Music first as Daryl Braithwaite’s days still go on
Daryl Braithwaite’s road to success hasn’t been easy. He was a coogee surfer first, singer second. Now 55 years later, he’s found happiness just knowing his songs make people happy.
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Daryl Braithwaite and his hits may be present on any dance floor worth its salt – more often than not as the end of the night belter – but the Aussie music icon is quick to shake off his relevance, even though he’s been making people smile for more than 50 years.
He didn’t plan on being famous you see, because the 75-year-old was once just a Coogee surfer who liked to sing.
Today he’s still reeling from playing his Horses to some 80,000 fans on stage with Harry Styles.
He’s releasing new music – ‘It’s You’ is out now and it’s catchy, he muses.
He’s had multi-platinum releases, countless sold-out tours and an ARIA Hall Of Fame induction and, with no signs of slowing down, he’s touring for the rest of the year and into the new one.
He still surfs – sometimes – but, for him, the ultimate sign of success is whether or not he’s made people happy.
Luckily, that’s what makes him happy too.
“I guess that’s the reason,” he tells Insider from Sydney’s Sony Headquarters this week.
“It’s fortunate that for those people that took up singing and are still doing it, that’s the reason you did it – not because of the clapping, but because of love of music, and then the applause and appreciation.
“You forget that sometimes, you really do.
“It’s only sometimes when you meet people say, at airports or whatever, and they go, ‘that song or that period, it meant so much to me because I lost someone, or somebody was born’ and that brings it home, how important music is.”
Braithwaite has worked hard to stick with his calling, and it hasn’t been easy. He was 14 when his family moved from Melbourne to Sydney’s east, and like all good Coogee boys, always had a surfboard under his arm – until he shared it with a microphone. He started singing with band Sherbet when he was 21 and, over the next 10 years, rose to national fame.
But then Sherbet broke up and, in the mid ’80s, Braithwaite stopped making music. In fact, he went on the dole and got a job with his local council to try and make ends meet.
“When the break came, it was more or less just like, I didn’t want to prostitute myself doing clubs and that with a fellow musician, so I pulled back,” he says.
“And I guess the motivation then came by not singing and being on the dole, and working manual work.
“And then, finally, I started probably thinking to myself, ‘this is really buggered’.
“And then, with the help of probably about a handful of people, I started writing and securing songs. And then after, you know, maybe six months out, we got to the release of Edge.
“And away we went again, and that was thrilling.
“To hear As the Days Go By on the radio – it was like Sherbet days of hearing the songs on the radio – and off we went.”
So along came his comeback album Edge in 1988, and Horses in 1991.
He was back.
“I look at it and think it’s just been hard work by a lot of people – and also myself – but I’ve loved it,” he says.
“And sometimes people put you up on a pedestal and all that, and I think, ‘oh, yeah, it’s just something that came to me’ because, looking back, I didn’t want to be famous or anything like that.
“It was purely to sing or surf.
“That was back when I started, you know, and so the surfing lost out, and I ended up singing.”
So would he change anything?
“None of it,” he says quickly.
“It’s all been really good.
“I think I’ve been fortunate. The one that I can look at is probably The Horses coming out when it did and it was successful, then it died off, and then there was a resurgence.
“And then things just went from there, and then it was The Falls Festival. It’s been things that have, in some ways, been triggered by just luck, or whatever it is.”
He’s also worked bloody hard. His comeback in the ’90s was somewhat derailed by a lawsuit from a former manager that near wiped him out. He hasn’t had a manager since. But he’s signed with Sony and in 2020 released Love Songs to an incredible response and 30 million streams.
Then, of course, came Harry Styles in all his glory, and now It’s You, which he accidentally posted to social media before he was meant to. But fans were happy.
“I look back and think I’ve been really fortunate. Although I’ve had my ups and downs, like court cases, this, that, whatever, but still, the drive to play is still there,” he says.
“It’ll be interesting to see who is the person that comes up to me and says, ‘Daryl, I think it’s time for you to stop’ – because it’ll have to happen,” he laughs.
“I question it even now. I think, God, I wonder when it be the right time – but the people still come along and see us.
“I think also that you still want to be successful.”
Standing on stage with Styles was one of those moments.
“You go, ‘oh, God, how good is this?’ – and we were backstage, and someone put in an earpiece for an ear, and I’d never worn ears before.
“The guy led me out and, my God, there were a lot of people out there.
“It was a thrill.
“I mean, it was one of maybe a few that I’ve had over the decades.
“Because it came out of the blue, it was like, 24 hours notice, you know. I actually went to see him in Melbourne and that was surreal, because I was in the crowd with a friend and we was just standing there, and they played The Horses prior to him going on.
“And I thought, ‘Oh, this is weird’.
“I could hear ‘we will fly’,” he continues, singing the famous tune.
“And then people started to turn around and go, ‘isn’t that the guy’,” he laughs.
Braithwaite is still nostalgic of Coogee even though he calls Melbourne home. It’s too cold to surf down there, he mutters, but loves living alone and having dinner with son Oscar, 38, and friend Sally a few times a week when he’s not working. They keep him firmly grounded, he laughs.
“I think I’ve handled it pretty well,” he says of the fame.
“And I think really, because of growing up with that group, the surfing group, we knew what was right, what was wrong, and so that’s, I think, continued with us up to now.
“I’m just someone singing.
“Yes, I’ve achieved some degree of fame and all that, but there’s no need to show that off to anyone.”
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