All language subtitles for The Angels Kickin Down The Door (2022)_en

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Who started the band?
Was it you or Rick?

It was me
that started the band.

Uh, it was my idea.

I was driving
Rick somewhere.

He'd just got his degree as
an agricultural scientist.

I pulled the car over
and I said to Rick,

"You know that band
Sherbet, Rick?"

And he said, "Yep."

And I said, "I reckon
if we start a rock band,

we can knock 'em off
in 12 months.

What do you reckon?"

He just turned to me
and said, "Yep, okay."

And I spent all night
talking to Doc.

About nine o'clock
in the morning,

I talked him into it.

Without Rick
and Doc agreeing,

it could never have been
more than just a dream.

She should have
known just once,

just once in her life,

that she had to taste the long,
thin edge of her own knife.

Similar
to the way Nirvana

changed hair band music
in America,

and all of a sudden
it became alternate,

the Angels did exactly that
in Australia.

- Angels! Angles! Angels!

♪ Went down to Santa Fe where
Renoir paints the walls

♪ Described you clearly
but the sky began to fall

♪ Am I ever gonna
See your face again?

♪ Am I ever gonna
See your face again?

♪ Trams cars and taxis, Like
a wax-works on the move

♪ Carry young girls past me
but none of them are you

♪ Am I ever gonna
See your face again?

♪ Am I ever gonna
See your face again?

No way, get fucked, fuck off!

I was always
a bit protective of Rick.

When we were little kids,

the guy next door
picked on Rick

and I beat him up.

And then into our teens

I think we probably got

a little more distant
from each other.

Brothers get along
in a certain way, I suppose.

Generally speaking, the
older sibling tends to be

a little more authoritative
over the younger sibling.

And John was obviously the
older brother, you know.

John wasnthe older
and sophisticated man

and had girlfriends,

but I'm pretty sure

he gave us a couple
of dollars one day

to go away
and buy an ice cream.

Dad was the lead cellist
in the orchestra,

then he was
the Director of Music

for the ABC.

I mean, he came through
the Depression.

And it was all about
job security.

I got into working

in a chartered
accountant's office,

because I thought, "Oh, well,

that's what Dad
thinks I should do.

Maybe he's right."

You know, we were young
and we were breaking free.

Long hair, flower power,
free love. Music was king.

The Beatles,
The Stones, The Kinks.

Our friend
Pete Thorpe said,

"You know when we go
to these parties

and you take your guitar along
and sing songs?

I'd like to
play with you."

And I said, "Okay, yeah,
what do you play?"

He said, "I don't really
play anything."

"But I'd like
to learn something."

And I said,
"Well, I don't know.

Why don't we do
a jug band?"

We went
to my brother

and asked himif he'd
like to be part of it.

I didn't feel like I had
a lot of responsibility.

Rick won the Under-21
Classical Piano Eisteddfod

at the age of 16.

I don't have any doubt

that he could have been
a concert pianist.

He was that good.

Rick's relationship
with Arthur

and certainly...
and I think John's, too,

was difficult.

He had a nasty streak.

Arthur was at home

with some of his
drinking buddies

and at one stage,
John was one of those.

And I walked in
and he said,

"Oh, have you met
my daughter, Richalina?"

And I just
wanted to kill him.

We always
used to give him

a hard time for
being vague,

because he'd sort of seem
to be off with the fairies

but he knew exactly what
was going on.

And then
in came Doc.

We arrived in Australia
on Easter Thursday of 1960,

and I went, "Shit..."

you know,
"...this is Adelaide?"

Probably expected
a big cheering crowd

to be on the wharf.

There was
nothing of the sort.

It was quite solitary
and almost, to me, lonely.

We ended up in a town
that was just being built,

north of Adelaide,
called Elizabeth.

There was very little
for teenagers to do.

Nothing to do.

Bob Bowes,
long-time friend of Bernard.

You'll find
I don't call him Doc.

My nickname for him
was Bernardino.

We were always out singing.

We walked
the streets a lot singing.

That was a big part of it.

Elizabeth was, in those
days, a step too far,

so he often stayed with me
at my home.

He was a mover
and shaker.

He was also
extremely athletic.

I saw him leapfrog
red letterboxes.

In fact he even split his
trousers...[CHUCKLIN

...one day doing that

which we never
let him forget.

He was a character.
Yeah, he was a character.

And he read a lot of books.

He was always
writing things down.

But he was really,
really cheeky.

Always,

you know, making a joke of...
...sensitive times,

or trying to.

I got a call from Doc.

"Hey," he said,
"Do you wanna be a star?"

And I said to my wife,

"Look, like,
it's one night a week."

Well, one night
turned into six.

The Sussex Hotel
was their big venue.

The dance floor
was always packed.

Like people
on the tables, jumping.

Peter Thorpe
would play

the string bass
with a glove on,

and he'd soak it in metho
and set it on fire.

The crowd would go nuts.

There had been
a recording contract with EMI

floating about the place,

and so everybody decided that
it would be a great idea

if we went
properly professional.

And so I resigned
from teaching.

Thank you.
That's it for now.

Moonshine will
be back soon.

And then
almost immediately,

they decided that
they would really

like to play
electric rock and roll.

Hello, baby!

♪ Yeah, this is
the Big Doctor speaking

♪ What's that, honey?

Our first drummer,
Charlie King,

was probably one of
the only drummers around

that would actually consent
to play with us.

I knew all the numbers,
'60s and '70s rock.

I just loved music.

♪ Chantilly lace
and a pretty face and...

Their first gig electric,

there was only
20 people there

and they got booed.

The audience hated us.

Meeting AC/DC in 1975
completely changed our life.

I think it might have
been Malcolm that said,

"Next time
you come to Sydney,

we'd like you to meet
George and Harry."

"Yeah, of course.

Thanks for
the invitation, guys."

We'll be there.

So we sang a few songs

and we were signed
two weeks later.

Albert Studio in Sydney
is a kind of iconic studio

and it's where
The Easybeats recorded

and where AC/DC recorded
all their initial albums.

And it's got a particular
sound about it

that is kind of defining
of Australian rock and roll.

Ted Albert
was the head of the company.

He was a real visionary

and he had
a lot of faith in people.

He knew George
and Harry's worth

and he let them get on
with what they did best.

Vanda and Young were

the hottest producers
in Australia

and internationally recognised.

I don't think
there was any year

that we didn't have
three albums in the chart,

all created
from our own studio.

It was like
the pinnacle.

If you could make it
in Sydney, you'd made it.

One of my
friends said,

"You ran away from Adelaide
with a rock and roll band."

I was only 23
when I got here.

It literally was an adventure.

Someone found
Wallaringa Mansions.

Carpets that smelled
of cat piss

and I couldn't have
cared less.

It was all aboutthe next
session in the studio

and writing the
next song.

I worked particularly hard

because I was doing
the roadie's job as well.

If I wasn't drumming,
we were pulling down

or loading and driving
to the next gig.

I remember one week,
we did 12 shows.

One of the gigs
in Melbourne

was the Ringwood
ice skating rink.

Angus Young and Rick
would get these gloves

and cut the fingers off

so they could get
a bit of circulation

into their fingers
to play the leads.

There'd be
very few people

and Bitsy, Dzintra and I
would sit up the back

and wait for four hours.

It's a long time.

I was a fairly
newly-graduated physio.

We all provided stability

while they
chased a dream.

We were all working
on our instruments

and developing
moderately well,

but Charlie didn't seem
to be improving.

George and Harry
had a quiet word to us.

Said, "Maybe it's time to
look for another drummer."

I didn't want to do it
and I'm sure Doc didn't.

We suggested,

"You're the guy, John.
You do it."

I was sitting
in the front of a car.

John suddenly
turned around and said,

"Pete, you're out
of the band."

So I just opened the door,
stepped outside,

lit up a smoke
and took a deep breath.

He just drove off.

That was it.

I really,
really believe

that the main reason
I got fired

was because of egos.

Drumming had nothing
to do with it.

It was bullshit.

I reckon
I was about nine or ten

when I decided I was
going to be a musician.

My nana had a tape recorder
and then my cousins had one

and then I had
two tape recorders together.

And I'd go
from one to the other

and I'd add bits and pieces.

I'd seen the Moonshine Jugand
String Band which I loved,

and we would run into them
at these gigs

and I remember saying
to Doc one time,

"'Why did you guys stop
doing the jug band?"

Because the jug band
was really good.

"But if you
don't mind me saying,

the Keystone Angels
don't sound that good."

He said,
"Oh, we're just learning

how to play
electric music."

Robbie Robertson,

who runs
the Thebarton Theatre,
rang me up.

So I go into this meetingand
there's John, Rick and Doc.

And immediately I went,

"Oh, no, the Keystone Angels.
No, I don't know about
that."

I thought, "Well, I'll
join you for six months,

see if I like it
and I'll come to Sydney."

If I don't like it,
I just thought

I could leave
or go back to London

which was what
my plan was anyway.

Any time
you started to talk about,

you know, things rhythmic,
Doc couldn't do it.

He just physically
couldn't do it.

And I'd kind of be dropping
hints about, you know,

wouldn't it be nice
if there was a bass player

that could sort of
keep up with me?

You know.

One Saturday afternoon
in Neutral Bay

in a crummy boarding house
that we were stuck in,

it was an open meeting

so we could all say
whatever we wanted.

And there were reasons

why John should be
the frontman.

He could play harp
and he was a good singer.

And then we sort of went round
the circle of the four of us.

We got to Buzz
and he said,

"Well, I think Doc
should be the lead singer,

because he's got the worst
voice in the band."

I gave him a look
that could kill.

Like, really,
I was pretty insulted.

Buzz very quickly
corrected himself and said,

"No, what I mean is the
most distinctive voice."

I said, "Look, why don't we
just get a bass player

and make it
a five-piece band?"

Buzz had contactwith
Chris Bailey in Adelaide.

I, for one, went, "Oh,
yeah, you gotta be kidding."

He was frontman
for his own band.

Suddenly we had
a rhythm section.

We had some of
that magic.

It was amazing.

♪ Hold tight, big brother

♪ Calling in the name
of liberty

♪ Lots stone
take your place

♪ Looks like
It's comin' down on me

♪ Down on me

I had this old
EH Holden station wagon

and we would just go from town
to town, seven nights a week.

Every time we stopped
on the road

we'd play
gentlemen's frisbee

and it was fantastic fun,
but never Doc.

He would be off in a corner
somewhere, reading a book.

Doc didn't
play frisbee.

Doc used to get hit
by the frisbee.

Doc, no matter where he was,
would get hit.

John was assertive.

I saw John as the leader,

without really thinking of it
in those terms ever,

at that time.

I did all the driving
back in the old days,

mainly because I was
probably not out of it.

I was probably
the least out of it.

Thousands
and thousands of miles

in the old station wagon.

I don't remember anyone
driving apart from John.

He was very confident
in the band

and he was the guy that
went daily to the agent

and he would literally stand
over his shoulder,

looking at the calendar, saying,

"There's a hole there.
Fill it. Come on, come on."

"Am I Ever Gonna See
Your Face Again" the single,

was what we call
a turntable hit.

Got lots of radio play,
but got no sales.

Sold a few copies
to people like my mother.

They put out a song
called "You're a Lady Now".

I have no idea
why they put that out.

The album itself
wasn't received that well.

Sank without a trace.

We thought "Comin' Down"
was gonna be our big hit.

And that
didn't really take off.

Another flop.

One flop after another.

Harry and George
asked Rick and I

to step out into the corridor.

And my heart sank.

I thought,
"They've lost interest."

Vanda and Young
had asked me

if I wanted to be
their apprentice.

Of course I said yes,
you know,

and so I started working
with their artists.

AC/DC, "Love Is In The Air",
John Paul Young.

You know,
after about six months,

George Young
came up to me,

and said, "Look, we're thinking
of dropping the Angels.

We can't see us

doing a lot of work
with them any more,

because they weren't
a commercial success.

But if you'd like
to work with them,

you know,
we'll keep trying."

♪ White line
On the burning road

AC/DC have a sound.

The Rolling Stones
have a sound.

Everyone has a unique
audio footprint.

And yet in most
Australian acts,

it was just
all these different songs,

like throwing
mud against a wall

to see if it would stick.

So I wanted to
make a record

that the apprentice butcher
or the young tradie

could get his cassette
and slam it into his car

and drive off to the pubwith
this blaring really loud.

♪ She promised herself
this would be the last one

Punk music
was ending.

So it struck me

that what I had to do
with the Angels

was come up with some
sophisticated punk sound.

Now, I had no idea
what that sound was.

Absolutely zero.

I'm sure John Brewster
would have regarded me

with a little bit
of suspicion,

because all of a sudden
I had a bit of power.

But that's fair
enough, too.

Without John Brewster,
there's no Angels.

Robyn.

John was doted on
by his mother,

if that's the way
of saying it.

I think he came
after a child that died,

so she was quite protective

and I think that
he picked up on that

and was quite neurotic
about health

and safety and illness
and... yeah.

We never even heard
of Robert until years later.

All I saw was John
getting a lot of attention.

And I never wanted
that sort of attention.

John
was a major worry wart.

John would worry
about every little detail.

He was definitely
the mother of the band.

We couldn't afford
accountants, so I'd do it all

and you know, we bought
a truck and all this stuff.

So there was this
massive pressure

of repayments to a loan.

I couldn't sleep at night.

There was some talk

of putting the jug band
back together again.

You know,
it's three years too late,

but maybe
I could go back to entomology.

And I said,
"Hang on,

we've got seven weeks
of gigs coming up.

Now we've got to do
that seven weeks

and we'll see
how we're going then."

Week one,
our van blew a tyre.

- Boom!

We talked to Ted Albert,
who said, "No."

"I'm not loaning you money."

John approached
me for money.

I had no money.

I went
from Sydney to Adelaide,

went down to
Victor Harbour.

Asked Dad to help us out.

Of course, Dad knocked me back
and then he sort of said,

"Well, you've forced me
to make a commentary

about what you're doing."

He said, "I think you and
Rickhave made a very big
mistake."

I was thinking about

how I was gonna
go back to Sydney

and have to
tell the band,

"I'm sorry, guys,
it's not gonna happen."

The song just
came into my head.

It was at Chequersand
it was a wet Tuesday night

which doesn't mean anything,
but it adds to the moment.

And...

I think I was
doing the door.

And then they sung a song
called "I Ain't the One".

You could almost
feel the band

sensing they'd
found themselves.

The people who'd been
sitting up the back

rushed to the front,

and it was a moment from which
you couldn't go back

because it laid
out for them

exactly who and what
they could be.

We used to rehearse

in the basementof somebody's
house in Balmain.

It was like airless,
shirts off

and sweat pouring off of us.

Someone would be going,

"De-de-de-de-eh,
de-de-de-de-de-de,"

and we'd do that for,
like, 20 minutes

and you'd go,
"I've had enough of this.

For God's sake play
another chord! Play a D."

The main element of it
was called an eighth note

which we called
"nick nick".

We had all these
other songs.

"Well, we can put it
in that one,

we can put it
in that song,

we can put it
in this song."

And we can write new songs
that incorporate it.

We were all
smoking marijuana.

It's so much a music drug

and also the camaraderie
that exists.

If you're all
having a joint,

you're all on a pretty
similar wavelength.

I was very fortunate
with "Face to Face"

because when we did
the vocals,

it'd just be
me and Doc together.

I set the microphone up
in the control room

with the big speakers,

because I wanted him
to get the feel of it.

The idea was
to have no one else around

and so that way,

he could disappear
into his own world.

When it was
a four-piece band,

when I first joined,

it was kind of...
everyone was very tight.

And as soon as Chris came in
and it was a five-piece band,

it changed the dynamic
quite a bit.

It changed it a lot, actually.

When we
officially formed

Brewster-Neeson-Brewster,

it would have been

when Buzz and Chris
were both in the band.

We were sitting around
in a room like this

with a couple of guitars,
all throwing in ideas.

And Doc would
have his notebook,

singing along.

It felt like a real team.

Chris didn't show
any interest in writing.

But Buzz wanted to write.

There was this
push-pull thing

between musical styles.

I mean, those guys
hadn't heard the Ramones.

You know?

And I was, like...
"You haven't heard..."

"You haven't
heard the Ramones?"

Many times, nBuzz or
Chris would say to me,

"Oh, gee,
I wanna leave the band."

And I said,
"Do not leave the band

Do not.
This is going to be so big.

Do not leave.
Do not leave.

You're so crucial."

It created this nice friction,
this tension,

and that's the thing

that I was always looking
for in the songs.

"Create tension,
create tension."

Then Rick wrote
Take A Long Line.

This is it, folks,
over the top.

Once that hit
the airwaves,

they broke records.

It was a dam breaking.

And it just boomed up
the charts.

We played with
David Bowie, AC/DC, Meatloaf.

The Angels!

♪ He was selling postcards
from a paper stand

♪ The whiskey bottle
in his withered hand

♪ Put his finger on a photo
from an old magazine

That summer,

you could walk outside
the back of your house

and you'd hear
"Face to Face"

being played in the
backyards all around.

In the car next to you
at the traffic lights and

and driving past
someone's barbecue,

you'd hear...

♪ Take a long line...

♪ Reel him in

Manly Vale Hotel.
1,800 people in there.

The agent called
the manager and said,

"We suggest you take out all
your tables and chairs."

And the publican said,

"Don't tell me
how to run my hotel."

At the end our show,
I'm standing on the stage,

and there's not one table,
not one chair in one piece.

The whole place is
wreckedwith glass all over the floor.

Every now and again you see a
thong where there's blood.

And the manager's
walking towards me

and as he got closer I said,
"Sorry about the damage."

And he said,
"Damage? What damage?

This is my bar take.

When can I get
you guys back here?"

Fifa Riccobono
came to me and she said,

"Oh, 'Face to Face'
has gone gold."

I said, "Fifa,

this album's gonna go
a lot further than gold.

This has changed
Australian music."

♪ Take a long line

♪ Reel him in

♪ Take a long line

♪ Reel him in

George said,
"Your best way on stage,

because you haven't been
a frontman before,

is just to do anything
that you want."

I went, "Anything?"

I decided to go down
to Sydney Fish Markets

and I bought about
a dozen foot-long fish.

I cleaned them,
disinfected them

lowered them
into a bucket

and took them
to the Bondi Lifesaver

and kept them
out of sight

from the band
because I thought,

"'Let's give the audience
something to talk about."

I didn't realise there was
fish meat on the head

and it was breaking offand
getting on people's clothes

and getting on their skin

and a few people

actually started throwing them
back at the band.

And one hit
Chris Bailey's bass

and kind of mushed itself
right across all his strings.

So he had to play
the rest of the night...

... with fish head
all through his guitar.

And he came off the stage, you
know, when we were all off

and I was kind
of thinking,

"Mmm, wonder how
the fish thing went."

And he came up to me
and he said, very quietly,

"Doc, I never interfere

with what you're
doing on stage,

but if you ever fucking throw
fish out again,

I'm not playing
with this band."

At a nightclub where I'd got
a part-time job on weekends

as a roadie,

I was on stage

and I just happened
to look across the room

and I saw this girl
with these beautiful eyes

just about to sit down

and I thought,

"Hmm, if I were to sit beside
her for the next hour,

I'd have the chance to...
to chat her up."

So I put on
a bit of a spurt,

kissed her
on the cheek goodnight,

but got her phone number.

Daniel was born, and Bernard
in his usual sort of way

had arranged
for Daniel and I

to come home
in a horse and carriage.

With Kieran, it was a limousine
and champagne in the back

and it was such
a delightful part of him

where he really
wanted to,

you know,
make an occasion of this

because it was important.

See,
if you get it right,

when he goes up
on the shoulder like this,

he gives a projectile vomit.

Six or seven years
upon migrating from Ireland,

you know, he had
a relationship with my mum,

got into music
and got into drama school.

I think from that point on,
it was, like,

"Well, what can I do
with this place?"

You know,
"What buttons can I push?

What is there
to explore in life?"

Bernard liked
German Expressionism in film,

in particular
where there was high drama,

there was lots of contrasts
and long shadows.

He was into poetry,

he was into Bertolt Brecht
writings and Kafka.

I was looking to be

a film director
and write scripts.

The flash of life

that is the second
that begins the day.

♪ Holding council
with the king and queen

♪ Trying hard to decide
the fate of their regime

♪ There's only one thing needed
to complete the harmonising

♪ That's a man with a voice
like a scraping violin

♪ Waiting for
Mr Damage...

He wanted to benan
untouchable, magical thing.

♪ Trying hard
just to keep a candle lit

♪ A leather flyer leaves
the subway anxious to admit

♪ That the marvelled one
so recently deposed

♪ Was seen three days laterin
a brand new suit of clothes

♪ Brand new suit of clothes
for a very special day...

He's one of these people
who contains this energy...

like a bomb.

♪ A brand new suit of clothes
for a very special day

His energy translates
by him letting it go

screaming across the audience.

It's in, it's in, it's in
and then he goes, "Bang!"

♪ Hey!

♪ Mr Damage holds a curse

♪ Mr Damage
drives a hearse

♪ Don't you know
who did it first?

♪ Mr Damage

♪ Mr Damage

♪ Walks through the door

♪ Of his
sacrificial church

♪ Mr Damage

♪ Meet you in the lobby

♪ And he'll leave you
In the lurch

♪ Mr Damage

♪ Stands at the altar

♪ Sermon of the search

♪ All the faithful follow

♪ Holding frozen hands

♪ As Mr Damage holds the curse

1979, I think
we did 330 gigs.

So that only left, you know,

35 days
when we didn't have a gig.

Which is not very many.

I saw less of him.

In fact, the year that I
was pregnant with Sam,

I think I would
have seen him

only for a few months
of that year.

You could never
sort of stop and think.

You know, we were just
on the road all the time.

Ray Hawkins,
he knew nothing about lights.

I was at law school,

but I'd just been busted
for dealing drugs,

so I wasn't exactly
your normal...

...your normal
law student.

We used to go around
to Ray's house

and physically
build lights.

We had this little
production line.

Crimp, rivet, grommet.
Crimp, rivet, grommet.

And then
we'd set the lights up

at four o'clock in the morning
out in his back yard.

The singular feature

of the Angels' lighting
was darkness.

As well as black
being a colour we used,

Doc used silence

in the middle
of his raves.

For a rock and roll band

to use a poignant,
pregnant pause,

and leave the moment

for people to fill in
as they wish,

it was theatre,
it was perfect.

And it was complex
and it was menacing.

I think they touched
people deeply

on a level that no one
even understood

because into darkness,

you can project your own
fears and subconscious.

The Angels
were just incandescent.

When the bandfirst
kind of hit the heights,

it was mainly males.

I'm looking at all these guys
with their shirts off,

sweating and drinking
beer and stuff

and I look out and there,

standing on a table,
dancing, is my mum.

She was... You know,
we could do no wrong.

My dad never
came to a show.

Rick tried to be
a rock and roll performer.

Didn't work.

He was kind
of a bit eccentric.

He used to take a sewing
machine on the road

in case he had to
run up a pair of flares.

He had
for no apparent reason

bought 11 red
phone boxes,

and then put store
mannequins inside them.

He looked
really ungainly

when he used to walk
around on stage.

We'd sort of be
on him and say,

"Hey, Rick, you know,

that silly little
move you make.

Do you have to do that?"
You know?

And finally he
said one day,

"What do you want me to do?
Stand still?"

♪ I ain't the one...

No one could stand still
with that intensity.

Doc would go up to Rick
and scream in his ear

and Rick would still just
stand there like this.

When it came
to "I Ain't The One"

and all the focus
was on Doc.

Fade to black.
Rick would go off the stage.

Put a cardboard cut-out
of Rick up there, life size.

The light would
come up from behind him

so they were only
seeing a silhouette.

And then Doc,
in his antics,

would be dancing across
the stage and whack!

Fold in the middle,
flat to the ground.

He would rip the head off

and frisbee it
out into the crowd.

But it's the only time
he'd frisbee.

What I used to hear
the Angels doing

for at least half an hour

in whatever dressing room
space that they had,

they carried practice amps
and they set them up there

and all three of the guitars,
Chris Bailey on bass,

the two Brewster brothers

would play together
for at least half an hour,

probably more like
45 minutes.

And this was all about getting
the guitars exactly in tune.

Of course they're
doing it all by ear.

There were no tuners.

So, that was the way
they locked themselves in.

And that became
a real thing for me

because they were such
a tight band.

I think that's the defining
thing about them. It was...

Oh, I don't know,

kind of almost
a religious experience for me.

Now?
Yes!

Now!

Proudmans
was built for ballet.

The speaker columns
and the ceilings

bouncing up and down.

Suddenly the whole truss

comes down
and it scatters the audience

No one was injured.
It was hilarious.

They've been transformed
into this menacing,

road-tough new band

with a whole lot
of new material

played incredibly fast.

The Oils had
to compete with this.

You see Guns N' Roses.

Their singer,
he took everything from that.

♪ I ain't the one
I ain't the one

♪ I ain't the
one to judge

♪ I ain't the one
I ain't the one...

You'll never ever tell me

that he didn't know
exactly what he was doing

every second of the performance.

Everything's in lockstep.

They can feel it.

Everything, every note,
it's milliseconds going down

and they're on
the same wavelength.

♪ I ain't the one
I ain't the one

♪ I ain't the
one to judge

♪ I ain't the one
I ain't the one

♪ I ain't the
one to judge

♪ I ain't the one
I ain't the one

♪ I ain't the
one to judge

Well, we're
into the 1980s,

but it hasn't started outas
an entirely happy New Year.

Hooliganism marred the
New Year's Eve revelries

at the Opera House last night,

bringing the
Sydney Festival Concert

to an abrupt and
violent end.

Sixty-five people
were taken to hospital

and there were
more than 40 arrests.

Everyone
was shitfaced

and started to frisbee
these pieces of masonite

up onto the stage.

Chris and I are
just going,

"'Fuck..." you know,

"Is someone gonna
stop this or what?"

Right then, this flagon

that had been
broken off went...

Embedded itself in the wood.

Just missed me.
And I just said to Chris,

"Next song, mate,
I'm outta here.

I'm just gonna get up
and walk off."

And Chris, you know,
he's playing along and,

"Yeah, yeah, me too.
Yeah, all right".

And he turned around
and this bottle...

Bang! Knocked him unconscious.

And I just got up and I ran

to the fucking front mic
and I said,

"You fucking idiots!
Arseholes!"

You know, and I'm fucking
like this and Rick's still...

Rick's still playing,
and I'm going,

"For fuck's
sake, get off!"

- And then...

For whatever reason...

Well, hang on,
whatever reason?

It was alcohol.

They were drunk as skunks

by the time
the Angels came on.

That's the funny thing
with crowds.

It's like, you can have
a religious experience,

but then,
the darkness can come in

if people are not
in a good space.

I rolled the dice.

It was a double one.
A classic.

There was a lot of fear
about doing the next album

because it was
five times platinum,

because you've got
to now live up

to what you've created before.

"Face to Face"

was a real
three-part collaboration.

For me,
it started to fall apart

on the next album,
"No Exit".

I don't know.

I don't even know
what Doc did with his time.

He could strum
an instrument

but he wasn't,
by any means, a musician.

I mean, he had
musical inclinations,

but I don't
think he was...

I mean,
he wasn't as proficient

at guitar as
the Brewsters

and, you know, Rick

who's just
a consummate shredder.

There's always a threat
of knowing where you fit

or understanding
where you fit.

That can lead to insecurities.

Yeah, the new album,
of course, for the Angels

is the important thing

on the scene at the moment
for the boys.

The Face to Facealbum, um,
at 75,000 copies, I believe?

- Apparently.
- John, yeah.

Can you tell us a bit
about the album itself

and how long it took

and where you did it?

Well, we, uh,
did it at Alberts,

the same place
we did Face to Face.

We did it a little bit
differently to Face to Face.

We... uh, put amps
in different rooms

and the production's
a bit different.

Um... But we also
wrote all this...

Well, nearly all of the songs
on this in the studio,

which is a bit different
from Face to Faceagain

because most of that stuff
was written on the road.

So you had a bit of time

to sit down and think,
did you, this time?

Yeah, we took about
two and a half months on it.

You're the quiet one
here, Rick.

You get involved sort of
with John and Doc

on the song writing side
of things or...

- Oh, yeah.
- Fairly heavily?

- Yes.
- Yeah, yeah.

- So the answer is yes.
- He's talkative.

How's Doc, anyway?

I haven't seen him
for a while.

I haven't seen him
for a while either.

Oh, I see,
so after a heavy night...

No, he's turned into
a bit of recluse these days.

Right. So tonight
at the Finsbury

and tomorrow night?

They would
come into the studio

with a song, finished.

And it was said to me
a couple of times,

"Shut up and play the drums."

Oh, that's me there,
so you've got a camera.

When Rick and I
were writing together,

it was the most
creative time

and it was
an incredible relationship.

Quite often, we would end up
hating each other

and they were
ridiculous arguments.

They went from
musical arguments

to personality shredding.

And people would go,

"Oh, my God, you know, the
band's about to break up."

And then half
an hour later,

we wouldn't even know
what we were talking about.

By the time
we walked out of the studio,

the little café across the road
was open

and people were going to work.

Coordination.

Can roll in...

John was driven.

He had a passion,
he had a vision.

He had loads
of self-confidence.

There was one agency
called Premier Artist

and they handled all the bands.

And there were
two managers.

John Woodruff
managed the Angels

and Rod Willis
managed Cold Chisel.

They worked out that
between those two bands

who were massive at the time,

that they were doing
half the business of the agency

but weren't gettingany
better deal than, you know,

all the other
hundred little tiny bands.

John Woodruff, Ray Hearn
and Rod Willis

took the Angels, Cold Chisel
and Flowers, or Icehouse,

I think by then, and formed
Dirty Pool Artists.

If you wanted
to book the Angels

or you wanted
to book Cold Chisel,

you had to go to the managers
and just do a deal.

It was just
really, nreally innovative for
the time.

Got a lot of the establishment
noses out of joint.

John Woodruff
came to the band and said,

"I can get you a deal
with Epic Records

where you get
more money."

Basically,

John Woodruff walked
into Alberts and said,

"We're leaving
the company."

I found out
when I was doing

"Choir Girl"
with Cold Chisel.

Went back to Alberts, said,
"What? What's going on?"

He said, "No,
they've decided to leave

and go to Epic Records,

which is part
of CBS Sony."

And I just
couldn't believe it.

Epic Records treated us
like pop stars.

Like the first time
we went to England,

we had Bentleys
and we went to Lord's

and had cucumber sandwiches.

You know, the first time
we went to America,

you know, we were
into the main office

and we were
taken out to dinner.

And you're outnon the
road for months on end,

and pretty girls come
and things happen.

Particularly in America.

I had
a girlfriend, Kaye.

I went through the whole
Angels experience

as Mr Monogamous.

I still had no idea

that people snorted
white powder.

In Los Angeles
we had an engineer.

I watched him
get a gram of coke

and on the
mixing console,

he put the whole gram out,
chopped one long line,

and just went up it
with a straw,

the whole gram.

Bang.

There was something
going on.

It was just starting to break.

KGON, I think,

was the radio station
in Portland.

They gave us
the keys to the city

and they put us
in their Hall of Fame.

We killed it.

The band were very,
very popular

in some parts of America.

Sometimes
when you tour with bands,

they greet you
with open arms

and other times
you're just like

something off
the bottom of their shoe.

We started
The Kinks tour in the areas

where we'd been before

and we were actually
quite successful.

Chicago we'd
been to before.

Seattle, Portland, Vancouver.

So when we turned up
with The Kinks,

there would've been
7,000 people there

that knew who we were.

Poor old Ray Davies
didn't like that.

When we did our bit

and when Doc ran out
into the audience,

all the audience
went nuts and went,

"Hey, this is cool. You know,
these guys are great."

The Kinks' road crew
began putting tape

on each side of me

and I wasn't supposed to go
past that tape on the stage.

♪ Shadow boxer

♪ Don't go
Walking out late...

Doc would
immediately go past it,

immediately
pissing them off.

When that
didn't work,

they started giving us
less lighting.

And when
that didn't work,

they started actually
giving us less of the PA.

We were still
drawing encores.

♪ You might find that you
have turned to stone

It was very exciting for us,
of course.

♪ Shadow boxer

♪ Shadow boxer

♪ Yeah

Eventually,
dear old Ray had a hissy fit

and chucked us
off the tour.

I wouldn't put it past
Ray Davies, I'll tell ya.

It was an honour to get
tossed off that tour, probably.

Yeah.

It was an honour to be on
and get tossed off.

- That's right.
- Yeah.

Then "Marseilles" got on

178 radio stations
around the country.

I mean, you get on
radio in America,

and that's a big deal.

It's the largest record
buying public in the world.

Should have stayed
in the States longer.

Yeah, they should
have stayed in the States.

I blame their management.

The Epic deal
that we signed

involved them
paying us an advance.

We used about $125,000
of that advance

to buy out of a year
of contract with Alberts.

We had to pay
all the legal bills

and then we had to pay
the manager.

By the time all those things
were done, we had no money left.

John Woodruff

didn't actually
put the other side of it,

which was "You'll have to pay
for your studio,

you have to pay
for your engineer,

you'll have to pay
for your producer",

that we didn't have
to with Alberts.

Musicians tend to,
on the whole,

go, when it works,
it was them.

When it fails,
it was the manager.

Woodruff probably felt,
to break America,

you needed a multinational
like CBS or Warner,

and he made,
I believe, the right call

by virtue
of the fact that CBS

had put a plan together
that'd break America.

We were
sort of hell bent

on what we were
doing creatively,

that we went
along with this.

You know,
and all of a sudden,

we're out of Alberts,
we're on our own.

And we'd lost the family,
you know.

Buzz was certainly voicing
some frustration.

I remember him saying to me,
"You guys won't use my songs."

And I said, "What songs?"

John Woodruffgot in
touch with me and said,

"Oh, we still want you
to work on the albums

to create the sounds,

but we don't want you to be
a producer any more."

I'm, like... I
said, "What?"

you know,
"How does that work?"

Warner Bros.
approached me and said,

"Oh, can you come and do the
album with Cold Chisel?"

An album
that was called "East".

And I said, "Yeah".

And so I just said,

"Sorry, guys, I'm not
doing this any more.

You've only got me down
as an engineer,

so see you later."

And walked off
the job, basically.

I just told them
I was leaving.

Doc and Buzz
came to us

with a song called
"No Secrets"

which was a really
slow ballad.

We had this...

Well, basically, Rick and I
had a massive input

into changing that song
into what it is today.

John first came up
with the riff

which is the opening.

Rick came up
with the chorus.

So instead of being...

♪ She keeps no secrets...

It became...

♪ She keeps no
She keeps no

♪ She keeps no secrets from you

See, I can sing.

♪ Amanda the actress
waits at the station

♪ She's drifting
With nothing to do

♪ With dilettante steps
She's quick to accept...

Because Buzz
was always carrying on

about he never got credited
as a songwriter,

that we decided,

"Don't worry about it, nwe're
not gonna claim anything.

You guys have it."

So it's down forever
as Bidstrup-Neeson.

♪ She keeps no
She keeps no

♪ She keeps no secrets...

And so, boy,
that backfired.

♪ She keeps no
She keeps no

♪ She keeps no
Secrets from you...

I was hoping that
co-writing and co-producing

their first top ten hit
might have actually led to,

"Hey, you got any
more songs?" But it didn't.

It was treated
as an aberration

or as a lucky fluke
or something,

I don't know.

America
made a hybrid

out of "Face to Face"
and "No Exit".

So they took away a lot
of the depth of those albums.

And then Dark Room
sounded radically different

to the American Face
to Face.

And the record company
are going,

"Well, it doesn't sound like...
they're not the same."

It just
changed dramatically

when the record
didn't take off.

In London, you know,
we had to get the tube.

There was no room for anyone
to get any external stimulus.

It was all kind of focused
in on this five people.

You know, there was no...
You didn't have a life.

And that's what started
to get to me.

I just... I couldn't do
anything else

and the thought of playing
with anybody else

or recording with anybody else
was like a no-no.

Like, you couldn't do it.

John Woodruff,
he was our manager

and I did have
this discussion with him

with a snoot
full of cocaine

in America where
I just said,

"Man, why don't you
grow a pair

and just go to them
and tell them

that if they
don't consider

at least some
kind of remuneration

like other people do..."
Like it's not...

I'm not asking for anything
out of the ordinary.

I'm just asking for
what other people get.

And it was just basically
like, "Oh, well, you know.

They're never gonna share
their song writing royalties

so don't worry about it.

You know,
don't even think about it."

And that was probably,
you know,

a week,
two weeks before I left.

♪ Iceman, come in
From the cold

When Buzz left the band,
I think we threw a party.

♪ Sleep Walker,
fast talker

♪ Feels nothing
Dog eat dog

♪ In the wasteland
That's where you belong

Buzz was just
a fantastic drummer.

If I look back on it
with retrospect I'd say

we should have tried
to make him happy.

I think we thought,
"Oh, you know,

we'll just get
another drummer in."

Thirty-two different guys
turned up

and none of them
were right.

Now look at
the man behind the scenes.

Mr Brent Eccles.

- Oh, hello.
- The real deal.

- Well, hello and welcome again.
- Let's see if we can

get you into focus, Brent.

Welcome again to
Opportunity Knocks.

And the slogan
for this week is

"Opportunity only
knocks twice."

And our first contestant...

Brent,
if I could just interrupt

- you for a moment there?
- Yes.

A band
is probably the worst

business relationship
you could possibly have.

And being the drummer

is probably right down
the very bottom,

because you're not
writing the songs.

You know, you weren't
an original member.

You've come in as a...
as a hired hand.

John Woodruff had a contract
and he said,

"Because Buzz has gone,
you have to sign that

you've taken his place."

And I said, "No problem,
I'll sign the piece of paper,

but I want
to read the contract."

They said, "Oh, nah.
you can't, really."

I said, "Well, I'm signing
a piece of paper

that's agreeing to the terms
and conditions

I can't even read.
I just want to read it."

And John said,
"Yeah, okay."

So, I spent the next two weeks
going through that contract,

understanding
every clause.

It was a very
complicated document

and I ended up
understanding it totally.

I've never forgotten
the stuff in it.

It's set me up in my head
for how music works

and how contracts work
for my entire life.

When Buzz left,
Chris stayed in the band.

You know, it was obvious
Chris wasn't happy.

So we asked Jim
to join the band.

I remember we used
to travel on the tour bus

and I would go to bed
with my notebook

and a guitar in this tiny
little bunk bed.

And I'd be there for hours,
writing songs.

But I don't remember,
you know,

times like that, the three
of us sitting around.

More and more
songs became

either written by me
or written by me and John.

I got sick of it.

I just said, "Nope.

I want out.

I want to put the credit
where it belongs."

Rick and John Brewster
being brothers

had a wonderful
love/hate relationship.

John was a bit of
a hypochondriac.

He would always be
having heart attacks.

The second day
we worked together,

John was lying
on the studio floor

clutching his
chest saying,

"Rick, Rick, I think
I'm having a heart attack."

And Rick calmly,
quite calmy,

just stepped over
the top of him,

looked at me and said,

"We'd better do
my guitars now."

It was a great moment.
I went,

"Okay, I can work
with you guys."

They
were cheerful,

they were enthusiastic,
they were hopeful.

But there was an
underlying tension there.

None of these guys were as
young as they used to be.

Recording vocals
in particular,

John and Rick
would both

act as producers
along with me.

So there was a lot
of opinions in the room

about what's right,
what's wrong.

Brent at this stage
was quite new to the band.

He was very much
the drummer.

John would, to an extent,
try and handle Doc.

He was just a bulldog.
He would not let things go.

I recognise...

So, to an extent

Doc would just sort of go,
"Okay, fine.

All right, all right, fine,
we'll do it that way."

I'll get the last bag.

Doc loved
to have fun.

And that probably never
left him but...

He drew away
from the rest of us
in the band, I think.

That side of him,
if you ask other people

who were friends,

they'd probably say
it never went.

I think for both
Bernard and I,

it was a bit ofna superficial
industry, really.

Um, it was certainly an aspect
that I really didn't like

and I think
for Bernard, similarly,

he had to be
part of that.

He would often stay behind
at gigs and sign autographs

or he would
have to get up at two,

three in the morning, whatever,

to do a radio interview.

Even after a gig,

even though he'd put
110 % into his performance,

he was still performing.

He couldn't switch off.

He just found some way to,
sort of, come down, relax.

For him it was alcohol.

It was a slow...
a slow change,

but the more popular
the band became,

the more the pressure
came as well.

He just
didn't want to be

corralled into
a specific thing

and I think
he wanted a lot more

artistic control
of his life.

And I think that's what
part of the problem was.

Bernard was
considered for the lead role
ofMad Max

which eventually
went to Mel Gibson.

It's not that
anybody knew

what it was going to involve

and how big it was going
to get potentially,

but it was a feature role.

But again it was

time that he couldn't give
to those projects

because it was taking time
away from band life.

He was making
ridiculous demands.

He needed to have
the sun on his left.

And we used to say,
"What do you mean?"

"When I wake up,
I want the sun on my left."

No one ever worked it out.

And he started talking
in the third person.

"Doc needs to evolve."

"Doc, you're talking
about yourself."

"I know,
but Doc needs to evolve."

We stopped
for breakfast.

He didn't sit with us,
but we saw him.

Furious red face,
steam coming out of his ears.

And at the top of his voice,

"I asked for my eggs
to be near the toast.

They're touching!"

He was dead serious.

He knew what he was doing.

You know, he'd sometimes...

Sometimes when he'd be
at his worst,

he'd just give me a wink
and go...

Yeah, he'd know. He knew
exactly what he was doing.

He was playing games, you know?

People say he wasn't
one of the boys.

I just don't know that he had
a very good education

in how to perform
in a group

because he was told
to police his family

and be responsible
for them.

He was the eldest.
There were five siblings,

four boys, one girl.

Money was a problem.

Being the eldest even from a
very young age, under ten,

was put in charge
of his siblings.

He was responsible
for seeing

that certain household duties
were done.

With six children,
I can imagine

there would have been
many a mutiny.

I'd say he had trouble
saying no

in regards to hurting
people's feelings.

Saying no to the band,
who he'd spend,

you know, the majority
of his time with,

was probably the most
difficult thing.

♪ Nobody came...

The possibility of
that whole band dissolving

was very threatening
to other members

because that was
the family.

I think he was torn.

♪ Dream of yesterday

♪ Fame

♪ Fashion

♪ Fashion and fame

If you'd played
your arse off

for a couple of hours

in a sweaty pub,
you'd go back to the hotel,

you're not going to sleep
for two or three hours.

You know, we'd smoke
a bit of weed,

you know, hang out
with the road crew.

You know, there were
some moments with ecstasy

which was a lot of fun,
but all of us,

you know, wives
and girlfriends as well,
which was a lot of fun.

Yeah, we did it all,
but it wasn't to any excess,

you know,
so it's not really a story.

In Los Angeles,
I went through a red light.

As I pulled over,
I was terrified.

They asked me
to step out of the car,

which is what they do
in America.

And I was questioned by one cop.

And the other one shone
a flashlight in the car.

He came out
with a little brown bottle

and he said, "Oh, it looks like
we've got some nose candy."

Bang. Face down on the pavement. Handcuffs.

No questioning.

No interview. Nothing.

Woodruff picked me up
in the morning

and took me
straight to a lawyer

who was well known.

He said, "I don't want
to know the story,

don't want to know
anything about it.

What do you want?"

"Well, I want to get off."

And he said,

"Well, that's going
to cost you this much

for 100% chance of getting off.

No conviction.

If you want 80%,
this will cost this much.

If you want 50%,
it'll cost this much."

I said, "I want 100%, please."

When his marriage
broke up,

the rock and roll side
of Rick really came out.

Maybe secretly, he always
wanted to be a rock star,

I don't know.

But the fact
that all of a sudden

he was a multi-platinum
selling artist,

allowed him to do things

that he wouldn't allow
himself to do before.

John felt
very threatened by drugs.

He didn't like it at all.

It worried him. It scared him.

If you're talking
big brother, little brother,

when he got into cocaine, it
was a big alarm bell for me.

Um, you know, I grew up
with an alcoholic father.

I left home quite young.

But when I'd go and visit home,

it was apparent
that he was getting really bad.

Finding bottles
in the kitchen cupboards.

You know, he was hiding it.

Rick and I decided
that something had to be done

because he was getting
really worse and worse.

And, uh... We
just thought...

"We've got take Mum
out of the situation.

Uh, maybe it'll shock him

that he actually could
lose her."

He'd come home and he'd say,
"Where's your mother?"

And we'd just say,
"We're not telling you."

I don't know whether it was a
good thing to do or not, but...

We just said,

"We're not telling you
until you stop drinking."

Three days later
he came home and I said to Rick,

"He's sober."

And he was.

He never had another drink...

for the rest of his life.

It had to be
largely driven by John.

It certainly wasn't me.

That's the thing that I, um...

Did with the band too, you know.

I'd come up with the ideas
and we'd take it wherever it...

Uh, what am I trying to say?

Yes, I took control
of that situation.

One night, nBernard
was drinking on stage.

At the end of the gig,
Rick came up to me in tears

because he just felt
so distraught

at seeing this person who
normally was so in control.

I'm not the biggest fan
of the Angels.

There's a certain part of
Australian violent suburbia

that I don't
really care for.

I had this early
recollection of him

as just a dad and then,

there was a time when he tried
to maintain that persona,

but it was
completely undermined.

One thing I just have
not been experiencing before

is recognition.

And we've just done
our first date in Canberra

and I was in at the, uh...

The Institute
of Technology and Science

or whatever they call it,

and they've got fantastic things
and it's all, you know,

put your hands on
and see all these gadgets,

gyroscopes and lights flashing.

It's a great place to visit.
And I thought,

"Great, I'm visiting
during non-school, you know,

like, all the kids
are at school.

I'll be able
to just cruise through

and play
with all the toys here."

I noticed his mood
started to change

and he became
very agitated.

And then suddenly,
without warning,

we were being chased.

There must have been
40 school-aged children

running after
us, screaming.

And he picked
my younger brother up

and, sort of, flung him over
his shoulder

and I was being dragged along
by the hand.

He kicked open
a fire escape door and...

...there were
a big group of kids

having a cigarette
or something.

They were, like,
"Oh, my God, it's Doc!"

And I just saw his face melt
and he made, you know,

literally a sprint for the car
with us in tow.

Threw us in and the car
immediately became swarmed.

There's a quote
from you that said,

"I had the theory that people
go to the circus

- to watch
the trapeze artist die."
- Yes.

"They're really going
for blood."

- Yes.
- Yeah.

That's why you get
standing ovations,

because people
are kind of recognising

that you've been to the edge
of, what I saw was,

kind of, the dark potential
in the song.

♪ Obey the rules

♪ Do as you are instructed

♪ And don't ask questions

♪ Psychopath, young man

♪ Dedicated to efficiency

♪ 17, 28, 59

♪ Looks like
it's comin' down on me

♪ Down on me, down on me
Down on me

♪ Looks like
it's comin' down on me

♪ Down on me, down on me
Down on me

♪ Never so many
are watched by so few

♪ F or so long, by so much

♪ For big brother

♪ For so long, by so much

♪ For big brother

♪ For so long, by so much

♪ For big brother

♪ For so long, by so much

♪ For big brother

♪ For so long, by so much

♪ For big brother

♪ Looks like
it's comin' down on me

♪ Down on me, down on me

♪ Looks like
it's comin' down on me

♪ Looks like
it's comin' down on me

♪ Down on me, down on me
Down on me

♪ Down on me

♪ Down, Down,
Down, Down, Down

♪ Down on me

It was a starry night

and I asked the fans
to light their lighters.

From my perspective

it looked like I was,
sort of, watching

or seeing in front of the stage
right out to infinity.

Narara was the first time
Doc announced
that he was leaving.

I'd, sort of, felt that
we'd reached our peak

and this could be
a great souvenir

of that event and maybe

mark the end of my career
with The Angels.

Doc,
who said in the press

that he'd
never left The Angels,

actually left six times.

But we got him back every time.

Bernard and I
eventually separated

when the boys were young,
two and four years old.

You know,
people just grow apart

when there's
lots of separation.

You miss, absolutely miss
the family unit

because that's
what it was going to be

forever and a day and...

as hard as it was at the time,
you get on with stuff.

I mean, when you've got
two children that age,

you have to get on with stuff.

I started to realise
that we weren't making
the records

that we used to make.

'83 we lost the deal
with Epic, uh, worldwide.

Still, we were
a very close unit,

still ever hopeful
that we would break

around the world, um...

John, how the hell are you?

We were so excitedthat
we finally got a new deal

and we were going to
recordsomewhere outside of Australia.

We said to John Woodruff,

"Look, we'll record anywhere
except LA."

We ended up
recording in LA.

An album we could have
made for $60,000 Australian

ended up costing
us $450,000.

And it started us on
a path of massive debt.

And the only way
to work that debt off

was to play every gig

from here to Timbuktu
in Australia.

So we toured and toured
and toured.

We're coming back to the, uh,

Shellharbour RSL
for a few drinks

and a couple of, uh,
rounds on the poker machines.

We should have stayed
in the States. We should have
stayed there, you know?

"We're not going back
to Australia.

We're staying here.
We're going to
make this happen."

We let that opportunity go,
I think.

I was pretty keen on
approaching Alberts again

and going back to Harry Vanda
and George Young, and...

It's not to say that my ideas
were right, by the way,

but it was like
no one wanted to listen.

John's a self-confessed
control freak

which, you know,
it's a good thing in some ways

to have someone, you know,

at the helm, so to speak. Uh...

But... really annoying.

Especially as a brother
who's grown up with that.

And it eventually affected
everyone in the band.

I think
because Rick had started

a new relationship with
quite a flamboyant girl,

who was bringing
a different side to Rick out,

he wanted to break away
from that control.

I made
a really stupid mistake

in going to
Rick's ex-wife.

Um, and, she called me
and I went round there.

And I think
I overstepped the mark

and said some things that I...

That she then told Rick.

And I think that was probably
the final straw for Rick.

If John was
honest with himself,

he was probably trying
to fold it up.

I wouldn't turn up
for sound checks

and I'd go out
on the golf course
instead of doing 'em.

I mean, they did a film clip

and they had to put me
in it from another film clip.

John Brewster
was a very needy man.

He needed to know
that you appreciated

all the hard work
that he had put into it,

that he had co-written
so many great songs
and driven us...

He drove the band
from Adelaide to Sydney.

He wanted you
to appreciate that.

And I'm sure we all did
but there's a time where you go

"Well, okay, we do, but now
we're on to another thing here.

We need to put a whole lot
of energy into this."

I think he misread it.
Well, I don't know what it was.

I feel there were other things
in play in his life.

I got accused by him
of coming back to Australia,

because I cared about my family
more than I did about the...
The band.

Fuck, what?

I cared about my family
more than the band?
Well, excuse me.

Yeah, I did, but he reckoned
that I pulled the band
out of America

so that I'd be there
for the birth of my second son.

- Was it true?
- Fuck, no.

No.

No, it was because the band...
We were going...

We were going
to have babies in houses
we didn't own any more.

It was that bad.

I just remember a time
when we were on a plane

and Rick was sitting beside
meand I was talking to him about

what I thought
we should do.

And I realised that
he was sitting there

and I don't think he was
evenregistering that I was talking.

I realised that
the connection was gone

and when I think
what we used to go through

in our song writing
and those wonderful times

that we used to stay up
all night in the studio,

smoke a couple of joints,
walk across the road,

pick up finger buns,
Kit Kats and milkshakes...

When I realisedI was
talking to a blank wall,

I knew we were in big trouble.

We all knew exactly
why we were there,
except John.

Doc said he would do it.

And he just started a long...

talk about...

what was going on
in the band and,
you know, nothing specific.

Until eventually, I said,

"For Christ's sake.
We want you to leave the band."

Just give me a minute.

Because I could see,
John was confused.

He had no inkling.

And then it was like a rock.

And he just got up and left.

Looks like
it's really serious.

Incredibly fucking serious.

When John left the band,
the feeling of relief
was phenomenal.

We were happy,
we were having fun.

We were doing things
we didn't normally do
and Bob Spencer came in.

I leapt on the freedom
of the band without John

and working with someone
new, writing songs with Bob Spencer.

But there was always that
nagging feeling that, you know,

we've lost that guy
who would go and spend hours

at the agency looking
at the calendar and going,

"We've got a hole here.
Fill it."

You know, that leader side
of John had gone.

It hurt.

When I was
in The Party Boys,
we released a cover.

It was John Kongos'
song, n"He's Gonna Step On You
Again"

and a moment of...
...sheer joy for me,
it's a nasty joy,

was that the Angels released
a cover at the same time.

The Angels song rose
to number four in the charts

and we leaped over them
to number one and I went, "Yes!"

I think our dad dying had some
role in it too, somehow.

We wanted to win with
the band to impress him

and suddenly he wasn't there
any more.

I think maybe
he was kind of a bit,

in a funny way,
the glue that kept us together.

And when he died,
that glue kind of disappeared.

When he eventually
gave up drinking,

he did change.

He was just
a really friendly guy.

Not long before he died,
he called me and he said,

"Son, I've been listening
to your music,"

and I nearly fell over

because I didn't think
he would ever do that.

And he said,
"You know, it's very good."

That was a massive
compliment from him.

That's John Brewster.

Just arrived?
Yeah.

- Hello, John.
- Frank.

So you would say
it has made a new man of you?

It was about five years in
and I just woke up one day
and I went,

"This is wrong, this is wrong.
He's my brother."

So I called him.

And uh...

And...

I think my words were
pretty much exactly like this,
I said,

"Rick, you know,
when we see each other," I said,

"We're friendly." I said,
"But there's a wall between us

and I want to kick
that wall down."

We didn't talk about
working together again.

We just talked
about being friends.

And I realised how many things
had gone back to childhood
for him.

And I think
a lot of the problems
that we... that ended up...

being a big problem was that
I was his big brother.

And I don't think
he wanted a big brother
at that time in his life.

After years and years of travel,
we've got our bags down

to about three or four each.

Throughout my whole
time playing in the Angels,

I was always wanting
to meet people in the business.

And the fact that I wasin the
band meant that I could.

I think what happened
with the Angels
and John Woodruff was

the band wore him down.

There aren't many managers
who've signed a band

to three major international
record companies.

At some point,
you've got to go,

"Well, the managerwas pretty
good. Maybe the band didn't bac
him up."

He bailed out.

Rick and Doc said to me,
"Brent, do you want to do it?"

I said, "Yes, I'll do it."

I think the biggest
change in the music
was it got faster.

And there were times
when I felt,

"Shit, I wish John was here."

Between the two of us,
we would've put a stop
to that but, um,

me on my own, no.

Bob Spencer
was someone else who
really always wanted to have

his own thing going
and he sat me and Rick down
one day at my house

and said, "I'm gonna leave
and start my own band."

Rick said, "I think
we should get John back."

John always
felt, you know,

I don't think
he particularly liked
that I was managing it.

Actually Brent
wasnpretty damn good at it but, uh,

in terms of how the business
structure happened,

I was never let back in.

And that was, I think,
pretty shameful, really.

But we all have
our opinions, you know.

The band got back
that thing it had when

the two Brewsters
played together.
We got that back.

They played
at a place in Adelaide
called The Bridgeway

and it was packed and the lights
were sort of red and the smoke

and there was, like,
sweat dripping from the roof.

There was this element of fear,

like with the Brewster brothers
just holding...

Just holding the poses.

And then with Doc
at the front being this huge, intimidating...

It's like I'd walked
into some weird cult.

If our lives
depended on it, watch out.

We would just
wipe the floor. But...

...there were issues.

The one person that got
fucked up with drugs,

they were legal
and they were prescribed

by psychologists to Doc Neeson.

And we'd have Doc World,
which was a tent on stage

and it was an array of
tablets and mouthwash and
alcohol in there.

He'd arrive at the show,
go straight to the tent.

He wouldn't talk to us.
He'd just appear
and come on for the first song.

We once went
to an Al-Anon meeting.

You know, we thought
we were going to find
some magic solution,

you know, for Doc because
we cared about him, you know.

He was driving us mad,
but we cared about him.

We all have to deal
with a lot of darkness.

And I guess I was trying
to express that emotion.

I did come to a point
where I thought,

"This is taking me over."

♪ Hurry, Alexander

♪ They're waiting for you

♪ Alexander,
just look at yourself

♪ How many times
have I spoken to you?

♪ Every time is
the same, Alex

♪ That you don't have
enough time and you hurry

♪ You hurry to get up
You hurry to get
to work

♪ Do your job properly
so you can earn some money

♪ Alexander, you give
everything away

♪ What have you got they're
gonna ask you one day for?

♪ PIN numbers

♪ They want your

♪ I guess they want
your weight

♪ They want
your registration number

♪ Alexander, when they ask you
you're gonna have nothing

The depression,
that was...

It was him with
his demons.

I've read a few
of his diaries
from when he was younger

and he was
incredibly self-loathing.

When people have
imposter syndrome,

they have characters
that they draw on

because dealing with themselves
is the worst feeling ever.

When he had
his accident,

his doctor told him that
if he went on stage,

his spine could snap

and he could be
a paraplegic, you know.

Whether he used that
as an excuse

to not play with the band,
it might have been.

Don't know.

He rang me up
and he said to me,

"Bob, you'd better
get your suit pressed."

And I said, "What?"

He said, "Yes,
you're going to a funeral.
I'm going to die."

Well, I was a bit floored
by that,

and he told me about
this terrible brain cancer
that he had.

The last time I ever saw him,
I walked out of the...

We spent many hours,
a group of us, in his room.

And I walked away
and Dzintra had arrived.

And as I walked away, I
turned back and looked through
the door.

And they were framed.

Him sitting up in bed,
her talking to him.

That was my last image.

After he'd
passed away,

I found a letter that
he'd written.

It was a letter to himself

and I think it was either

when myself or my brother
was born.

And it said something
along the lines of, you know,

"I've got this beautiful boy
with his blue eyes

and all I want to do
is be at home with him."

And, you know,
he really wanted to,

but obviously, the job,
the fame, the band,

um, it was really,
really difficult to do.

I rang him when he was
in hospital close to the end.

And I just rang him
because I wanted to spend
five minutes reminiscing.

And he said,
"No, I've got to go."

And I tried to call back,
but never got through.

Five take one.
And mark.

Thank you.

Once he'd said he wanted
to leave, that kind of stuck,
that feeling.

- The last time?
- No.

- From the beginning.
From Narara.
- Oh, any times? Yeah. Yeah.

Uh, and I think
it wasn't too long after that

before he felt that
he wanted to leave again.

I don't think he was happy
in the band from before Narara.

- Yeah, maybe.

And I think that's sad
that he never was able
to really see himself,

- the strengths that he had.
- Hm.

Because he might have
just continued

- to wear
the whitest outfit and...

...stand at the mic and do
the great things that he did.

Yeah, well, I mean,

- lots of things contribute to...

...the band not realising
what we could've realised
overseas but, um...

But at the end
of the day,

I'm speaking for myself
and, you know, I love Doc.

I love the memory of Doc.

But, fuck, he
was difficult.

We've had marriages break down

and then relationships
within the band break down,

- including
our own relationship...
- Really?

...that broke down.
But you know what? Doc actually
said it in an interview,

you know, there's a really good,
good comment he made

talking about the band, he said,

"It's not easy being
in a rock and roll band."

I'd talk about

how the planets
were aligning for a moment

to successfully get up to
the top of Mount Everest.

Base camp was breaking
in Australia
the way that they did.

The second part was signing
to CBS and touring America
and Europe.

That was their window.

They almost got to the top,
but didn't quite reach
the summit.

That's the cruel thing
about our industry

because rarely do you
get a second chance.

So they mightn't
have helped themselves

but they certainly
broke down the doors

for artists like INXS
and Men At Work
and bands like that

that came after them
and learned from
the experiences they had

and had more knowledge
than we had,

because we were too busy
just kicking
the fucking door down.

♪ Deal me the card
that takes my blues away

♪ Take me away
to Marseilles

♪ Take me

♪ Take me away
to Marseilles

♪ Take me

♪ Take me away
to Marseilles

♪ Take me

♪ I want to go
to Marseilles

♪ Take my blues away

♪ Yeah, take me away
to Marseilles

All right!

Angels! Angels! Angels! Angels!

It's an interesting thing
in your life

to be a part of something
which is so incandescent.

You know, life is so...
it can be so bland.

And then
you've got this moment
of pure incandescence

and it permeated
every aspect of our lives
and it was just wonderful.

This is it, folks.
Over the top.

♪ He was selling postcards
from a paper stand

♪ The whiskey bottle
in his withered hand

♪ Put his finger on a photo
from an old magazine

♪ Saw himself
in the shadow of his dream

♪ They found him with his head
inside a tin-pot crown

♪ Told him his feet stank
and took him downtown

♪ Called him agitator,
spy and thief

♪ Shut him up
in solitary third degree

♪ Take a long line

♪ Reel him in

♪ He tried to appeal
to the king of might

♪ Said "I'm just exercising
my sacred right"

♪ The king, he said
"You ain't got no rights

♪ You're a madman, a traitor
Get outta my sight"

♪ Take a long line

♪ Reel him in

♪ They found him with his head
inside a tin-pot crown

♪ Told him his feet stank
and took him downtown

♪ Called him agitator,
spy and thief

♪ Shut him up
in solitary third degree

♪ Then they put him aboard
a well-wound whirlwind

♪ Pulled out his teeth
and they told him to grin

♪ He gave them a smile
Pulled out a bottle of wine

♪ And said, "I never
existedYou've been wasting your
time"

♪ Take a long line

♪ Reel him in

♪ Take a long line

♪ Reel him in

♪ Take a long line

♪ Reel him in

Everybody that has ever been
in The Angels has been fired.

At some stage or another,
every single person, except one.

Rick.

Rick Brewster-Jones.
He has never been fired.