I Am the Voice Left from Drinking

By James Freud

Excessive, outrageous, hilarious - the tell-all bio from one of the princes of 80s pop. I Am the Voice Left from Drinking is the no-holds-barred, brutally honest journey of an artist who made it from the suburbs to the top of the pop music charts, graced the covers of every music mag, hosted tV shows, lived the rock'n'roll dream and is still alive (barely) to talk about it. After forming his first band as a teenager with Sean Kelly, James Freud found big fame a few years later when they teamed up again in the Models, one of the most memorable Australian bands of the 1980s. For the best part of ten years James toured the world, hanging out with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Robert Mapplethorpe, Elvis Costello and Lady Di, all the while cranking out hits such as 'I Hear Motion', 'Barbados' and 'Out of Mind, Out of Sight'. this is a who's who of the entertainment industry; a funny, shocking tale of a man who has seen a lot and wants to tell his story. James is living proof that there is life after rock, that not every former music icon ends up in rehab or the funny farm, and that if they're actually still alive they've usually got some pretty interesting things to say!
Excessive, outrageous, hilarious - the tell-all bio from one of the princes of 80s pop. I Am the Voice Left from Drinking is the no-holds-barred, brutally honest journey of an artist who made it from the suburbs to the top of the pop music charts, graced the covers of every music mag, hosted tV shows, lived the rock'n'roll dream and is still alive (barely) to talk about it. After forming his first band as a teenager with Sean Kelly, James Freud found big fame a few years later when they teamed up again in the Models, one of the most memorable Australian bands of the 1980s. For the best part of ten years James toured the world, hanging out with the likes of Kylie Minogue, Robert Mapplethorpe, Elvis Costello and Lady Di, all the while cranking out hits such as 'I Hear Motion', 'Barbados' and 'Out of Mind, Out of Sight'. this is a who's who of the entertainment industry; a funny, shocking tale of a man who has seen a lot and wants to tell his story. James is living proof that there is life after rock, that not every former music icon ends up in rehab or the funny farm, and that if they're actually still alive they've usually got some pretty interesting things to say!

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Australia
• Release date: Jan 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9780730493372

James Freud

Born in 1959 in Melbourne, James Freud was a well-known musician, TV and film producer, and writer. After struggling with - and losing - his battle with alcoholism, James passed away in November 2010 a week after The Models were accepted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.

Book preview

CHAPTER ONE

‘We’re putting the band back together!’

I answered the phone one day in September 2000 to hear those words dreaded by anyone who’s spent most of their life in a rock group.

‘We’re putting the band back together!’

‘Excuse me?’ I said, hoping it was a wrong number.

‘Come on, it’s only six shows, we’ll all have a bit of fun and make great money.’

Woo hoo.

It was a Tuesday morning. I poured my third glass of wine and sat down to weigh up the pros and cons. Thoughts were racing around my mind like, ‘I don’t want to be in a band any more; I have a family; I compose music for TV commercials; I direct short films; music videos and write screenplays … oh and one other thing … I hate the music industry!’

When the Models broke up in 1988, we were heavily in debt. The publishing royalties we had saved went towards paying off some of our creditors, but we still owed around $75 000 in Australia and $250 000 in the US. In the end we did a farewell tour and walked away with nothing … even Stevens. What went wrong? I thought we were a successful band. Where were the houses and blue-chip stocks? Where was my boat and holiday house in Waikiki?

It was so ironic. Our manager, Chris Murphy, used to say to us, ‘If I ever saw any of you sitting at a bus stop with no money, it would break my heart.’

My experiences in the music business over the previous 20- odd years had left a bad taste in my mouth and I’d vowed I’d never set foot on a stage again.

That morning, after consuming two bottles of Chardonnay, I made up my mind. ‘I walked out of this band with nothing,’ I figured, ‘they owe me something, goddamn it! I’ll do it. Besides, it’ll be great to get back on the road and play with the guys again …’ How many times do you have to stick your hand in a fire before you realise that you get burnt?

Various faxes and e-mails were sent back and forward. The figures looked good and, after all, who was I to question the ‘professionals’ of the music industry?

Rehearsals were scheduled in Sydney, so I packed my bags, kissed my family goodbye and ran off to join the circus … again.

We spent two weeks doing every bit of media we could get our hands on—from The Panel to Good Morning Australia with Bert Newton, and all the music rags. It was like back to the future, coming face to face again with the same old critics who were the pimply-faced outcasts at school with big record collections. To quote ex-AFL footballer and all-round wit Sam Newman, ‘Critics are like eunuchs in a harem, every night they get to watch how it’s done but will never be able to do it themselves.’ I was reminded of all the bottom-dwellers I’d come across in the music industry who spend their lives hanging around famous people, seemingly in the hope that a little bit of the limelight will shine on them. It’s like ecology … a delicate balance.

I do not include the true lovers of music who have studied the craft of journalism in this category, though—let’s not forget great writers such as PJ O’Rourke, Christie Eliezer, Stuart Coupe and Hunter S Thompson, to name but a few. Ahh, that does feel better. Nothing like a bit of a bitch to brighten up the day. Now, back to the reality of the Australian music biz. The Models reformation tour …

I believe we booked the suite …

After a horror flight in 1984, I developed a phobia that required me to take two or three Serapax and drink five double vodka and tonics to even get on a plane, much less let them hurl it through the sky at 800 kilometres per hour. So on this gorgeous November Sunday morning, I swallowed my pills and washed them down with a bottle of wine on the way to the airport. The problem with mixing pills and alcohol is that you forget what you did five minutes ago, so when I arrived at Tullamarine airport, I took two more pills and drank a few Irish whiskies before staggering onto the plane to Sydney. ‘The Models Tour 2000’ had begun.

We checked into some crappy hotel in Kings Cross that looked as if it hadn’t had any money spent on maintenance in the last ten years (especially the lifts—I spent most of my time there walking up and down the stairs for fear of getting stuck between floors). My old friend Sean Kelly pointed me straight to my room so I could sleep off the pills before the afternoon’s photo shoot (I had intended to go on a diet a month ago). The schedule was obviously planned by someone who hadn’t worked with me before. Photos on the same day as one of my flights? I mean, we were struggling as it was to look half presentable, with wrinkles, cellulite, baldness (not me) and old-timer’s disease, let alone a pilled-out, half-pissed bass player.

After a couple of hours’ sleep, I awoke to a vision of singer Wendy Matthews standing over me, saying, ‘You look fantastic!’ That girl is so kind, or she really needs her eyes tested (I think the former would be the case). I threw down a few vodkas and some champagne, then we were taken to the Vaucluse lighthouse for the usual mug shots.

‘That’s great! Now one of you put your arm on his shoulder! Lose the sunnies for a few! Look over here! Look out to sea! I love it! These are gonna look great!’

Photos done, we stopped by the nearby Watsons Bay Hotel for a few pre-tour drinks—but it’s just not rock‘n’roll when your drummer’s five-year-old daughter keeps lifting up your shirt to expose your protruding gut. It was time to hit the town and after dropping Barton’s wife and daughter at home, the Bourbon and Beefsteak, the famed bar/restaurant in the centre of the Cross, seemed like a good idea because it was close to the hotel. In our defence, Sean and I had lived in Melbourne for so long that we didn’t know the happening place to go (not that such a place would necessarily have let us in).

Naturally, we got pissed and talked about the old days and how much of a gas these shows would be. Roger Mason, the keyboard player, who lives in the NSW central coast town of Gosford, had a light beer and left early. He owns a Jaguar XJ something; I think it impresses chicks but it just made us jealous. Meanwhile, Barton Price, Sean and I prepared ourselves for the arduous six shows ahead. I mean, you don’t just go out and run a marathon without training, so we hit the beer, red wine, scotch and more vodka. I even had my first joint in ten years or so that night. At about 4 am we fell into bed, ready for the first rehearsal the next day. Yeah! I think.

The next morning we met the crew, who normally worked for Spy v. Spy. Like a host of other local acts, Spy v. Spy are megastars in Brazil but can’t buy a gig in this country … Imagine if Carlos Santana or Eric Clapton had been born here, their careers would have been over 20 years ago as opposed to winning a truckload of Grammys at this stage in their lives.

But I digress, it was time for the Models to plug in and rehearse, minus Roger, who was doing the soundtrack for some Kiwi movie. We stumbled through half-a-dozen tunes, gave up and went to the pub.

‘It’ll be fine on the night,’ said Sean.

‘Yeah. We’ll jam a bit and stretch it out,’ I concurred.

‘Hey, I can make nine songs last for an hour and a half in my other band,’ Sean added.

‘Besides, we’ve still got three whole days of rehearsal left,’ piped up Barton.

I kept trying to find the time tunnel I fell out of but it seemed to have vaporised. While we drank more beers, we stared at our instruments.

‘Wow! Look at the time! It’s nine o’clock already, let’s get the hell out of here,’ the voice of reason said. I think it was me. Sean and I agreed an early night was in order, so we’d be really together for the next day.

On the way back to our hotel, we drove past the Sebel Townhouse in Elizabeth Bay. The Sebel Bar, the Ricky May Bar, the signed celebrity photos on the walls. We reminisced. ‘Remember the maids who refused to clean one of the rooms during that infamous tour because the telephone had been shoved up someone’s arse?’ ‘Remember the dried mouse’s head we nearly ate from the bowl of mixed nuts?’

I kid you not—ten years ago we were celebrating my wife Sally’s birthday at the Sebel with Lian Lunson, the budding actress who lived in our block. Lian picked up what looked like a giant brazil nut and kept chatting away with this thing in her hand, about to put it in her mouth. Suddenly Sally noticed it wasn’t a nut but a mummified mouse head. After Lian finally stopped screaming, the hotel manager showered us with free bottles of French champagne. The whole affair ended when Lian took the Sebel to court and got a large enough payout to finance her move to Los Angeles. I loved that bar.

The Sebel was a real stalwart: the who’s who of the entertainment industry had always stayed there and that night was the last night before it was knocked down to be turned into private apartments.

‘Okay,’ said Sean, ‘one drink and that’s it.’

An hour later I had assumed the position—kneeling in a pool of urine in the toilets, snorting coke off a porcelain lid on which some guy with hepatitis A had probably just had his fat arse firmly jammed. I had forgotten how glamorous show business really is.

We spent the night trying to avoid the same old familiar faces, telling everyone how excited we were about the upcoming tour.

It was 5 am when I thought, ‘I wonder what’s happening on ER tonight.’ I wandered back to the hotel for a nine o’clock pick-up, completely unaware that Sean was only about 20 metres behind me.

Roger turned up for practice looking like a picture of health. In one hand was a litre of water and in the other was an alfalfa and carrot sandwich. If it had been the sixth grade he would have brought an apple for the teacher and had the crap beaten out of him at playtime, which did cross my mind considering how hideous I was feeling. After a brief nap in the corner, I dragged myself up off the sticky rehearsal room carpet, popped the cork on a bottle of cheap champers and dropped a Serapax. It’s the best cure I know for a hangover, and besides, if you’re going to do this rock thing, you might as well go all the way. Sean was rolling a joint, while Barton, who has been tuning his drums since I first met him, smashed away at his skins and cymbals. Why do they have to be so loud?

The week of rehearsals was a blur; nobody knew the arrangements and Roger, the keyboard player, decided to play guitar instead. He thought it would give us a fresh sound. He is a brilliant keyboard player but when he plays guitar he has to concentrate so hard that he sticks his tongue out and pulls weird, creepy faces. Even a little bit of piano would have been nice.

Models! You’re on in five minutes

So we did our six shows. We had great crowds, but we bombed in Newcastle and some place on the NSW south coast, the name of which has been permanently erased from my mind. The figures bandied about at the start of the tour were reliant on good crowds at every show … so there went the profit.

Nothing had changed. Barton spilt meat pie and coffee all over the brand-new hire car within minutes of picking it up, the taped vocals stuffed up every night, oh, and one of the sound guys, with whom I’d never worked before, dropped acid before our second gig. The sound was so bad that the band had to leave the stage three times during the show; it was truly the height of professionalism. By the third time I’d had enough. I ran through the audience, dived on the guy and started choking him. While I had him by the neck I noticed that all the faders on the mixer were off.

‘What the hell is going on?’ I yelled into his contorted face.

‘I’m waiting for something to happen, man. I’m just not getting the right vibes.’

Then the bouncers pulled me off and threw him and his bag onto the street—he apparently walked all the way back to the city from Parramatta. Fortunately, a member of the Screaming Jets was in the crowd and after a bit of persuading, he agreed to mix the rest of the show. We never did see that sound guy again …

Though there was the occasional moment of brilliance and performing with the guys was as exciting as it had ever been, I continued to guzzle booze and drop pills. I wasn’t really enjoying living within the mind and body of James Freud at the time and the tour was only serving to compound my problems. I knew my drinking was out of control, and that I had become an alcoholic, but I had been suffering from a panic disorder for 15 years and just wasn’t coping. I was self-medicating to deal with my phobias, which were only being fuelled by more alcohol. It’s a cliché, but I was on a carousel of self-destruction and I didn’t know how to get off. What I did know was that I needed help.

When Andrew Duffield, our ex-keyboard player who had left the band after the recording of ‘Barbados’, got up with us at the Mercury Lounge in Melbourne, the band really started to sound amazing, so he decided to do the rest of the gigs. The last show was at Melbourne’s Hallam Hotel. I don’t remember much about it, except for the fact that some guy and his stripper wife came backstage. He made her take off her top and insisted that the whole band feel how fantastic her tits were. You meet a lot of freaks in bandrooms—they either want to give you drugs, have you sleep with their girlfriends, kill you for sleeping with their girlfriends, or play you some crap song they’ve written that should be on your next album.

On the way home Sean and I had a huge fight about God knows what, so I got out of the car and walked the last 10 kilometres home, drinking VB and staggering all over the footpath. ‘I will never step onto a stage with that guy again,’ I told myself as I made my way through the streets of Caulfield.

But we made up the next day and collected our big cheque for the tour. After expenses, we made a grand total of $1500 each. Gee, what to do with all this money. I had never wanted us to be one of those bands who re-formed about ten years too late, but as much as the inner-city shows were hugely successful, I couldn’t help wondering whether it was all worth it.

Saturday 24 March 2001

‘Come on, James,’ said Barton at the end of the line. ‘It’s only three shows in Sydney, we’ll all walk away with a couple of grand for two nights’ work. One show on the Friday and two on Saturday, how hard can that be?’

Should we start with the fact that we only made about $1500 each (a fraction of what we were promised) for the previous six shows, which, counting all the press and rehearsals, took six weeks. That works out to be $250 per week. Before tax!

After a bit of cajoling I agreed, but I had a bad feeling about it. Roger had changed every one of his advance-purchase-fare flights on the previous tour at an extra cost of a couple of hundred bucks a shot. Then he’d taken an advance on these three extra gigs, but refused to do the shows or give back the money. Terrific start.

We flew up to Sydney on the morning of Friday 23 March. I’d decided to stay with my friends John Fletcher and his partner, Faye Consadine, thinking I’d give the dodgy Kings Cross hotel a big miss this time. We did the first show, which was apparently not that great due to the fact that I’d gone out for a very long lunch with Fletch after the flight. For some reason, I was feeling inordinately tired and weak and kept needing to lie down. I knew the downward spiral had me in its grip, but I thought it was just because I needed more medication of some sort. I awoke on the Saturday morning feeling like death and joined Faye in some medicinal Stoli and freshly squeezed orange juice for breakfast … plenty of vitamin C. Then onto lunch with my Sydney friends Ralph and Kris, before a few champagnes at Martin Plaza’s place.

Barton picked me up for the sound check at four. Usually my hangover would have been gone by then, but I guessed it was just one of those stubborn bastards. I napped in the car on the way to the venue, trying to feel better. But nothing was helping. I figured maybe another drink would help.

While Barton was doing a drum check, I was overcome by an unbelievable urge to throw up. I hadn’t done that for 15 years or so! The next thing I knew, I was hanging on to the sides of a toilet cubicle. I projectile-vomited a thick red liquid all over the walls while fading in and out of consciousness. In the distance, I could hear the sounds of Pat Pickett (the legend—I’ll tell you about him later), checking the monitors. ‘One! one! … two! two!’

There was red everywhere. An overriding thought was, ‘I’m sure I had white wine with lunch.’ I staggered from the toilets unnoticed, and collapsed on a bench at the back of the room. Sleep came easily and was a welcome relief from the familiar smell of stale beer on sticky carpet. Pat knew something was wrong and kept checking on me. He eventually helped me outside to the car and told Shane, our tour manager, he should take me straight to St Vincent’s Hospital down the road. I sat in the front seat and started to feel a little better. ‘I think I’ll be alright,’ I said.

So we headed north to the Avalon RSL. I began feeling nauseous and very weak again. Halfway across the Harbour Bridge, I stuck my head out the window and vomited all over the side of the car. I fell back into the seat covered in blood. I got out my mobile and called my friend John Clifforth, who used to be the singer in Deckchairs Overboard. He’s now a doctor who writes songs for Renée Geyer. He said to get to a hospital as quickly as possible. The problem was, after all those years of touring you inherit the ‘show must go on’ mentality. You never cancel a gig.

There was a surreal chaos in the car, with mobile phones ringing back and forth to Sally, and Barton’s wife, Frances, who’s a nurse.

‘I think I can do the first gig, then I’ll go to hospital,’ I said.

But when we stopped at a set of lights, I freaked out. I stumbled out of the car and ran until I collapsed on the footpath. Shane must have pulled over and everyone got out of the car. This was serious. I looked up and beheld a vision. Standing over me was a nurse dressed in white. Then I noticed her moustache; it was a male nurse who was on his way home from work. I had about half an hour to live and he could see it. ‘What’s going on here?’ he asked.

Sean was in shock and didn’t realise the guy was a nurse. ‘Why don’t you fuck off and mind your own business,’ he told him.

‘This guy’s really sick,’ the nurse said, ignoring Sean. He told the tour manager that there was a hospital at the next turn-off. ‘Go straight there!’ the nurse insisted.

I was still convinced that maybe I could make it through the first gig and see a doctor later (men will do anything to avoid going to hospital), but I was throwing up blood at such a rate that I slipped into a state of delirium. Shane missed the turn-off and decided to continue on to the next hospital. I passed out for a bit.

After a further 10 kilometres, we reached Mona Vale Hospital. They rushed me into emergency, where I was still vomiting blood which looked like it had eyeballs in it. ‘I’m blind! I just threw up my eyeballs!’ I felt around for a bit. ‘Phew, they’re still there.’ Later I remembered I’d had oysters for lunch.

I could hear the band talking: the venue was just down the road, they were saying, and they only had to do a half-hour set. If the Models didn’t show we’d probably have our arses sued, so under duress they decided to do the first show with a fill-in bass player and see how I was going afterwards. Meanwhile, John and Faye had arrived after receiving a call from Sally. John must have driven at 200 kilometres per hour to get there so fast, and though he’s a big, tough, ex-South Sydney footy player and Vietnam vet, he left Frances, who had also rushed to the scene, to hold the basin full of freshly heaved blood under my chin while he did his best not to gag. As luck would have it, Dr Fevre, one of the country’s leading gastroenterologists, was doing his rounds at Mona Vale and after one look, he admitted me to the intensive care unit.

Sally was called and told to be on the first plane. I’d lost 53 per cent of my total blood volume and unless the bleeding could be arrested, I would die. The nurses gave me a shot to stop me puking and stuck a couple of IV drips into my arm. Then they hooked up the plasma and followed it with a huge dose of Valium to stop me from fitting. A strange peace overcame me as they left me alone with my thoughts.

I was standing upon the wreckage of my youth; I probably wouldn’t make it through the night and as I lay there, I couldn’t help but wonder, ‘How did I end up like this?’

‘I was really taken by surprise one night when James revealed to me that the first song he ever performed live was a Hush song called Walking. One can only imagine how it sounded.’

Les Gock, Hush

CHAPTER TWO

Hello world!

At the age of 17 I ran away from home. It was 1976. My mother had divorced my father and married this Mr Suave from across the road, who, apart from having a sincere love of cravats and driving a brand-new Charger, turned out to be a violent bastard. He gave my mother black eyes—she was admitted to Box Hill Hospital on a couple of occasions—and he beat me unconscious one night for trying to defend her.

My relationship with my father, Joe, had become distant through some bad publicity he’d been dished within the family. Unfortunately, I didn’t realise how cool he really was at the time. He had been the doorman at the Southern Cross Hotel in Melbourne since it opened. It was the place to stay and he had proudly held the door open for the Beatles, Gary Glitter, Sammy Davis Jr, the Stones, Judy Garland, you name it. All the while, the sly dog was running a callgirl racket.

He’d get free tickets to shows and took me to see my first concert at Festival Hall when I was eight. Johnny Cash was playing and when the man in black walked on and said, ‘Hi, I’m Johnny Cash,’ then broke into ‘I Walk the Line’, I was sold.

He took me to see the Monkees about a year later and my future was set in stone. I wish I’d known him better before he died but, sadly, it was one of those classic cases of never saying ‘I love you’ to each other until it was too late.

Dad was an odd fish. He used to mow the lawn in his suit and came from a family of staunch IRA sympathisers. He left Belfast in the ‘50s and joined the RAF after his brother was sentenced to 20 years for picking up an arms shipment at a cemetery. Being the next in line, my father was supposed to fill his brother’s place, but opted for the bright lights of London instead. There, he met my mother, Hannah, an Irish girl from County Cork.

Dad always carried the world’s biggest comb in his back pocket, which is probably where I inherited the hair vanity thing. The first time I met Sean Kelly was when we were 13, at St Thomas Moore College in Nunawading. He was the new kid at school and was seated next to me, so I turned to him and said, ‘How does my hair look?’ From that moment began an incredible journey that neither of us could have ever imagined, but somehow knew was