April 25, 2023 • 11 mins
Leo Sayer joins Jonesy & Amanda for an intimate chat.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Jersey and Amanda gem Nation.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Our next guest is a very good friend of ours.
We're excited to speak to him, not only because well
he's got a new show coming out, but also congratulations
are in order. He got married to his partner after
nearly forty years of being together, so much to discuss
LEO sayah, how are you doing guys?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Is it true? Is it true you're going to have
a baby? Was that the thing you had to?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
No? No and shotgun wedding? And somebody actually said, you know,
what about the honeymoon? And I said, well, you know,
I mean, we've been together thirty nine years. I'm not
sure the honeymoon relates.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
You know, well, how you and Donna Teller have been
together for so long? Did you just suddenly one day go,
you know what we should do this?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, that's exactly what we've done. And I suppose we've
come to a comfortable time in our lives ithing home wise,
we're settled now here in the Southern Highlands in Australia.
I can't think that we'd go and live anywhere else.
You know, his life is good. I've got a wonderful
partnership with an American company now which is really pushing
(01:07):
me in the States, and I've just been over there
on tour, my first tour there since nineteen eighty four,
do you believe, you know? And there's plenty of reasons
for that, because you know, my career has been sort
of topsy turvy all the way through. But finally we're
in a really good place, so it's time to kind of,
you know, put down roots and make an honest woman
(01:27):
of Donna at last.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Did I tell that to Donna Teller, that you're putting
down route?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And we lost Barry Humphreys on the weekend. I know
he was a dear friend of yours.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
He was, he was a big part of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I guess, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
We first met in nineteen sixty six in London, and
I suppose I'm not the guy who actually completely fixed it,
but I did draw Barry Crocker, who was a young
Australian actor a singer as you know, and he was
in London at the time, and via various friends to
meeting Barry and then telling me about we're going to
(02:03):
make a movie of the Adventures of Barry McKenzie. I said,
I think I've met your Barry McKenzie. So I kind
of drew them together really and and sort of you know,
I wouldn't have been the guy who finalized it because
that's the film company and everything like that. I think
that they wanted a big English or American actor because
of course they wanted the money to fund what was
(02:24):
going to be a slightly controversial film, you know, slightly
on the edge of course, being a Barry Humphreys creation.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And you the one who said, I think Barry Crocker's
you guy.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I think so, I think I did. I think I did. So,
so I pushed them together and Barry went in for
a meeting and came out with the part, which was fantastic,
you know. And he was the perfect Larrakin to play
that part. You know, there was nobody better. And so
he's all mouth and trousers, you know, so perfect. So
(02:57):
but I also have another connection with with with Barry
in that I used to know all the team at
Private Eye and there was very famous, kind of very
good drunk actually artist called Barry found Tony who used
to draw the column, you know, the comic strip which
went in the English you know, political magazine, satire magazine,
(03:18):
Private Eye. So every now and then they couldn't get
Barry out the pub, so they called me. And I
was a young budding graphic designer illustrator at the time,
so I drew a lot of the cartoons and I
got to know Barry that way because he'd come in
and oversee what, Oh, you're really quite good, aren't you.
But you know, when I first met him, I met
him with a bunch of guys, Martin Sharp, Richard Neville,
(03:40):
all these Aussies, and they were all pretty sophisticated. I mean, yeah,
I could make out what they said, but Barry, I
couldn't understand a bloody word he said. So I just nodded.
But he was irresistible, irrepressible, you know, a genius with
ideas and an incredible mind. Over the years, we've done
(04:01):
a lot of stuff together. We met the Queen together
where there's a there's a photograph of Barry dressed as
the queen and I'm greeting the quel, or the queen
is greeting me right, and I'm burrowing my head and shaking,
and in the background is like another queen, Dame Edna,
And when she looked at him and came down the line,
you know because it was the Silver Jubilee concert in
(04:24):
Oh God, seventy seventy eight, seventy seven, right, and so
it was in Windsor Great Park, just outside the castle,
and she came down and saw us sol I mean,
we all performed. There was everybody on the bill, from Elton,
you know, to to Oh God. The whole world was
on that show.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So when she saw him, she went yes, and then
just moved on there and it was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But he gave her one of his barry looks. You
other you could never resist giving that kind of look
to anybody. You know, you see some classic stuff. Now. Look,
I hope he gets not a state funeral, a national funeral. Yes,
this guy is one of the great voices of Australia,
(05:09):
one of our greatest representatives.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You should performed by everybody. You should perform at his funeral.
You should you should do a song there.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, I don't know, but I mean he was very
special to me anyway, and we got lots of mutual
friends and lots of people were heartbroken yesterday and of
course the other day and at the weekend because you know,
he meant a lot to everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, look, speaking of performing. We're going to be seeing
you May eighteen at the State Theater. Tell me about
this show.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah, it's me and Joe Cameralleary, who we happen to
have the same birthday, the same year, the same month,
the same day. Now how rare?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
What you kind of get?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You know? And also we both sing, and we're both buddies,
and we both love song music, you know, were so
we've got so much in common. We first toured in
I think it was twenty fourteen together and got to
really know each other at that time. I mean, Jojo
Zepp and the Falcons did support me in nineteen seventy five,
but I don't remember much about it in Adelaide because
(06:17):
we had all these groups kind of split Ends and skyhooks,
you know, supporting us on that first crazy Australian tour.
But I got really to know Joe at this time,
and you know what, he came to me and he said,
just before the tour, and I hope I'm not letting
the cat out of the bag here, but tell me,
I said, you know, he said, my mother just recently
(06:37):
died and on her deathbed, she told me that she
got my birthday wrong. Because when Joe came in as
a young Maltese boy with the family, with mum and brothers,
you know, and a sister, I think, and when they
came in, his mum lied about the birthday because there
(06:58):
was a certain window age, you know, where you if
you were under a certain age and you were a minor,
then you didn't have to stamp all the paperwork, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So he was two years younger than he thought of
you for us.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And she told him on the death beach that Joe, Joe,
I've got something to I've got something to tell you.
You were really born in nineteen forty eight. So Joe
comes rushing to me on the you know, on the
rehearsals of the of the Good Times tour which we
were doing with Richard Clapton and Russell Morris, the four
of us, and came in and said, Leo, we're born
(07:33):
on the same day.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Do you realize?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And now, of course we're saying, that's one hundred and
fifty years of life experience together, seventy five. We are
in May twenty first. I make twenty first. I have
to tell you as well as the gig at the
State Theater on the eighteenth. We're playing Saint Kilda. It's
Joe's hometown and the palais and that's going to go off.
There's going to be a party that night. So you
thought that you were.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Two years apart until told him, actual, I know we're Actually.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
He didn't know. I didn't even think about it. I
knew we had the same birthday, but we didn't realize
it was the same year until then.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
And you said, look at me, I've got a head
full of hair, and look at you, You've got none.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But he's got a head full of voice, and I've
got a head full of voice as well. So that's
what that's what bonds us, you know, And we both
love a lot of the same music, which we're going
to celebrate on the show. You'll hear us singing our
influences as much as you know, just our hits. I mean,
of course we do that. The audience wouldn't come if
we didn't do that. But at the same time, we're
(08:36):
going to kind of like bend the concert into the
music that we love.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Am going to hear a lot of Yoko only no.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Please come on, Amanda, please fess up.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Marceau, And you know there's going to be a bit of.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Van Morrison and there's going to be a little bit
of Little Richard. I can't tell you anymore because we're
still kind of joining the dotsup as to what we
both like.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Well, as long as there's little Richard and a lot
of Leo that I'll be happy.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, you're gonna be We're gonna rip it up. I'll
tell you.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Of course, you kill it. You guys will kill it.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Leo and Joe's Big Birthday batch May eighteen at the
State Theater. Tickets from ticketmaster dot com. Today, you, Leo,
you look like a million bucks.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, I feel good.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I mean I just got married.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Last weekend exactly, and it's excuse me, a funny.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Thing to Oh blimey, just coughed that up. It's a
funny thing to do after thirty nine years have been together.
But Donna Teller and I you've met. Donna Teller's gorgeous.
She's just such a big part of my life. And
we've built a lovely home here in the Southern Highlands.
We've come to a comfortable time in our lives, a
(09:51):
happy time in our lives where you know, we've had
many years of stress We've been up and down like
a yo yo, but it's it's now we've come to
a point really where we're so happy we can relax.
I'm going to be with this woman for the rest
of my life, I know that, and she's going to
be with me. And we got married in our spiritual place,
(10:11):
our garden, which Donna Teller put together. You know, we'll
released some pictures soon, but we wanted to keep it
really private. Unfortunately, it broke somebody at the wedding took
a bloody picture and that that got sneaked out. So
the Sun newspaper and all these kind of people all
over the world have written, you know, sort of the
Daily Mail and all this stuff, all speculation. But yeah,
(10:33):
we really did get married, but we wanted to do
it really private because it was Gerard Hughes Sayer my
real name, getting married to Donna Tella, not Leo, you
know on that day, right.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So Leo is still single. There is what you're saying,
he's available. No, no, no, it's not because you know
that ruins your sex life as soon as you get married.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know that, well, you know you've got to have
an alter ego, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, exactly. Suddenly, Leo's two. Back to America.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I'm not dating anything. Always a treat to catch up.
My man, we're talking about America.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
We're really nailing.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I've just been in America.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
The reaction over there was just amazing. Of course there
since eighty four, would you believe eighteen eighty four, eighteen
eighty four.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, so I'm in a lot of ways at this moment.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I'm feeling young because I'm playing a lot of catch up,
you know what I mean, setting them, setting the record straight.
It's all good.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Well. I always remember the day you sang at Amanda's
sixtieth birthday party. That's right when you jumped out machine
you joined me on the mic. It was quite an
experience for the listeners. I did a Linda McCartney. My
mic was plugged. I think not enough of all.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Leo. Thank you, le you guys, always lovely talking to you.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Keep well, keep well,
Jersey and Amanda gem Nation.
Speaker 2 (00:03):
Our next guest is a very good friend of ours.
We're excited to speak to him, not only because well
he's got a new show coming out, but also congratulations
are in order. He got married to his partner after
nearly forty years of being together, so much to discuss
LEO sayah, how are you doing guys?
Speaker 3 (00:21):
Is it true? Is it true you're going to have
a baby? Was that the thing you had to?
Speaker 1 (00:25):
No? No and shotgun wedding? And somebody actually said, you know,
what about the honeymoon? And I said, well, you know,
I mean, we've been together thirty nine years. I'm not
sure the honeymoon relates.
Speaker 2 (00:36):
You know, well, how you and Donna Teller have been
together for so long? Did you just suddenly one day go,
you know what we should do this?
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Well, that's exactly what we've done. And I suppose we've
come to a comfortable time in our lives ithing home wise,
we're settled now here in the Southern Highlands in Australia.
I can't think that we'd go and live anywhere else.
You know, his life is good. I've got a wonderful
partnership with an American company now which is really pushing
(01:07):
me in the States, and I've just been over there
on tour, my first tour there since nineteen eighty four,
do you believe, you know? And there's plenty of reasons
for that, because you know, my career has been sort
of topsy turvy all the way through. But finally we're
in a really good place, so it's time to kind of,
you know, put down roots and make an honest woman
(01:27):
of Donna at last.
Speaker 3 (01:29):
Did I tell that to Donna Teller, that you're putting
down route?
Speaker 2 (01:32):
And we lost Barry Humphreys on the weekend. I know
he was a dear friend of yours.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
He was, he was a big part of my life.
Speaker 3 (01:39):
I guess, you know.
Speaker 1 (01:40):
We first met in nineteen sixty six in London, and
I suppose I'm not the guy who actually completely fixed it,
but I did draw Barry Crocker, who was a young
Australian actor a singer as you know, and he was
in London at the time, and via various friends to
meeting Barry and then telling me about we're going to
(02:03):
make a movie of the Adventures of Barry McKenzie. I said,
I think I've met your Barry McKenzie. So I kind
of drew them together really and and sort of you know,
I wouldn't have been the guy who finalized it because
that's the film company and everything like that. I think
that they wanted a big English or American actor because
of course they wanted the money to fund what was
(02:24):
going to be a slightly controversial film, you know, slightly
on the edge of course, being a Barry Humphreys creation.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
And you the one who said, I think Barry Crocker's
you guy.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
I think so, I think I did. I think I did. So,
so I pushed them together and Barry went in for
a meeting and came out with the part, which was fantastic,
you know. And he was the perfect Larrakin to play
that part. You know, there was nobody better. And so
he's all mouth and trousers, you know, so perfect. So
(02:57):
but I also have another connection with with with Barry
in that I used to know all the team at
Private Eye and there was very famous, kind of very
good drunk actually artist called Barry found Tony who used
to draw the column, you know, the comic strip which
went in the English you know, political magazine, satire magazine,
(03:18):
Private Eye. So every now and then they couldn't get
Barry out the pub, so they called me. And I
was a young budding graphic designer illustrator at the time,
so I drew a lot of the cartoons and I
got to know Barry that way because he'd come in
and oversee what, Oh, you're really quite good, aren't you.
But you know, when I first met him, I met
him with a bunch of guys, Martin Sharp, Richard Neville,
(03:40):
all these Aussies, and they were all pretty sophisticated. I mean, yeah,
I could make out what they said, but Barry, I
couldn't understand a bloody word he said. So I just nodded.
But he was irresistible, irrepressible, you know, a genius with
ideas and an incredible mind. Over the years, we've done
(04:01):
a lot of stuff together. We met the Queen together
where there's a there's a photograph of Barry dressed as
the queen and I'm greeting the quel, or the queen
is greeting me right, and I'm burrowing my head and shaking,
and in the background is like another queen, Dame Edna,
And when she looked at him and came down the line,
you know because it was the Silver Jubilee concert in
(04:24):
Oh God, seventy seventy eight, seventy seven, right, and so
it was in Windsor Great Park, just outside the castle,
and she came down and saw us sol I mean,
we all performed. There was everybody on the bill, from Elton,
you know, to to Oh God. The whole world was
on that show.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
So when she saw him, she went yes, and then
just moved on there and it was fantastic.
Speaker 1 (04:47):
But he gave her one of his barry looks. You
other you could never resist giving that kind of look
to anybody. You know, you see some classic stuff. Now. Look,
I hope he gets not a state funeral, a national funeral. Yes,
this guy is one of the great voices of Australia,
(05:09):
one of our greatest representatives.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You should performed by everybody. You should perform at his funeral.
You should you should do a song there.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Well, I don't know, but I mean he was very
special to me anyway, and we got lots of mutual
friends and lots of people were heartbroken yesterday and of
course the other day and at the weekend because you know,
he meant a lot to everybody.
Speaker 2 (05:37):
Well, look, speaking of performing. We're going to be seeing
you May eighteen at the State Theater. Tell me about
this show.
Speaker 1 (05:45):
Yeah, it's me and Joe Cameralleary, who we happen to
have the same birthday, the same year, the same month,
the same day. Now how rare?
Speaker 4 (05:53):
Is that?
Speaker 3 (05:53):
What you kind of get?
Speaker 1 (05:54):
You know? And also we both sing, and we're both buddies,
and we both love song music, you know, were so
we've got so much in common. We first toured in
I think it was twenty fourteen together and got to
really know each other at that time. I mean, Jojo
Zepp and the Falcons did support me in nineteen seventy five,
but I don't remember much about it in Adelaide because
(06:17):
we had all these groups kind of split Ends and skyhooks,
you know, supporting us on that first crazy Australian tour.
But I got really to know Joe at this time,
and you know what, he came to me and he said,
just before the tour, and I hope I'm not letting
the cat out of the bag here, but tell me,
I said, you know, he said, my mother just recently
(06:37):
died and on her deathbed, she told me that she
got my birthday wrong. Because when Joe came in as
a young Maltese boy with the family, with mum and brothers,
you know, and a sister, I think, and when they
came in, his mum lied about the birthday because there
(06:58):
was a certain window age, you know, where you if
you were under a certain age and you were a minor,
then you didn't have to stamp all the paperwork, you know.
Speaker 3 (07:07):
So he was two years younger than he thought of
you for us.
Speaker 1 (07:11):
And she told him on the death beach that Joe, Joe,
I've got something to I've got something to tell you.
You were really born in nineteen forty eight. So Joe
comes rushing to me on the you know, on the
rehearsals of the of the Good Times tour which we
were doing with Richard Clapton and Russell Morris, the four
of us, and came in and said, Leo, we're born
(07:33):
on the same day.
Speaker 3 (07:34):
Do you realize?
Speaker 1 (07:36):
And now, of course we're saying, that's one hundred and
fifty years of life experience together, seventy five. We are
in May twenty first. I make twenty first. I have
to tell you as well as the gig at the
State Theater on the eighteenth. We're playing Saint Kilda. It's
Joe's hometown and the palais and that's going to go off.
There's going to be a party that night. So you
thought that you were.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Two years apart until told him, actual, I know we're Actually.
Speaker 1 (08:02):
He didn't know. I didn't even think about it. I
knew we had the same birthday, but we didn't realize
it was the same year until then.
Speaker 3 (08:09):
And you said, look at me, I've got a head
full of hair, and look at you, You've got none.
Speaker 1 (08:15):
But he's got a head full of voice, and I've
got a head full of voice as well. So that's
what that's what bonds us, you know, And we both
love a lot of the same music, which we're going
to celebrate on the show. You'll hear us singing our
influences as much as you know, just our hits. I mean,
of course we do that. The audience wouldn't come if
we didn't do that. But at the same time, we're
(08:36):
going to kind of like bend the concert into the
music that we love.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
Am going to hear a lot of Yoko only no.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Please come on, Amanda, please fess up.
Speaker 3 (08:50):
Marceau, And you know there's going to be a bit of.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
Van Morrison and there's going to be a little bit
of Little Richard. I can't tell you anymore because we're
still kind of joining the dotsup as to what we
both like.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Well, as long as there's little Richard and a lot
of Leo that I'll be happy.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Yeah, you're gonna be We're gonna rip it up. I'll
tell you.
Speaker 3 (09:08):
Of course, you kill it. You guys will kill it.
Speaker 4 (09:12):
Leo and Joe's Big Birthday batch May eighteen at the
State Theater. Tickets from ticketmaster dot com. Today, you, Leo,
you look like a million bucks.
Speaker 3 (09:21):
Well, I feel good.
Speaker 1 (09:22):
I mean I just got married.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Last weekend exactly, and it's excuse me, a funny.
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Thing to Oh blimey, just coughed that up. It's a
funny thing to do after thirty nine years have been together.
But Donna Teller and I you've met. Donna Teller's gorgeous.
She's just such a big part of my life. And
we've built a lovely home here in the Southern Highlands.
We've come to a comfortable time in our lives, a
(09:51):
happy time in our lives where you know, we've had
many years of stress We've been up and down like
a yo yo, but it's it's now we've come to
a point really where we're so happy we can relax.
I'm going to be with this woman for the rest
of my life, I know that, and she's going to
be with me. And we got married in our spiritual place,
(10:11):
our garden, which Donna Teller put together. You know, we'll
released some pictures soon, but we wanted to keep it
really private. Unfortunately, it broke somebody at the wedding took
a bloody picture and that that got sneaked out. So
the Sun newspaper and all these kind of people all
over the world have written, you know, sort of the
Daily Mail and all this stuff, all speculation. But yeah,
(10:33):
we really did get married, but we wanted to do
it really private because it was Gerard Hughes Sayer my
real name, getting married to Donna Tella, not Leo, you
know on that day, right.
Speaker 3 (10:44):
So Leo is still single. There is what you're saying,
he's available. No, no, no, it's not because you know
that ruins your sex life as soon as you get married.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
You know that, well, you know you've got to have
an alter ego, haven't you.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
Yeah, exactly. Suddenly, Leo's two. Back to America.
Speaker 4 (11:01):
I'm not dating anything. Always a treat to catch up.
My man, we're talking about America.
Speaker 1 (11:06):
We're really nailing.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
I've just been in America.
Speaker 1 (11:09):
The reaction over there was just amazing. Of course there
since eighty four, would you believe eighteen eighty four, eighteen
eighty four.
Speaker 3 (11:18):
Yeah, so I'm in a lot of ways at this moment.
Speaker 1 (11:21):
I'm feeling young because I'm playing a lot of catch up,
you know what I mean, setting them, setting the record straight.
It's all good.
Speaker 3 (11:26):
Well. I always remember the day you sang at Amanda's
sixtieth birthday party. That's right when you jumped out machine
you joined me on the mic. It was quite an
experience for the listeners. I did a Linda McCartney. My
mic was plugged. I think not enough of all.
Speaker 1 (11:43):
Leo. Thank you, le you guys, always lovely talking to you.
Speaker 3 (11:47):
Keep well, keep well,
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