Jon English
‘Beating Porch Thoughts’
When you want to speak with Jon English, don’t expect him to be sitting beside the phone waiting for your call wearing slippers and dressing gown listening to his collection of CD’s. Although he once feared that by 2013 he would be a ‘grumpy old man’; he is far from it.
At 64 years-of-age, there is no sign of Jon slowing down. He is in high demand, jovial and relaxed; even joking about what an ‘ugly woman’ he is going to make when he dons a dress and lipstick in his upcoming role as Edna Turnblad in the musical production of Hairspray in Sydney next month.
When I connected with Jon, he wasn’t at home in Coffs Harbour playing CDs. He was in Sweden performing at the 2013 Sweden Rock Festival. When Jon returns to Australia tonight, he will briefly catch-up with family before heading to Melbourne and Geelong to perform with the original line-up of the Foster Brothers to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of their album, ‘Beating the Boards’.
You’re performing at the Sweden Rock Festival, why are you over there?
The TV series I did back in the late ‘70s called Against The Wind was hugely popular in Scandinavia. The theme song Six Ribbons became a number one hit over here. I still have a big fan-base from that and also from later tours I did there with the Foster Brothers. I’m playing here with a band called Spearfish. They’ve been rehearsing my ‘rockier’ stuff for months; and I’ve bought my son, Jon junior over to play with me as well.
How big is the Festival?
It’s huge! There are 70 plus bands playing over 4 days in front of 150,000 people. It’s just a great atmosphere. Fans are travelling from Norway and Finland and Denmark to see me, and even one from Ireland. The line-up of bands includes Kiss and Status Quo plus Rush and The Sweet. I’m doing a ‘Rock The Boat 4’ cruise next year with Sweet, so that’s a bonus seeing them now.
How long have you been on the road for?
I spent the first couple of days in Copenhagen getting over jet lag, then travelling to Sweden to rehearse with the band for 3 days. We did some side shows in Sweden before the Festival. By the time I get back to Australia I’ll have been away nearly 3 weeks.
The last time you performed in Melbourne (and Victoria) it was for your award-winning ‘Rock Show’ last year that you produced. Do you enjoy writing and producing?
To be honest, I enjoy writing but not so much producing. I leave most of that side of it to partner Coralea. We’ve now done 3 ‘rock shows’ with various young multi-talented band members and made a DVD and a CD. The shows have won MO Awards twice for ‘Best Rock Act’. The soundtrack was nominated for an ARIA last year. There’s a lot of satisfaction in that and in being able to give up and coming young musicians a chance to experience performing.
Do you envisage writing and producing more shows in the future?
We’re in the process of putting together a ‘best of’ the rock shows that we’ll be touring around Sydney clubs later this year. We’d like to take it to New Zealand next year and hopefully Melbourne too. Eventually I want to write a book and create a stage show about my life around the book.
To celebrate the 30th anniversary of the release of Beating the Boards that you recorded with the Foster Brothers in 1983, you are about to perform in Melbourne and Geelong. How excited are you to be touring again with the band?
Very excited! We’ve already performed 3 shows as part of the tour around the major cities. Twin Towns in particular was wonderful. We used to play there in the 80’s, eight shows a week for two weeks at a time. We hadn’t been there since. There are a lot of great memories.
You had so many hit songs on ‘Beating The Boards’ releasing additional albums including; ‘Some People’ and ‘Jokers and ‘Queens’ (with Marcia Hines). 30 years on, apart from your hit songs, what do you and the lads have in store for us?
Some of us have a little less hair than we had 30 years ago, particularly John Dallimore – who’s a Geelong lad by the way. We’re a very tight and professional group. Expect a high standard of playing. I wrote a lot of the early versions of the songs from my rock opera Paris with the Foster Brothers, so we’ve put in a medley of those. We also have two female backing vocalists – the Racz sisters - who will sing a couple of those songs including a beautiful duet with me called ‘For Better or Worse’. It’s about Helen of Troy.
What is your Porch Thought For The Day?
“I used to get worked up about stuff and thought I’d grow into a grumpy old man. Fortunately I didn’t.”