Paul Kelly: sometimes I still feel like a fraud

After more than four decades in music, songwriter Paul Kelly is not above occasionally feeling like a fraud.

Paul Kelly in Fortitude Valley, Brisbane, yesterday. Picture: Glenn Hunt

After more than four decades in music and reaching the pinnacles of popular acclaim, songwriter Paul Kelly is not above occasionally feeling like a fraud.

“The ‘pretendies’ is that feeling you get on stage when you feel like a complete fake,” he said. “You think to yourself: ‘Who am I kidding? What the f..k am I doing here?’ It happens every now and then.”

The term was coined by his friend the late Spencer P. Jones, who played guitar in Kelly’s band for several years.

“It can be contagious, it can spread through a band, and everyone else in the band can sense if the singer’s got the wobbles,” Kelly said. “You usually can straighten it out after a song or two, and get back on track.”

In a wide-ranging interview at the Bigsound music conference yesterday, before several hundred people, Kelly discussed the ­challenge of maintaining self-confidence while keeping ego in check, and his enduring fascination with the craft of putting memorable words to music.

“Sometimes you get really ­excited by writing a song, and you just want to play it straight away, to the first person that’s there,” he said. “Those are the moments of great satisfaction, and that’s the same as it ever was, the same as when I first started.”

Which of his songs had surprised him with its popularity? “How to Make Gravy,” he said. “I never thought that would get ­really popular; it was never a big radio song. It didn’t have a chorus, it was set in prison, and it’s a Christmas song — that’s a pretty specific genre.”

Held across four days in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley, Bigsound is designed to shine a spotlight on the next generation of artists hoping to follow Kelly’s example of a long and prosperous life in music.

The combined conference and music festival has become a beacon for domestic and international industry figures hoping to discover the next Courtney Barnett, Flume or Gang of Youths, all of whom played at Bigsound early in their careers before finding substantial overseas success.

“I think the best advice I ever got was from (Cold Chisel songwriter) Don Walker,” Kelly said. “I played him some of my songs. Don is a man of few words. He didn’t say, ‘That was good’ — all he said was ‘Hmm. Keep writing.’ So I did.”

Late last night, at an exclusive show in a small room named The Zoo, Kelly and his band ran through a set of crowd favourites and several tracks from his forthcoming album Nature, while evading the “pretendies” with the skill of seasoned performers.