The Whitlams remain one of the most loved Australian rock bands ever. Beautiful songwriting, poignant lyrics and a real talent for the live performance. Frontman Tim Freedman is one of Australia’s most talented creatives and in anticipation of The Whitlams’ annual expedition across Australia, he took some time out to talk to me about the finer points of the band’s history and what he has been up to of late.
So, The Whitlams back on tour. This has a bit of a ‘because we can’ feel about it. Is that the vibe before you head out?
(Laughs) You’re starting with the curly ones there Josh, good on ya. Well, the band has fallen into the habit of going around the country once a year and not doing much else and it’s always been around about September. So we were last at these favourite rooms of ours like The Gov and The Metro, this time last year. We do it because really, it’s not that much effort on our behalf and because we need to see each other and get in the gang again for four weeks. It’s quite hilarious coming back together and watching the look on someone’s face when they actually remember a bridge! It’s a bit of a board game really. Sometimes I send parts of songs to Jak and he responds with, “Is this one of our songs?”. He can’t even remember recording some of them.
That’s not a good sign…
Oh no it’s fine, there are six albums after all. But he’ll sometimes listen to one and go, “Is that me?” So I like to pull those rarities out of the cupboard to remind them of the hard work they did for two hours one afternoon twelve years ago but have since forgotten (Chuckles). So yeah, it’s a board game really. It’s basically we come together as a family and have a good time.
You’ve mentioned before that you guys don’t get together as The Whitlams very often anymore and when you do it’s a guaranteed good time. What does that mean for this tour?
I always want to make sure that we do things well. We still get good crowds because we’ve always taken the live part of our career very seriously. In fact, I think we were better at that than recording probably and that’s why people return. So the main thing is to do it well, but the second thing is to make sure we enjoy it. You know, there’s a fine line between playing the songs well and getting appropriately loose toward the end of the hour and half. I don’t think it’d be a Whitlams show if it didn’t get a bit ragged towards the end.
A few ten minute solos then…
Hah, yeah. Playing pubs as opposed to theatres as well, it’s a completely different energy. The crowd is more involved and I look forward to doing it again!
My all-time favourite Whitlams song is an unassuming single from Little Cloud called “Beautiful As You”. I listen to it at least once every week. This is a completely selfish question but can you tell me more about where that came from?
Well it was co-written with James Cooper. He was mastering his album when I walked past at the studio one day and I heard the chorus of this song and thought, “I love that song”. So I said to him, “Look I really like that song, if I can think of some lyrics I’ll get back to you.” I was writing a lot of lyrics at the time in New York and so I put a lot of work into it there, I used my lyrics over his tune. So it’s not my tune, a bit like “Blow Up The Pokies”, to be honest. I like using other people’s tunes sometimes because I can feel more like a poet than a musician.
I actually didn’t think “Beautiful As You” worked, the way it kept going into double time on the drums on the album, so we tried to give it a breezy feel on a single; it never really connected with radio.
You spent last year on stage as Harry Nilsson of your own volition, where did the inspiration for that show come from?
I had a meeting with my agents one day and they all said, “You need to do a solo tour.” and I said, “Someone come up with an actual idea, you know?” One of the junior agents piped up and said, “You should do a Harry Nilsson show.” I couldn’t believe how right it sounded. I listened to Harry’s 17 albums and just fell in love with it. Then I read his biography and realised that it was a story with lots of tragedy and celebrity and humour. I had a ball putting it together. It was a challenging show, 75 minutes and a lot of talking and high singing.
I consider you among the greatest song writing talent this country has ever seen. Is it something that has always come naturally, or have you at times had to work hard at crafting the song you wanted?
Well, I think I always work hard in crafting songs. I was always quite pedantic, about every word. I always liked to have a theme to write about before I started writing. A lot of songs don’t know where they’re going when they start, so they get filled with quite a lot of platitudes. Or they tread water for a long time. I never like writing a verse unless it moved along the theme of the story. I suppose I had literary pretentions from the start. I always viewed songs as jigsaw puzzles that might sit in the corner for six months. Occasionally I’d write a song very quickly, like “No Aphrodisiac” – that was there in 15 minutes. But that’s very rare.
I’m sure you get asked this one a lot, and I know there was that fantastic moment at the ARIAs in ’98, but was Gough really the inspiration behind the name?
Absolutely. I was always an admirer of Gough and interested in Labor party history. Back in ’91 when I thought of it, he’d been absent from Australian for 10 years because when Hawke and Keating came in, they gave him a posting in Paris so he wasn’t getting asked to comment on them. So at that moment in time, it was like bringing back this forgotten icon. I remember people talking about it and having a good laugh. It appeared to people that someone had stolen the family’s name because there was nothing more incongruous than the real Whitlams being in a dingy little pub in Marrickville. It worked for us because Gough was so royal and respected and we were so unknown and ragged.
The clash between those ideas was why it was it was a really good band name that really helped us out at the start, because it was the kind of name that once you heard it, you never forgot it.
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THE WHITLAMS AUSTRALIAN TOUR DATES
August 30th – September 1st | Lizottes, NEWCASTLE
August 31st and September 1st are SOLD OUT
Doors from 8pm | Tickets for August 30th
September 2nd | Metro Theatre, SYDNEY
Doors from 8pm | Tickets
September 3rd | The Triffid, BRISBANE
Doors from 8pm | Tickets
September 8th | The Rosemount Hotel, PERTH
Doors from 8:30pm | Tickets
September 9th & 10th | The Gov, ADELAIDE
September 9th is SOLD OUT
Doors from 7:30pm | Tickets for September 10th
September 16th & 17th | The Corner Hotel, MELBOURNE
Doors from 7:30pm | Tickets
September 22nd – 24th | The Street Theatre, CANBERRA
September 23rd & 24th are SOLD OUT
Doors from 7:30pm | Tickets
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