As News Corp reported this morning, Australian rock legend Jimmy Barnes has just signed a six-figure book deal to publish to warts-and-all memoirs detailing his turbulent life as an icon of Aussie pub rock.
The first book, titled Working Class Boy, will reportedly recount Barnesy’s earliest childhood memories of his hometown of Glasgow and his early years spent in his new home of Elizabeth, South Australia.
The second book is currently untitled but is set to drop October next year and will chronicle Barnesy’s rise as the frontman of Cold Chisel and his popular solo career, as well as all the wild antics that ensued.
No doubt both books will be filled with gripping, memorable, and funny stories, but we decided to go ahead and collect four of our absolute favourite Barnesy yarns that we think should make the cut.
Cold Chisel’s Funniest Fight
Cold Chisel’s image wasn’t a product of clever label marketing. They walked the talk and back in the day there was nothing they loved more than a few drinks and the Marquess of Queensberry rules.
One incident Triple M recently detailed involved Barnesy and late drummer Steve Prestwich. “I remember Steve saying ‘If you can’t sing my songs properly, don’t sing them at all,’ recalled Barnesy.
“So I punched him in the face and then I grabbed him and ran his head, smashed through the door of a hotel room and then we are belting each other on the floor and Phil [Small] came up and put his head in-between us and went ‘Hey, cut it out you two. It’s my birthday!'”
‘Frank’ Gets Revenge On Chisel
When Cold Chisel were getting their start in Adelaide, money was a little hard to come by, so they couldn’t really splurge on posters and flyers or advertisements on primetime television.
But they still wanted to get the band name out there and instead opted to get a little DIY and spray-painted the words ‘COLD CHISEL’ on some poor truck-driver’s vehicle as free publicity.
As Barnesy recounted on an episode of The Glass House, it turned out that the owner of the vandalised truck knew the band and when they awoke the next morning, they found the name ‘FRANK’ graffiti’d onto their tour van.
Cold Chisel Pull An Iggy Pop
Countdown is a beloved chapter in Australian rock history, but many bands butted heads with the show’s producers because they were forced to mime when performing on the show.
Midnight Oil refused to appear on the show because of this and we all remember Iggy Pop’s infamous performance, which he said came out of frustration with being forced to mime.
As News Corp notes, Cold Chisel decided to protest the miming mandate at the annual TV Week Countdown Awards in 1981 by trashing the set and destroying their instruments at the end of their set.
Last-Minute Decision Saves Barnesy’s Life
Of course we all want to hear about Barnesy’s early days fronting Cold Chisel, but the singer has managed to live a remarkable and even death-defying life outside of his band.
As Tone Deaf reported back in August, a last-minute decision saved Barnesy’s life when he was with his family in Thailand right when a bomb went off at Bangkok’s popular Erawan Shrine.
The explosion killed at least 21 people and injured more than 120, but Barnesy and his loved ones were spared after Barnesy decided it would be too hard to manoeuvre the pram his young grandson was sitting in along the bumpy road outside the shrine.
