Paul Kelly: 'This is where we make our communities', Don't Kill Live Music Rally - 2019

21 February 2019., Hyde Park, Sydney, Australia

This was a statement read aloud at the rally, which Paul Kelly couldn’t attend.,

I first started playing in Sydney in the late seventies.

French’s Tavern on Oxford Street was the first I remember.

Bondi RSL, The Trade Union Club, Graphic Arts Club, Kardomah Cafe, The Manzil Room.

Fuck we never got out of the Manzil ‘til after dawn.

Later on the Strawberry Hills Hotel, the Hopetoun, Dee Why, Salinas, The Annandale, War and Peace.

Many of these places have gone but their legacy lives on in the venues and the festivals under threat today.

You don’t learn how to write a song in school.

You don’t do a TAFE course in How to Play In Front of An Audience.

These places were my universities.

I still go to music festivals, pubs, clubs, and cafes all the time to do extra study.

Take a little refresher course.

Listen and learn.

This is where we grow and thrive, love and hate, compete and cooperate.

This where we make our communities, carve our sound, and develop our unique art.

Fight for it!

PK.

Tom Petty: 'I joined the conspiracy to put black music on the popular white radio', Musicares Person of the Year - 2017

10 February 2017, Los Angeles, California, USA

Wow. Thank you, thank you so much. Thank you, thank you.

Twenty years ago I’d have been way too cynical to do this, but I’m 66 now and I feel ya. I thank you for this and it’s a great honor. I’ve watched the whole show backstage. I’ve never — I’m really at a loss for words. The music has been wonderful, and I thank all these artists for coming.

I’d also like, right off the bat, to thank my band the Heartbreakers. They’re such an important part of all of this — I didn’t want to forget them. I know it’s been a long night, I won’t talk too long. I want to play you a bit more music. We have some friends we brought with us and we’re gonna get to that in just a second.

I’m just so beyond honored to be here for MusiCares. For something that does something for musicians. I know people that this has directly affected. And they know how to do it. They don’t ask for a lot of paperwork and the money shows up. And they’ve helped so many people.

And I thank all my friends and the artists that have come. To be here in the presence of so many great American songwriters is amazing. You know, Jackson Browne, Don Henley, Lucinda Williams, Randy Newman. We’re truly honored.

It’s been about two years since I played with the Heartbreakers. Honestly, I’ve been producing records the last couple of years. We got together last week and rehearsed for this thing, and I realized I may actually be in one of the best two or three Rock and Roll bands there is. I’m so proud of them.

I got into Rock and Roll at age ten. I was collecting records — Rock and Roll records. Not rock; this was Rock and Roll. The roll designates a swing — there’s a swing in the roll. It’s a music that was created by black people, given its name by a white DJ named Alan Freed who, along with Sam Phillips — in music they saw it as a conspiracy to get black music on white popular radio. And when Sam found Elvis he called Alan and said “We’re ready to roll.”

The music became popular and it empowered the youth of America. The government got very nervous — especially the Republicans. They put Elvis in the Army and they put Chuck Berry in jail. Things calmed down for a couple of years. But it was too late; the music had reached England. And they remembered it.

In 1964, The Beatles came. I had my eyes opened like so many others and I joined the conspiracy to put black music on the popular white radio. And Rock and Roll goes on, you know. More like the blues or jazz now. But I’m heartened to see these young bands — The Head and the Heart, Cage the Elephant, The Shelters. They’re gonna carry this forward. And we have to be there to support them through it. Because there ain’t nothing like a good Rock and Roll band, people — here to tell you.

Let me kind of fast forward here — you know my story. This is kind of a surreal moment in a surreal life. For some cosmic reason, so many of the artists that I adored came into my world without me calling  -  they just showed up and we played together and we became friends. And there were so many people. The first one was Roger McGuinn of The Byrds who was there right away with my first record.

And so much has happened to me that you wouldn’t believe. I’m not gonna try to tell it all to you, but I’m thinking right now about one particular thing. I was looking out there — I know so many people here. Mo, Mo and Olivia are out there. I love Mo and I love Liv. Me and George Harrison and Jeff Lynne one night were at Mo Ostin’s house — this was before, we were just working on the idea of the Traveling Wilburys — and I had written this song Free Fallin’ and done the record and taken it to my label, MCA. And they rejected the record. And that had never happened to me before. I was like, wow, what do I do?

So, we forgot about it. And we were at Mo’s house and dinner ended and George said, “Let’s get the guitars out and sing a little bit.” And we sang and George said, “Let’s do that ‘Free Fallin’’ Tom. Play that.”

So we had a kind of Wilbury arrangement of it with harmony. And we did it. And Lenny Waronker is sitting there, he said, “That’s a hit.” With two acoustic guitars, you know? I said, “Well, my record company won’t put it out.” And Mo says, “I’ll fuckin’ put it out.”

But anyway — not supposed to do that. Ok. I was going to tell you, sorry. I’m trying so hard to be good. I got my wife is here. And my daughter Adria. I’m really on my best behavior tonight. But I did — I wanted to tell you one little thing. I got into town in 1974 and I was signed by Denny Cordell to Leon Russell’s Shelter Records. And Leon brought me over to his house and he said, “I want you to just hang around.” He like the songs that I’d done. “If it comes to a thing where we need some words, I need you to be here and I’ll pay you for it.” And he was gonna pay me, I was gonna be there, right?

So, the first session, in comes George Harrison and Ringo and Jim Keltner and they didn’t need any words. But those cats were so cool, you know? And I found myself — after the session when we were hanging out — I found myself slipping my sunglasses on. Leon said, “What the hell are you doing with the dark glasses, man?” I said, “I don’t know? It feels cool, you know, like Jimmy Keltner.” He goes, “Wearing a sunglasses at night is an honor you earn. Lou Adler had Johnny Rivers and the Mamas and Papas before he put them glasses on. Jack Nicholson mad really shitty Boris Carloff movies before he put them glasses on.”

Well, I’m putting my glasses on. But, I thank Leon for that advice.

I was going to tell you, I was fortunate enough to know the great Johnny Cash. I loved him since I saw him on the Hootenanny television show in 1962. They filmed in Gainesville, Florida.

Well, I actually didn’t see him that week. The paper said he was a little loopy and punched a policeman and did not appear that night. And I loved him. I loved all his songs. You know, “Hey Porter,” “Don’t Take Your Guns to Town,” “Big River” — you young songwriters, you wanna be a songwriter, just listen to “Big River” about sixty times and you’ll write something.

But we made an album together, Johnny and the Heartbreakers. And it won the GRAMMY for Best Country Record of the Year — without ever being played once on a country record station. But that’s alright, because it was actually a Rock and Roll record — Johnny was pretty Rock and Roll.

This morning, I was looking through a box and a card fell out — and it was from John on my 50th birthday. And it said, “Happy birthday. You’re a good man to ride the river with.” And that’s all I wanna be — good man to ride the river with. And I’m gonna keep riding the river. Thank you.

Established in 1989 by The Recording Academy, MusiCares provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. MusiCares’ services and resources cover a wide range of financial, medical and personal emergencies, and each case is treated with integrity and confidentiality. MusiCares also focuses the resources and attention of the music industry on human service issues that directly impact the health and welfare of the music community. For more information, please visit www.musicares.org.

Dave Grohl: 'The musician comes first', SXSW keynote - 2016

Thank you SXSW very much for allowing me the incredible opportunity of being this year's keynote speaker. Having been raised by a former DC political speechwriter and a former public speaking teacher, it is practically written in my DNA zipper that I should feel the insatiable need to stand in front of a room of total strangers and BULLSHIT them. As a child, MY father's lectures were legendary. And Frequent. Great works of literature, that stay with me to this day and, if anything . . . taught me how to give loooong lectures myself. Not long ago I was lucky enough to sit down at dinner with another one of my favorite public speakers . . . the one, the only Mr. Bruce Springsteen. Bruce, as you would imagine, is a warm, funny, brilliant man, and a wonderful dinner guest! I congratulated him on last year's amazing keynote, quoting his insight and humor. And then I told him that this year's keynote speaker was . . . me. He stared at me for a moment, slowly cracked that famous smile that we all know and love, that smile that could light up an entire stadium, and then . . . he started laughing. AT ME. As if to say "GOOD FUCKING LUCK, BUDDY . . . " But . . . truth be told . . . that's not the first time anyone's ever said that to me, so it is without a doubt my musical life's greatest honor to be asked to share with you what I know about music.

So. What do I know . . .

The Musician comes first.

My mother tells me that I was born to applause. The morning of January 14th, 1969, there was a class of young doctors in a small delivery room in Warren, Ohio, there to witness their first live birth. As I was born, the room burst into applause. My first moments in this world . . . hanging upside down, covered in blood, screaming as I'm being spanked by a complete stranger. Perhaps the most appropriate preparation for becoming a working musician.

Now . . . before we go any further, I have to thank someone. I have to thank Edgar Winter. For allowing K-Tel records to include his legendary instrumental "Frankenstein" on their 1975 Blockbuster compilation. It was this record that my sister and I bought at the drugstore down the street and brought home to play on the public-school turntable my mother would borrow from school on the weekends. It was this record that changed my life. A veritable "who's who" of 1975 radio hits. But, it wasn't KC and the Sunshine Band's "That's the way, uh huh uh huh I like it" song that made me want to pick up the dusty old guitar in the corner. Nope . . . and  it wasn't Dave Loggins' "Please Come to Boston" or Silver Convention's "Fly Robin Fly" that made me want to jump in a van with my friends and leave the world behind for music. No. It was (sings "Frankenstein"). A riff. I gave it all up for a riff.

Interestingly enough, though, that song is completely instrumental. There's no vocal. It's drums, guitars, keyboards, percussion, each getting a solo in the song . . . no vocals. But what I heard in all of those solos . . . were voices. The voices of each musician. Their personalities. Their technique. Their feel. The sound of people playing music with other people. It made me want to play music with other people, too.

So, it wasn't long until I had my first guitar, an old Sears Silvertone with the amp built into the case. It smelled like an old attic full of mothballs and burning wire, and sounded like that "goats yelling like humans" YouTube clip that's going around right now (look it up, it's fucking hilarious), but it instantly became my obsession. It was this guitar, and a Beatles songbook that ultimately set my life in . . . ahem . .  one direction. Never one for taking lessons or direction, I was left to my own devices and devoted every waking hour to playing music. It became my religion. The record store my church. The rock stars my saints, and their songs my hymns.

Springfield, Virginia, wasn't necessarily known for breeding rock stars. A "career" in music never seemed possible to me. It just seemed too good to be true. Surely the faces on my Kiss posters weren't getting PAID to do this! Gene Simmons? Imagine! But that never mattered to me. Because I had finally found MY VOICE. And that was all I needed to survive from now on. The reward of playing a song from beginning to end without making a mistake . . . well, that could feed me for weeks. The discovery of a new chord, or a new scale could make me forget about that kid at school who wanted to kick my fuckin' ass, or that cute chick with the lip gloss and soft sweater I had a crush on who wouldn't give me the time of day. I liked my new voice. Because, no matter how bad it sounded . . . it was mine. There was nobody there to tell me what was right or what was wrong, so . . . there was no right or wrong.

As much as I wanted to be in a band, I was there, alone in my bedroom, day in day out with my records and my guitar, playing with myself for hours. I would set up pillows in the formation of a drumset on my bed and play along to records until there was literally sweat dripping down the Rush posters on my  walls. Eventually I figured out how to be a one-man band. I took my crappy old handheld tape recorder, hit record and laid down a guitar track. I would then take that cassette, place it in the home stereo, take another cassette, place THAT into the handheld recorder, hit play on the stereo, record on the handheld, and play drums along to the sound of my guitar. Voila! Multi-tracking! At 12 years old! To my chagrin, though, what I got was not "Sgt. Peppers" . . . rather a collection of songs about my dog, my bike, and my dad. Nevertheless, I had done this all myself. Therefore making the reward even sweeter.

But, still, I longed to share this newfound obsession with other people. Eventually, I found a kid up the street with an old drum set. I found a kid down the street with an old bass. I found a kid across the street with an old basement. And we found a kid across town with an old PA. Several awkward jam sessions later, and we had a band. Obstacle one, cleared. When asked what our band name was upon submitting our official entry to our high school battle of the bands, we applied as "Nameless." We just couldn't fuckin' come up with anything better than that. (Finding a good band name is still the fucking hardest part, by the way . . . I mean, Foo Fighters? C'mon . . .) Obstacle two, diverted. That night Kenny Loggins' "Footloose" never sounded so brave . . . Unfortunately, our enthusiastic rendition wasn't enough to seize the title of "Best Band at Thomas Jefferson High School," but . . . we carried on. We tried our damnedest at Bowie, Who, Zep, Cream, Kinks, Hendrix . . . we played basements, backyards, keg parties . . . we even played the Rolling Stones' "Time Is on My Side" at a fucking nursing home.

And then . . . I went to Chicago.

It was 1982, and on my mother's meager public school teacher's salary, our family had planned a trip to the great city of Chicago to visit our relatives who lived in a suburb up north, right on the lake. We stuffed everything that we could into our tiny, baby-blue Ford Fiesta and started driving.  A week and a half of swimming and Italian beef sandwiches was in order, though, upon arrival, the tone of our trip was instantly defined. My older cousin, Tracey, was now a punk rocker. 

At first . . . I HEARD her coming down the stairs. The clanking of chains, the stomping of heavy boots, the sound of a fresh leather jacket creaking like an old ship. And then . . . I saw her. Shaved head, bondage pants, torn Anti-Pasti T-shirt . . . she was a fucking superhero come to life. Something I had only seen on the TV shows Chips or Quincy. My heart started racing. My eyes widened. My throat tightened. I stood there, speechless and in awe. Tracey was my first hero.

She took me up to her bedroom and showed me her incredible record collection. Stacks upon stacks of seven-inch singles and LP's, with names I'd never heard before . . . Names like: The Misfits. Bad Brains. Minor Threat. Dead Kennedys. The Germs. Flipper. The Circle Jerks. . Discharge. Crass. Conflict. Black Flag. White Flag. Void. Faith. The Dicks. The Dickies. The Minutemen. The Adolescents. The Ramones. The Big Boys GBH. DRI. SOA. DOA. MDC. MIA. CIA. Crucifix. Crucifucks. X. X-Ray Spex. Wire. Sex Pistols. The Buzzcocks. Rights of The Accused. The Necros. Fang. Government Issue. The Descendants. I sat down and played every last one. This was the first day of the rest of my life.

That night I went to my first "concert." Though, it wasn't in an arena, it was a dingy little hole in the wall directly across the street from Wrigley Field called the Cubby Bear. And it wasn't any band I had ever heard of. It was a local Chicago punk rock band by the name of Naked Raygun. With a "ONE TWO THREE FOUR" the band kicked into the most ferocious noise and bodies were flying everywhere, spit and sweat and leather and volume and broken glass and piss and fucking puke . . . I was in heaven. And it was our secret.

The next day I took the L to Wax Trax records. I bought a Killing Joke T-shirt and the soundtrack to The Decline of Western Civilization. I was converted. I was no longer one of you. I was one of us.

But, more than the noise, and the rebellion, and the danger . . . it was the blissful removal of these bands from any source of conventional, popular corporate structure, and the underground network that supported the music's independence that was totally inspiring to me. At 13 years old, I realized that I could start my own band, I could write my own song, I could record my own record, I could start my own label, I could release my own record, I could book my own shows, I could write and publish my own fanzine, I could silkscreen my own T-shirts . . . I could do all of this myself. There was no right or wrong . . . because it was all mine.

Upon returning to Washington, D.C., I dove headfirst into the local hardcore punk rock scene. Little did I know that one of the country's most prolific and influential music scenes was right in my own backyard. Minor Threat. Bad Brains. Scream. These local bands were now my Beatles. My Stones. My Zeppelin. My Dylan. And these were the fucking REAGAN YEARS, so protest music was on fire! My first punk rock show back at home was actually the ROCK AGAINST REAGAN concert, July 4th, 1983. With the stage built at the base of the Lincoln Memorial steps on Independence day, it was recipe for disaster. Seven-hundred thousand barefoot, sunburned rednecks from Maryland and Virginia in Lynyrd Skynyrd and Judas Priest T-shirts, stone washed jeans and bandanas, converging on the nation's capital to watch the fireworks, coolers full of beer and Southern Comfort . . . only to find Texas' own Dirty Rotten Imbeciles singing their song "I Don't Need Society":

Your number's up, you have to go
The system says I told you so
Stocked in a train like a truckload of cattle
Sent off to slaughter in a useless battle
Thousands of us sent off to die
Never really knowing why
Fuck the system, they can't have me
I don't need society
I don't need society

It was a fucking riot waiting to happen.

I actually bought that record that day from the lead singer out of the back of his van. It was a 33-song seven-inch. Stuffed in a homemade sleeve. It is still to this day, one of my most prized possessions.

When the sun had gone down and the legendary Dead Kennedys finally came onstage, lead singer Jello Biafra pointed and screamed at the Washington Monument, calling it "The great Klansman in the sky, with it's two blinking red eyes . . . " Well . . . that was it . . . the powder keg finally blew. Helicopters buzzed overhead, shining spotlights into the crowd as policeman on horses beat their way through the punks with their billy clubs. It was right out of Apocalypse Now. This was my Woodstock. This was my Altamont. This was rock & roll, no matter what T-shirt you wore or what haircut you had. This was fucking REAL. I burned inside. I was possessed and empowered and inspired and enraged and so in love with life and so in love with music that it had the power to incite a fucking riot, or an emotion, or to start a revolution, or just to save a young boy's life.

So I joined a band, dropped out of high school, and hit the road. I starved. My hands bled. If I slept, I slept on floors. I slept on stages. I slept on the fucking floors under the fucking stages. And I loved every minute of it. Because I was free. And I wanted to incite a riot, or an emotion, or a revolution, or to save someone's life by inspiring them to pick up an instrument just like I did as a kid. I wanted to be someone's Edgar Winter. I wanted to be someone's Naked Raygun. I wanted to be somene's Bad Brains or Beatles. Because THAT was the reward. THAT was the intention.  We played THAT type of music, so we were left alone. There was no career opportunity. There was no hall of fame. There were no trophies. There was no A&R credit card buying Benihana dinners.  Our reward was knowing that we had done all of this all on our own, and that it was real.

But . . . inevitably it wasn't long before I found myself stranded in Hollywood without a cent to my name and no way home, crashed out in a Laurel Canyon bungalow with a bunch of female mud wrestlers. Don't ask. That's a whole other fucking keynote address . . .

And, that's when I heard the 5 words that changed my life forever:

"Have you heard of Nirvana?"

Nirvana were one of "us." Raised on Creedence, and Flipper, and Beatles, and Black Flag, they seemed to share the same ideals, the same intentions. But they had something more. They had songs. They had . . . Kurt. What they didn't have . . . was a drummer.

So, without hesitation, I packed all of my drums into one big, U-Haul cardboard box, grabbed my old army duffle bag, and flew up to Seattle.

We practiced in a barn. Every day. It was all that we had. There was no sun. There was no moon. There was just . . . the barn. And those songs. Kurt had, without a doubt, found HIS voice. Every practice would begin with an improvisational, free-form jam, which kind of served as an exercise in dynamic and musical collaboration/communication. We were speaking to each other without words. Verbal communication was never really Nirvana's forte, so we spoke to each other with our instruments. And the combination of our three "voices" resulted in a sound that eventually caught the ear of a major label record company. Or 10 major label record companies . . .

Suddenly, we were thrown into a bidding war of A&R guys with fancy shoes from Fred Segal, and radio promo dudes with little one-hitters in their glove compartments, and closets full of complimentary box sets, and fucking BENIHANA EVERY FUCKING NIGHT. At one meeting, after playing a demo of our song "In Bloom" for Donny Eiener in his high rise office in NYC, Donny turned to Kurt and asked, "So . . . what do you guys want?" Kurt, slouched over in his chair, looked up to Donny sitting behind his massive oak desk and said, "We want to be the biggest band in the world."

I laughed. I thought he was fucking kidding. He wasn't.

Now, you have to remember where music WAS at the time. Here are the Billboard year-end Top 10 songs of 1990:

10. Jon Bon Jovi, "Blaze of Glory"
9. Billy Idol, "Cradle of Love"
8. En Vogue, "Hold On"
7. Phil Collins, "Another Day in Paradise"
6. Mariah Carey, "Vision of Love"
5. Madonna, "Vogue"
4. Bel Biv Devoe, "Poison"
3. Sinead O'Connor, "Nothing Compares 2 U"
2. Roxette, "It Must Have Been Love"

And the Number One song of 1990 . . . Wilson fucking Phillips, "Hold On"

How Kurt could even THINK we'd make a ripple in this ridiculous mainstream world of polished pop music was beyond me. It was beyond everyone. It made absolutely no sense. It was simply unimaginable. It was the type of hopeless, shallow aspiration that we had been conditioned to reject, ultimately relieving us of any intention other than to just be ourselves. I mean, the very definition of the word "Nirvana" in the dictionary is "A PLACE OR STATE CHARACTERIZED BY FREEDOM FROM OR OBLIVION TO PAIN, WORRY, AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD." We had ALWAYS been left to our own devices as musicians, day after day in our bedrooms as children, day after day in that old barn. What did WE need with THAT world?

A few more A&R guys with fancy shoes, a few more box sets, a few more dinners at Benihana, and we signed a deal. Following in the footsteps of our great heroes Sonic Youth, we signed to the David Geffen Company, threw everything in the back of our old Chevy van and headed down . . . to SOUND CITY.

Sixteen days. Thirteen songs. We were used to recording 16 songs in ONE DAY. This was the big time. All of those cold, rainy days spent in that barn, chopping away at those songs, speaking to each other without words, finding our "voice," it was all . . . for this.

When we pulled into the parking lot of Sound City, I quickly realized that this was not the big, fancy, major label Hollywood recording studio I had imagined. Not at all. It was a shithole. It was a run-down, burned-out, dumpy old joint in a warehouse complex deep in the sunburnt San Fernando valley, miles away from any Fred Segal or Benihana. It was perfect. Famous for such legendary albums like Neil Young's After the Gold Rush, Fleetwood Mac's Fleetwood Mac, Tom Petty's Damn the Torpedoes, Cheap Trick's Heaven Tonight and Rick Springfield's Working Class Dog, it was hallowed ground . . . but it looked like no one had cleaned up the place since fucking Lindsay Buckingham and Stevie Nicks were runners there. Brown shag carpet ON THE WALLS. A couch that they had been RENTING for 10 fucking years. I thought . . . it looked like a Chi Chi's that had a fire.

But upon listening back to the first take of "In Bloom," we instantly understood Sound City's legacy. That room, and that old Neve board captured something. Something we had never heard before. It didn't sound like our first record, Bleach. It didn't sound like the Peel Sessions we had recorded for the BBC, or the "Sliver" single, or any of the demos. Nope. It sounded like Nevermind. It was the sound of three people playing as if their life depended on it, like they had waited their whole lives for this moment to be captured on a reel of two-inch tape.

After a week or so at SOUND CITY, for whatever reason, I started getting worried that no one from the label had come to check out what we were doing. I called my manager John Silva and asked "Hey . . . should we be worried?" His immediate response was "FUCK NO! YOU SHOULD BE HAPPY! YOU DON'T WANT THOSE FUCKING PEOPLE DOWN THERE!" As usual . . . He was right. And, they left us alone.

Just as WE couldn't imagine making the slightest ripple in the mainstream, no one else really seemed to imagine that happening either. The initial pressing of Nevermind was around 35,000 copies. Enough, by their estimate, to last the label a few months. A pretty good indication of everyone's expectations. Well . . . those were gone within a few weeks. Within a month, the record went gold. By Christmas, the record went platinum. By the new year, we were selling 300,000 records a week. That ripple that seemed so unimaginable had become a tidal wave.

I've never really figured out why that happened. Timing? Perhaps. Legions of disaffected American youth fed up with Wilson Phillips? Probably . . .

But, I like to think that what the world heard in Nirvana's music was the sound of three human beings, three distinct personalities, their inconsistencies and their imperfections proudly on display for everyone to hear. Three people that had been left to their own devices their entire lives to find THEIR voices. It was honest. It was pure. And It was real.

Up until that point, no one had ever told me how to play, or what to play. And now, no one would ever again.

The follow up to Nevermind, In Utero was a brazen example of this. Twelve songs recorded virtually live in only a few days by infamous record producer and opinionated pundit on the music industry, Steve Albini. It truly was the sound of a band IN A PLACE OR STATE CHARACTERIZED BY FREEDOM FROM OR OBLIVION TO PAIN, WORRY, AND THE EXTERNAL WORLD. Now it was US that had the power. We weren't Nirvana anymore, we were NIRVANA. Now you HAD to fucking leave us alone. The latch key children that unexpectedly inherited the castle? Maybe. More like Lord of the Flies with distorted guitars . . .

But, where do you go from there? As an artist raised in the ethically suffocating punk rock underground, conditioned to reject conformity, to resist all corporate influence and expectation, where do you go?  How do you deal with that kind of success? How do you now DEFINE success? Is it still the reward of playing a song from beginning to end without making a mistake? Is it still finding that new chord, or scale that makes you forget all your troubles? How do you process going from being one of "us", to one of "them"?

Guilt. Guilt is cancer. It will confine you, torture you, destroy you as a musician. It is a wall. It is a black hole. It is a thief. It will keep you from YOU. Remember learning your first song, or riff, or writing your first lyric? There was no guilt then. Remember when there WAS no right or wrong? Remember the simple reward of just . . . playing music? You are still, and will always be that person at your core. The musician. And, The musician comes first.

Fuck guilty pleasure. How about . . . just pleasure? I can truthfully say, out loud, that "Gangnam Style" is one of my favorite fucking songs of the past decade. It is! Is it any better or worse than the latest Atoms for Peace album? Hmmmm . . . If only we had a celebrity panel of judges to determine that for us! What would J-Lo do? Paging Pitchfork, come in, come in!!! Pitchfork, we need you to help us determine the value of a song!!! Who fucking cares!!!! I fucking LOVE IT!!! Who is to say what's a good voice and what's not a good voice. The Voice? Imagine Bob Dylan standing there singing "Blowin in the Wind" in front of Christina Aguilera. "Mmmmm . . . I think you sound a little nasally and sharp. Next . . ."

It's YOUR VOICE. Cherish it. Respect it. Nurture it. Challenge it. Stretch it and scream until it's fucking gone. Because everyone is blessed with at least that, and who knows how long it will last . . .

When Kurt died, I was lost. I was numb. The music that I had devoted my life to had now betrayed me and broken my heart. I had . . . no voice. I turned off the radio, I put away my records, and packed up my drums. I couldn't bear to hear someone elses voice singing about pain, or joy, or love, or hate. Not one note. It just hurt much too much.

But eventually . . . that feeling that I had Independence Day, July 4th, 1983, at the base of the Lincoln memorial steps, that feeling came back to me. The same feeling that made me feel possessed and empowered and inspired and enraged, and so in love with life, and so in love with music that it had the power to incite a riot, or an emotion, or start a revolution, or just to save a young boy's life. I felt it again.

I found a studio down the street. I booked six days. Loaded all of my gear into the car, bought some good, strong fucking coffee, and got back to work. Fourteen songs in five days, with one day to mix. I played every instrument, running from the drums, to the guitar, to the coffee maker, to the bass, to the vocal mike, to the coffee maker, back to the drums, back to the coffee maker . . . here I was again, left to my own devices, with no one to tell me right or wrong, the same one-man band 20 years later, multi-tracking all on my own. Though, long gone were the two-cassette recorders and songs about my dog, my bike, and my dad . . . I was singing songs about starting over. And, maybe a few about my dad ...

I dubbed 100 cassettes. Gave it the name "Foo Fighters" so that people would imagine that it was a GROUP, rather than just one strung-out coffee junkie scrambling from instrument to instrument. I gave them to friends. I gave them to relatives. I gave them to people at gas stations. I was . . . starting over.

It wasn't long before I got the call. An A&R guy. The tape was getting around. Those six days that I spent alone in the studio that I considered to be a demo, I considered it an experiment,  I CONSIDERED IT TO BE FUCKING THERAPY, FOR CHRISTSAKES! They thought it was a record! I didn't even have a band! I called my brilliant friend and lawyer, Jill Berliner, for advice. Know what she told me? The musician comes first.

I started my own label, Roswell records. Yes, that's right, ladies and gentlemen, you are staring at the president of a record company.

After all that had happened, deep down I was still the same kid that, at 13 years old, realized I could start my own band, I could write my own song, I could record my own record, I could start my own label, I could release my own record, I could book my own shows, I could write and publish my own fanzine, I could silkscreen my own T-shirts . . . I could do all of this myself. It may have been an entirely different world now, but once again, there was no right or wrong . . . because it was all mine.

From day one the Foo Fighters have been fortunate enough to exist within this perfect world. WE write our songs. WE record our songs. WE make our albums. WE decide when the album is the album. WE OWN the album, and we'll license it to you for a little while, but you gotta give it back. Because it's MINE.

Because I am the musician. And I COME FIRST.

I have to imagine that the reason I am here today in front of you all is exactly this. Am I the best drummer in the world? Certainly not. Am I the best singer-songwriter? Not even in THIS fucking ROOM! But I have been left alone to find MY VOICE since that day that I heard Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein" on that public school turntable in my bedroom.

Recently, I directed a full-length feature documentary about the recording studio that Nirvana recorded Nevermind in over 20 years ago: Sound City. In the movie, we not only tell the story of this magical shithole, but we also explore technology and what we refer to as the "human element" of music. How do these things coexist?

There is no right or wrong. There is only, YOUR VOICE. Your voice screaming through an old Neve 8028 recording console, your voice singing from a laptop, your voice echoing from a street corner, a cello, a turntable, a guitar, serrato, a studer, It doesn't matter. What matters most is that it's YOUR VOICE. Cherish it. Respect it. Nurture it. Challenge it. Stretch it and scream until it's fucking gone. Because every human being is blessed with at least that, and who knows how long it will last . . .

It's there, if you want it. Now, more than ever, independence as a musician has been blessed by the advance of technology, making it easier for any inspired young musician to start their own band, write their own song, record their own record, book their own shows, write and publish their own fanzine (although now I believe you call it a "blog"?) . . . now more than ever, YOU can do this, it can be all yours. And left to your own devices, you can find YOUR VOICE.

Recently, I came home with the new Beatles vinyl box set. It's amazing. It's the size of a fucking Tumi suitcase, it weighs 50 pounds. As I walked into the house, my daughters Harper who's three, and Violet who's six, looked up and gasped, "WHAT IS THAT????" I said, "It's all of the Beatles' RECORDS!!!" Now, I have already spent hours brainwashing them with Beatles songs . . . they're cool. But this was vinyl! They had never seen that before. I set up the turntable in their room, opened the box, and started showing them how it's done. "Ok . . . you take the record out of the sleeve, here are the songs on this side, here are the songs on the other side . . . carefully place it on the turn table . . . gently put the needle down . . . CAREFUL!" They were absolutely BLOWN AWAY. I left the room, came back half an hour later, and there they were, dancing to "Get Back," album covers strewn all over the floor . . . sound familiar? We have all been there.

And, as a proud father, I pray that someday that they are left to their own devices, that they realize that the musician comes first, and that THEY find THEIR VOICE, and that THEY become someone's Edgar Winter, THEY become someone's Beatles, and that THEY incite a riot, or an emotion, or start a revolution, or save someone's life.

That THEY become someone's hero.

But then again . . . what do I know?

Iggy Pop: 'I thought it might be okay to talk about free music in a Capitalist society', BBC John Peel lecture - 2014

16 October 2014, BBC2 lecture, London, United Kingdom

Hi, I'm Iggy Pop. I've held a steady job at BBC 6 Music now for almost a year, which is a long time in my game. I always hated radio and the jerks who pushed that shit music into my tender mind, with rare exceptions. When I was a boy, I used to sit for hours suffering through the entire US radio top 40 waiting for that one song by The Beatles and the other one by The Kinks. Had there been anything like John Peel available in my Midwestern town I would have been thrilled. So it's an honor to be here. I understand that. I appreciate it.

Some months ago when the idea of this talk came up I thought it might be okay to talk about free music in a Capitalist society. So that's what I'm gonna try to talk about. A society in which the Capitalist system dominates all the others, and seeks their destruction when they get in its way. Since then, the shit has really hit the fan on the subject, thanks to U2 and Apple. I worked half of my life for free. I didn't really think about that one way or the other, until the masters of the record industry kept complaining that I wasn't making them any money. To tell you the truth, when it comes to art, money is an unimportant detail. It just happens to be a huge one unimportant detail. But, a good LP is a being, it's not a product. It has a life-force, a personality, and a history, just like you and me. It can be your friend. Try explaining that to a weasel.

As I learned when I hit 30 +, and realized I was penniless, and almost unable to get my music released, music had become an industrial art and it was the people who excelled at the industry who got to make the art. I had to sell most of my future rights to keep making records to keep going. And now, thanks to digital advances, we have a very large industry, which is laughably maybe almost entirely pirate so nobody can collect shit. Well, it was to be expected. Everybody made a lot of money reselling all of recorded musical history in CD form back in the 90s, but now the cat is out of the bag and the new electronic devices which estrange people from their morals also make it easier to steal music than to pay for it. So there's gonna be a correction.

When I started The Stooges we were organized as a group of Utopian communists. All the money was held communally and we lived together while we shared the pursuit of a radical ideal. We shared all song writing, publishing and royalty credits equally – didn’t matter who wrote it - because we'd seen it on the back of a Doors album and thought it was cool, at least I did. Yeah. I thought songwriting was about the glory, I didn't know you'd get paid for it. We practiced a total immersion to try to forge a new approach which would be something of our own. Something of lasting value. Something that was going to be revealed and created and was not yet known.

We are now in the age of the schemer and the plan is always big, big, big, but it's the nature of the technology created in the service of the various schemes that the pond, while wide, is very shallow. Nobody cares about anything too deeply expect money. Running out of it, getting it. I never sincerely wanted to be rich. There is a, in the US, we have this guy “Do you sincerely wanna be rich? You can do it!” I didn’t sincerely want to be rich. I never sincerely felt like making anyone else that way. That made me a kind of a wild card in the 60's and 70's. I got into the game because it felt good to play and it felt like being free. I'm still hearing today about how my early works with The Stooges were flops. But they're still in print and they sell 45 years later, they sell. Okay, it took 20 or 25 years for the first royalties to roll in. So sue me.

Some of us who couldn't get anywhere for years kept beating our heads against the same wall to no avail. No one did that better than my friends The Ramones. They kept putting out album after album, frustrated that they weren't getting the hit. They even tried Phil Spector and his handgun. After the first couple of records, which made a big impact, they couldn't sustain the quality, but I noticed that every album had at least one great song and I thought, wow if these guys would just stop and give it a rest, society would for sure catch up to them. And that's what's happening now, but they're not around to enjoy it. I used to run into Johnny at a little rehearsal joint in New York and he'd be in a big room all alone with a Marshall stack just going "dum, dum, dum, dum, dum" all my himself. I asked him why and he said if he didn't practice doing that exactly the way he did it live he'd lose it. He was devoted and obsessive, so were Joey and Deedee. I like that. Johnny asked me one day - Iggy don't you hate Offspring and the way they're so popular with that crap they play. That should be us, they stole it from us. I told him look, some guys are born and raised to be the captain of the football team and some guys are just gonna be James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause and that's the way it is. Not everybody is meant to be big. Not everybody big is any good.

I only ever wanted the money because it was symbolic of love and the best thing I ever did was to make a lifetime commitment to continue playing music no matter what, which is what I resolved to do at the age of 18. If who you are is who you are that is really hard to steal, and it can lead you in all sorts of useful directions when the road ahead of you is blocked and it will get blocked. Now I'm older and I need all the dough I can get. So I too am concerned about losing those lovely royalties, now that they've finally arrived, in the maze of the Internet. But I'm also diversifying my income, because a stream will dry up. I'm not here to complain about that, I'm here to survive it.

When I was starting out as a full time musician I was walking down the street one bright afternoon in the seedier part of my Midwestern college town. I passed a dive bar and from it emerged a portly balding pallid middle aged musician in a white tux with a drink in one hand and a guitar in the other. He was blinking in the daylight. I had a strong intuition that this was a fate to be avoided. He seemed cut off from society and resigned to an oblivious obscurity. A bar fly. An accessory to booze. So how do you engage society as an artist and get them to pay you? Well, that's a matter of art. And endurance.

To start with, I cannot stress enough the importance of study. I was lucky to work in a discount record store in Ann Arbor Michigan as a stock boy where I was exposed to a little bit of every form of music imaginable on record at the time. I listened to it all whether I liked it or not. Be curious. And I played in my high school orchestra and I learned the joy of the warm organic instruments working together in the service of a classical piece. That sticks with you forever. If anyone out there can get a chance to put an instrument and some knowledge in some kids hand, you've done a great, great thing.

Comparative information is a key to freedom. I found other people who were smarter than me. To teach me. My first pro band was a blues band called The Prime Movers and the leader Michael Erlewine was a very bright hippy beatnik with a beautifully organized record collection in library form of The Blues. I'd never really heard the Blues. That part of our American heritage was kept off the major media. It was system up, people down. No Big Bill Broonzy on BBC for us. Boy I wish! No money in it. But everything I learned from Michael's beautiful library became the building blocks for anything good I've done since. Guys like this are priceless. If you find one, follow him, or her. Get the knowledge.

Once in secondary school in the 60's some class clowns dressed up the tallest guy in school in a trench coat, shades and a fedora and rushed him in to a school dance with great hubbub proclaiming "Del Shannon is here, Del Shannon is here." And until they got to the stage we all believed them, because nobody knew what Del Shannon looked like. He was just a voice on some great records. He had no social ID. By the early 60's that had really changed with the invasion of The Beatles and The Stones. This time TV was added to the mix and print media too. So you knew who they were, or so you thought anyway. I'm mentioning this because the best way to survive the death or change of an industry is to transcend its form. You're better off with an identity of your own or maybe a few of them. Something special.

It is my own personal view having lived through it that in America The Beatles replaced our assassinated president Kennedy, who represented our hopes for a certain kind of society. Didn’t get there. And The Stones replaced our assassinated folk music which our own leaders suppressed for cultural, racial, and financial reasons. It wasn't okay with everybody to be Kennedy or Muddy Waters, but those messages could be accepted if they came through white entertainers from the parent culture. That's why they’re still around.

Years later I had the impression that Apple, the corporation, had successfully co-opted the good feelings that the average American felt about the culture of the Beatles, by kind of stealing the name of their company so I bought a little stock. Good move. 1992. Woo! But look, everybody is subject to the rip off and has to change affiliations from time to time. Even Superman and Barbie were German before America tempted them to come over. Tough luck, Nietzche.

So who owns what anyway. Or as Bob Dylan said "The relationships of ownership." That’s gates of Eden. Nobody knows for long, especially these days. Apparently when BBC radio was founded, the record companies in England wouldn't allow the BBC to play their master recordings because they thought no one would buy them for their personal use if they could hear them free on the radio. So they were really confused about what they had. They didn’t get it. And how people feel about music. ‘Cause it’s a feel thing, and it resists logic. It’s not binary code. Later when CD's came in, the retail merchants in American all panicked because they were just too damn tiny and they thought that Americans want something that looks big, like a vinyl record. Well they had a point but their solution was a kind of Frankenstein called "The Long Box." It didn't fool anybody because half of it was empty. It had a little CD in the bottom. You’d open it up and it was empty. Now we have people in the Sahara using GPS to bury huge wads of Euros under sand dunes for safe keeping. But GPS was created for military spying from the high ground, not radical banking so any sophisticated system, along with the bounty it brings, is subject to primitive hijacking.

I wanna talk about a type of entrepreneur who functions as a kind of popular music patron of the arts. It’s good to know a patron. I call him El Padron because his relationship to the artist is essentially feudal, though benign. He or she (La Padrona) if you will, is someone, usually the product of successful, enlightened parents, who owns a record company, but has had benefit of a very good education, and can see a bigger picture than a petty business person. If they like an artists’ style and it suits them, they'll support you even if you’re not a big money spinner. I can tell you, some of these powerful guys get so bored that if you are fun in the office, you’ll go places. Their ancestors, the old time record crooks just made it their business to make great, great records, but also to rip off the artist 100%, copyright, publishing, royalty splits, agency fees, you name it. If anyone complained the line was "Pay you? We worship you!" God bless Bo Diddley.

By the time I came along, there was a new brand of Padron. People like this are still around and some can help you. One was named Jack Holzman. Jack had a beautiful label called Elektra Records, they put out Judy Collins, Tim Buckley, the Doors and Love. He'd started working in his family record store, like Brian Epstein. He dressed mod and he treated us very gently. He was a civilized man. He obviously loved the arts, but what he really wanted to do was build his business - and he did. He had his own concerns, and style, and you had to serve them, and of course when he sold out, as all indies do, you were stranded culturally in the hands of a cold clumsy conglomerate. But he put us in the right studios with the right producers and he tried to get us seen in the right venues and it really helped. This is a good example of the industry.

Another good guy I met is Sir Richard Branson. I ended up serving my full term at Virgin Records having been removed from every other label. And he created a superior culture there. People were happier and nicer than the weasels at some other places. The first time he tried to sign me it didn't work out, because I had my sights set on A&M, a company I thought would help make me respectable. After all they had Sting! Richard was secretly starting his own company at the time in the US and he phoned me in my tiny flat with no furniture. He said he'd give me a longer term deal with more dough than the other guys and he was very, very polite and soft spoken. But I had just smoked a joint that day and I couldn't make a decision. So I went with the other guys who soon got sick of me. Virgin picked me up again later on the rebound. And on the cheap. Damn. My own fault.

Another kind of indie legend who is slightly more contemporary is Long Gone John of the label Sympathy for the Record Industry. Good name. John is famous with some artists for his disinterest in paying royalties. He has a very interesting music themed folk art collection – its visible online - which includes my leather jacket. I wish he'd give it back. There are lots of indie people with a gift for organization who just kind of collect freaks and throw them up at the wall to see who sticks. You gotta watch 'em.

When you go a step down creatively from the Padrons who are actually entrepreneurs you get to the executives. You don't wanna know these guys. They usually came over from legal or accounting. They have protégés usually called A&R men to do their dirty work. You can become a favorite with them if your fame or image might reflect limelight on their career. They tend to have no personalities to speak of, which is their strength. Strangely they're never really thinking about the good of their parent company as much as old number one. Avoid them. If you’re an artist, they’ll make you sick or suicidal. The only good thing the conglomerate can do for you – and they’ve done it recently for me - is make you really, really ubiquitous. They do that well. But, when the company is your banker, then you are basically gonna be the Beverly Hill Billies. So it's best not to take their money. Especially when you’re young. These are very tough people, and they can hurt you.

So who are the good guys?! They asked me when they read this thing at BBC 6 Music. Well there are lots of them. If fact, today there are more than ever and they are just about all indies, but first I want to mention Peter Gabriel and WOMAD for everything they've done for what seems like forever to help the greatest musicians in the world, the so called world musicians to gain a foothold and make a living in the modern screwed up cash and carry world. Traditional music was never a for profit enterprise, all the best forms were developed as a kind of you’re job in the community. It was pretty good, it was “Yeah, I’m a musician, I’m gonna skip like doing the dishes or taking the trash out.” It's not surprising that all the greatest singers and players come from parts of the world where everybody is broke and the old ways are getting paved over. So it's crucial for everyone that these treasures not be lost. There are other people of means and intelligence who help others in this way like Philip Glass through Tibet House, David Burn with Luaka Bop, Damon Albarn through Honest John Records. Shout out to Hypnotic Brass Ensemble. Almost all the best music is coming out on indies today like XL Matador, Burger, Anti, Epitaph, Mute, Rough Trade, 4 A D, Sub Pop, etc. etc.

But now YouTube is trying to put the squeeze on these people because it's just easier for a power nerd to negotiate with a couple big labels who own the kind of music that people listen to when they're really not that into music, which of course is most people. So they've got the numbers. But the indies kind of have the guns. I've noticed that indies are showing strength at some of the established streaming services like Spotify and Rhapsody – people are choosing that music. And it's also great that some people are starting their own outlets, like Pledge Music, Band Camp or Drip. As the commercial trade swings more into general show biz the indies will be the only place to go for new talent, outside the Mickey Mouse Club, so I think they were right to band together and sign the Fair Digital Deals Declaration.

There are just so many ways to screw an artist that it's unbelievable. In the old vinyl days they would deduct 10% "breakage fees" for records supposedly broken in shipping, whether that happened or not, and now they have unattributed digital revenue, whatever the **** that means. It means money for some guy’s triple bypass. I actually think that what Thom Yorke has done with Bit Torrent is very good. I was gonna say here: “Sure the guy is a pirate at Bit Torrent” but I was warned legally, so I’ll say: “Sure the guy a Bit Torrent is a pirate’s friend” But all pirates want to go legit, just like I wanted to be respectable. It’s normal. After a while people feel like you’re a crook, it’s too hard to do business. So it’s good in this case that Thom Yorke is encouraging a positive change. The music is good. It’s being offered at a low price direct to people who care.

I want to try to define what I am talking about when I say free. For me in the arts or in the media, there are two kinds of free. One kind of free is when the process is something that people just feel for you. You feel a sense of possibility. You feel a lack of constraint. This leads to powerful, energetic, sometimes kind of loony situations.

Vice Media is an interesting case of this because they started as a free handout, using public funds, and they had open, free-wheeling minds. Originally a free handout was called Voice and these kids were like “Just get rid of the old! I don’t wanna be Vice, yeah!” Okay. By taking an immersive approach with no particular preconceptions to their reporting, they've become a huge success, also through corporate advertising, at attracting big, big money investment hundreds of millions of dollars now pumped into Fox Media and a couple of others bigger than that in the US. And they get it because they attract lots of little boy eyeballs. So they brought us Dennis Rodman in North Korea. And it’s kind of a travesty, but it’s kind of spunky. It's interesting that capital investment, for all its posturing, never really leads, it always follows. They follow the action. So if it's money you're after, be the yourself in a consistent way and you might get it. You’ll at least end up getting what you are worth and feel better. Just follow your nose.

The second kind of freedom to me that is important in the media is the idea of giving freely. When you feel or sense that someone that someone is giving you something not out of profit, but out of self-respect, Christian charity, whatever it is. That has a very powerful energy. The Guardian, in my understanding, was founded by an endowment by a successful man with a social conscience who wanted to help create a voice for what I would call the little guy. So they have a kind of moral mission or imperative. This has given them the latitude to try to be interesting, thoughtful, helpful. And they bring Edward Snowden to the world stage. Something that is not pleasant for a lot of people to hear about, but we need to know.

These two approaches couldn't be more different. To justify their new mega bucks Vice will have to expand and expand in capital terms. Presumably they'll have to titillate a dumb, but energetic audience. Of course all capitalist expansions are subject to the big bang – balloon, bust, poof, and you’re gone. As for the Guardian I would imagine that the task involves gaining the trust and support of a more discerning, less definable reader, without spending the principal. There is usually an antipathy between cultural poles, but these two actually have a lot in common in terms of the energy and nuisance to power that they are willing to generate. I wish red and blue could come together somehow.

Sometimes I'd rather read than listen to music. One of my favourite odd books is Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry by Clinton Heylin. I bought the book in the 90's because a couple of my bootlegs were mentioned. I loved my bootlegs. They did a lot for me. I never really thought about the dough much. I liked the titles, like Suck on This, Stow Away DOA or Metalic KO. The packaging was always way more creative and edgy than most of my official stuff. So I just liked being seen and heard, like anybody else. These bootleggers were creative. Here are two quotes from the dust jacket by veteran industry stalwarts on the subject of bootlegs in 1994.

"Bootleg is the thoroughly researched and highly entertaining tale of those colorful brigands, hapless amateurs, and true believers who have done wonders for my record collection. Rock and roll doesn't get more underground than this." – that was David Fricke, the music editor of Rolling Stone "I think that bootlegs keep the flame of the music alive by keeping it out of not only the industry's conception of the artist, but also the artist's conception of the artist." – that was Lenny Kaye from the Patti Smith group, musician, critic and my friend.

Wow!! Sounds heroic and vital!

I wonder what these guys feel about all of this now, because things have changed, haven't they? We are now talking about Megaupload, Kim Dot Com, big money, political power, and varying definitions of theft that are legally way over my head. But I know a con man when I see one. I want to include a rant from an early bootlegger in this discussion because it's so passionate and I just think it's funny.

This is Lou Cohan "If anybody thinks that if I have purchased every single Rolling Stones album in existence, and I have bought all the Rolling Stones albums that have been released in England, France, Japan, Italy, and Brazil that if I have an extra $100 in my pocket instead of buying a Rolling Stones bootleg I am going to buy a John Denver album or a Sinead O'Conner album, they are retarded."

So the guy is trying to say don't try to force me. And don't steal my choice. And the people who don't want the free U2 download are trying to say, don't try to force me. And they've got a point. Part of the process when you buy something from an artist. It’s a kind of anointing, you are giving people love. It’s your choice to give or withhold. You are giving a lot of yourself, besides the money. But in this particular case, without the convention, maybe some people felt like they were robbed of that chance and they have a point. It’s not the only point. These are not bad guys. But now, everybody's a bootlegger, but not as cute, and there are people out there just stealing the stuff and saying don't try to force me to pay. And that act of thieving will become a habit and that’s bad for everything. So we are exchanging the corporate rip off for the public one. Aided by power nerds. Kind of computer Putins. They just wanna get rich and powerful. And now the biggest bands are charging insane ticket prices or giving away music before it can flop, in an effort to stay huge. And there's something in this huge thing that kind of sucks.

Which brings us to Punk. The most punk thing I ever saw in my life was Malcolm McLaren's cardboard box full of dirty old winkle pinkers. It was the first thing I saw walking in the door of Let It Rock in 1972 which was his shop at Worlds End on the Kings Road. It was a huge ugly cardboard bin full of mismatched unpolished dried out winkle pickers without laces at some crazy price like maybe five pounds each. Another 200 yards up the street was Granny Takes a Trip, where they sold proper Rockstar clothes like scarves, velvet jackets, and snake skin platform boy boots. Malcolm's obviously worthless box of shit was like a fire bomb against the status quo because it was saying that these violent shoes have the right idea and they are worth more than your fashion, which serves a false value. This is right out of the French enlightenment.

So is the thieving that big a deal? Ethically, yes, and it destroys people because it's a bad road you take. But I don't think that's the biggest problem for the music biz. I think people are just a little bit bored, and more than a little bit broke. No money. Especially simple working people who have been totally left out, screwed and abandoned. If I had to depend on what I actually get from sales I’d be tending bars between sets. I mean honestly it’s become a patronage system. There’s a lot of corps involved and I don’t fault any of them but it’s not as much fun as playing at the Music Machine in Camden Town in 1977. There is a general atmosphere of resentment, pressure, kind of strange perpetual war, dripping on all the time. And I think that prosecuting some college kid because she shared a file is a lot like sending somebody to Australia 200 years ago for poaching his lordship's rabbit. That's how it must seem to poor people who just want to watch a crappy movie for free after they’ve been working themselves to death all day at Tesco or whatever, you know.

If I wanna make music, at this point in my life I'd rather do what I want, and do it for free, which I do, or cheap, if I can afford to. I can. And fund through alternative means, like a film budget, or a fashion website, both of which I've done. Those seem to be turning out better for me than the official rock n roll company albums I struggle through. Sorry. If I wanna make money, well how about selling car insurance? At least I'm honest. It's an ad and that's all it is. Every free media platform I've ever known has been a front for advertising or propaganda or both. And it always colors the content. In other words, you hear crap on the commercial radio. The licensing of music by films, corps, and TV has become a flood, because these people know they're not a hell of a lot of fun so they throw in some music that is. I'm all for that, because that's the way the door opened for me. I got heard on tv before radio would take a chance. But then I was ok. Good. And others too. I notice there are a lot of people, younger and younger, getting their exposure that way. But it's a personal choice. I think it’s an aesthetic one, not an ethical one.

Now with the Internet people can choose to hear stuff and investigate it in their own way. If they want to see me jump around the Manchester Apollo with a horse tail instead of trying to be a proper Rockstar, they can look. Good. Personally I don't worry too much about how much I get paid for any given thing, because I never expected much in the first place and the whole industry has become bloated in its expectations. Look, Howling Wolf would work for a sandwich. This whole thing started in Honky Tonk bars. It's more important to do something important or just make people feel something and then just trust in God. If you're an entertainer your God is the public. They'll take care of you somehow. I want them to hear my music any old which way. Period. There is an unseen hand that turns the pages of existence in ways no one can predict. But while you’re waiting for God to show up and try to find a good entertainment lawyer.

It's good to remember that this is a dream job, whether you're performing or working in broadcasting, or writing or the biz. So dream. Dream. Be generous, don’t be stingy. Please. I can't help but note that it always seems to be the pursuit of the money that coincides with the great art, but not its arrival. It's just kind of a death agent. It kills everything that fails to reflect its own image, so your home turns into money, your friends turn into money, and your music turns into money. No fun, binary code – zero one, zero one - no risk, no nothing. What you gotta do you gotta do, life's a hurly-burly, so I would say try hard to diversify your skills and interests. Stay away from drugs and talent judges. Get organized. Big or little, that helps a lot.

I'd like you to do better than I did. Keep your dreams out of the stinky business, or you'll go crazy, and the money won't help you. Be careful to maintain a spiritual EXIT. Don't live by this game because it's not worth dying for. Hang onto your hopes. You know what they are. They’re private. Because that's who you really are and if you can hang around long enough you should get paid. I hope it makes you happy. It's the ending that counts, and the best things in life really are free.

Don Walker for Cold Chisel: 'There are four of us in the band up here, and there should be five' APRA Ted Albert award - 2016

5 April 2016, Carriageworks, Sydney, 2016

Thank you. First let me say there are four of us in the band up here, and there should be five. Steve Prestwich, if he were here, may have done everything in his considerable powers to destroy this award acceptance. He was always hard to predict. Or he may have been as cool and funny as we remember him every day since he passed away. His daughter Melody is here with us tonight, come out to grace her dad's friends with her presence.

We never new Ted Albert, he was a it before our time, but we knew and respected everything he built. We got to know Bon Scott, and Angus and Malcolm Young before we left Adelaide through mutual friends. Years later we made our second album in Alberts Studios in King Street in the City, and met Harry Vanda and George Young who Ted Albert had mentored and managed to international success and back again.

One night we were playing at the Journo's Club near Central Station, and Harry and George turned up with guitars and amps, and played a set with us, which they didn't do with too many people. We were never signed to Alberts, but there was something in the DNA of their label and all their acts, a rawness full of cheek and melody. Always focussed on getting hits with real people that you could measure yourself up against. Ted Albert must have had a lot to do with setting that up.

This award is for lifetime contribution to the Australian music industry. When we started out more than forty years ago, contributing to the Australian music industry was very low on our list of priorities. As was accepting awards. I like to tell myself we did whatever we did all on our own, but the truth is we had help; sometimes very profound help, from individuals who liked what we do and stuck their necks out for us, often when there was not much in it for them. Some of them are here tonight. Some not. Some of them are no longer with us at all. 

I'd like to name some names. Les Kaczmarek who started this band. He was our original bass player, and a wonderful and beguiling man in every respect, except that he couldn't play bass like Phil. David Blight, our mate, and the best blues harmonica player in the country, who has played harmonica with us from 1979, 1975 until now, whenever we could afford to take him on tour. Peter Moss, Ian's brother, who was our Road Manager and our sixth member for years, keeping his truck on the road, loading our gear in and out of it, night after night, and mixing us live until he took his share, just before that amounted to anything, and bailed to Darwin. There are a couple of others before him in Mick Porter and Gary Skinner, and Peter had helped too. Often drawn from the Largs Pier Hotel, people like Leon the Latvian, Rocky, Charlie, Toolie, Mick McDermott who now heads up the CFMEU in South Australia, and of course Alan Darlow and Billy Rowe, who were killed together in a truck smash in 1980. We'd like to remember Gerry Georgettis, who took over from Peter Moss as our head Roadie and front of house mixer, and the people who helped him. Harry Parsons, (looks over to the sound mixer) – sorry for popping that, mate – Meri Took, Jimi Bostock, Mark Keegan, Nicky Campbell and Michael Long. We'd like to remember Vince Lovegrove, much admired and missed by many in this room. Vince was our first manager in Adelaide in 1974. He resigned the morning after we unveiled the original songs I had been writing for the band. It's true. But, he remained our close friend for the rest of his life.

In our first year together Peter Walker, one of the best guitar players in the country then, discovered Ian's playing, one night at the Pooraka Hotel, and mentored him in those early years, and still works with Ian today. Peter produced our first album, and played some of the guitar on Khe Sanh. In Sydney, he was associated with Charles Fisher, who flew to Adelaide to watch us play; the first record company or studio producer to take notice of what we were doing. Charles gave us free time at Trafalgar studios in Annandale, as we toured through from then on.

We owe a lot to Sebastian Chase, who invited us to join his management stable of Dragon and Rose Tattoo in Sydney.

Ladies and gentleman, Rod and Gaye Willis, have accepted our invitation to sit with us in this room tonight. It would be fraudulent for us to accept any lifetime award without Rod being part of it. He was our guide, and our manager and our close friend for thirty two years from 1977. When we were languishing in Sydney – no record contract, unable to get gigs, meaning nothing to anybody – he managed us to success here, through our half hearted failures and our disintegration elsewhere, and managed the bands legacy when there mostly wasn't a band.

Ladies and gentleman, Rod and Gaye Willis.

With John Woodriffe and Ray Hearn, who had also managed us in Adelaide, Rod formed the Dirty Pool Agency, which for the first time broke open the live music scene in this country and allowed bands to plan and develop they way they were presented live.

The APRA Awards is a night for songwriters and publishers, and no publisher in Australian history was as big as John Bromell. We owe John everything. And as Bob Aird, John successor at Rondor will agree, we continue to pay the bill. But we don't mind because John Bromell gave us petrol money, when we had none, and weren't even signed to him, and with Rod Willis, he cooked up the scam that landed us our first record deal. There would be no Cold Chisel records without John Bromell. They got us to sign to Warner, then headed by Paul Turner and Peter Ryken, and incorporating our good friend and supporters, Philip Mortlock, Roger Langford and Phil Deamer. On the day of the signing, Bromell was there of course, and afterwards he suggested we celebrate with few drinks. And after more than a few drinks he suggested that since this was a signing kind of a day, some of us might just like to scribble on some publishing contracts he just happened to have on him. That's publishing – old school. And I think that everyone of a certain age in this room misses his company, his mischief, and the tales he had to tell.

I'd like to acknowledge our successive tour managers. Daffy Ferguson, Chris Bastick, and Mark Pope. Who each brought their own brand of edgy danger and unpredictability to our tours. Their task was impossible, and they, each in their own way, almost pulled it together.

Mark Opitz was the record producer who first set us up to play in the studio with the freedom and powerwe knew live, and he also taught us about editing and arranging songs, cutting out the fat for the maximum pop impact, lessons he claimed to have learned while engineering for Harry and George at Alberts.

Let me name some others that supported us and gave us their wisdom. Like Irene Scott in the Adelaide years. Like Carol Stubbly and Christine Small who ran a house in Taylor Square that contained The Couches Of Last Resort, if some of us didn't have a place to crash. Like Jenny Hunter Brown and Colleen Ironside. Like Joe Canaris, our accountant for thirty five years. There were people in the industry who were always on our side, like Eric Robinson, who pretended to be a misanthrope, but there are a couple of times across the decades when we were in a really tough spot, and he was suddenly there with his sleeves rolled up. As was the lawyer Peter Thomson. And I have to mention, when we needed high end advice a couple of times, Roger Davies always had the time.

Ladies and gentlemen, and everyone who frolicks in the gender spectrum in between, in the last five years, this band has worked more than we did most of the previous thirty. In the press, the few surviving music journalists call it a rennaisance. There is a small list of people we have to thank for that. Robert Hambling has done our audiovisuals, and has been an enormously witty and rewarding companion since the early nineties. Andy Bickers plays sax with us, and proves the old adage; that the mate you most look forward to seeing is probably a Kiwi. Producer Kevin Shirley, who's figured out a way of getting some great recordings out of what is now a very diverse set of musicians. Charley Drayton, who joined a shattered band, on the drum stool in the months after Steve died, and in many ways healed us as a band.

And our managers John O'Donnell and John Watson, whose greatest achievement was not the extraodinary planning and mounting of two tours in 2011 and 2015, or the two albums we've recorded in that time, but the care with which they organised things and shielded us in those months after Steve passed away.

We should thank the people out there who make this all possible, too, and have made it all possible over the last forty years by buying our music and buying tickets to see it.

We’ve never had any government grants, apart from a couple of years on the dole in the late 70s. So, we’re supported by the money people spend on what we do after they’ve paid their taxes. It would be great if Opera Australia could say the same thing.

Lastly, we'd like to thank our families. No one among the four of us, can make us as angry as we can make each other. And often in the past that meant our families had to occupy a house where dad was stomping around, smouldering at someone who was smouldering around his family, across town. They deserve a medal each. Jane Barnes, Margeaux Rolleston, Christine Small, Jo-Anne Prestwich and Firoozeh Walker. And all our children and grandchildren.

Enough said. Thank you and goodnight from all of us.