Australian pub rock band Cold Chisel are legends in their own country. Fronted by the enigmatic Jimmy Barnes, and ably supported by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano and keyboards, the band formed in Adelaide in 1973 and have gone on to become one of Australia’s best-loved groups. Defiantly Aussie, undeniably raucous, and foot stomping in that room of hard-house rock and blues, Chisel are a band that are worthy of global acclaim and recognition when in fact, their popularity is almost entirely confined to Australia and New Zealand.
Breakfast At Sweethearts, the band’s second album and 1979 offering, is proof beyond proof that this was a band who could easily exist in company like Thin Lizzy, Aerosmith, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Black Sabbath, ZZ Top and The Cars. Jimmy Barnes is an energy that is at times raucous (he was the first to admit that, for forty years, he drank himself close to death in front of his own adoring audience), at times back to the wall, at other times sensual, at all times fascinating. The laddish pub-rock of Conversations and Shipping Steel demonstrate his no-nonsense, let’s-’ave-it urgency and passion, forefronting a superstar singer at the very peak of his powers. The band is locked into the social and emotional issues of their time too. In Merry-Go-Round, Barnes scream: ‘When the weekend comes I’m gonna set fire to the town / I’ve had a belly full of living on the same old merry-go-round!’ as the band kick ass with Wilko Johnson style tenacity. Barnes was quoted in an interview as saying “If anything hurt me emotionally, I’d want to belt someone. That was my take on life in general: I’m not wounded, I’m the aggressor.” This is more than a clue to the angst in the powerful but thought-provoking and considered lyrical quality of Cold Chisel.
The highlights on the album include Showtime, and its absolute groove meditating on the trials of being a working band (‘Showtime / Hang a guitar on my shoulder / Check the vacant drooling faces round the room / Another heartbreak battle / And I’m only getting older / Jesus help me when I say I’ll give it all up pretty soon’). The title track, Breakfast At Tiffany’s shows Barnes’s more sensitive side, but also the blues sensibilities of the magician, Ian Moss, on guitar, whose solo material is equally as strong and riveting as his Cold Chisel highlights. Drug-paranoia song The Door, which closes the record, is spewed with venom and a shiver down the spine – an unforgettable ending to a masterpiece.
It’s not the greatest recording in the world, and as an album, it has suffered amongst muso crowds who have recognised this. However, the musicianship and songwriting craft far eclipse this detail. This record boasted the material that took them from little-knowns to mighty pub rock monsters and beyond. I was lucky enough to see Cold Chisel’s reformation at the 2004 Tsunami Benefit Concert in Melbourne, Australia, and the outpouring of love for this band from the Aussies was akin to us here in the UK with Macca or Elton or The Stones. These are records that tackle our everyday shit head on, and leave us pumped and ready to face it.
Cold Chisel – don’t forget the name.
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The Broken Spine is a poetry and arts collective proudly published on the coastal edge of North-West England. Founded in 2019 by Alan Parry and Paul Robert Mullen – two school friends reunited after twenty years through a mutual love of poetry.
