With another major tour around the corner, and a Cold Chisel album on the horizon, Jimmy Barnes is continuing to approach his audience with vulnerability and empathy.
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On Sunday January 27, North Gardens will be rocked by a stellar line up including Joan Jett and the Blackhearts, The Living End and Richard Clapton, as part of the Red Hot Summer Tour.
He said the line-up of “good Australian bands” alongside Joan Jett on her first Australian tour made this year special, and it was essentially a chance for him to “play with a whole bunch of my mates”.
READ MORE: The Living End play Ballarat in January
“I’ve been playing in Ballarat since the mid 70s … we’ve played little clubs, we’ve played big shows outdoors and indoors. It’s just a good audience who appreciate rock ‘n’ roll,” Barnes said.
“It’s got the warmth of the country, but it’s a big enough place to make it a rock ‘n’ roll town.”
Barnes’ best selling book Working Class Boy was released in 2016, with a documentary based on his memoir about family violence and poverty released this year. The 2017 follow-up, Working Class Man, detailed the heights of his fame and addictions.
“People feel they know me more, I’ve bared it all now in those books,” he said.
“A lot of people have been through what I went through as a kid, good and bad. A lot of people have thanked me for starting a conversation about domestic violence, and highlighting poverty in Australia.
“More than anything, people stop me and say, ‘I’m glad you made it through’.
“Music is one of the businesses where there are no barriers, we’re all the same, doing our jobs and working hard and working an audience.”
After years of being deeply personal in his music, Barnes has increasingly spoken out about our political climate, recently calling for refugee children to be removed from detention in Nauru.
He said while he doesn’t “go out of his way” to be political, the vulnerability and honesty he displays on stage was born out of ingrained empathy.
“I like to give people value for money, and I like to bear it all, and a lot of that comes when you care about your audience. And when you care about people, you have to care about bloody kids being locked up for five years.
"They’ve been there since they were infants, they’ve got no hope and no future, and anyone who doesn’t care about that should be looking at themselves.”
For more information and tickets head to redhotsummertour.com.au