June 30, 2024 • 7 mins
We chat to the legendary Jimmy Barnes on:
-
Performing with Tina Turner!
- How he handled Open heart surgery!
-
And why he was getting into fights in NZ...
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Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This show on Being Podcast. Hey that's us, brought to
you by Hello Fresh the Experts and Tastes that kiwis love.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Nice to be here. How are you doing? How are
you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Because it was just a few months ago you had
a pretty major sort of operation. But I hear you
hitting the gym. You're fighting foot again.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
It was one of those things where I was really
really healthy, really really fit. I caught a bug, I
got a staff infection and it got in my blood
and I went to my I went to my back,
I had to have surgery in my back up and
went to my heart, which was really serious, so major surgery.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I was.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I was seven out of surgery in my heart and
and and literally there was a you know, I was
close to death, which was pretty frightenly. I got over
it and I'm just, you know, I'm just don't have it,
and I sure doing. I'm back on tour and I'm
doing all that and I'm healthy and tear the world
apart again.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah. Well this is your second major operation, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I've had lots of them. Yeah, I'm I think when
you live as hard as I do, things I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Gonna give away you're like, damn it, I had a
good forty or fifty years.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I packed it in like a classic car.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You're read better, that's what that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I'm thinking of going electric.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Is it true?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Is it true that Cultures or was it fifty years?
So when these concerts are happening early next year, is
it fifty years since Cultures Well first came to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It was Actually it's actually fifty It must be close
to it. We were seventy seventy five I think when
we first came to New Zealand. Yeah, it's very close.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, that's a great way to make us all.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
No, no, no, but we were only two at the time.
Do you remember much in those days?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
How much?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
How many memories do you have?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I remember lots.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I mean I think one of the big shows that
I remember was we did I think called Narawahia, which
was a sweetwater festival down there.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
There was a there was a shambles, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
There was was full on. It was I remember, like
I don't know, it.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Was hundreds of you know, of Viking's there and we
went on first and we were playing and there was
a bit few fights and all that, and you know,
and I jumped into them.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Did you get in the fight?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I got into a couple while the guitar solos were going,
you know, and people they took to me and more
ways than one.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
But no, they just thought it was funny and they
laughed at me and threw me back up on stage.
But for some reason that everybody just we really clicked
and we did a board here and show that was
really full on and and we sort of were adopted
by New Zealand on that day, felt really connected.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
To New Zealand. We treated well, do.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
You know you what my first ever concert I went
to with my mum. We were seeing family in christ Church.
We went to Lancaster Park and it was you and Tina Turner.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I remember that I got up sang Withina. It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It was around the Rugby League era, you know what?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, that was such a How amazing was that? I mean?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I still to this day, I can't believe that the
n r L, the Rugby League paid me so much
money to get up and sing with Tina.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I would have paid them, Yeah, I really would have.
I really would have. It was just she was such
a great singer and such a great woman.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I do remember there are a lot of funny smell in
the air. I kept asking my mom what their smell was,
and she was quite vague about the smell, the cigarette
smell or something.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And that's a funny cigarette.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah. A hot looking saxophone player as well too for
some reason.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Oh man, that was right, that the muscles. Yeah, it
was great, it was great us.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Now did you jump out of the Tina Tuna constant
and have a before with anyone?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Barns or you keep no? Oh no, no, no, Tina
did that her job.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
She's much tougher than me, Jimmy Barnes with US Culture
is coming back next year. And your career has spanned
over many different variations of the music industry. Barns, you
were just talking about you with Tina Turner. Felt like
there was a ten million dollar music video. Winfield the
cigarettes and sponsored the music video the Windfield helicopters your
head at all. The new era of music really interesting.
(03:41):
What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well, you know, it was.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Sort of you know, and when I first started, you know,
we used to you know, we'd try to make records
and we go on tour to sell records. Nowadays it's
really sort of the opposite. You make records just so
you can go on tour. You know, you still make
all your money touring. And I thought that was you know,
the eighties, and in the nineties it's got a bit
sort of you know, I remember being in America and
they just wanted to they wanted to, you know, you'd
(04:05):
make a record, and you'd make film clips, and you
go to America and they say, let's just redo it all,
you know, spend another half a million.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
You know, and it was just stupid.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
So I think it was a very wasteful and it
was sort of you know that that whole eighties thing
where they just threw money up against the war. People
lost sort of sense of reality. And the only thing
that really kept bands like myself and that grounded at
the time was that we built our careers playing live
and no matter what, they no matter what you if
you dressed it up and you could put all the
lights in the world on it and make it look
as flash as possible. If you played like ship, they
(04:38):
were going to kill you. So that so we always
were pretty grounded by the fact that our audience one
of the best rooms and we either delivered or we died.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, well it feels like you really have. You've you've
stayed pretty grounded through your entire career when you could
have got lost and swepped up in the in the celebrity.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Hall, there was there was moments, but you know, I tried.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
You know, I like people, you know, and uh, for
a little while, I used to hire a security guard
to to protect the audience.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
That I've always been pretty accessible.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Obviously, AI is a big conversation and I'm not going
to get you delve too deep on that, but I
did put into AI one question for Jimmy Barnes. Make
it funny, make it interesting. So, oh, this is what
AI came out with. Your voice. Your voice is legendary
and unmistakable. Have you ever tried to order something at
a fast food restaurant to drive through and someone recognized you?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That's their question, that's the question.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Well, you know, not not really no, but but quite
often on the phone, I'll be ringing, like you know,
you know when you used to I was one three,
you know, to get information to find a number.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
It would be a science for a.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
While ago you Jimmy, you know, I'm on a bloody telephone,
you know that.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But yeah, no this and it's a bit of a curse.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
You know, my voice it stands out like the proverbials,
and that sort of can get me in a lot
of trouble. You know, you really can't sort of when
you're trying to green cognita is.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, I'll be walking through the air and trying
to be sneaky, gets through with that, getting sort of held.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Up and somebody will say, oh, you know, oh bumping yourself,
excuse me, and then oh, shoo, jimmy. You know, people
recognize the voice more than they do me, which was
it's just understandable.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I guess when you mentioned that for that long, you're
you're an absolute icon here in Australia. When was the
last time you were able to walk out the house
and no one recognize you?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I got a Thailand A lot I don't know you
in toil End.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
My wife's high.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
And that's one of the reasons I love Thailand because
really the ties are just sort of treat everybody the same.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So I just go there and you walk around there.
It's good.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
But you know, listen, like I said, I've sort of
built a career where you know, I don't make I
don't put walls up around myself. I don't shut myself
off from people. And you know, people might get a
bit excited and up to you and stuff. But then
you know, if you say high and you know, all
they wants a photo or something, that's pretty easy to do,
you know, yeah, and then you know they leave you alone,
you know, and if they don't, you can slap them.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah the song working class Man, that wasn't you know,
you kind of have to stick to that, right.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
But it's true though, I mean, if you it's one
of those things where if you if you get too
many security guards, if you get too sort of too
security conscious, then people wonder what they're missing, you know,
Whereas if I'm just walking around and they realize there's
not that much going on. It's just I'm just having
to know God shop with or something, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So yah, Yeah, we can't wait to have you back
in New Zealand. It's happening next year twenty twenty five,
the Summer Concert Tour. It's going to be in Queenstown,
Corimandel and Topor. You can get all the details at
Greenstone Entertainment Dot Cod Nzi cultures or ice House, but
Wrunger everclear, It's going to be incredible, So great to
catch up with you always love doing it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Jimmy, come and celebrate our fiftieth birthday. All the best,
This show on Being Podcast. Hey that's us, brought to
you by Hello Fresh the Experts and Tastes that kiwis love.
Speaker 2 (00:06):
Nice to be here. How are you doing? How are
you doing?
Speaker 1 (00:08):
Because it was just a few months ago you had
a pretty major sort of operation. But I hear you
hitting the gym. You're fighting foot again.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 4 (00:14):
It was one of those things where I was really
really healthy, really really fit. I caught a bug, I
got a staff infection and it got in my blood
and I went to my I went to my back,
I had to have surgery in my back up and
went to my heart, which was really serious, so major surgery.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
I was.
Speaker 4 (00:30):
I was seven out of surgery in my heart and
and and literally there was a you know, I was
close to death, which was pretty frightenly. I got over
it and I'm just, you know, I'm just don't have it,
and I sure doing. I'm back on tour and I'm
doing all that and I'm healthy and tear the world
apart again.
Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah. Well this is your second major operation, isn't it.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
I've had lots of them. Yeah, I'm I think when
you live as hard as I do, things I'm.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
Gonna give away you're like, damn it, I had a
good forty or fifty years.
Speaker 2 (00:56):
I packed it in like a classic car.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
You're read better, that's what that's for sure.
Speaker 2 (01:02):
I'm thinking of going electric.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Is it true?
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Is it true that Cultures or was it fifty years?
So when these concerts are happening early next year, is
it fifty years since Cultures Well first came to New Zealand.
Speaker 4 (01:14):
It was Actually it's actually fifty It must be close
to it. We were seventy seventy five I think when
we first came to New Zealand. Yeah, it's very close.
Speaker 3 (01:23):
Yeah, that's a great way to make us all.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
No, no, no, but we were only two at the time.
Do you remember much in those days?
Speaker 4 (01:30):
How much?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
How many memories do you have?
Speaker 2 (01:33):
I remember lots.
Speaker 4 (01:34):
I mean I think one of the big shows that
I remember was we did I think called Narawahia, which
was a sweetwater festival down there.
Speaker 3 (01:42):
There was a there was a shambles, wasn't it.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
There was was full on. It was I remember, like
I don't know, it.
Speaker 4 (01:48):
Was hundreds of you know, of Viking's there and we
went on first and we were playing and there was
a bit few fights and all that, and you know,
and I jumped into them.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Did you get in the fight?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (01:59):
I got into a couple while the guitar solos were going,
you know, and people they took to me and more
ways than one.
Speaker 4 (02:08):
But no, they just thought it was funny and they
laughed at me and threw me back up on stage.
But for some reason that everybody just we really clicked
and we did a board here and show that was
really full on and and we sort of were adopted
by New Zealand on that day, felt really connected.
Speaker 2 (02:22):
To New Zealand. We treated well, do.
Speaker 1 (02:25):
You know you what my first ever concert I went
to with my mum. We were seeing family in christ Church.
We went to Lancaster Park and it was you and Tina Turner.
Speaker 2 (02:33):
I remember that I got up sang Withina. It was amazing.
Speaker 1 (02:36):
It was around the Rugby League era, you know what?
Speaker 2 (02:38):
Yeah, that was such a How amazing was that? I mean?
Speaker 4 (02:42):
I still to this day, I can't believe that the
n r L, the Rugby League paid me so much
money to get up and sing with Tina.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I would have paid them, Yeah, I really would have.
I really would have. It was just she was such
a great singer and such a great woman.
Speaker 1 (02:55):
I do remember there are a lot of funny smell in
the air. I kept asking my mom what their smell was,
and she was quite vague about the smell, the cigarette
smell or something.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
And that's a funny cigarette.
Speaker 1 (03:05):
Yeah. A hot looking saxophone player as well too for
some reason.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
Oh man, that was right, that the muscles. Yeah, it
was great, it was great us.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Now did you jump out of the Tina Tuna constant
and have a before with anyone?
Speaker 2 (03:16):
Barns or you keep no? Oh no, no, no, Tina
did that her job.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
She's much tougher than me, Jimmy Barnes with US Culture
is coming back next year. And your career has spanned
over many different variations of the music industry. Barns, you
were just talking about you with Tina Turner. Felt like
there was a ten million dollar music video. Winfield the
cigarettes and sponsored the music video the Windfield helicopters your
head at all. The new era of music really interesting.
(03:41):
What are your thoughts on it?
Speaker 2 (03:42):
Well, you know, it was.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Sort of you know, and when I first started, you know,
we used to you know, we'd try to make records
and we go on tour to sell records. Nowadays it's
really sort of the opposite. You make records just so
you can go on tour. You know, you still make
all your money touring. And I thought that was you know,
the eighties, and in the nineties it's got a bit
sort of you know, I remember being in America and
they just wanted to they wanted to, you know, you'd
(04:05):
make a record, and you'd make film clips, and you
go to America and they say, let's just redo it all,
you know, spend another half a million.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
You know, and it was just stupid.
Speaker 4 (04:16):
So I think it was a very wasteful and it
was sort of you know that that whole eighties thing
where they just threw money up against the war. People
lost sort of sense of reality. And the only thing
that really kept bands like myself and that grounded at
the time was that we built our careers playing live
and no matter what, they no matter what you if
you dressed it up and you could put all the
lights in the world on it and make it look
as flash as possible. If you played like ship, they
(04:38):
were going to kill you. So that so we always
were pretty grounded by the fact that our audience one
of the best rooms and we either delivered or we died.
Speaker 3 (04:46):
Yeah, well it feels like you really have. You've you've
stayed pretty grounded through your entire career when you could
have got lost and swepped up in the in the celebrity.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Hall, there was there was moments, but you know, I tried.
Speaker 4 (04:56):
You know, I like people, you know, and uh, for
a little while, I used to hire a security guard
to to protect the audience.
Speaker 2 (05:07):
That I've always been pretty accessible.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Obviously, AI is a big conversation and I'm not going
to get you delve too deep on that, but I
did put into AI one question for Jimmy Barnes. Make
it funny, make it interesting. So, oh, this is what
AI came out with. Your voice. Your voice is legendary
and unmistakable. Have you ever tried to order something at
a fast food restaurant to drive through and someone recognized you?
Speaker 2 (05:28):
That's their question, that's the question.
Speaker 4 (05:30):
Well, you know, not not really no, but but quite
often on the phone, I'll be ringing, like you know,
you know when you used to I was one three,
you know, to get information to find a number.
Speaker 2 (05:40):
It would be a science for a.
Speaker 4 (05:41):
While ago you Jimmy, you know, I'm on a bloody telephone,
you know that.
Speaker 2 (05:47):
But yeah, no this and it's a bit of a curse.
Speaker 4 (05:49):
You know, my voice it stands out like the proverbials,
and that sort of can get me in a lot
of trouble. You know, you really can't sort of when
you're trying to green cognita is.
Speaker 2 (05:58):
You know, I'll be walking through the air and trying
to be sneaky, gets through with that, getting sort of held.
Speaker 4 (06:02):
Up and somebody will say, oh, you know, oh bumping yourself,
excuse me, and then oh, shoo, jimmy. You know, people
recognize the voice more than they do me, which was
it's just understandable.
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I guess when you mentioned that for that long, you're
you're an absolute icon here in Australia. When was the
last time you were able to walk out the house
and no one recognize you?
Speaker 1 (06:22):
I got a Thailand A lot I don't know you
in toil End.
Speaker 2 (06:26):
My wife's high.
Speaker 4 (06:27):
And that's one of the reasons I love Thailand because
really the ties are just sort of treat everybody the same.
Speaker 2 (06:31):
So I just go there and you walk around there.
It's good.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
But you know, listen, like I said, I've sort of
built a career where you know, I don't make I
don't put walls up around myself. I don't shut myself
off from people. And you know, people might get a
bit excited and up to you and stuff. But then
you know, if you say high and you know, all
they wants a photo or something, that's pretty easy to do,
you know, yeah, and then you know they leave you alone,
you know, and if they don't, you can slap them.
Speaker 1 (06:55):
Yeah the song working class Man, that wasn't you know,
you kind of have to stick to that, right.
Speaker 4 (07:00):
But it's true though, I mean, if you it's one
of those things where if you if you get too
many security guards, if you get too sort of too
security conscious, then people wonder what they're missing, you know,
Whereas if I'm just walking around and they realize there's
not that much going on. It's just I'm just having
to know God shop with or something, you know.
Speaker 1 (07:15):
So yah, Yeah, we can't wait to have you back
in New Zealand. It's happening next year twenty twenty five,
the Summer Concert Tour. It's going to be in Queenstown,
Corimandel and Topor. You can get all the details at
Greenstone Entertainment Dot Cod Nzi cultures or ice House, but
Wrunger everclear, It's going to be incredible, So great to
catch up with you always love doing it.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
Jimmy, come and celebrate our fiftieth birthday. All the best,
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