There ain’t no second prize, but here’s how Barnsey got a second chance

Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes, 67, has just returned to touring after a long hiatus due to ill health. I caught up with him on Wednesday.

Fitz: Jimmy! Did you hear that Willie Nelson has just been run over?

Jimmy: [Alarmed.] No...???

Fitz: Yes, he was singing … on the road again!

Jimmy: [Three seconds of silence … followed by uproarious laughter.] You got me! You absolutely got me. That is a real dad’s joke.

Fitz: But how funny – try the veal – I should say that because here you are, after so many medical woes, on the road again!

Jimmy: Yes, and it feels great.

Jimmy Barnes hit the stage again at Byron Bay Bluesfest in March after a bout of serious ill health.Credit: Edwina Pickles

Fitz: Tell me what put you in hospital in the first place?

Jimmy: In November 2022, I got to the point where my hip was crumbling from so many decades of jumping around onstage, so it had to be replaced, and then I spent the first six months of last year getting myself back to match fitness. But last November, I started feeling really crook. And as I’d done three live shows in seven days in three cities, I thought it must be that. So I just kept going, show after show after show. I finished one show in Melbourne at midnight and was supposed to catch a 6am flight to Noumea. No problems – I’ve always been a rock’n’roll stormtrooper and thought I’ll just push through. But at four in the morning, when I got up, I fell over in the bathroom and couldn’t move. Jane called the ambulance, and by midday, I was in hospital surrounded by a team of specialists.

Fitz: Things are grim, Jim!

Jimmy: Yes. There are infection markers in your blood, and if you’re normal, it’s below five. My infection markers were up to 430. I had bacterial pneumonia, then a staph infection, which had gone to my heart. It really looked like I might die. But I came through, and three weeks ago at Byron Bay Bluesfest, I was back on stage! The doctors said, “You’ve just got to take it easy”, but those words “take it easy” aren’t really in my vocabulary. It’s not what I do. I don’t do anything easy. I like to go full-on or go home. So I got up there, and I tried to be as laid back as I could, but I couldn’t hold back. And the only thing I noticed was it took me a little while just to actually find my feet, you know, like to feel comfortable once more on the stage. But I had Tommy Emmanuel playing guitar with me, and Bernard Fanning and my daughter Mahalia singing with me. That was one of the really great moments to be back, and we all just sort of pulled it off, and it was fantastic. Walking offstage was a huge sigh of relief, and I now have my Hell Of A Time tour coming up.

“I started feeling really crook.” Jimmy Barnes in hospital after major surgery late last year.Credit: Instagram

Fitz: Your work ethic is extraordinary. If your life had flashed before your eyes when you were in heart surgery, it would have to have been a feature film, while most of us might get a small YouTube clip. A few years ago, when you brought out your autobiographical Working Class Boy and Working Class Man in quick succession, before doing that one-man show all over the nation, it didn’t matter where I went on my own book tours, “You shoulda been here last week” they’d say, “Jimmy had three times your numbers!” Then I’d sign 2000 books in a warehouse. “You shoulda been here last week,” they’d say, “Jimmy signed 5000 books last week!“

Jimmy: [Laughing.] Well, you know I’m a bit hyperactive, a bit ADHD, and I really want to get things done. You know, when I was saying I was recovering for four months, I was, but in that time, I’ve written an album, and I’ve written 30 short stories for a book. So, you know, me taking time off is not what normal people call taking time off. I like work, and I feel sort of lost if I’m not busy doing something. I’ve always got ideas. There’s always something ticking in my head that I want to get out and done – and even though being crook was frightening and tough, I’m looking at it as a godsend. It allows me to keep going!

Fitz: Which brings me to the subject of Bon Scott. I was fascinated to read in your autobiography that back in the mid-70s, you replaced Scott as the lead singer of Fraternity when he went to AC/DC. By the time he died tragically young in 1980, you’d gone on to Cold Chisel, and they were the biggest band in the country, while AC/DC was one of the biggest in the world. But surely, even if it would have been a wrench if offered, this must have put you in the frame to replace Bon Scott again, this time in AC/DC?

Jimmy: It would have been an honour for me to be offered, but I never expected it because, for one thing, I wasn’t sure how they were ever going to replace such a great frontman, such a great singer. But then you hear Brian Johnson singing You Shook Me All Night Long on the radio and just go, “what a perfect choice.“

Jimmy Barnes and his wife. “Jane’s the strongest person I know.”Credit: Instagram

Fitz: Does it ever shock you that while so many of your rock’n’roll contemporaries from the 70s and 80s are dead, deranged, devastated by divorces, or just deteriorating all over, here you are – one of the hardest-living bastards of the lot of them through whiskey, drugs, and the whole thing – still going strong and still married to the same fabulous woman, so many decades later, at the age of 67?

Jimmy: [Laughing.] Look, growing up I didn’t get a lot from my parents, but what I did get from them was really good working-class genes, survivor genes. And I’m also one of these people who, as much as the world can be chaos around me, I am drawn to really good people. You know, whether it was my stepfather Reg Barnes or [Cold Chisel mainstay] Don Walker when I was 16 years old and wanting to join a band, or when I was a bit older, ready to tear the world apart, and I met Jane. I’ve always been blessed with great people around me, and Jane’s the strongest person I know. So, for me to lie down and succumb to anything – whether it’s addiction or sickness or whatever – is not on her radar, and she’s not going to let it be on mine. I’ve been very lucky.

Fitz: Mick Jagger famously said once that he didn’t want to be singing Satisfaction at the age of 30, and he’s still singing it, wonderfully, in his 80s. Do you seriously want to be singing Working Class Man at the age of 85?

Jimmy: I won’t be doing Working Class Man like I did when I was standing in a burning cane field, but yes, I want to be out there sharing music – which is something that, just like us, grows and morphs and changes. You don’t have to be doing the same thing in the same way. Mick Jagger’s not, but he’s making what he’s got work. I look at him and people like Muddy Waters, Ray Charles, Howling Wolf, Little Richard, all playing ’til they drop. I want to do that.

Cold Chisel in 2018: (From left) Don Walker, Jimmy Barnes, Ian Moss and Phil Small. “The Chisels are never apart. We’re as close as brothers.”Credit: Daniel Boud

Fitz: You toured with the Rolling Stones in the mid-90s. What was that like?

Jimmy: It was great to be with one of the greatest bands in the world. I was wild and brash, and on the Voodoo Lounge tour in Germany, I barged into their dressing room. Security said, “You can’t go in there,” and I said, “Just try and stop me.” There had been terrible rain, and the support bands had been placed in caravans that were knee-deep in mud, so I went in and told them, “We came to meet you guys and play with you guys, not to be treated like pieces of shit.” And Charlie Watts actually said, “Let me get security, and I’ll come across with you to have a look”, and I said, “You don’t need security; come with me.” And he came, immaculately dressed, walked across through the muddy field to where the support bands were, and I introduced him to all the bands. He said, “Thank you very much,” and things improved.

Fitz: And what about Mick? Did he give a bugger?

Jimmy: Mick’s the frontman and he’s got to prepare for the show. I get it. They are such a great band, and they’d been doing it for a lot longer than I had. They were still on top of the game. So it was a great thing.

Fitz: You are our Mick Jagger. When you are on stage belting out Khe Sanh to tens of thousands of people, and they are all singing along because they know the words and love you, do you have moments of “wow! This is just amazing”?

Jimmy: I do. I am an immigrant kid from Scotland who started life in Australia in a migrant camp. And now my job is to go out every night and make people think it’s Saturday night. What a great job! And people can walk away from my show, and if just for that time they forget their troubles, I’ve done my job, and that’s a great thing.

Fitz: Meantime, you’ll recall that about a decade ago, I was, oddly enough, doing some work for Channel Seven Sunday Night program – before they all went mad and had to be put down for mercy – and did a profile on you and Cold Chisel getting back together. These days, I can never work it out. Are the Chisels together or apart?

Jimmy: The Chisels are never apart. We’re as close as brothers. We’re very close and will play together again. Some of the best moments of my life have been spent on stage with those boys, and I hope we keep going ’til the day we drop.

Fitz: All right, am I right about the calendar of your coming tour? I’ve been looking up your next gig in Sydney, and it sadly seems you’re not on in Sydney until you do Rooty Hill on June 22, then the Sydney Opera House Concert Hall on August 18?

Jimmy. Yeah, not in Sydney until then. But you know, we’ve got a lot on this year. We’re making a great new record, I’m touring in New Zealand, I’m writing another album with Neil Finn, I’ve got some more shows in Queensland, a big one down in Victoria, and Sydney in June and August. And then watch this space because we got some big plans ...

Fitz: Of course you do. And good on you. You keep going. I am going to have a little lie-down.

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