Music author legend Stuart Coupe reveals his wild rock’n’roll tales in new memoir

Legendary author Stuart Coupe shares tales from awkward encounters with Mick Jagger and Bob Dylan to inflaming Aussie teen girls.

Stuart Coupe has been the most hated man in Australian entertainment circles at various times in his illustrious career.

And just because he is one of the country’s most passionate music fanboys.

Thousands of young girls despised him through the 1980s when he was the resident music columnist for teen bible Dolly.

Punk bands offended that he didn’t write about them in his street press and magazine columns graffitied insults to him across inner-city walls and hotel bathroom stalls.

Kylie Minogue disowned a famous quote about shooting rhinos and Steve Kilbey didn’t speak to him for years after an interview in the early 80s when Coupe published the Church’s frontman’s late-night declaration he was the greatest songwriter ever.

Coupe photo-bombing Blondie’s Deborah Harry in Hindley St, Adelaide in 1977. Picture: Victoria Wilkinson.

The author, band manager, promoter, record label owner and publicist shares the gritty behind the scenes stories of his remarkable musical life in his memoir Shake Some Action, a time capsule of sex, drugs, rock’n’roll and sobriety in Australia from the 1970s to now.

While renowned in industry circles as the former manager of Hoodoo Gurus and Paul Kelly and promoter who brought revered American artists from Lucinda Williams to Ted Hawkins to Australian audiences, he knows the stories people really want are about rock stars behaving badly.

Author Stuart Coupe standing at an even height next to Mick Jagger in Paris. Picture: Supplied.

Mick Jagger may not be a fan of Coupe sharing a hilarious tale about an encounter in Paris.

After a “dull” interview to promote the release of Jagger’s second solo record Primitive Cool in 1987, conducted in the Presidential Suite at the luxury George V hotel in Paris, Coupe requested a photo with the Rolling Stones legend.

Coupe is a little shy of six-foot tall in the old measure; Jagger is a few centimetres shorter. The rocker asked hotel staff to procure a foot stool to even out the difference.

“It was like ‘I have to have a foot stool.’ And I’m thinking ‘Mick Jagger has an issue with his height?’” Coupe said.

The piece de resistance of the encounter was after Jagger left, the record company representative allowed Coupe to stay in the five-star suite ahead of his flight to New York the following day as they had paid for room for the night.

Coupe has been writing about music – and crime fiction – since the 70s. Picture: NCA.

He consumed the French champagne in the minibar and made many phone calls back to Australia; back in the 80s, the cost of international calls from a hotel would rival any bill shock suffered from data roaming today.

“I got to tell you, I was pretty nervous going downstairs, but I think I just sort of walked directly towards the door and out of the hotel because I had that paranoia of ‘Okay, how many people did you call in Sydney?’” he said, laughing.

He had no such qualms about upsetting the impassioned readers of Dolly. In his thirties when then editor Lisa Wilkinson hired him to write for the magazine, he was disguised with black strips across his eyes and face.

Coupe would brutally sledge 80s pop idols from Duran Duran (he called them Yawn Yawn) to A-Ha, giving five star reviews to artists like Elvis Costello and The Triffids in an attempt to share his passionate love for rock music with his young readers.

Stuart Coupe was the Dolly contributor Australia's young women loved to hate. Picture: Supplied.

“Dolly had a huge impact with young women in the 80s – the hate mail, and occasional love mail, was delivered to me after every issue in garbage bags,” he said.

“I was reminded again when Facebook started and I suddenly got a disproportionate number of friend requests from women who wanted to know if I was ‘Stuart Coupe from Dolly’.

“I got lovely messages from women who grew up Wandong or Armidale saying I turned them on to Go Betweens or Nick Cave when they were 15.”

Coupe grew up in Launceston, his musical epiphany striking when he was 11 and bought a vinyl single of Friday On My Mind by The Easybeats.

He made it his mission to write about the emerging rock culture through his university days in Adelaide. His favourite “rock star” shot was captured after one of his first press conferences with Blondie when he accidentally photo-bombed Debbie Harry as she was posing after the event.

Two of Coupe’s most memorable interview were with Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen. Picture: Supplied.

His most memorable interviews, for good and bad, have been the unexpected, fly-by-your-seat encounters. He was summoned backstage at 3am to chat to one of his heroes Bruce Springsteen after a concert in Paris and a typically taciturn Bob Dylan in a hotel bar in Auckland.

And he has fuelled controversy with his stories when an artist’s quotes would come back to haunt them.

Coupe was assigned to present Dolly readers’ question to fledgling pop star Kylie Minogue in August 1988 and after she’d answered the obligatory “When’s your birthday?’ and “Do you still have any friends from your old school”, he asked “What do you think about the situation in South Africa?”. This was the apartheid era and about 18 months before Nelson Mandela was released from jail after 27 years.

Minogue answered “I don’t think they should be shooting the rhinos.”

Shake Some Action is out this week. Picture: Supplied

The quote made the news after it was published in Dolly. He writes in Shake Some Action that she has subsequently denied saying it. He counters he still has the transcript of the interview, but doesn’t “have an issue with Kylie – then or now.”

As well as his other passion project writing about crime fiction, Coupe has penned biographies of Paul Kelly, Michael Gudinski and Tex Perkins.

Shake Some Action, published by Penguin Books Australia, is out on August 8.

Originally published as Music author legend Stuart Coupe reveals his wild rock’n’roll tales in new memoir