Jimmy Barnes on meeting his Cold Chisel ‘brother’ Steve Prestwich … then losing him
He’s a huge star, but Jimmy Barnes’ appeal not to waste our most precious commodity – and his salute to a lost ‘brother’ – is relatable and relevant to anyone, rich or poor.
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He’s lived an extraordinary life – and JIMMY BARNES’ new collection of short stories, Highways And Byways, is in parts a reflection on his past. In this first exclusive extract the rock veteran pays tribute to a dear friend.
We never have enough time.
You think you have nothing but time on your side, then it suddenly catches up to you and runs you down.
Time tests us, taunts us, and even tempts us. You think: if I can just move things around, I will have a little more time and then I can catch up and get back on track.
But you seldom do.
We talk about how precious time is to us, then a moment later we go out and waste so much of that same priceless commodity. It’s a sin. Grains of sand that have slipped through the hourglass are gone forever, as if blown away in the wind. In our youth, time stretches out in front of us, endless, then settles into a steady rhythm, tricking us into complacency, leading us to ignore its passing along with the many precious moments, opportunities and friendships that are surely lost and wasted. Before we know it, we’re running out of time faster than we’re running out of road.
Back in the 1960s, in the bleak industrial towns of northern Britain, poverty and unhealthy living conditions meant that for many people time was short. You hadn’t been given a lot of it, so if you had dreams, you had to make the most of your time, and soon. And in those days it seemed that as long as you stayed in Britain, those dreams would never be fulfilled.
So it was for our family, and so it was for the family of Steve Prestwich, who’d been born not so far from my home in Glasgow, in the similarly tough, industrial city of Liverpool.
These were manufacturing and shipbuilding towns whose industries had declined rapidly in the postwar era. At almost the same time, our families realised that their clocks were ticking and decided to emigrate to Australia to give their children the best chance of making the most of
their lives. Without ever meeting, both families travelled over twelve thousand miles across the sea, far from our homes, and as fate would have it, ended up living in the same town, Elizabeth in South Australia. Steve’s family settled in Elizabeth East, while we lived in Elizabeth West, no more than five miles away. Steve and I still wouldn’t meet for a few years, though our paths probably crossed often on those streets.
I got a little closer to Steve through his young brother, Laurie, a disillusioned young thug like me who hung around with the same gang as I did. We were wild boys who spent a lot of our precious hours drinking, playing pool and fighting. Steve didn’t really share those interests – he was a pacifist who had no interest in fighting on the streets – and he made better use of his time, by perfecting his drumming, the one thing he felt would change his life for the better.
Steve came from a musical family. His father had played drums in bands back home in Liverpool and had even played shows in the legendary Cavern Club, the home of The Beatles. So music was in Steve’s DNA, and he was always going to play the drums. He had joined bands before he’d left Liverpool, and he soon found his way into the music scene in Elizabeth. He and his band, Ice, were accomplished musicians and they played progressive rock, inspired by that ever-evolving musical style that flourished in the UK in the early seventies. Songs by the likes of Yes and Genesis filled Ice’s repertoire, so it’s fair to say that their audiences never danced: the complicated rhythms that bubbled below the surface of the songs were too tortuous and difficult to dance to, not without looking like you were having an epileptic fit. Ice were certainly far too progressive for me and my friends, who had mostly been born with two left feet and not much interest in anything progressive, but that didn’t mean we didn’t appreciate their talent. And we could see that Steve was a born timekeeper.
I wanted to be in bands too, but had no idea how to go about it. I came from a family who liked to sing when they’d had a few drinks, and that’s how I started performing. I half-heartedly got involved with bands at school, but never really dreamed I would end up on stage.
Then one night after drinking way too much, I found myself getting up and singing with a local band in the Elizabeth community centre.
Steve and I still hadn’t properly met at this point, but fate, and time, had plans for us. One day while I was hanging out at the shops, looking for trouble, a young red-headed hippy called Michael, who I’d seen around town, handed me a message asking me if I was interested in trying out for a new band that was looking for a singer. I was tempted, but also afraid of stepping out of my comfort zone, where I was a bigshot among a bunch of dropkicks.
‘What if this new band don’t like me?’ I asked myself.
I decided that if I did go, I wouldn’t tell my friends. That way they’d never know if I missed out – I could never have lived down a failure like that. Anyway, it was my own precious time and if I wanted to waste it, so what?
Time was something that had been on my mind of late: increasingly, I was aware of my youth passing. The clock was ticking and I had to seize the moment.
I took the train into the city and sheepishly walked to the address I’d been given. The audition would be held at two o’clock in the Women’s Liberation Centre, which seemed a funny place to try out for a rock’n’roll band.
I was sure that choice of venue was supposed to send a message to me, but whatever it was flew straight over my head, so I simply put on my leather jacket, puffed out my chest and walked in, on time. I was expecting the worst.
The band were great, although the drummer was a weak point. He had no real sense of rhythm or timing – well, not enough to drive a band. I sang a few songs and then waited for an answer. Did they like me or would I have to crawl back to Elizabeth with my heart filled with shame?
The band were waiting for their moment to shine, and it turned out, much to my surprise, that they wanted me to be a part of that moment. But they’d decided the drummer would have to go. We all started looking around for a replacement. When I quizzed my big brother, John,
he suggested that we try a drummer he had seen playing around Elizabeth. ‘You’ll love this guy, Jim. He swings, he’s really good. But I’m not sure what he’s up to. His name is Steve Prestwich.’
Our time had come. In October 1973, Steve walked into that Women’s Liberation Hall and sat down at his drum kit. As he counted in the first song, something inside me told me this was it, this was the moment. Sure enough, Steve became our drummer, and that vital cog in a band, the time-keeper. A rock’n’roll band are only as good as their drummer, and Steve was perfect. We had chosen Steve to keep our precious time.
Soon we changed our name from Orange, a terrible name we used to perform our first show, to Cold Chisel, an equally terrible name we would end up stuck with.
Within a year Phil Small would join the band, completing the rhythm section, and we were ready to take on the world. Steve and Phil became the linchpin of the band, its beating heart, working hard to keep us on track, though there were times when the momentum of the shows made it difficult even for them to maintain order. Their intricate rhythms, which swirled beneath the surface of the songs, not only drove us along but also made us much more
interesting than most other bands in the country.
After that first decade of touring took its toll, the members of Cold Chisel drifted apart. Lost and alone, I fumbled my way through the quagmire that is the music business. I had a lot of success, but I knew something was missing. Then in 1997 Cold Chisel put the years of pain
and struggle behind us and decided we had unfinished business. The band re-formed and I felt whole again. Every night as I sang, I could feel that driving force that was my friend Steve, holding the band together. No matter how much I pushed it forward or pulled it back, he fought me and kept the rhythm constant. He was the metronome, constantly ticking in the background, holding time on a tight leash.
Things seemed to be looking up for us. When we found out that Steve had developed a brain tumour, we were of course shocked, and terrified for him as he undertook his first treatments. But he was stoic and tried to reassure us.
When he went in for surgery, he brushed off our concerns, told us he’d be fine, back with us before we knew it, promised to call us when he got out. But he never woke up after the operation.
The five members of that band – Don, Ian, Phil, Steve and myself – were brothers. From that day in 1973 when we’d first met Steve, we had been there for each other through thick and thin. Now, Steve, our precious timekeeper was gone.
My heart was broken, but I learned a lot from that tragedy. And since then the sudden loss of other irreplaceable mates who have long been part of my story has reinforced that lesson. We are not here for long, the clock is ticking, and one day our time will run out. We must do everything we can to hold on to our precious time and not let it slip through our fingers, to love and laugh with the people we hold most dear – before it’s all gone.
Every second is priceless. Every moment should be cherished.
Highways And Byways by Jimmy Barnes will be published by HarperCollins on October 16 and is available to pre-order now.
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