Ten years ago the lead singer of Grinspoon, Phil Jamieson, made national headlines after admitting he’d hit rock bottom as an ice-addict.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Today he’s excited to be playing stay-at-home dad in between tours, and chuffed at getting his “first real job” at a motorcycle shop in Port Macquarie.
The music industry left Jamieson cynical and jaded, however he says he’s now genuinely excited to be recording new music and touring the country as a solo artist.
“My Grinspoon career was really successful and was f***ing awesome, but on the other side it became [like a job] and that wasn’t really the aim of that … a lot of it was all about money,” he said.
“When we went on hiatus I started making music again with my daughters and getting back to the reason I liked music to begin with.
“I just wanted to get back to piano and writing songs about making spaghetti, where I didn’t have to talk about it on the radio, or had to be in a video-clip with my hair a certain way.”.
On Easter Saturday he’ll play an acoustic set with some friends on stage at Waves in Towradgi, his second solo gig at the venue.
He said the audience will dictate how the night goes because in his experience they were the ones to set the mood.
“I’ve played to a lot of different audiences on my own, and it can really change a room when you’ve got an acoustic guitar and an audience that’s intoxicated or chatty or irreverent,” he said.
“It’s not rock music. I kind of rearranged some stuff that was popular in the Grinspoon world and tried to make some songs fit in that format, and I’ll do some song I’ve written, some covers, and I might tell a joke.”
The music industry still gives him “the heebee jeebees” but he says it’s an incredible time for music, and named Tame Impala and Courtney Barnett among other star acts rising across Australia at the moment.
Fans would have noticed Jamieson back with his old mates Grinspoon touring with Cold Chisel at the end of 2015, but the rocker quashed any notion of a reunion stating their guitars were indefinitely in their cases.
“When Cold Chisel ask you to do shows it’s difficult to say no,” he said. “But it was an honour to be asked to support one of Australia’s greatest rock bands, it was really fun.”
Jamieson cheerily thanked me for the interview, and told me he was off to hang the washing out before picking up his mate Davey Lane from the airport, who was “visiting from the Big Smoke”.
Phil Jamieson plays Waves at Towradgi on Saturday.
