From The Inside with Peter Rix

John Woodruff's work in the 70s and 80s set him up for the moment where he saw a young Suze DeMarchi performing on UK television while visiting London. Tracking her down led to The Baby Animals, an Aussie rock group ready for the MTV generation. A few years later, John then came across two friends from Brisbane's southside - Savage Garden - whose success was swift and global in scale. John and Peter look back on Johns ride with these two acts, how they rose to stardom and what it takes for a manager to find and work with an artist that has the serious potential to become a big hit.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Long time tour promoter and now Chairman of Live Nation Australasia, Michael Coppel's career in music started fresh out of university. It meant running record stores and booking bands - long hard hours borne out of a love of music. Coppel is astute, uncompromising, a workaholic, and with a love of interesting left-of-centre music. He sits down with Peter for a conversation about starting out, growing his own business and how the future of touring looks.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The landscape of touring is changing and evolving to a new scale. The tours are bigger - bigger money, larger venues, more countries with bigger entourages. Peter and Michael look at the differences in the business from then to now; about how artists touring 30 years ago are still going strong now - albeit on a much grander scale - and how a new artist that can fill a stadium now may not necessarily still have what it takes in two years time.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are few long-standing members of the music industry globally who have the unique ability to hear and smell a hit record. There are even less who can show a track record for finding those neglected, unsigned, unwanted recording artists who they can put in a studio with a song that ultimately finishes its journey at the very top of the music charts.

Charles Fisher is one of those quiet achievers that you will only find if you search the credit section of your next album. From Radio Birdman in the 70s to Savage Garden in the 90s and beyond, this is a serious practitioner of the art of producing and recording hit records. They call him 'The Song Doctor' with good reason.

In this episode, Peter and Charles look back at Charles's start in the music industry. Charles always knew he wanted to make records. From starting out producing records in a run-down film studio in Sydney's inner west through to producing one of the biggest selling Australian albums ever, Charles walks us through those moments and shares his insights on what it takes to produce a hit.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

In Part 2 of Peter's conversation with Charles Fisher, they look at Charles's 10 years spent producing records in the US and how that differed from working in Australia. They also look at the arrival of digital audio and production and how it has changed the music landscape. The equipment might be different, but it has never been easier to produce music and get a start in the industry. The way to becoming successful and making a living out of the industry is much different though and the term 'producer' can now have a different meaning. Charles and Peter discuss where the opportunities and potential pitfalls lie.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There is no rock and roll without the radio. As a manager of artists and bands in the 1970s, it was part of Peter Rix's job to help break his artists through to success. To break your band, you needed to get their song on the radio. For Peter, it meant visiting key radio stations such as 2SM in Sydney, 3XY in Melbourne and 4IP in Brisbane: get your songs on these stations and you're on your way to making hits.

Through those radio days, one man stood in the middle of that mad world as the leader of the pack. Rod Muir was the brains behind 2SM's ascendency as Sydney's leading music radio station of the 70s (extending that ascendency to 3XY in Melbourne and 4IP in Brisbane), and then of the launch of FM in the 1980s with Triple M. In Part 1 of their conversation, Peter and Rod look back at Rod's start in radio in Tasmania, the 1970s when 2SM and AM radio was king and then the start of FM in the 1980s and a new decade of ruling the airwaves on Triple M.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The 80s brought in a new time for radio - a new way of listening via crystal clear FM and new ways of doing things. Peter and Rod talk about those early days when FM turned on for the first time: how the first Triple M - Triple M Sydney hit the airwaves, the impact Doug Mulray had on the station and breakfast radio and how Triple M extended into Melbourne. They were heady days. In a lot of ways too, Rod's exit from Triple M was just as spectacular as his entry - the myth about the chainsaw and the boardroom table is the stuff of radio legend. Rod finally clears that story and talks about his life after radio and the friendships forged.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

There are many criteria you can place on success in the music business: taking your band to number 1 on the American Billboard Chart, selling nearly 50 million albums, selling-out Wembley Stadium and playing to 78,000 fans are amongst them. One Australian band has achieved all of these milestones - and they have done it with the guiding hand of one long-time manager.

Chris Murphy has been the legendary long-time manager of INXS. But for Chris, achieving global success did not happen overnight. It started by leaving high school to work for his family's agency, learning the ropes and working hard while his friends were off surfing. In Part 1 of their conversation, Peter Rix and Chris Murphy talk about those early years and how it built up to a very unexpected moment and an even more unexpected offer to become the agent, and later manager of a young INXS.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The next phase of Chris Murphy's career sees Chris start building INXS from a local young band to an international band taking to the global stage. Underpinning his work and belief in the band and their future was an internal self-belief that nothing is impossible to do.

Chris tells Peter about the drive that propelled him along in those early years: the travelling, the deals, and the taking of risks. He also looks at how the MTV revolution came at exactly the right time in the band's career to take INXS to the next level.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The rise and rise of INXS did not mean resting on one's laurels. It meant recording, and touring and touring and even more touring, despite everyone else thinking it was time to rest and enjoy the fruits of the labour to date. This idea of keeping momentum moving has led to the next wave of INXS's career: the top-rating TV mini-series and the keeping of the band's journey alive via new endeavours which will take INXS to the next stage. Chris tells Peter about this process of momentum and how his and the band's travels are far from ended.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.