JIMMY BARNES FORGOT ALL ABOUT WORK WHEN HE STARTED THINKING ABOUT DRINKING 10 GALLONS OF RUM

The line in the song PARADISE where JIMMY BARNES sings 'just forget about work, i'm gonna have to drink 10 gallons of rum' sums up perfectly what this old wild aussie rocker was all about back in the bad old days of classic pub rock, long before politically correct boy bands in the 90`s and the Kelly Clarkson's of the 2000 something's come along and irritated the fuk out of all us old headbangers.


JIMMY BARNES in case you aren't australian or you've been living in Antarcica for the past 35 years is the lead singer of australian rock band COLD CHISEL, forming in Adelaide in 1976 the five members of the band called it a day the first time around in 1984, seemingly at the very height of the band's popularity in Australia.


A tence and reportedly volatile relationship between chief songwriter and keyboardist DON WALKER and Barnes was always widely rumoured to be by far the biggest spanner in the works which contributed towards Chisel's 1984 meltdown.


Barnes of course at that stage, even by his own admission i'm sure he'd now admit, was high maintenance for the other band members, including guitarist IAN MOSS, he knew how to drink 10 gallons of booze on stage alright, and no doubt his lifestyle of excess off the stage had started to have a negative impact on the band's ability to write and record new material by the time 1984 ticked around.


Walker is renowned for being the square bear member of COLD CHISEL, a very diffrent personality to the firebrand Barnes. Anyhow, CHISEL broke up in 1984, reformed in the late 90`s to record a new album, broke up again and then re-formed under the shadow of original drummer Steve Prestwich's death from pancreatic cancer in 2011.


CHISEL recorded a new album in 2011 and are currently doing a procrastinated intermittent tour of Australia. Following the 1984 split, Barnes begun a solo career in style, recording a brilliant and in some places very heavy album called WORKING CLASS MAN, a set of classic anthems produced and mixed to perfection by a who's who of renowned knob tweakers, including australian Mark Opitz and american Bob Clearmountain .


The album was released in 1985 and tore up the australian charts, but amazingly only had minor chart success in america. Jimmy Barnes was actually shortlisted to replace David Lee Roth in Van Halen, it was widely rumoured that it come down to Barnes, chick rocker Patti Smith and the eventual victor Sammy Hagar.


Were it not for Van Halen bassist Michael Anthony's close friendship with Hagar, there is every chance the wild scotsman who liked drinking 10 gallons of rum could have been singing for one of the world's biggest metal bands of the late 70`s and 80`s.


But it wasn't to be, apparently Clearmountain was the one who could see the potential for Barnes to sing in VH and referred him to Van Halen's management after Roth gave Eddie the finger. WORKING CLASS MAN features many songs which get heaps of airplay on australian FM radio, but two towards the end on side two never do.


DAYLIGHT is so underated, definitely never heard it on the radio, just a great bluesey groove, and then there's the tearaway heavy metal tinged boogie pub rock of PARADISE.