CONVERSATION: JOSE MCLAUGHLIN

Welcome to ramble City.

Brad: Todays guest is Jose McLaughlin, a mulit-instrumentalist and composer, and former member of world-famous pop group Gerry and the Pacemakers. He’s has worked with The Doobie Brothers, Chuck Berry, Peter Allen, James Morrison, Bo Diddley and so many many more. After years travelling the globe, Jose speaks to us from a University in Brisbane, Australia, recalling stories from an incredible career, starting with piano in the family home, travelling the world as a recording artist and pop star, and being a part of the 1960’s Mercy Beat Scene, that British invasion that gave us acts like The Strangers and The Beatles. I start by asking Jose about his home town and what it was like growing up in Liverpool… Before The Beatles…

Jose: Yeah, well I suppose when I was young. I didn't really know anything else other than the environment there was growing up in. So it wouldn't have been until I left Liverpool and started seeing with the parts of the world that I was able to kind of differentiate between what I'd grown up in is what the rest of the world was like, you know get a comparison. It was the area of Liverpool that I grew up in was called Everton, which they've now completely demolished and destroyed the memories that come back out of the community the sense of humor. the camaraderie 

Brad: So it wasn't a bleak oblique place to live particularly. 

Jose: It was in hindsight. It was in hindsight. It would be it was exactly how you'd imagine a Northern Town to be it was grimy. It was cold. I don't remember a lot of sunshine when I was a kid. In actual fact when I think back to the early days in Liverpool in my thoughts, I see it in black and white. And not color. 

Brad: It's interesting. 

Jose: Yeah, unless we're it seemed like you know, 

Brad: and when did you find music was it in at home? 

Jose: Yes, it was at home. My mother was a really good piano player and my mother her name was Teresa and she was she could play in the style of Fats Waller or Art Tatum or classical music in actual fact here brother and her sisters were all great piano plays well, and I remember from virtually the time I was born My mum always playing the piano and me be an absolutely fascinated by it. I was a listener, you know. 

Brad: Yeah. Did it get to a point where you went are? No, that's what I want to do. Was it when you were still young or did that take some time before you discovered? 

Jose: No, it was actually unfortunately, my mother died when I was 6 In the old days because the weather was so bad. They used to have washing lines actually inside the house in the kitchen. Yeah, right and my mum would fill the washing line up with clothes and pulled it off and something must have given way and the whole lot came down and hit her on the head and they think that's what possibly caused a tumor. I don't think it was cancerous. I think it was benign and she went into hospital to have it removed. And they stuffed up the operation and she died. I was six and apart from losing my mum the most noticeable thing in my life was the fact that there was no piano music anymore. There was no music anymore. There was no piano. The instrument was still there, but the music wasn't. So i decided to let Yeah, continue. My mom's. Yeah, 

Brad: That's a really beautiful story. 

Jose: I'm really I'm getting a bit emotional about it. 

Brad: I can just see the little you know, the little boy getting up and playing that 

Jose: and I just I just started picking up notes on the piano until I could form things and then I'd hear things on the radio and try and play it on the piano and without realizing what I was doing I was starting to build my ear and my sense of relative pitch, you know. 

Brad: Mary had... Do you remember the first song you played?

Jose:  Oh, it was a I don't I don't know if it has a name. It's just called a vamp. Didlle do bamp bamp diddle do bamp bamp. Yeah that one my dad showed me how to play that actually because he play a bit of guitar and I just kept going so I'd go like when I come home from school at the end of the day, when all the kids will go out and play football in the streets. I'd go to the piano and sit there and try and pick the pick things out all the time till I got eventually better and better and better I said doing it here. 

Brad: It amazes me because the when I looked back just about that the time of music through the 1950s and into the 1960s and I guess the the end of the 40's that were talking about how film that you know Liverpool was a place that was around for the port. Yeah, like as in the harbor not the drink particularly. Yeah, and it turned into this this place that was known for this this fashion. And this sound yeah. Do you remember a time where it started you noticed changes or you noticed or was it just all of a sudden? I mean because you ended up right in the thick of it all these different bands around that time.

Jose:  eventually. Yeah. But yeah, of course, it was a steady progression. 

Brad: Of course, you know what you don't really realize that the time

Jose: No you don't realize that at the time and I mean round about this time when I was starting to pick out tunes on the piano. Liverpool was a huge dock. It was a huge seafaring. It was the main Port that dealt with trade with the United States where the docks where weren't in actual fact very far from where I lived. So it would be possible to walk down the hill from where I lived in Everton and end up on the dock what we call Doc road where all the factories would be in the ships and the river mersey was right there. So it's kind of like it was in you part of your being was in your lungs, you know? Yeah where we lived we had. It was a house that was built over what used to be an old shop and my dad at the time after the war after he got out of the Navy he decided he was going to convert this shop into a cafe, which he did. I became quite a focal point in the local area. So a lot of people used to come to the cafe and he loved music and he loved particularly blues American blues and jazz and stuff like that. So once people started coming into his Cafe some of the people that came in were Merchant Seaman who used to do this trip between Liverpool and the United States and what he'd get them to do. While they were of in the States was get records for him that you couldn't get an England and they bring them back. He play them and of course, I'd hear them, you know, so I was hearing lots of stuff before Liverpool became this Mersey beat Center 

Brad: because you weren't just going on to Spotify the time and streaming it? 

Jose: No I wasn't no. No, I wasn't Googling it or anything now, 

Brad: so you there the music's playing in your dad's Cafe. Yeah, and one of the things I've been thinking about listening back to a lot of the music just The mersey sound and all that is that the differences between the grimy sort of dirty gutbucket Blues of that time that turned into this kind of standing up straight kind of it's still Jovial and it still. Yeah, you know, but it's certainly not as down home. No, it isn't so Noble theatrical in a sense. Was there something about the people that of the personality you think that that Lent itSelf to that in a way like 

Jose: possibly yeah, there was the music by the time it got to the mid to late 50s in Liverpool. There's a lot of jazz. There was also a lot of people like jazz and in actual fact the cavern Club was originally a jazz club, but that seemed to be two way out of people's reach as regards to being able to participate in that and it wasnt until people like Lonnie Donegan started coming out with a type of music that was called skiffle. Which is kind of like a very happy-go-lucky kind of almost country-western Trad Jazz kind of mix, you know that people felt that oh, well I could do that because all you need to do is go out and buy very cheap guitar get your mother's washboard. So you get a tea chest with a broom handle on it and a piece of string tied tightly and you can make all these sounds you know, which is in actual fact, what the Quarry And the Quarry men wear which is John Lennon's first group. They were sciffle group. There was lots of these skiffle groups around which will later to develop into the groups that we knew from the merseybeat seen. The thing about Liverpool is it's called the capital of Comedy. Everybody's a comedian everybody is so it doesn't matter what you do there. It's injected with some sense of humor and some sense of self-deprecation. Yeah, you know, yeah and I think and also Liverpool was a really poor place. It was totally avoided by people down south London Liverpool never heard of it, you know, right it was kind of one of those places even though it was important to our financial. As regards the Marine stuff, it was totally disregarded as kind of like any social meaning or whatever. So because it was cut off so much from the rest of the country particularly down south. Liverpool just went ahead and did its own thing without anybody else kind of noticing, you know, so all these skiffle groups developed and then they eventually decided to get electric guitars instead of Chief ones and And proper basis and drums and what was happening to us with the records coming in from the States was happening to lots of other people. So they were hearing, you know, Chuck Berry and all that stuff when the BBC wasn't playing. It just wants thing led to another I know and all of a sudden you've got these groups playing American R&B and rock and roll in with a Liverpool accent. 

Brad: The natural progression from American folk music 

Jose: yeah was 

Brad: So when was the first what was the first band you played in completely self-taught? Yeah, like did you actually go and study or did we you completely self-taught? 

Jose: Yeah, I was completely self taught. So it was all by ear. But by that stage, I was listening to say Dave Brubeck Play Take Five and I could take that down off the Record and play that on the piano right now. Yeah, that kind of things are developed to a good stage. 

Brad: But pretty pretty good starting point to walk into a room and say what do you want to play does it matter? It's another side of the world. It doesn't matter 

Jose: So I developed my ears pretty well, and we actually moved from Everett now to a place called Laurel Park and I got to know some guys in the area was about 13 and they were putting a Groove Together and they said you want to come and play in the groove, you know, which was on piano as a consequence of doing that. I started learning. Basically what you'd call the standard repertoire, you know, the Jerry Lee Lewis is the Chuck Berry's Bill Haley Louis Jordan and his timpani 5 Booker T. And the MGs all that kind of stuff, you know 

Brad: The stuff that we're all going back to still today. Yeah get ahead in the game. 

Jose: Yeah. I'm doing that all by ear Basically, we all were every every group every member played by ear. 

Brad: And how did it how did it go from that to then getting the call from to join Gerry and the Pacemakers? Do you remember was it you circulating and lots of different accent just becoming a Hired Gun and a session player is was that the progression? 

Jose: I suppose so I went through quite a few bands in Liverpool before I got there during

Brad:  I read somewhere start until I read somewhere that between 1958 and 63. There was something like 500 different bands that would form and reform. 

Jose: Oh, don't try a thousand yeah. 

Brad: And so the the the the size of Liverpool was what it wasn't that big. It was like 100 square kilometers wasn't it? 

Jose:  it was about 800,000 people. I think eight or 900,000 people. 

Brad: That's a lot of bands, isn't it? That's a lot of bands it exploded.

Jose:  Yeah. Yeah. It really did explode. Yeah, and the were what started out as These little bands playing in, well there was a limited number of clubs Suppose. There was the cavern the iron door clubs in town for them to play. But all of a sudden to accommodate these bands there's an expansion of halls. Pubs all kinds of places all of a sudden sprang up that we're putting on Dances more or less every night of the week throughout Liverpool. So everybody was working everybody was gigging. Yeah, and everybody was bouncing off one another and learning from one another, you know. Yeah, and if you weren't playing a good listen to somebody else and you pick something up over there doing that, you know will will do that to 

Brad: a little sidestep. But do you find that that type of that's something that I've heard from a lot of Of people that have played with a lot of bands that have how would you say history of learning under the American philosophy in terms of Music which is sharing ideas and Concepts kind of rather freely and like no don't don't do that. What did you think about it like this or what's that lick? And you share that with me, you know, I know there's a lot of you know, there's a story of Louis Armstrong, you know, having his handkerchief over his hand. So no one can see it's very little stuff, but I found generally there was a lot of mentorship. Do you find that that's That's what we're talking about. And was there a lot of that sort of the same way in Australia, do you think 

Jose: yeah, I think there was the mentorship in Liverpool seem to work in a different way 

Brad: because everyone was fighting. 

Jose: Can I swear on here? 

Brad: Of course you can 

Jose: all right. Okay. So like if it is believed that later the mentorship in Liverpool would involve something like. You're in a band you go up to the one of the guys who are more experienced and you'd say how am I doing and they'd say bloody awful give it off and you'd say well fuck you go home and practice and get better and get better than them. You know,

Brad:  I think that's what's carried over to Australia. I think that's the way 

Jose: I think that was kind of mentorship that was pretty hard. It wasn't easy. Nobody was nobody's really Forthcoming In Praise in those days. You really had to earn it, you know. Yeah. Yeah, 

Brad: Mercy Lord held a poll to find out who was the most popular merseyside group and these were the results were announced on the 4th of January 1962. So I've got 20 bands. Do you think you can remember? How many do you think you can remember? Oh guess all right, three isn't okay list. If you can if you can only remember three 

Jose: see the Beatles Gerry and the Pacemakers. 

Brad: Yep. So that's 1/2 in 1962 that so neither were really worldwide at that point, in time. So this is back when their worst are known. So nobody would 

Jose: there would have been the merseybeat should be in there. the Undertaker's. 

Brad: Yes. Number 12 

Jose: farad's flamingos. 

Brad: Yes number nine 

Jose: Mojo's 

Brad: not that I can see but it could be I mean, like look at the rest of that list. I thought that was really 

Jose: our course king-size Terror in the Domino's. They're one of The Originals the big three. Yeah in in the zodiacs. Yeah call Terry in the Cruisers. Yeah, 

Brad: and there's another thing that I found which was another I think it was in 1972. I should have actually wrote this down but I didn't it was that there were at the top of the charts and this particular type moves five axle from Liverpool. So one of them was a Lennon single, I think one of them was a McCartney single one was Frankie Goes to Hollywood like all these and I think a lot of people think about Germany first and I think about the Beatles and then they sort of think a little bit about livable but it really is there seems to be something really unique and kind of That circulated globally from Liverpool, you know, it sounds you know the same way we think about the south and Nashville than the sounds of Memphis and 

Jose: looking at this list. The Beatles would have been the most popular but they wouldn't been the best musical. Yeah out of all those groups. The big three with considered and the Remo for were considered really musical as with the Undertaker's. Yeah, king-size Taylor and the Dominos there was a lot of really really good musical groups there but you know, they weren't the ones who were taken on bribe Brian Epstein and promoted and have that given the chance to kind of progress 

Brad: and before we sort of move on to sort of Jerry and pacemakers and getting out of Liverpool, I guess all and traveling and all that sort of stuff but was the with the fashion really everyone dressed the same at that particular point in time from what you remember did everyone have that hair. Doing that kind of beetles. Look was that kind of because it progressed very quickly didn't it to then like The Swinging 60s and this the everything kept evolving quite quickly to knit 

Jose: and Liverpool. I mean back in the early days. Everybody wore Cuban heel boots Billy boots. Yeah, usually a waistcoat over a sheer. Yeah. Moderately long hair not what you'd call Long these days but knowledge was 

Brad: where does yours land currently 

Jose: longer than what it would have been. Yeah. It's like she did Bobby wasn't yeah Shemar Moore short back, you know not short back and sides long compared to short. Yeah. I'm going to suppose. Everybody throughout the country just change this affection changed throughout the 60s. Yeah. The Fashion Center was always London. Yeah, you're not livable the The groups had a certain look from Liverpool which everybody copied for a while. So if groups were coming up from Manchester or Birmingham or something like that and they wanted to kind of join in on this wave of popularity of Northern groups. There were done devil to look like Liverpool groups. Yeah, right. Yeah. Okay, so tight jeans big boots. Why Chance vests long hair? Yeah, and even try and put on a Liverpool accent like that. You know what I mean? Like, yeah, we gonna try we both had my accident and its really really hopeless. 

Brad: All right, so you joined during the Pacemakers not

Jose:  tell a bit later. 

Brad: Yes, sir. But with this after that you did you go. 

Jose: Pacemakers had a couple hits before. Yes. I join ya in the meantime. I was still coming up through the ranks of the groups in Liverpool. Yeah till I got to the point where when the pacemaker does need a new piano player. I was the obvious choice. Yeah. Yeah. 

Brad: Yeah, so it got to the point where you were essentially next in line. 

Jose: Yes, then the say yeah next in line. Yeah. Yeah, the young one next in line joining the band. Yeah. 

Brad: And did you already know all the all that? The charts that had already been previously recorded all the hits and all that had they been part of your catalog at that point. 

Jose: No, but I just knew them from here from the records the side could just start playing them straight away. Yeah being dainty. Dainty. Dddddd. Yeah, could you stop playing them straight away? So there's no problem there. I knew all the songs 

Brad: and what was it like joining that act and and and starting that what was that? Like, 

Jose: it just felt like it it it just felt like it was a normal. A progression that with the ever since I first started learning to play and coming up through the early groups in Liverpool. It just felt like a normal progression that it felt right. It felt that that's the way it should be that it got to that blood. I didn't overdo. 

Brad: It was never like an overnight kind of jumped to some of you go. Wow. I'm really I shouldn't be here playing to these crowds all this club. It was just like the next and the next year.

Jose:  I thought really the very first thing I did was to Australia. Yeah, that was exciting that the whole International. You know and recording and the band still popular and yeah, I never had any stage felt like oh shit all of a sudden. I'm a pop star. Yeah. It was just like this natural musical progression and Mel. It was in this group from Liverpool that everybody knew, you know, well, yeah. Okay some of the first recordings I did were actually for the BBC. 

0:30:00

Brad: Which is one of the ones that's was that there's that one of the ones that's just been released and that's 

Jose: just been released. Yeah, and some first recordings. I did with the for the BBC where we used to used to go down to London and record life for BBC shows whether it was Saturday club or John peel or whatever and we'd record and they go to a And then that would be it and it's strange because 50 odd years later. They've gone into the BBC archives dug up these Gerry and the Pacemakers recordings and of issued them on an album and they said right I'll just do to him today. Yeah.

Brad:  Yeah, I think so. It's did Lizzie, isn't it? The kicks off the was a good girl is Miss Molly dizzy. Lizzy - Lizzy is Molly old is he? 

Jose: To re-record You'll Never Walk Alone with them. Yeah, which was yeah. 

Brad: Was it a vastly different Arrangement 

Jose: now same arrangement. I think it's the one they actually play at anfield. Well for the Liverpool games, so it's really a really nice surprise. When all of a sudden this happens this Jerry after this new records. It's not a it's not a it's not a reissue. Yeah, it's just these things have never been released before. It's actually a first I'm release on a nut on a Gerry and the Pacemakers album but 50 years later. Yeah, but other than that, it was just like any other recording situation you'd go in. Yeah, you know set up play. Yeah get it right do it. A few takes get it right. It was normally old on live back. Then there's only two or four at there's only four tracks. 

Brad: Well, that's I think the thing I was sort of leading to a little bit about the process is that it was vastly different I think in a lot of ways today, although I think it seems more and more people are doing more and more life things. But the even the creation of the way, it was pieced together was a bit more improvised in a sense wasn't it? Was it largely like orchestrated and and you know, all the different pieces coming together or is it just okay we're going to do this one and the producer leads a little section of it. And this is the string arrangement we going to do and and and here we go. You know, let's just play the Rhythm Section 

Jose: and you had it was just all in. Yeah. It was just all in First time recorded would have been vocals as well. So more or less a live situation, but later on vocals were over that would be overdubbed. Yeah, but the music would all be played at the same time and the only do overdubs would be things like if strings were going to be added in something like that, but they're usually men somebody just standing in the studio leaning over the piano with a some manuscript and a pencil right and some stuff out. How can you call this drink? I tell them straight guys to here about four o'clock. He okay and they'd all come in so near we doing do this. Okay, it'll be recorded by 4:30 by five o'clock. It would have been placed into the trash and they'd be mixing it. And yeah, yeah you to finish the record by that up as five six o'clock that day and then everybody would knock off because you worked strict times in studios Thursday, especially if it was previously or Abbey Road or anything like that and nobody was allowed to touch any Equipment to other than the people in the white coats. Well, yeah, they were the technicians and 

Brad: there were medical team. Apparently, 

Jose: they moved everything around, you know, it has changed tremendously with the Advent of digital technology has changed completely. You know, 

Brad: yeah and you talked about the that the the You'll Never Walk Alone that you played on is the the one that you believe they're playing. Yeah at what and field and field that surprised me that that song was so meant so much to to the fans of football like I understand why but when I first heard the singing along it seemed to be an unlikely choice of a song for a football team, too. Singing, you know this musical theater number and my my growing up and seeing the two separations of the footy fan and then the you know, the musical theater fan, 

Jose: I think I've heard a lot of it stems from what it was talking about earlier about that camaraderie and helping each other along and Liverpool that attitude the Prevail specially in really poor times, you know. Yeah. Well, I think the fans just connected to it this idea of you you will never walk alone. I'll always there being there with you, you know, because when that was first released as a record, I mean, I'm talking apart from the musical. I'm talking apart from Carousel when they're when the crowd were there and they started waiting for the teams to come on the pitch. They would always play the current hits over the town hoi system, you know over the speaker system at the ground like background music. Yeah. Yeah they started when so when Never Walk Alone came out. They started playing that and then they noticed that the fans rule singing along with it more than they would sing along with anything else. So this got into a habit and they played it every week and the crowd got louder and louder singing it, you know. Yeah, and it just all of a sudden became the anthem of Liverpool Football Club 

Brad: what royalties they're paying off that 

Jose: into the anfield football ground out. Liverpool is written You'll Never Walk Alone in scroll. It scrolled across the Gacy. Yeah. It's just part of it. Yeah. 

Brad: Do you stay with Gerry and the Pacemakers for five or six years and you travel all around the world. Do you have a favorite son favorite memories or stories from from that time? 

Jose: Not that I could tell you. 

Brad: So obviously you're referring to playing Solitaire. Yeah, you know after going to bed at 6 a.m. 6 p.m. 

Jose: We're I think was is there a show you remember the exact out of mind? but the main thing that sticks in my mind is the IP eye-opening experience of getting to see so many places for the first time around the world because as this poor kid in Liverpool All right, my biggest dream was going getting down to the end of the street or down into the city center. That would have been the biggest adventure, you know. And to all of a sudden being able to go to all these places around the world and see them was just like and I wouldn't have been able to do that without the music or the group and just would have been able to do you know, it just never would have happened. So it opened up a lot to me and made a lot of friends. Yeah, we did get to connect with a lot of other musicians and concerts and it was great going to see so many other people or even work with them like, you know groups of the time like three dog night or other groups from England and it's Hermits and then all of a sudden you'd be doing some in some completely other parts of the world and you'd meet up with them there. So you've been San Francisco go. Well, I thought Jimmy are you doing are you doing but I never I was never one for really getting it. I would never do anything that I couldn't put in a book really I mean Wasn't a was never a got year used to get pissed a lot. But I didn't I didn't you know, I wasn't outrageous or anything like that, you know jumping through until he's at a hotel windows and stuff like that. Well, I didn't have televisions are just joking just generally just generally having a good time and it was always music wherever I went. I always tried to catch up on music that wasn't part of my saying so if we're in America at godsey's much Jazz as I couldn't stuff like that, you know, Yeah. 

Brad: Yeah, it's been a constant in your life. Really isn't it out? 

Jose: Yeah, it's always been there. It's always been there.

Brad: Okay, so you come to Australia what brought that on? Why did you 

Jose: well our tutors here, obviously and the land of the big blue sky never-ending blue sky and sun and beaches and great food and beautiful women and stuff like that. Yeah. And we went back to England after that to it as around about this time. I was thinking, you know, I needed a change. I probably just decided one day that I was probably going to just pack up and give Australia ago. I just been divorced from my first wife. 

Brad: That would that would help wanting to make a big change. I've yeah, yeah. Yeah dude location and you yeah start. 

Jose: Yeah. I was just probably a bit as far as Matt being a husband was concerned. I was probably a bit too naive if I got married when I was 19, so I was pretty young and I was still growing, you know, 

Brad: and rock and roll and married at 19 is often a challenging it is to walk side-by-side. Yeah, we do know that from yeah, it's so different. 

Jose: Have everything, you know the house because everything like that, but yeah, it just didn't see it just didn't feel right and also at that time in England, it was pretty depressing that everybody was on strike. They were doing a three-day working week. Everybody was miserable and complaining the weather was terrible. It was just gone. Ah God when we had here. Why don't I just give Australia a try? I mean there was nothing saying I had to stay here. I could come out for six months give it a try and if it wasn't working out I could go back. You know. Yeah. I was very fortunate that that was the time that you could buy a one-way ticket. I didn't do the 10 pound bomb thing. You could buy a one-way. a ticket on a Qantas plane fly out here, which is what I did. I landed at Melbourne Airport told Marine got off. The plane went through customs guy looked at my passport and he said good I see how long do you plan on Stone? And I said quite possibly for good and he said fine and he stamped my passport with a resident visa and I walked and it was as easy as that. Ask 

Brad: customers were far more relaxed today 

Jose: and it was as easy as that just as you carry any batteries it was as easy as that. I just walked into the country. Yeah, and I'd already made established some contacts here from the tools. I was here. Yeah, notably some people who were quite heavily involved in the Australian music industry in the pop industry in particular. Yeah, and as soon as they knew that I was back in Melbourne, and I've come to stay there that we just offers of work from everywhere. Yeah, 

0:42:31

Brad: one story that I read about online was you were watching the TV and you saw the show new faces. Yeah, which was like the 1970s equivalent of Australian Idol. Yes today and so you went on that now was it just you as it with a band? 

Jose: No, it was with my girl Australian girlfriend. By this time I had acquired an Australian a beautiful blond Australian girlfriend and who also happens to be a really good singer. 

Brad: And so you saw this show and then you both 

Jose: and I said to her why don't we go on that? Because you know one thing I teach my students that Unity is the fact they say, how did you get work? And I said, well, you got to get noticed you got to get people to not a show, you know. Yeah. So you're ahead of the time. Yeah do whatever you can to get people to take notice of you. I'm so I said to her I said to Julie let's go. On that because it but she was Australian from Melbourne. She's gone. No, no, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I was new to the place. They were thinking. Wow, you know a way to kind of get known. Yeah to get so so we eventually did and we eventually won through we won the Grand Final. Yeah, 

Brad: and so you got so the sum of the the judges were The Seekers 

Jose: Apple guy from The Seekers. Yeah, 

Brad: and with a stranger's on that panel as well. Did you just meet them through their I just Them through that. Yeah, so you're recording studio contract at what amazes me about this story too is that you've come from England to Australia and like to me the 1970s? I don't know a lot about Australian musical history. But at the time this was like right, I guess before another widom you nucleus of Australian tax became known again. It's right at that incept like you're there again around this time. 

Jose: It's right there right at that time. It's right at the time of Eagle Rock and Russell Morris and 

Brad: What is something I'd read about some of the other supports that you had. No, this is with another group that you join, which was Daniel. Yes. And so you guys I believe you went on to our you guys were back by Yamaha and then you did a record with mushroom. Yes, and then you went on and you supported the skyhooks judge on the Falcons know did you support or they supported you? 

Jose: We're all equal billing? 

Brad: Yeah, right. Yeah, because my favorite was the story of that you go to Port South Port. Very south of Melbourne and you're on the bill with it was a local band. Wasn't it? Remember this story? 

Jose: I know it was a it was a it was a festival. Yeah Music Festival down there put very and with the band I was with at the time of called Panther which was kind of Australia's with Australia's version of Santa Ana. He is right about percussive rock. Yeah. Yep, and we were quite high up on the bill because we have an album out. Yeah and For us the support band for us on the particular afternoon when we were on was this upstart bunch of kids from Sydney called AC/DC 

Brad: never heard of fantastic support Acts. Were they any good back then? 

Jose: Yeah there. 

Brad: Yeah this guys wearing a tie and no shirt. And another one was you did a residency at Adelaide. 

Jose: How do I adjust the Continental Hotel? 

Brad: So supported by another act that was just never dated made nothing of their career in my life. 

Jose: I thought they were too scruffy bunch of what I probably work. I'm very cold cold. Chisel. Yeah, hold chisel. Yeah. I find the charming Jimmy Barnes. Yeah.

Brad: We haven't even talked about then your career as a composer writing many hit recordings for several TV shows Jingles documentary films and composing the official Australian Olympic theme song for the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games. Tell us about that that must have been the Olympic Games one. Yeah writing that that must have been really, how was that? 

Jose: Well, I I had written a lot of stuff. And there was a guy named Shane Monopoly who was hoping that he was actually going to get into the Australian team as a kayaker and he was he was mostly you know, and he trained really hard for us and he was doing really well. Yeah, unfortunately in the long run he didn't make the team but he was also one of these guys who like to try his hand at everything he was, you know, very much entrepreneurial. He's got a very successful photography. - yeah, I mean he thought well they've called for songs for the Sydney Olympics on probably every man and his dog would have been putting in songs. They must have got thousands. Yeah, but he knew he couldn't do it on his own and I need heard about me and my background. Yeah and Gerry and the Pacemakers and writing songs, and I've done a few TV. Thanks, man. And so he Coach me and got me on board and that we write it together and he came up with this bunch of lyrics and he said could you put some music to this? And I said, yes, I couldn't I sat down and I think it took me about half an hour and I had the music for it. And then what I actually did is he bought all the stuff he set up a studio in his home. We got in all these professional people to perform this song we'd written. And then we sent it off to the Sydney organizing committee. Yeah, 

Brad: and it was so obviously one. Is that correct? Was it one 

Jose: of the it got accepted? What they were looking for. They were looking for songs. That would go on the official album. So there are somethings about yeah, it songs of inspiration. 

Brad: We want a lot of gold from memory. So I think it works. 

Jose: Yeah, so we're basically initially they're looking for about 14 or 15 and songs. That would go on the this album. However many you get on the CD twenty maybe and then once they are knows fortunately was one of those there was a bit of other political brokering that shows on in between of course would be too boring to get into but anyway, if it eventually succeeded and been accepted for this album, and then what they decided to do, they decided to play all the tracks on the album to the Australian team and ask them all. Which one they found the most inspirational it was awesome. Well, yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, so it became the official song. Yeah. Yeah. They

Brad:  became that that's right the theme song for ya. What how do you how do you think about composing then? How do you approach composing something? I guess. How do you how do you think about going into that? 

Jose: Sometimes? It might be a phrase that Sparks off an idea for a set of lyrics or I could be just sitting. Being with a guitar or piano playing a particular set of chords will come, you know, yeah start building from there. So sometimes the words come first sometimes the music comes first. Sometimes it's a bit of both. Sometimes it comes easy. Sometimes it's really hard and you have to you know, drag it out like constipation. It's it's a sir. And I think I write better when I'm under pressure. So if there's an actual a reason to rise or a deadline to write as I'll compose something I will do is I will come up with the goods. Yeah. I know I will I'm confident that I will if I don't have any reason to ride then it's more laborious. Yeah. Yeah 

Brad: something about the steaks I guess makes probably the brings out the best in people. Doesn't it? There's a quote here, which I found of you is you said There's a documentary about you said if so, if someone held a gun to your head and you had to pick only one music to play it would be improvised jazz. Music. Do you remember this improvised product? .....

Brad: And that when you played this music that that there would be lots of all the things that you've ever played so there'd be some bending. It's like a blues pad and be the yard country lick. Yeah, and to me. I find it interesting to that then it's like you're composing naturally on the spot without barrier and there's no quicker deadline then make up something right now. That's right. Yeah, which kind of brings the best out of someone doesn't it? 

Jose: Yeah, it does I think so too. Yeah, and I think you have to develop a level of confidence in you in in yourself to be able to kind of feel comfortable doing that. But I do think you get to the point where and I had advocated to the students that you need to that. Let all your music be who you are. You know, you are the sum of all the music you listen to not just one form of music. So let it come out in your playing, you know, 

Brad: do you think what are the other parameters in which you use when you're thinking about improvisation does it pain depend on what you're playing? Is there a start like do you have kind of like mock is inside yourself? Where you going on playing this? I'm going to stick to this kind of thing. And no, I don't know. It's just open questions open the floodgates and let's make some music.

Jose:  It's open slather. Yeah, and whatever comes out comes out. It's going to be improvised. It's going to work which means we're totally that improvise which is going to yet and go. .......

Jose: sure that the show that there is a jazz language, you know, which involves chromaticism and Specific movements within a you know within a chord structure but I will allow whatever else is going to come out within within that you know, so yes, I could be doing some kind of Bebop phrase but a country like might come out there or a rock and roll lick or something or a bit of funk or something like that will come out. Yeah 

Brad: cuz in a way I think about this quite a lot that we are. Myself more than you because through your career and through all the different exit you've played with and being a part of you know that Liverpool scene and and the progression of that is that anytime I've come to these songs. I'm imitating a copy of a copy, you know, I'm imitating mmm these people so I am a copy of a copy and I guess to the Liverpool scene was essentially also that in which it was listening to American music, but it actually became something it became very unique unique sound. Yeah, and it would then the British Invasion went Can it actually that inspired a whole another movement over there? That's so that is a very authentic sound. But I know for myself if I sit down I play a blues. 

Jose: It's it's going to be a bit derivative. It is is I think and I think yeah, I'm not going to say she and I think that's okay. You know, I because I think there's only known there's only so many combination of notes and words and stuff like that that people can possibly come up with you know, so I think no matter what you do. There's always going to be be derivation there. I think it's what how much of your own personality that you put into it that makes it different, you know, so if you're a particularly Bleak person your music will sound that way and if you've got a crazy sense of humor, it will still sound that way to you know to mean yeah, so I don't think it's just the notes. I think that's how much of you that you put into it too. 

Brad: So what I take from what you just said was that it's not necessarily about trying to recreate the wheel but it's about putting yourself in that into the music and then that will actually speak. Yeah that that the genre is actually just the the palate. Yeah colors are what you put on yeah on top of that with your personality. Yes. It's a really lovely way of looking at it because it actually frees you up to not try and actually be authentic. That's right. Because whenever we try to be authentic, we're trying to actually be someone else through us. That's right. I think that's a really freeing way to look at it. So, I think it's really great to hear that action. 

Jose: I think we do go straight through stages. Music where we we try to emulate our heroes or try and be them to some degree, but I think this is a good thing because if you're say, you're say you're a singer. Well, but you are as you are technically we were good ones. Hypothetically, I was singer goes on stage and all of a sudden all of a sudden instead of being involved in the songs. So I was thinking who there's a lot of people in here. I know there's people from work over there that I know are they going to like me is the bank going to play arise how am I singing into know and all these things are going away. Whereas if that person could go on stage and actually think that they were Barbra Streisand, okay. And by concentrating on that all this other stuff disappears. So if it shows them that there's a way to kind of actually combat all the 49ers and the and the insecurities and the nerves about going on stage. 

Brad: It takes you out of yourself. Yeah. Yes helps assist you to get out of yourself. 

Jose: That's right. Yeah, so I think in a as a as a as a stepping stone. That's a really good thing and then at some stage that needs to be dropped because your own confidence level has come up to me that and then you just yeah, 

Brad: that's a that's a really wonderful way of putting it. I am thinking about my own progression. That's far and I'm thinking that's right. I was in Battalion that person they're all that person there and at some point you have to put that down and go. Well. This is who I am and I can do that without trying to be them. That's right. Yeah, and that there's nothing actually wrong with that. There isn't it's a very natural progression. 

Jose: I think it is a very natural thing to happen. Yeah. Yeah, 

Brad: and that sounds like the life of a journeyman. Well it is yanking up another disguise of putting it down and becoming more who they are 

Jose: my no matter where I'd done musical in my life that the realization that getting to the point in my life where that where I had the realization that I could get up on stage. age and have fun and not really care what I was when I realized that I was just free to do. To be yourself to be myself here. Yeah. And that's felt like your did the journeyman that you talking about because if I it's probably not the goal that I realized I was aiming for when I was young that there was that there's some kind of realization about this but when it happened it definitely felt like a goal in life had been reached. 

Brad: Another type of success if you will 

Jose: ya without actually realizing I was aiming for that. Yeah. Yeah. 

Brad: I think that seem that would be a perfect place to leave today's conversation Jose. I think that's wonderful. Thank you so much for speaking with us today. 

Jose: Oh, there's my pleasure. And I really enjoyed it. Actually I even had a little cry. Thanks Brad. 

Brad: You're welcome.