August 21, 2014
This memoir from one of Australia’s most gifted songwriters is a lively, anecdotal account of 40-plus years of musicianship. As the frontman of The Church—one of this country’s great rock ‘n’ roll acts—Steve Kilbey gained notoriety for being outspoken, even arrogant: he once declared himself Australia’s best songwriter—to the aggravation of ‘all of Australia’s other best songwriters’, he quips here. All that youthful hubris has mellowed into a narrative voice that’s lightly reflective yet still entertainingly candid. Kilbey recounts (in varying degrees of detail) his teenage beginnings in bands, The Church’s formation and chequered rise to prominence, the obligatory internal conflicts and frustrations with record-label executives, his romances, impressions of contemporaries, and the effects—both salutary and ruinous—of illicit substances on his life, culminating in a heroin habit that would take 11 years to shake. His place assured in the rock firmament, Kilbey is gratifyingly self-deprecating and open about past indiscretions; there’s no self-aggrandising, just plain-speaking, all delivered with Kilbey’s garrulous ‘ol’ cockney geezer’-style charm. Fans of Kilbey’s collaborations with Martin Kennedy may be disappointed to find this partnership is absent from the text.
Gerard Elson is a writer and bookseller who works at Readings St Kilda