Jimmy: (on how he hopes to be singing when he‘s 75) Um, I should be really, really good by then. Um, you know, I...I've got a unique instrument. You wouldn't know from now because, literally, I've got the worst flu, but it's very, very rare I lose my voice. I, um, remember a couple of years back I was doing some TV shit like 'Hey Hey It's Saturday' and they had some vocal teacher out from America - this famous vocal teacher who'd taught all sorts of people. And, um, she came in and I was warming up. And my warm-up is...sort of peels the paint off walls. Um, you know, and I was warming up and she burst into my dressing room and said, "That's how a rock 'n' roll singer should warm up." You know, "That's what you're gonna do, that's how you..." And I've had these... And so, like, I thought, "Maybe I'm doing the right thing after all." I'd lost my voice one time, a long, long time ago, with the flu. And it was a big show I had to cancel, so we had to go for insurance. And they put an optical fibre camera down the back of my nose and had me singing and talking. And they said to me... They said that when I sing, I don't use my vocal cords. You have your two main vocal cords like this, and then around them you have these false cords. And apparently, when I sing... This guy said I was one of about half a dozen people he's ever seen in the world who have taught themselves to sing like this. And so I get to the point where I can't speak because I use my vocal cords to speak, but I can still sing. So, um, you know, I just don't lose my voice. It's like a... My voice is like a Mack truck. It's hard to start and then you can't stop it.
Andrew Denton: As you said, you had a family young. You had four kids and you would tour with them. How did you balance sort of going out and trashing yourself, which you did pretty regularly, and being a dad. Jimmy: Well, it was difficult, you know. I mean, for a long, long time I'd sort of...you know, I'd sort of trash myself on tour and then...and then we'd do...we'd take really great holidays. We'd go away and I'd sort of be balanced and healthy and, I'd...you know, and do all that. Or I'd go back...you know, I had a great place in Bowral. And I'd go away and do shows and come back to Bowral, and it was like this sanctuary where I'd be healthy and happy and all that sort of stuff. But unfortunately, as with most addictions and most, you know...alcoholics, it sort of...those gaps tended to get smaller and smaller and smaller until it became just a big wash and I was sort of trashed the whole time. And I think... And that sort of happened more in the last sort of...like five years ago. And that was probably the hardest time for the family. I think earlier on, because, you know, there was so much love anyway for the kids and so much, you know... Jane's such a great mother. It's a...we've got a...it's an extended family, you know? Jane's family are very, very close and very warm. The kids were always so loved, really, you know, a lot, and it wasn't till they got older, they seen the damage I was doing to myself, when they started to freak out. And...and at that point, it was sort of...you know, it started to become pretty obvious to me because, you know, I was sort of, you know...fairly well full-on all the time. And it was... I had to make a choice of change or dying. And for me, I've got the constitution of a horse and I just figured that, you know, if I did keep going, I would die and it wouldn't be a very attractive thing, you know?
Jimmy: (on his ego while with Cold Chisel) I'm sure there was times I got carried away with it, but you know, I mean, that band was particularly good at keeping our feet on the ground. The band would jump on you first and foremost if I got too uppity. The other thing was that, you know, midway through Cold Chisel I started a family. And there's nothing like having a family to keep your feet on the ground. I mean, you can be a big rock star and all that sort of stuff, you know, have screaming fans, but you go home and you've gotta change shitty nappies, you know? It's pretty grounding, you know?
Jimmy: (on emigrating to Australia) My dad...you know, my dad was featherweight champion of Britain, and sort of when he finished... He was an amateur boxer. He didn't want to go professional because it was too corrupt and, you know, he wouldn't take dives and stuff. So when his career finished, it was sort of a big let-down for him. So he was this big sort of star in Scotland and, you know, after he finished boxing, it was sort of...we had to leave, you know? We had to start a new life.
Jimmy: (on his father‘s drinking) I think my dad always drank, really - he just trained hard when he was a boxer. You know, coming from Glasgow, it was that working-class Glasgow thing. Alcohol was pretty sort of prominent in the lifestyle, and it obviously affected lots of families. You know, there was lots of violence, lots of, you know... My mum and dad divorced pretty early in the piece. You know, it was a pretty horrific sort of...you know... When you look back at it, it was a pretty horrific childhood. At the time, we thought it was OK, you know? And we survived, you know? But it certainly had a lot of impact on all of us. You know, I mean, the ongoing effects are still being felt now.
Jimmy: (on his step-father) He was a bit of a saint. You know, he was great. I think at one stage he was gonna become a priest, and then he met my mum... My mum was actually sharing a house with his cousins, and they worked in a psychiatric ward together, which set them up well for looking after us. And my mum was at dinner one night and he was there, and she was saying how she had to... Because my dad had fallen apart since my mum left, and we were all with my dad, and it was pretty dire stuff... You know, I think the...people were gonna take us off our parents and put us into homes and stuff. And my mum had been given sort of an ultimatum that she had to be sort of settled and have a home before she could get us. So she had, like, six months to get this house together - I mean, buying a house and be settled. So she had to find a fella, and Reg Barnes just put his hand up and said, "Oh, yeah. I'll marry you." And he hardly knew her. He said, "I'll marry you. I don't want your kids going into homes." So one minute this guys gonna be a priest and he's a teetotaller, and next minute he's got six juvenile delinquents, you know, all in rock bands, you know, moving into his house, you know? It was like... He was a great bloke.
Jimmy: It's the best way to get people to know what you're about, especially if you're a young band. Anyone who still thinks our live scene is bad only needs to go overseas to see how good it is here. It's a good thing to keep it going, keep it moving.
Jimmy: (on his karaoke DVD) I put it together for fun, basically. I’ve spent a lot of time in karaoke bars and I’ve heard people singing my songs with really crappy backing tracks, so I decided to let them use the real thing! The perfect way to have fun with it was to go to Toni (Pearen) at Australia’s Funniest Home Videos and get a contest going so that people could send their videos in.
Jimmy has been married to Jane Mahoney since 1983. They have four children together.
Jimmy is the Global Ambassador for ‘Wildlife Warriors’, which was established by the late Steve Irwin, and is dedicated to saving and conserving wildlife.
Jimmy has sung lead vocals on more number one albums in Australia than any other local or international artist.
After INXS lead singer Michael Hutchence died in 1997, Jimmy performed with the band on an adhoc basis between 1999 and 2001.
Cold Chisel broke up in 1984 when they agreed they weren't playing the best of music any more, and they didn't want to rip off their fans with another album. Their final tour of Australia was the largest concert ever undertaken by an Australian band. This record still stands over 20 years later.
James’ father was a featherweight boxing champion in Glasgow, Scotland.
Jimmy’s brother is John Swan, lead singer of the band Swanee.
Prior to becoming a solo artist, in 1973 Jimmy became lead singer of the band Cold Chisel, for more than 20 years. He was aged 16 and a half at the time.
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