COLD CHISEL

Originally named Orange, the band formed in Adelaide in 1973 as a heavy-metal cover-band comprising bassist Les Kaczmarek, keyboard player Don Walker, guitarist Ian Moss and drummer Steve Prestwich. Seventeen-year-old singer Jimmy Barnes— called Jim Barnes on the initial run of albums— joined in December 1973, taking leave from the band in 1975 for a brief stint as Bon Scott's replacement in Fraternity.

The group changed its name several times before settling on Cold Chisel in 1974 after writing a song with that title. Barnes' relationship with other band members was volatile; as a Scot he often came to blows with Liverpool-born Prestwich and he left the band several times. During these periods Moss would handle vocals until Barnes returned. Walker soon emerged as Cold Chisel's primary songwriter. Walker spent 1974 in Armidale, completing his studies and in 1975 Kaczmarek left the band and was replaced by Phil Small. Barnes' older brother John Swan was a member of Cold Chisel around this time, providing backing vocals and percussion but after several violent incidents he was fired.

In May 1976, Cold Chisel relocated to Melbourne but found little success, moving on to Sydney in November. Six months later, in May 1977, Barnes announced he would quit Cold Chisel in order to join Swan in Feather, a hard-rocking blues band that had evolved from an earlier group called Blackfeather. A farewell performance in Sydney went so well that the singer changed his mind. The following month the Warner Music Group picked up Cold Chisel.

In the early months of 1978, Cold Chisel recorded its self-titled debut album with producer Peter Walker. All tracks were written by Don Walker except "Juliet", for which Barnes wrote the melody and Walker the lyrics. 'Cold Chisel' was released in April and featured appearances from harmonica player Dave Blight, who would become a regular on-stage guest, and saxophonists Joe Camilleri and Wilbur Wilde from Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons. The following month the song "Khe Sanh" was released as a single but was deemed too offensive for airplay on commercial radio because of the lyric "Their legs were often open/But their minds were always closed", although it was played regularly on Sydney rock station, Double J, which was not subject to such restrictions because it was part of the ABC. Despite that setback, it still reached #48 on the Australian singles chart and #4 on the Adelaide charts thanks mainly to the band's rising popularity as a touring act and some local radio support in Adelaide where the single was aired in spite of the ban. "Khe Sanh" has since become Cold Chisel's signature tune and arguably its most popular among fans. The song was later remixed, with re-recorded vocals, for inclusion on the international version of 1980's 'East'.

The band's next release was a live EP titled 'You're Thirteen, You're Beautiful, and You're Mine', in November. This had been recorded at a show at Sydney's Regent Theatre in 1977 that had featured Midnight Oil as one of the support acts. One of the EP's tracks "Merry Go Round" was later recorded on the follow-up, 'Breakfast at Sweethearts'. This album was recorded between July 1978 and January 1979 with experienced producer Richard Batchens, who had previously worked with Richard Clapton, Sherbet and Blackfeather. Batchens smoothed out many of the band's rough edges and attempted to give their songs a sophisticated sound. This approach has made the album sit a little uncomfortably with the band ever since. Once again, the majority of the songs were penned by Walker, with Barnes collaborating with Walker on the first single "Goodbye (Astrid, Goodbye)" and Moss contributing to "Dresden". "Goodbye (Astrid, Goodbye)" became a live favourite for the band, and even went on to be performed by U2 during Australian tours in the 1980s.

By now the band stood at the verge of major national success, even without significant radio airplay or support from Countdown, Australia's most important youth music program at the time. The band had become notorious for its wild behaviour, particularly from Barnes who was rumoured to have had sex with over 1000 women and who was known to consume more than a bottle of vodka every night during performances.

In late-1979, following their problematic relationship with Batchens, Cold Chisel chose Mark Opitz to produce the next single, "Choir Girl", a Don Walker composition dealing with a young woman's experience with abortion. In spite of the controversial subject matter, the track became a hit and paved the way for Cold Chisel's next album. Recorded over two months in early-1980, 'East' reached #2 on the Australian album charts and was the second-highest selling album by an Australian artist for the year. Despite the continued dominance of Walker, during Cold Chisel's later career all four of the other members began to contribute songs to the band, and this was the first of their albums to feature songwriting contributions from each member of the band. Cold Chisel is the only Australian rock band to score hits with songs written by every member of the group.

Of the album's 12 tracks, two were written by Barnes, with Moss, Prestwich and Small contributing one song each. The songs ranged from straight ahead rock tracks such as "Standing on the Outside" and "My Turn to Cry" to rockabilly-flavoured work-outs ("Rising Sun", written about Barnes' relationship with his girlfriend Jane Mahoney) and pop-laced love songs ("My Baby", featuring Joe Camilleri on saxophone) to a poignant piano ballad about prison life, "Four Walls". The cover featured Barnes asleep in a bathtub wearing a kamikaze bandanna in a room littered with junk and was inspired by Jacques-Louis David's 1793 painting The Death of Marat. The Ian Moss-penned "Never Before" was chosen as the first song to air by the ABC's radio station Triple J when it switched to the FM band that year.

Following the release of 'East', Cold Chisel embarked on the Youth in Asia Tour, which took its name from a lyric in "Star Hotel". This tour saw the group play more than 60 shows in 90 days and would form the basis of 1981's double live album 'Swingshift'. In April 1981 the band was nominated for all seven of the major awards at the joint Countdown/TV Week music awards held at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and won them all. As a protest against the concept of a TV magazine being involved in a music awards ceremony, the band refused to accept its awards and finished the night by performing "My Turn to Cry". After only one verse and chorus, the band smashed up the set and left the stage.

'Swingshift' debuted at #1 on the Australian album charts, crystallizing the band's status as the biggest-selling act in the country. Overseas, however, Cold Chisel was unable to make an impact. With a slightly different track-listing, 'East' had been issued in the United States and the band undertook its first (and only) US tour. But while it was popular as a live act, the American arm of their label did little to support the album. According to Barnes biographer Toby Creswell, at one point the band was ushered into an office to listen to the US master only to find it drenched in tape hiss and other ambient noise, making it almost unreleasable. The band was even booed off stage after a lacklustre performance in Dayton, Ohio in May 1981 opening for Ted Nugent, who at the time was touring with his guitar army a.k.a. the 'D.C. Hawks'. European audiences were more accepting of the band and the group developed a small but significant fan base in Germany.

In August 1981, the band began work on the album 'Circus Animals', again with Opitz producing. The album opened with "You Got Nothing I Want", an aggressive Barnes-penned hard rock track that attacked the American industry for its handling of the band. The song would later cause problems for Barnes when he later attempted to break into the US market as a solo performer as senior music executives there continued to hold it against him. Like its predecessor, 'Circus Animals' contained songs of contrasting styles, with harder-edged tracks like "Bow River" and "Hound Dog" in place beside more expansive ballads such as "Forever Now" and "When the War Is Over", both written by Prestwich. The latter track has proved to be the most popular Cold Chisel song for other artists to record -- Uriah Heep included a version on the 1989 album 'Raging Silence' and John Farnham has recorded it twice, once while he and Prestwich were members of Little River Band in the mid-80s and again for his 1990 solo album 'Age of Reason'. The song was also a #1 hit for former Australian Idol contestant Cosima De Vito in 2004 and was also performed by Bobby Flynn during that show's 2006 season. "Forever Now" was also covered (as a country waltz) by Australian band The Reels.

To launch the album, the band performed under a circus tent at Wentworth Park in Sydney and toured heavily once more, including a show in Darwin that attracted more than 10 per cent of the city's population. 'Circus Animal's and its three singles, "You Got Nothing I Want", "Forever Now" and "When the War is Over" were all major hits in Australia during 1982 but further success overseas continued to elude the band and cracks began to appear. In early 1983 the band toured Germany but the shows went so badly that in the middle of the tour Walker up ended his keyboard and stormed off stage during one show and Prestwich was fired. Returning to Australia, Prestwich was replaced by Ray Arnott, formerly of the 1970s progressive rock band Spectrum. After this, Barnes requested a large advance from management. Now married with a young child, exorbitant spending had left him almost broke. His request was refused however because there was a standing arrangement that any advance to one band member had to be paid to all the others. After a meeting on 17 August during which Barnes quit the band, it was decided that Cold Chisel would split up.

A final concert series known as The Last Stand was planned and a final studio album was also recorded. Prestwich returned for the tour, which began in October. Before the Sydney shows however, Barnes lost his voice, and those dates were re-scheduled for December. The band's final performance was at the Sydney Entertainment Centre on 12 December 1983, apparently precisely 10 years since its first live appearance. The Sydney shows formed the basis of the film The Last Stand, the biggest-selling concert film of any Australian band. Several other recordings from the tour were used on the 1984 live album 'Barking Spiders Live: 1983', the title of which was inspired by the name the group occasionally used to play warm-up shows before tours, and as B-sides for a three-CD singles package known as 'Three Big XXX Hits', issued ahead of the release of the 1994 compilation album, 'Teenage Love'.

During breaks in the tour, 'Twentieth Century' was recorded. It was a fragmentary process, spread across various studios and sessions as the individual members often refused to work together, but nonetheless successful. Released in February 1984, it reached #1 upon release and included the songs "Saturday Night" and "Flame Trees", both of which remain radio staples. "Flame Trees", co-written by Prestwich and Walker, took its title from the BBC series The Flame Trees of Thika although it was lyrically inspired by the organist's hometown of Grafton, New South Wales. Barnes later recorded an acoustic version of the song on his 1993 album 'Flesh and Wood' and the track was also covered by Sarah Blasko in 2006.

Cold Chisel reunited in 1998 to record the album 'The Last Wave of Summer' and supported it with a sold-out national concert tour. The album debuted at #1 on the Australian album chart. In 2003, the band re-grouped once more for the Ringside tour and in 2005 again reunited to perform at a benefit for the victims of the Boxing Day tsunami at the Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne. On 10 September 2009, two days after Barnes' 15th studio solo album 'The Rhythm and the Blues' hit #1 on the Australian album charts, Cold Chisel announced it would reform for a one-off performance at the Sydney 500 V8 Supercars event on 5 December 2009. The reunion saw the band perform at ANZ Stadium to the largest crowd of its career, with more than 45,000 fans in attendance. Cold Chisel played a single live performance in 2010, at the Deniliquin ute muster in October. In December Ian Moss confirmed that Cold Chisel was working on new material for an album.

In January 2011, Steve Prestwich was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He underwent surgery on 14 January but never regained consciousness and died two days later, aged 56. All six of Cold Chisel's studio albums were re-released in digitally re-mastered CD versions in mid-2011 and were also made available in digital format. The thirty-date Light the Nitro Tour was announced in July along with the news that former Divinyls and Catfish drummer Charley Drayton had been recruited to replace Steve Prestwich. Most shows on the tour sold out within days and new dates were later announced for early 2012. Midway through 2012, they had a short UK tour, as well as playing with Soundgarden and Mars Volta at Hard Rock Calling.

The group's eighth studio album, 'The Perfect Crime', appeared in October 2015, again with Shirley producing, which peaked at #2. Martin Boulton of The Sydney Morning Herald rated it at four out of five stars and explained that the album does what Cold Chisel always does: "work incredibly hard, not take any shortcuts and play the hell out of the songs." The album, Boulton writes, "delves further back to their rock'n'roll roots with chief songwriter Walker carving up the keys, guitarist Moss both gritty and sublime and the Small/Drayton engine room firing on every cylinder. Barnes' voice sounds worn, wonderful and better than ever."

The band's latest album, 'Blood Moon', was released in December 2019. The album debuted at #1 on the ARIA Album Chart, the band's fifth to reach the top. Half of the songs had lyrics written by Barnes and music by Walker, a new combination for Cold Chisel, with Barnes noting his increased confidence after writing two autobiographies. Les Kaczmarek died December 5, 2008.

Members

Don Walker (keyboards), Jimmy Barnes (vocals, guitar), Ian Moss (guitar, vocals), Steve Prestwich (drums), Phil Small (bass), Les Kaczmarek (bass), Charley Drayton (drums), 

John Swan (percussion, vocals) Ray Arnott (drums), Ted Broniecki (keyboards)

SINGLES

Khe Sanh

12 JUN '78

#41

Goodbye (Astrid Goodbye) / Georgia on My Mind

16 OCT '78

#65

Breakfast at Sweethearts

2 APR '79

#63

Choir Girl

3 DEC '79

#14

Cheap Wine

26 MAY '80

#8

My Baby

1 SEP '80

#40

You Got Nothing I Want

14 DEC '81

#12

Forever Now

29 MAR '82

#4

When the War is Over

26 JUL '82

#25

Hold Me Tight / No Sense

24 OCT '83

#14

Saturday Night

2 APR '84

#11

Twentieth Century / Only One

2 JUL '84

#91

Flame Trees

27 AUG '84

#26

Misfits (Re-Entry)

3 NOV '91

#55

Hands Out of My Pocket

18 SEP '94

#9

Nothing But You

30 OCT '94

#16

Yesterdays

19 MAR '95

#23

The Things I Love in You

30 AUG '98

#10

Water Into Wine

15 NOV '98

#46

Way Down

22 MAR '99

#63

All for You

19 SEP '11

#80

Lost

7 SEP '15

#92

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cold_Chisel

http://top100singles.blogspot.com.au/