Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums, Les Kaczmarek on bass and Don Walker on piano and keyboards. They were soon joined by Jimmy Barnes on lead vocals and, in 1975, Phil Small became their bass guitarist. The group disbanded in late 1983 but subsequently re-formed several times. Musicologist Ian McFarlane wrote that they became "one of Australia's best-loved groups" as well as "one of the best live bands", fusing "a combination of rockabilly, hard rock and rough-house soul'n'blues that was defiantly Australian in outlook."
Eight of their studio albums have reached the Australian top five; Breakfast at Sweethearts (February 1979), East (June 1980), Circus Animals (March 1982, No. 1), Twentieth Century (April 1984, No. 1), The Last Wave of Summer (October 1998, No. 1), No Plans (April 2012), The Perfect Crime (October 2015) and Blood Moon (December 2019, No. 1). They have achieved six number-one albums on the ARIA Charts, the latest being their 2024 compilation 50 Years – The Best Of. Their top-10 singles are "Cheap Wine" (1980), "Forever Now" (1982), "Hands Out of My Pocket" (1994) and "The Things I Love in You" (1998).
At the ARIA Music Awards of 1993 they were inducted into the Hall of Fame. In 2001 Australasian Performing Right Association (APRA) listed their single "Khe Sanh" (May 1978) at No. 8 of the all-time best Australian songs. Circus Animals was listed at No. 4 in the book 100 Best Australian Albums (October 2010), while East appeared at No. 53. They won The Ted Albert Award for Outstanding Services to Australian Music at the APRA Music Awards of 2016. Cold Chisel's popularity is almost entirely confined to Australia and New Zealand, with their songs and musicianship highlighting working class life. Their early bass guitarist (1973–75), Les Kaczmarek, died in December 2008; Steve Prestwich died of a brain tumour in January 2011.
History 1973–1978: Beginnings Cold Chisel originally formed as Orange in Adelaide in 1973 as a heavy metal band with Ted Broniecki on keyboards, Les Kaczmarek on bass guitar, Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums and Don Walker on piano. Their early material included cover versions of Free and Deep Purple material. Broniecki left by September 1973 and seventeen-year-old singer Jimmy Barnes – called Jim Barnes during their initial career – joined in December.
The group changed its name several times, often for every live performance, before choosing “Cold Chisel” after an early Don Walker song of that title, and that name stuck. Barnes' relationship with the others was volatile: he often came to blows with Prestwich and left the band several times. During these periods Moss would handle vocals until Barnes returned. Walker emerged as the group's primary songwriter and spent 1974 in Armidale, completing his studies in quantum mechanics. Barnes' older brother, John Swan, was a member of Cold Chisel around this time, providing backing vocals and percussion. After several violent incidents, including beating up a roadie, he was fired. In mid-1975 Barnes left to join Fraternity as Bon Scott's replacement on lead vocals, alongside Swan on drums and vocals.
Kaczmarek left Cold Chisel during 1975 and was replaced by Phil Small on bass guitar. In November of that year, without Barnes, they recorded their early demos.
In May 1976 Cold Chisel relocated to Melbourne, but "frustrated by their lack of progress," they moved on to Sydney in early 1977. In May 1977, Barnes told his fellow members that he would leave again. From July he joined Feather for a few weeks, on co-lead vocals with Swan – they were a Sydney-based hard rock group, which had evolved from Blackfeather. A farewell performance for Cold Chisel, with Barnes aboard, went so well that the singer changed his mind and returned. In the following month the Warner Music Group signed the group.
1978–1979: Cold Chisel and Breakfast at Sweethearts In the early months of 1978 Cold Chisel recorded their self-titled debut album with their manager and producer, Peter Walker (ex-Bakery). All tracks were written by Don Walker, except "Juliet", where Barnes composed its melody and Walker the lyrics. Cold Chisel was released in April and included guest studio musicians: Dave Blight on harmonica (who became a regular on-stage guest) and saxophonists Joe Camilleri and Wilbur Wilde (from Jo Jo Zep & The Falcons). Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane described how, "[it] failed to capture the band's renowned live firepower, despite the presence of such crowd favourites as 'Khe Sanh', 'Home and Broken Hearted' and 'One Long Day'." It reached the top 40 on the Kent Music Report and was certified gold.
In May 1978, "Khe Sanh" was released as their debut single but it was declared too offensive for commercial radio due to the sexual implication of the lyrics, e.g. "Their legs were often open/But their minds were always closed." However, it was played regularly on Sydney youth radio station Double J, which was not subject to the restrictions as it was part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Another ABC program, Countdowns producers asked them to change the lyric but they refused. Despite such setbacks, "Khe Sanh" reached No. 41 on the Kent Music Report singles chart. It became Cold Chisel's signature tune and was popular among their fans. They later remixed the track, with re-recorded vocals, for inclusion on the international version of their third album, East (June 1980).
The band's next release was a live five-track extended play, You're Thirteen, You're Beautiful, and You're Mine, in November 1978. McFarlane observed, "It captured the band in its favoured element, fired by raucous versions of Walker's 'Merry-Go-Round' and Chip Taylor's 'Wild Thing'." It was recorded at the Regent Theatre, Sydney in 1977, when they had Midnight Oil as one of the support acts. Australian writer Ed Nimmervoll described a typical performance by Cold Chisel: "Everybody was talking about them anyway, drawn by the songs, and Jim Barnes' presence on stage, crouched, sweating, as he roared his vocals into the microphone at the top of his lungs." The EP peaked at No. 35 on the Kent Music Report Singles Chart.
"Merry Go Round" was re-recorded for their second studio album, Breakfast at Sweethearts (February 1979). This was recorded between July 1978 and January 1979 with producer Richard Batchens, who had previously worked with Richard Clapton, Sherbet and Blackfeather. Batchens smoothed out the band's rough edges and attempted to give their songs a sophisticated sound. With regards to this approach, the band were unsatisfied with the finished product. It peaked at No. 4 and was the top-selling album in Australia by a locally based artist for that year; it was certified platinum. The majority of its tracks were written by Walker, with Barnes and Walker on the lead single, "Goodbye (Astrid, Goodbye)" (September 1978), and Moss contributed to "Dresden". "Goodbye (Astrid, Goodbye)" became a live favourite, and was covered by U2 during Australian tours in the 1980s.
1979–1980: East Cold Chisel had gained national chart success and increased popularity of their fans without significant commercial radio airplay. The members developed reputations for wild behaviour, particularly Barnes, who claimed to have had sex with over 1000 women and who consumed more than a bottle of vodka each night while performing. In late 1979, severing their relationship with Batchens, Cold Chisel chose Mark Opitz to produce the next single, "Choirgirl" (November). It is a Walker composition dealing with a young woman's experience with abortion. Despite the subject matter it reached No. 14.
"Choirgirl" paved the way for the group's third studio album, East (June 1980), with Opitz producing. Recorded over two months in early 1980, East, reached No. 2 and is the second highest selling album by an Australian artist for that year. The Australian Women's Weeklys Gregg Flynn noticed, "[they are] one of the few Australian bands in which each member is capable of writing hit songs." Despite the continued dominance of Walker, the other members contributed more tracks to their play list, and this was their first album to have songs written by each one. McFarlane described it as, "a confident, fully realised work of tremendous scope." Nimmervoll explained how, "This time everything fell into place, the sound, the songs, the playing... East was a triumph. [The group] were now the undisputed No. 1 rock band in Australia."
The album varied from straight-ahead rock tracks "Standing on the Outside" and "My Turn to Cry" to rockabilly-flavoured work-outs ("Rising Sun", written about Barnes' relationship with his then-girlfriend Jane Mahoney) and pop-laced love songs ("My Baby" by Phil Small, featuring Joe Camilleri on saxophone) to a poignant piano ballad about prison life, "Four Walls". The cover art showed Barnes reclined in a bathtub wearing a kamikaze bandanna in a room littered with junk and was inspired by Jacques-Louis David's 1793 painting The Death of Marat. The Ian Moss-penned "Never Before" was chosen as the first song to air on the ABC's youth radio station, Triple J, when it switched to the FM band that year. Supporting the release of East, Cold Chisel embarked on the Youth in Asia Tour from May 1980, which took its name from a lyric in "Star Hotel".
In late 1980, the Aboriginal rock reggae band No Fixed Address supported the band on its Summer Offensive tour to the east coast, with the final concert on 20 December at the University of Adelaide.
1981–1982: Swingshift to Circus Animals The Youth in Asia Tour performances were used for Cold Chisel's double live album, Swingshift (March 1981). Nimmervoll declared, "[the group] rammed what they were all about with [this album]." In March 1981 the band won seven categories: Best Australian Album, Most Outstanding Achievement, Best Recorded Song Writer, Best Australian Producer, Best Australian Record Cover Design, Most Popular Group and Most Popular Record, at the Countdown/TV Week pop music awards for 1980. They attended the ceremony at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and were due to perform: however, as a protest against a TV magazine's involvement, they refused to accept any trophy and finished the night with "My Turn to Cry". After one verse and chorus, they smashed up the set and left the stage.
Swingshift debuted at No 1, which demonstrated their status as the highest-selling local act. With a slightly different track listing, East was issued in the United States and they undertook their first US tour in mid-1981. Ahead of the tour they had issued "My Baby" for the North America market and it reached the top 40 on Billboards chart, Mainstream Rock. They were generally popular as a live act there, but the US branch of their label did little to promote the album. According to Barnes' biographer, Toby Creswell, at one point they were ushered into an office to listen to the US master tape to find it had substantial hiss and other ambient noise, which made it almost unable to be released. Nevertheless, the album reached the lower region of the Billboard 200 in July. The group were booed off stage after a lacklustre performance in Dayton, Ohio in May 1981 opening for Ted Nugent. Other support slots they took were for Cheap Trick, Joe Walsh, Heart and the Marshall Tucker Band. European audiences were more accepting of the Australian band and they developed a fan base in Germany.