Jono, Ben & Megan - The Podcast - Jimmy Barnes gets into a fight in the Waikato!

Episode Date: June 30, 2024

We chat to the legendary Jimmy Barnes on: Performing with Tina Turner! How he handled Open heart surgery!  And why he was getting into fights in NZ... See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This John Owen Ben podcast, hey that's us, brought to you by HelloFresh, the experts and tastes that Kiwis love. Nice to be here, how you doing? How are you doing? Because it was just a few months ago you had a pretty major sort of operation, but I hear you're hitting the gym, you're fighting fit again? Yeah, it was one of those things where I was really, really healthy, really, really fit. I caught a bug, I got a staph infection and it got in my blood and it went to my back, to my back, I had to have surgery in my back and, and went to my heart, which was really serious. Wow. So I had major surgery. I was, I was seven hours surgery in my heart and, uh, and, and literally there was a, you

know, I was close to death, which was, uh, pretty frightening. I got over it and, uh, and I'm just, you know, I've been just done everything I should do and I'm back on tour and I'm doing all that and I'm healthy and I'm tear the world apart again. Yeah. Good. Well, that's your second major operation, isn't it? Oh, I've had lots of them Oh, yeah, I'm I think when you live as hard as I do things You're like damn it I had a good 40 or 50 years Classic car you rebuild a better. That's what that's for sure. I'm thinking of going electric. Is it true that Cold Chisel, is it 50 years,

so when these concerts are happening early next year, is it 50 years since Cold Chisel first came to New Zealand? Is that right? It's actually 50, it must be close to it. We were 74, 75,

I think when we first came to New Zealand. Yeah, so it's very close, yeah. That's a great way to make us all feel old. That is insane. No, no, no, but when we first came to New Zealand. Yeah, so it's very close, yeah. But that's a great way to make us all feel old. That is insane. Yeah, no, no, but we were only two at the time. Do you remember much of those days? How many memories do you have of those days? Oh, I remember lots.

I mean, I think one of the big shows I remember was we did a thing called Narawahia, which was a sweetwater festival down there. There was a shambles, wasn't it? Oh, it was full on. I remember, I don't know, it was hundreds of bikies there. And we went on first and we were playing and there was a few fights and all that.

And I jumped in at the beginning of them. Did you get in a fight? Yeah, I got into a couple of them. While the guitar solos were going. And people, they took to me and more ways than one but no they just thought it was funny and they laughed at me and threw me back up on stage you know but then for some reason everybody just we really clicked and we know we did a ball tear and show that was really full on and and and we sort of were adopted by New Zealand

on that day felt really connected to New Zealand we Oh, we do love you. Always been treated well. Do you know, my first ever concert I went to with my mum, we were a Singh family in Christchurch, went to Lancaster Park, and it was you and Tina Turner. I remember that well. I got up and sang with Tina. You did? Oh, it was amazing.

It was around the rugby league era. You know, it was such an amazing. How amazing was that? I mean, I still to this day, I can't believe the NRL, the Rugby League paid me so much money to get up and sing with Tina. I would have paid them. Yeah. I really would have.

I really would have. It was just, she was such a great singer and such a great woman. I do remember there were a lot of funny smell on the air. I kept asking my mum what that smell was, and she was quite vague about the smell, the cigarette smell or something. That's a funny cigarette smell. A hot-looking saxophone player as well, too, for some reason. Oh, the cigarette smell or something. That's a funny cigarette smell. A hot-looking saxophone player as well, too, for some reason. Oh, man, that was right, the muscles.

Yeah, it was great. The saxophone player with the muscles, yeah. Now, did you jump out at the Tina Turner concert and have a biffo with anyone, Barnsley? No, no, no, Tina did that. That was her job. She's much tougher than me. Jimmy Barnes with us, Cold Chisel, coming back next year. Your career has spanned over many different variations

of the music industry, Barnes. We were just talking about you with Tina Turner. Felt like that was a $10 million music video. Winfield, the cigarettes had sponsored the music video. The Winfield helicopters, you had it all. The new era of music, really interesting. What are your thoughts on it? Well, you know, it was sort of, you know,

when I first started, you know, we used to, you know, we'd try to make records and we'd go on tour to sell records. Nowadays, it's really sort of the opposite. You make records just so you can go on tour, you know. You still make all your money touring. And I thought those, you know, the 80s and the 90s, it got a bit sort of, you know, I remember being in America and they just wanted to, you know, you'd make a record and you'd make film clips then

you go to america and they say let's just redo it all you know we just spend another half a million you know and it was just stupid so uh i think it was a very wasteful and it was sort of you know that that whole 80s thing where they just threw money up against the wall people lost sort of sense of reality and the only thing that really kept bands like myself and that grounded at the time was that we built our careers playing live. And no matter what they, no matter what you,

if you dressed it up and you could put all the lights in the world on it and make it look as splash as possible, if you played like shit, they were going to kill you. So we always were pretty grounded by the fact that our audience wanted the best from us and we either delivered or we died.

Yeah, well, it feels like you really have. You've stayed pretty grounded through your entire career when you could have got lost and swept up in the celebrity hype. There was moments, but I like people. For a little while, I used to hire a security guard to protect the audience from me. Besides that, I've always been pretty accessible. Obviously, AI is a big conversation,

and I'm not going to delve too deep on that, but I did put into AI one question for Jimmy Barnes. Make it funny, make it interesting. So this is what AI came up with. Your voice is legendary and unmistakable. Have you ever tried to order something at a fast food restaurant a drive-thru and someone recognized you that's their question may i that's their question well you know not not really no but but quite often on the phone i'll be ringing like you know you know when you used to dial 013 you know to get information to find

a number oh yes it'd be a silence for a while they go is that you, Jimmy? I'm on a bloody telephone. How do you know that? But yeah, no, listen, it's a bit of a curse. You know, my voice, it stands out like the proverbials and it sort of can get me in a lot of trouble. You know, you really can't sort of, when you're trying to go incognito is, you know, I'll be walking through the airport and trying to be sneaky,

get through without getting sort of held up. And somebody will say, oh, you know, I'll bump it. And you say, oh, excuse me. And they go, oh, sure, Jimmy. You know? So the people recognize the voice more than they do me, which is understandable, I guess. When you mention that, you're an absolute icon here in Australia.

When was the last time you were able to walk out the house and no one recognized you? I go to Thailand a lot. Oh, they don't know you're in thailand my wife's thai and that's one of the reasons i love thailand because really the thais are just sort of treat everybody the same so i just go there and you know walk around there it's good but you know listen i like i said i've sort of built a career where you know i i don't make i don't put walls up around myself i don't shut myself off from people and you know people

might get a bit excited and run up to you and stuff but then you know if you say hi and you know all they want's a photo or something it's pretty easy to do you know yeah and and then you know they leave you alone you know and and if they don't you can slap them you know yeah the song working class man it wasn't you know you kind of have to stick to that right but it's true though i mean if you it's one of those things where if you if you get too many security guards, if you get too security conscious, then people wonder what they're missing, you know? Whereas if I'm just walking around

and they realise there's not that much going on, it's just I'm just having a go and shopping or something, you know? Yeah. We can't wait to have you back in New Zealand. It's happening next year, 2025, the Summer Concert Tour. It's going to be in Queenstown, Coromandel and Taupo. You can get all the details at greenstoneentertainment.co.nz Cold Chisel, Ice House,

Bikrunga, Everclear. It's going to be incredible. So great to catch up with you. Always love doing it, Jimmy. Come and celebrate

our 50th birthday. All the best.