NOVEMBER 2017 | THEMUSICNETWORK.COM AUSTRALIAN SINGLES REPORT JIMMY BARNES: DIFFERENT SORT OF PAIN JIMMY BARNES With volume 2 of his memoirs, Jimmy Barnes leaps into the maelstrom of addiction, trauma, and Cold Chisel. By Andrew P Street ustralia was genuinely shocked And with the first book as his model, he when Jimmy Barnes wrote the wanted to show what sort of man comes first volume on his memoirs. out of such a violent, unsettled childhood ARock bios are not new, and and answer the question: what happens Barnes’ rollercoaster career had no shortage when someone with a lot of demons gets of the sex, drugs and rock’n’roll that into a situation where he’s rarely forced to typically feature in such tomes. take responsibility for them? Except Working Class Boy wasn’t a “It was sort of me trying to sift through a bacchanalian celebration of rock star excess: lifetime of good, bad, and ugly,” he told it was an unflinching and often harrowing TMN. story of poverty, addiction, child abuse, violence and a family tearing itself apart “Without using the childhood as an excuse, which ended right at the point where Barnes I wanted to look at the impact all that joined Cold Chisel - the point where you’d sort of stuff has on an adult. And it just so assume a typical rock bio would begin. happened I was in a rock and roll band, which made a lot of it worse.” The response was incredible. It became a bestseller, it spawned a theatrical tour It begins right where the last book left off, playing music and reading aloud sections with the young Cold Chisel hightailing it out from the book, and it started a national of Adelaide, and follows Barnes through conversation about the cascading social the band’s rise and eventual split, the ups costs of poverty. Barnes became an unlikely and downs of his solo career, his courtship spokesperson for social justice, and the bar of Jane Mahoney (his wife of almost four was set high for what everyone - Barnes decades), and the arrival of his children. included - assumed would be the sequel. That’s juxtaposed with the fallout of his That book, Working Class Man, just debuted addictions, his self-abuse, and at least two as the number one bestseller in the country. very-near deaths – including a drunken 7x #1 #10 Barnes' most He has nine #1 albums Jimmy Barnes was Cold Chisel’s 2015 single successful album - For in Australia, more inducted into the ARIA ‘Lost' peaked at #13 on the The Working Class Man than any other local Hall Of Fame in 2005. TMN Hot 100 Australian is certified 7x Platinum recording artist. chart and #10 on the in Australia. Contemporary Rock chart. mid-tour suicide attempt in a hotel room in Ian Moss and Phil Small, right through to Auckland. record company executives like Mushroom’s Michael Gudinski and Geffen Record’s Gary “I remember lying there with this thing tied Gersh, former managers, ex-producers… around my neck and going, ‘well, this isn't fucking working, I want to go to bed,’” he “Every one of those people I wrote about, says now. I felt like I was straddling a razor blade and sliding down a big hill. It was delicate, and “It was sort of like I was just seeing how I was worried about writing it,” he admits. hard dying was, but really by doing that I “But before I released it, I let Don read all could have found out how easy it was. And the Cold Chisel stuff and he went, ‘Yeah. it was only five years ago – but that seems I really like it. It's not exactly the way I like a fucking lifetime when you've only been remember it, but...’”. really living for five years.” While the book takes us up to the present He credits his survival to therapy, his family, day, Barnes isn’t not planning to stop and a fierce determination to make some anytime soon. difficult changes, but there are reminders in the book that lives rarely feature neat happy “I think I have a bit more to write. I'm not endings – as Barnes’ friend and former sure exactly what I want to write about yet. Models frontman James Freud tragically I'm thinking about just because it's been so demonstrated after writing two books intense to write about such personal stuff declaring his happiness and sobriety before for so long, I'm thinking seriously about ending his life in 2010. trying to write some fiction.” “Those same demons are still there and Why so? they're still snapping at my heels,” Barnes insists. “The only thing is that I can see them “Well, there's some things I haven't written now and I'm trying not to react the same about that were just so surreal and so way as I would, but they are still there. I talk outrageous that if you wrote them people about James in the book, and I talk about would think you were lying. I think I can put Hutch [Michael Hutchence] – and I can't them in fiction and they might believe it,” he speak for them, because nobody can speak laughs. for them – but I sort of think those times for both those guys could have just been this “I love the process of writing. After 45 moment of bad chemistry, one step too far, years or whatever I've been screaming one stupid decision.” out at people, and to sit down and so to spend time at looking back in, trying to find A childhood memoir is one thing, when stories and writing them down on paper, I’ve many of the stories are historical and many discovered is a process I really like.” of the characters have passed on, but in Working Class Man Barnes is writing about He pauses briefly. “Some of it's been people that are very much alive and who are painful, but I've also enjoyed that pain. It's a going to read what’s said about them – from different sort of pain.” his family and Chisel bandmates Don Walker, AUSTRALIAN SINGLES REPORT November 13, 2017 Compiled by The Music Network© FREE SIGN UP Hot 100 Aircheck spins, weighted with audience data & time of spins #1 hot 100 Perfect 1 Ed Sheeran | WMA perfect Too Good At Goodbyes Ed Sheeran | WMA 2 Sam Smith | EMI what about us 3 P!NK | SME Ed Sheeran is at #1 for another week with ‘Perfect’, but it’s P!NK that’s making all the headlines. Both beautiful trauma ‘What About Us’ and ‘Beautiful Trauma’ make ground at #3 and #4 respectively. P!NK is the first artist 4 P!NK | SME since Sheeran to have two singles in the Top 5, when ‘Shape Of You’ and ‘Castle On The Hill’ were Havana both seen in the bracket back in March. 5 Camila Cabello | SME friends After blowing radio away with his track ‘How Long’ last month, Charlie Puth is setting more milestones. 6 Justin Bieber & Bloodpop... ‘How Long’ now marks Puth’s highest performing single on the chart since 2016’s ‘We Don’t Talk feel it still 7 Portugal. The Man | WMA Anymore’ ft. Selena Gomez. It's also has done what the producer’s previous single ‘Attention’ could Good Old Days never do. After flirting on the precipice of the Top 10 for weeks, ‘Attention’ only got as high as #12 and 8 Macklemore | WMA failed to break the coveted Top 10. HOW LONG 9 Charlie Puth | WMA Debuts on the chart this week come from David Guetta & Afrojack’s ‘Dirty Sexy Money’ (#70), PNAU’s WOLVES ‘Go Bang’ (#72), and a pair of new Sam Smith tracks (#76/77). 10 Selena Gomez & Marshmello Dusk till Dawn 11 ZAYN | SME #1 MOST ADDED TO RADIO I Like Me Better 12 Lauv | IND dirty sexy money young, dumb & broke 13 Khalid | SME David Guetta & Afrojack ft. Charli XCX & French Montana | WMA let you down 14 Peking Duk | SME Commercial radio networks have wasted no time in adding David Guetta and Afrojack’s new single new rules 15 Dua Lipa | WMA ‘Dirty Sexy Money’ to their playlists. rockstar 16 Post Malone | UMA With a decorated feature list including British singer Charli XCX and hip hop artist French Montana, sun comes up ‘Dirty Sexy Money’ was added to all Hit commercial stations and the entire Hit Regional Network, 17 Rudimental | WMA as well as Smallzy’s Surgery and Ash London LIVE. It was also the only single added to the Edge glorious Network. 18 Macklemore | WMA bloodstone Rita Ora boasts another Top 10 finish - her third in a row - with newest single ‘Anywhere’. After being 19 Guy Sebastian | SME added to a number of commercial stations over prior weeks, both KIIS stations and the ACE Radio sorry not sorry 20 Demi Lovato | UMA Network have now confirmed the track’s universal adoption across Australian radio. MOST ADDED Additions weighted with audience data #1 new single release dirty sexy money learn to let go 1 David Guetta & Afrojack|WMA Kesha | SME anywhere 2 Rita Ora | WMA 3 go bang Kesha continues her strong form in 2017 with 'Learn To Let Go'. It's the next cut off Rainbow and PNAU | ETC oozes with radio-ready hooks and a banging chorus. While previous single 'Praying' peaked at #4 on bloodstone 4 Guy Sebastian | SME the TMN Hot 100 in September, her track 'Tik Tok' hit the top for five straight weeks in 2010.