Stephen Cummings – Writes And Speaks

Stephen Cummings is a Melbourne treasure. He’s notoriously difficult, paranoid and eccentric – and that’s just how he describes himself. He’s also the proud owner of one of the deepest and best catalogues of Australian contemporary pop/rock songs in existence (try arguing with the Sports albums and fifteen, yes, fifteen, solo albums). He’s an engaging live performer, an author of fine fiction, a willing collaborator and a snappy dresser. And to think he may have been lost to us if he hadn’t written the “I Feel Better Now” jingle for Medibank.

 

Stephen Cummings has recently released a wonderful memoir entitled Will It Be Funny Tomorrow, Billy, a delightfully bitter, self deprecating, egocentric, funny, joyous, melancholy and highly selective meander through his life and times. (and those of a few other who have crossed his path)

 

HeyHeyMyMy interrupted him from selecting a tie to wear at a gig at a football match long enough to have the following conversation about his book and issues arising.

 

HHMM : Let me congratulate you on the book – I bought it with my own money, I read it and I enjoyed it.

 

SC : I gave it my best shot. It amused me, I tried to keep it reasonably honest and amusing and things like that….

HHMM : What was the process of writing it? Was it written from beginning to end as one narrative or did you take the individual anecdotes and riff around them?

 

SC : I don’t really have the concentration to do anything too long. Originally I wrote a list of eighteen things that came to mind to write as chapters and then I did them one by one. I figured each one would be between three and five thousand words and that would add up and be enough for a book. I thought that would make it more interesting than a normal rock book. I’ve thought of thousands of things since that I could have written about and maybe I will but I doubt it.

So it was actually really easy – no, not ‘really easy’, shut up Stephen! But it was easier  than writing a novel that’s for sure. I knew what happened and I just tried to keep it light and breezy. I didn’t really have to make anything up, just exaggerate a bit with my tongue in my cheek.

 

HHMM : There has been comments about the book being ‘disarmingly honest’ and people are saying that like its some kind of achievement. But to me I couldn’t see the point of writing a memoir and it not being honest.

 

SC: They say that because people are not used to a writer painting a bad picture of themselves. I read a few before I started because I don’t really read a lot of ‘rock’ books and I found people are less than realistic about their lives. Renee Geyer and Chrissie Amphlett come to mind. Perhaps Barnesy made some stuff up to sound more interesting.

 

HHMM: How do you choose which anecdotes to include and which to leave out?

 

SC: It gave me a chance to write about other things. I wrote about Nick Cave. I wrote about other musical things that interested me like the sudden rise of 10000 girl singers. It was mainly just things that interested me at the time mixed with stories from my life thusfar.

HHMM: I like the way that worked sometimes. For example I enjoyed the juxtaposition of a chapter about Nick Cave and a chapter about Melissa Tzautz.

 

(NB : the chapter about the 90’s soapie starlet turned pop singer and Cummings strange interlude writing a song for her at the request of her erstwhile manager Richard Wilkins is hilarious and slightly disturbing).

 

SC: That was a very funny time. She’s had a very interesting life – well not an interesting life – but she’s been through the mill so to speak. She was so naïve but you just knew that tragedy was around the corner for this girl. That whole thing was pretty bizarre and hilarious and seeing Richard work at close range was fabulous. I actually found the master tape recently. I might give it to Joy FM. It’s quite a good song.

 

Cummings is playing some concerts soon where he takes a chapter from the book and turns it into a concert piece, mixing  readings from the book with pertinent songs.

HHMM: How do you then take a chapter from the book and then re-adapt it for a live show?

 

SC: It’s the chapter that has Billy Joel and myself and Michael Gudinski in it and in that seventy minutes I do ten little monologues from that and associated songs from my career. It’s a different thing to do.

 

HHMM: I read on your blog today that your current recording project would be your last. Surely that cant be true, given that on the last page of the book you state “I intend to put out as many albums as I can before I retire or die”

 

SC: Oh, I fixed that today. My partner said it was a really cheap trick saying that so I walked home and cut that bit out of the blog and replaced it with four or five more album names that I made up.

 

HHMM: What would make you seriously think about giving it away?

 

SC: This year has been a big year for me in a lot of ways. When the book came out my mother died really unexpectedly. She suddenly got sick and within six or seven days she was dead. I found that it put quite a dent in my life and I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do and it made me evaluate everything really. I’m sure that’s quite normal though.

 

HHMM : What is it about the group of artists like yourself and Joe Camilleri, Ross Wilson, James Reyne, Richard Clapton, Steve Kilbey etc that has allowed you all to maintain the desire to persist?

 

SC: It’s weird isn’t it? I guess it’s because we were lucky enough to be around at a time when people liked to hear songs that had just been written and go out to clubs and give things a go. We all got reasonable at it at that time and its let us continue. The whole thing has changed now. It seems like these days music is something that people do for a short while and then drop back to a real life.

But we are not that many when you consider how many did it really. But I don’t think you’ll get that thing again. Its that thing of people’s attention spans being shorter. Even though we’ve all been able to keep going its been pretty hard sometimes. We’ve all had our ups and downs.

 

HHMM: You appear to have embraced the new forms of promotion and distribution though.

 

SC: it can be good and it does work, but I cant help but think that someone’s going to have to pay somewhere along the line. I’ve largely stopped writing blogs now because it occurred to me that I was just giving out free entertainment.

 

HHMM: When you look at it, with the Sports and fifteen or so solo albums you probably have as substantial a body of recorded output as just about anyone in Australia. Do you look at this situation with pride or is it all about the next song?

 

SC: I would have said it was about the next song, but as I said there has been a change in me this year. I’ve done a lot of expressing. There’s about twenty albums and three books and they’ve all been OK. That’s a lot of stuff. Not that many acts get better and better but I think I’ve kept a pretty high standard. I didn’t play the Sports songs for about twenty years and its been really good to get them back in my life. Now I want to do some more songs of mine that I have never really done.

HHMM: Do you think you could have had the same career in any other city?

 

SC: I was stupid. I could have gone to America and pursued a more backroom career as a songwriter, But I just didn’t like America. I like American music and films and all that kind of thing but I just don’t like the country. Too much guns and god for me.

But in Australia, I think of myself as a Melbournian, not an Australian. I’m a “Melbourne act”. That means more to me than saying I’m an Australian. But one of my pet hates is people saying they “gotta get overseas” and doing it because they feel like they need to do that for ‘approval’. That’s really juvenile.

 

HHMM: Would it be fair to say that you still embrace the self description in the book – “a pop singer with hang-ups”

 

SC: Yeak, that’s perfectly me. That’s got me in one. A pop singer with hang-ups, That’s me.

The Saints Play (I’m) Stranded

The Don’t Look Back concert series is treat. The idea is that bands play, in their entirety, albums that made them great. The concept is almost the antitheses of the way ‘the kids’ approach music these days – one downloadable track at a time.

Until quite recently the album was the whole point – a collection of songs where the whole was intended to be greater than the sum of its parts, a work of art where track sequence meant something, where the concept of a ‘shuffle’ was repugnant.

Oh well.

In 2009 Don’t Look Back brings us The Saints playing (I’m) Stranded and X playing At Home With You.

The press release provides good reasons why.

“Released in April 1977, The Saints (I’m) Stranded regularly appears in any poll nominating Australia’s greatest ever albums. In recent times this included; Melbourne newspaper The Age based on a survey of what’s been described as ‘Melbourne’s music and journalistic elite’ (now that’s a frightening concept in itself), a poll of the Australian music industry by AIR (Australian Independent Record Industry) and Australian on-line fanzine Mess & Noise. But it’s not just here in Australia that the plaudits for this groundbreaking album have appeared. UK fashion bible GQ nominated (I’m) Stranded as the no.3 Australian album of all time behind AC/DC’s Back in Black and the Bee Gee’s Saturday Night Fever. Now there’s some good company…

In addition to the regular poll positions, (I’m) Stranded was also the first album included in new Australian TV and DVD series ‘Great Australian Albums’ appearing alongside Crowded House, Silverchair and The Triffids. Not bad for an album that on release was as good as ignored, received no commercial radio play and did not chart. Further proof that great art is often initially misunderstood only to be fully appreciated by later generations.

To celebrate this fact – along with their inclusion in the inaugural Australian All Tomorrow’s Parties Festival series – The Saints (including original members Chris Bailey, Ed Kuepper and Ivor Hay as well as long time Saint Archie Larizza on bass) have graciously agreed to recreate the album (all 32 minutes of white noise, punk snarl and songwriting smarts) in its entirety – via two very special Don’t Look Back performances.

The first, will take place at Melbourne’s salubrious Forum Theatre (a long way from The Saints original breading ground of Brisbane’s, Petrie Terrace) and will also feature the legendary X (not to be confused with the lesser American band of the same name) performing their classic second album ‘At Home With You’. Released in September 1985, ‘At Home With You’ followed X’s 1980 debut X-Aspirations (recorded with producer Lobby Loyde in just 5 hours) and featured singer/guitarist Steve Lucas, bassist Ian Rilen and (then) new drummer Cathy Green and featured the timeless ‘Half Way Round the World’ and also ‘Degenerate Boy’ – later covered with much success by Adelaide power trio The Mark of Cain. Original performers Steve Lucas and Cathy Green will reunite to present the album in its entirety and will also feature fellow album performers The Horns of Contempt (ex-Hunters & Collectors) with new bassist Kim Volkman standing in for the departed Ian Rilen.

The second show sees The Saints returning home to the scene of the crime – Brisbane – appearing as special guests of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds at their Brisbane Riverstage show, rounding out a fantastic bill that already boasts Spiritualized, Robert Forster, The Necks and James ‘Blood’ Ulmer. If you live anywhere near Brisbane or within some hours drive you would be mad to miss this.

Alongside an appearance by Dirty Three performing their fourth album Ocean Songs in its entirety, The Saints and X complete a fantastic second season of Don’t Look Back.

Friday 9th January: Dirty Three perform ‘Ocean Songs’ – All Tomorrow’s Parties, Mt.Buller Ski Resort Tickets on sale now from http://atpfestival.oztix.com.au/, www.ticketmaster.com.au; all ticketmaster outlets or via phone: 136 100

Wednesday 14th January: The Saints perform (I’m) Stranded with special guests X performing ‘At Home With You @ The Forum, Melbourne. Tickets on sale Monday 8th December from http://atpfestival.oztix.com.au/, www.ticketek.com.au or phone 132 849

Thursday 15th January: The Saints perform (I’m) Stranded as guests to Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds @ Brisbane, Riverstage, also featuring Spiritualized, Robert Forster, The Necks and James ‘Blood’ Ulmer. Tickets on sale now from www.ticketmaster.com.au; all ticketmaster outlets or via phone: 136 100.