Just before midday at home in Port Macquarie, singer-guitarist Phil Jamieson has a Wolfmother show to look forward to.
The musician ruminates about good mate David “Davey” Lane (You Am I, lead guitar) supporting the Aussie veterans at Panthers Club, remarking dryly, “That’ll be fun I think, on a Thursday night…”
It’s no secret that Grinspoon’s debut album Guide to Better Living just turned 20. Yet while it’s lauded as the quartet’s breakthrough, the mere idea of nostalgia irritates Jamieson. After pointed silence, he passionately reflects on where that frustration comes from.
“Do we really have to glorify it because it’s old, and even if it is old shouldn’t it just be good? If something 15 years old was crap… it shouldn’t be revered all of a sudden. I don’t care how old you are, I just turned 40,” he chuckles here, “but that doesn’t mean shit. If Guide to Better Living was a bag of dicks, there’s no way I’d even think about doing a 20th anniversary for it.”
The guys are touring nationally for the next four months to celebrate, playing the album front-to-back. When asked about how prep for it’s coming together though, Jamieson immediately starts cacking himself.
“Well I haven’t started,” he replies gleefully, finally settling down. “I had to get some photos taken and everyone was cranky about them. But we don’t start pre-production or rehearsals until next month, and I guess we’ll see! Obviously over time being a band since 1995, things become like a marriage and we know how to piss each other off or tread carefully.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hkcCZtksvQ
All marriages have tensions, and relentless touring coupled with adult life catching up to the boys after 18 years took its toll. After Jamieson contemplates this, one thing rings clear.
“I always made music before I joined the band, and I learnt a lot during that time about writing and stuff, and then just kept creating music. By the time we’d released Black Rabbits (2012), we were pretty tired, so it was time to take a bit of a break. Pat (Davern, guitar) went and started a family…
“So I learnt how to cook… I just cooked a frittata and it tastes delicious,” he adds nonchalantly. “Those kinds of things. If you’re living in hotels and travelling while touring and writing music, you don’t get to learn how to do other stuff that’s important. So there was a lot of catching up I had to do at the age of 35 or whatever.”
After that much-needed time off, some quintessential Aussie legends sparked their desire to play together again in 2015, calling for Grinspoon’s support on their One Night Stand tour. Jamieson turns matter-of-fact, his tone somehow still light as he asserts, “You can’t say no to Cold Chisel. It’s just something that is not allowed.”
“I didn’t even know where my guitar was, and Jimmy Barnes calls, going,” he brilliantly impersonates the classic bark, “‘Hey Phil! Get your band back together. We’re going on the fucking road!’”
“I’m like ‘Okay Jimmy, love you…,” the songwriter feigns fatigue. “It was such an honour to even be thought about to play with them that you drop everything and get the band together to do it. We were like, ‘Where the fuck are our guitars?’. Everything had been put into storage.”
Jamieson knows what’s ahead though on this upcoming run, stressing, “The record in itself is going to be a challenge to play from start to finish. It’s going to be head down, bum up to make sure we can recreate what we did 20 years ago.”
The album’s also being unleashed as a limited edition vinyl next month, combining the original record with second disc Live At CBGB’s.
The historic New York dive bar, where Jamieson affirms there were “no fancy lights”, sadly closed its doors after Patti Smith’s last show there in 2006. However, Jamieson will always remember the CBGB’s.
“The first time we played it, Pat and Kris (Hopes, drums) were so intoxicated that we only got through five songs, because Kris fell offstage. I walked offstage in disgust, and I think Pat quit the band that night. We’d been on the road for way too long. The second time we played the CBGB’s, we – or they – made sure they were a little bit sober, and that’s the recording you hear.”
“It was always at the end of the tour, New York, because we’d start in Los Angeles and drive across the country. So we were fairly fatigued by the time we walked through the doors… If you thought about the history too much it’d probably bum you out a bit, so we just put our heads down and did what we did.”
Then, we’re transported to the four-piece’s set at Falls festival in ’97. That shines among the live recordings and B-side rarities sprinkled throughout the original record, to be released along with the vinyl.
Looking back two decades ago, Jamieson’s voice shoots up adamantly as he says, “There were still people there!”
“It was massive, like the Big Day Out. Obviously Falls was only ever in one spot back then, and it’s been 17 years since I’ve been there.” Now scrolling through feeds about the fest, he promises, “It’s definitely time for me to venture back. I’ll go this year.”
While Jamieson’s an avid punter at Splendour In The Grass, he’s a bit gutted that he won’t make this year’s fest. It’s for good reason though, with him taking his place at the annual Helpmann Awards. He says candidly, “I have to be somewhat coherent.”
The awards were established in 2001 to celebrate the quality of our live performance industry. However, the singer experienced this himself earlier in the year while playing St. Jimmy in the musical version of American Idiot from puck icons Green Day.
Having worked with formidable director Craig Ilott (Hedwig, Smoke & Mirrors), and much-younger cast members like songwriter Ben Bennett and Phoebe Panaretos from Coogee, Jamieson says unflinchingly, “I was out of my skin about it”.
“I got the call in January and had to chat to the director. I was incredibly nervous walking into something like that, surrounded by triple threats. They can dance, sing, act. I learnt so much within the space of a week, and it was so nice to even be thought about in that pantheon. To work again with my close friend Chris (Cheney, The Living End frontman)… I got to watch him play the part… I learnt how to warm up my voice, and it’s weird that I’ve never done it before.
“It was a different world when I first walked into that theatre. They’d been rehearsing for a week with Chris already. I was looking at all these young, incredibly talented singers, and was literally scared out of my fucking brain. Then Phoebe took me aside and said, ‘We’re just as scared as you are’, and I was like, ‘Really?’” he laughs.
“Another thing is that so many talented singer-songwriters are doing musical theatre. There’s this whole other part of the art world and performing that I knew about, but I didn’t realise the hard work they put in or amount of shows they do. I think Phoebe did 250 for Strictly Ballroom, and that’s mind-boggling. I’m about to do 30.
“It became one big, happy family… It was an invaluable thing, and I’ve learnt a lot that I’ll take into this Grinspoon tour from the musical theatre world.”
Don’t miss your dose of quintessential Aussie punk rock when these legends hit us with Guide to Better Living in full, as well as other favourites – full dates and tickets here.
