember being devastated by that, and kind of being in a showbiz wilderness for a bit.”
Eventually, Campbell started saying “yes” to a whole range of opportunities.
“I did a small cabaret show in Sydney … that became the Swing Sessions. Dancing with the Stars introduced me to Sonia Kruger, which led me to Channel 9 eventually, and the (stage) show I took was Spelling Bee, with Magda Szubanski and Marina Prior, which is where I met Lisa (his wife).
“That one period of time saying ‘yes’ to random things changed my career, my life, my music and started to connect all the dots for me, that I would not have seen six months prior.
“That early spirit of needing to run away from who I was, to establish myself, gave me a sense of career adventure.”
Originally published as David Campbell: Learning from mistakes make you a better parent
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