Prolific producer with the golden touch brought fame to Australian musicians

MARK MOFFATT: 1950-2024

Not every pivotal figure in Australian music was a household name outside that environment, but for 50 years Mark Moffatt was hugely admired and respected by every figure within it.

For this producer and guitarist, the figures speak for themselves, loudly. He produced more tracks in the APRA Top 30 Songs Of All Time than any other producer and worked with an extraordinary 15 ARIA Hall of Fame inductees. For those unfamiliar with his name, perhaps these hits resonate: (I’m) Stranded, Singing In The 80s, Fraction Too Much Friction, Summer of ’81, Cool World, Treaty, You I Know, Bop Girl, Matthew, Rock & Roll Music and Tighten Up Your Pants.

The Monitors: Mark Moffatt (right) and Terry McCarthy in 1980.Credit: Fairfax

Mark Moffatt grew up in Maryborough, Queensland. He discovered the invigoration of the Beatles and moved to Bundaberg, which had a more active music scene. “There were a lot of British migrants – it was always the way in Australia, wherever there were Poms, there was music.”

One of them was a girl in a boarding house who exposed him to every record she had by the Rolling Stones. This prepared him for his arrival in Brisbane, where the blues environment, led by the Purple Hearts, ruled the roost.

“Brisbane was punching way above its weight, but it was not part of the industry like it is now,” he would say. So Moffatt took a boat to England in 1972. He fell on his feet in London, finding employment at a shop on Denmark Street called Top Gear.

As one tribute to him puts it: “In his second week Jimmy Page walked in. Moffatt got to know the regulars, including Paul McCartney and Gary Moore, and he would often play sessions at the local studios, where he would bug the engineers, asking: “What does that button do?”

The Saints, from left, Ed Kuepper, Chris Bailey, Kym Bradshaw and Ivor Hay, circa 1977. Credit: Getty Images

He was also taken under the wing of Terry Britten, formerly of Adelaide’s The Twilights, who would soon write massive hits for Cliff Richard and Tina Turner. He urged Moffatt to pursue a studio life.

When he made his way back to Brisbane, Moffatt talked his way into a producer’s job at a recording studio run by Bruce Window in West End, on the south side of the Brisbane River. The core business there was cutting commercial jingles, with nary a band to be seen.

But one Tuesday afternoon a drummer and bass player turned up in their transit van and said, “We’d like to make a record.” When their guitarist plugged in, Moffatt decided that his amplifier wasn’t up to the task (“too clean”). So he loaned Ed Kuepper his Fender Super 10, which he turned up to 10. The 16-track studio had a concrete hallway, which made the recording sound even angrier and louder. The Saints blasted away, with Moffatt deftly capturing vocalist Chris Bailey’s sneer and guitarist Kuepper’s layers of distortion.

Today the gritty and urgent (I’m) Stranded by the Saints, released on their own Fatal Records imprint, has “become this seminal record that’s in the National Film and Sound Archive’s Sounds of Australia registry,” Moffatt gently boasted. Certainly, he was the right man, in the right place at the right time.

“I’d seen the New York Dolls and I’d been around the early British pub rock scene with Ducks Deluxe and Brinsley Schwarz. It all made sense to me, which is why I didn’t dismiss these guys as just a bunch of noise.”

A copy found its way to England, where rock publication Sounds declared it the “single of this and every week. “You like Quo or the Ramones?” the reviewer asked. “This pounds them into the dirt. Hear it once, and you’ll never forget it.”

As one chronicler has said, “it captured a moment when Australia was in the vanguard of a style and attitude which changed the face of popular music”. Kuepper would note: “The Saints were lucky that Mark Moffatt was in the producer’s chair that night and not some drone.”

“It just keeps coming up, it never seems to go away,” said Moffatt, “which is interesting because it’s one of those things that wasn’t planned or thought through in any way. It just happened one night. I’m really thankful that I had one of those in my life. The stars aligned, and I’m glad it was in Brisbane.”

The whole two-hour session cost $170. After the success of The Saints, EMI asked Moffatt if he’d go to Melbourne to produce the outlaw country band Saltbush. He landed at TCS Studios, where manager Barry Coburn offered him a job. One track, Fiddle Man, stayed in his mind. He would later take Slim Dusty into the studio to make his first and only “dance track”.

After a stint at TCS, Moffatt was fired for working on his own projects out of hours and moved to Sydney, where he became Festival Record’s in-house producer and also worked on some of the biggest Australian records of the era. It all really started with what would become his first platinum album, Chemistry by Mondo Rock, and included pivotal albums by Tim Finn, Jenny Morris, Swanee, Stephen Cummings, Neil Murray, Shane Howard, Anne Kirkpatrick, Mental As Anything, and Keith Urban and The Ranch.

His ears were always attuned to the demands of radio and the hits just rolled. He produced Bop Girl for Pat Wilson, Ross’s wife, which reached No.2. The group Split Enz was not unfamiliar with hit singles, but when founder Tim Finn opted to record a solo album, Escapade, Moffatt said: “I felt a bit of antipathy from the rest of the Enz. I think they felt it broke the band up. But it was a very inspiring and stimulating time for Tim. There was stuff happening.” Of the 15 songs recorded, Fraction Too Much Friction and Made My Day soared up the charts.

The Monitors: Mark Moffatt, Ricky Fataar (middle) and Terry McCarthy in 1982.Credit: Festival Records

By this time, Moffatt had teamed up with South African drummer Ricky Fataar from the Beach Boys and The Rutles, in a writing and production partnership. He also joined The Monitors, a studio group Moffatt had cooked up with advertising professional Terry McCarthy. It was a Buggles-type outfit that had impressed radio with a couple of irresistible pop creations, Nobody Told Me and Singin’ In The ’80s.

Punk, blues, seamless adult pop, techno, troubadour, power-pop and all blends of country and roots were all within Moffatt’s grasp. There weren’t many idioms left but a couple remained.

“As a producer, I always had ideas,” he once explained. “In 1994 I decided to do a techno-yodelling track with Australia’s internationally famous yodeller Mary Schneider.”

Schneider recalls: “He asked me to write a yodelling number and my daughter, Melinda, and I wrote a rap called Tighten Up Your Pants, which Moffatt released under the name Audio Murphy. She was about 18 years old and it was her first time on the charts.”

Moffatt formed a close relationship with Roland, the Japanese company that made synthesisers and instruments. They took him to Hamamatsu, where he assisted with research. After leaving Festival, Moffat set up The Vault, his own 24-track studio in Balmain.

Mark Moffatt with country vocalist Anne Kirkpatrick, the daughter of Slim Dusty and songwriter Joy McKean, in 1990.Credit: Fairfax

The stars aligned a second time. When Yothu Yindi leader Mandawuy Yunupingu heard Shane Howard’s album River he decided that he wanted “the guy who produced that record”.

Midnight Oil’s Jim Moginie, one of the players on those sessions, has said: “He was always an incredibly supportive person who taught me the important art of being selfless.”

As Moffatt would explain: “This was life-changing, really. I spent time with the band and learnt their tribal beliefs. The didgeridoo player, Milkay Mununggurr, was unbelievable. He was the master.”

Yothu Yindi performing in 2008.

Treaty raced up the charts and rewrote the rules of Australian rock. They even appeared on Countdown. “I remember I was with the band at Tullamarine airport and these white schoolkids came running up to these Aboriginal guys to ask for their autographs. That was a very special moment,” Moffatt said.

When Moffatt decided to move base to Nashville in 1996, it was initially to do with songwriting. As a writer, he had – apart from his Australian success – two top 10 UK and European singles, and would compose scores for seven major films and TV series.

He had penned Long Way Home with Troy Cassar-Daley, which later became the title track to one of his albums. The relocation was again at the suggestion of old friend Barry Coburn. “He and his wife Jewel had established a thriving publishing and management business and had signed Keith Urban to a publishing contract. I was mainly employed to work with their writers and artists, Keith among them.”

In Nashville, Moffatt installed an elaborate home recording studio. He became a leader in the emerging independent sector of the Nashville industry.

Moffatt, who died in Nashville aged 74 on September 6 after battling pancreatic cancer for a year, was a devoted family man. He is survived by his wife Lindsey, his son Geordie, stepdaughter Dana and two granddaughters.