By Bradley McCaw
Musicians from around the world muse on life, art, history, purpose, love, hit records, inspiration, and those two dirty words… ‘show business.’ Hosted by Award winning singer/songwriter and part t
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The podcast currently has 38 episodes available.
Listen to Part 1 of this conversation via the link below. After over 30 years of a career in Rock n Roll Photography including touring with the Rolling Stones three times amongst others, British born photographer TONY MOTT is one of a kind. He’s photographed Nicole Kidman, Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac… and even took some snaps of our host Bradley McCaw.
Listen to Part 1 of this conversation here
Watch video of this episode
Follow the RC Music Playlist
Check out Tony's photos
Follow Brad everywhere @bradleymccawofficial
Brought to by True Arts Podcast Network
This interview was originally recorded in late 2021.
Created, produced, hosted & engineered by Bradley McCaw.
Original sound design by Matt Erskine at Crosspoint Solutions
Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
About Tony Mott:
After over 30 years of a career in Rock n Roll Photography including touring with the Rolling Stones three times amongst others, Tony decided to branch out into Film and TV Stills Photography commencing in 2005 with the feature, Suburban Mayhem.
Tony has worked on numerous features and television series since and has become a sought after photographer in the field.
A 30 year retrospective of Tony’s work “What A Life” is currently touring Australia after opening at the State Library of NSW in Sydney .
Tony lives in Sydney with his wife Libby and two children Harvey and Lucinda Mott and his cat “kitten caboodle”.
Except from Tony Mott’s website:
Trainspotting… travel around the world… life as a Chef on the high seas, a passion for music and few photos along the way. Welcome to Tony’s Mott’s story – so far.
I was born in April, 1956, (that makes me sort of old) and raised in Sheffield, England, quite normally by mum and dad, Mary and Brian Moulds. I was trained as a chef at Sheffield Polytechnic and in 1976 I left England, arriving in Australia for the first time. Using my training I worked in Sydney at the Opera House and the Gazebo before helping a friend open a restaurant in Armidale, New South Wales, called The Blackboard Menu, but I had to leave after six months because I only had a limited working visa. It was at this point that I realised I wanted to live in Australia permanently. I returned to England with the intention of securing a permanent visa, which didn’t eventuate. Refusing to allow a little thing like a visa to stand in the way of escaping the UK, I managed to get a job on the SS Oriana as a chef, a wonderful job that lasted two years and took me to over 60 countries as diverse and interesting as Puerto Rico, Egypt, Panama, India, the Caribbean Islands, all around the Mediterranean, Nordkapp (where the sun never goes down and all its inhabitants are bonkers) and elsewhere. It was during this time I developed a strong sense of wanderlust, an affliction which has taken me to India seven times and helped me traverse the Himalayas on a number of occasions. In fact, to celebrate my 40th birthday I had to make a choice between getting pissed in Redfern or walking the Annapurna Circuit with my best friend, I chose the latter.
Eventually my job on the ship came to an end and brought me back to Australia and in 1981 I finally managed to settle here permanently. I got my old job back at the Gazebo Hotel in King Cross, which, as it turns out was a perfect location to embark on the next stage of my life.
I’ve often thought about my penchant for travel and trainspotting (that’s a whole other story right there!) and always go back to my childhood in Sheffield. When I was about eight or nine years old my mum and dad used to visit the local pubs, including one called the Castle Inn. My sister and I used to sit on the wall outside with our crisps and fizzy pop watching the trains go by. From this point we could see the trains disappear into a tunnel and I always wanted to know what was on the other side of that tunnel. Eventually I got to the other side of the tunnel and just kept on going!! Finally I got to and settled in Sydney.
In the early 1980s Sydney had a brilliant live music scene. Every night of the week you could see any number of excellent bands at any number of excellent venues, right across the city. Working as a chef meant I usually finished work around midnight, not a bad situation for somebody like me who loved music. I’d leave work and hop into any given venue. On Monday nights I used to go to the Piccadilly Hotel in the Cross to see the Divinyls play. They had a residency at the venue and at this stage they were unsigned and largely unknown. Singer Chrissy Amphlett didn’t do a lot in those days. The stage persona she later became famous for was non-existent but, suddenly it seemed, she became a loony on stage wearing the schoolgirl uniform and gyrating about.
During my days sailing the seven seas I’d developed a strong desire to document photographically the amazing places I saw. So every Monday night after work at the Gazebo I used to hone my fledgling skills by snapping away at the Divinyls. A lot of crap shots were taken but after four months the band’s manager, Vince Lovegrove, who’d obviously seen me shooting away, asked to see the shots, one of which he chose and used as a tour poster. I was well chuffed! To top it off he paid me 20 bucks – my first foray into professional photography.
I was very green in those days, typified when Vince told me that my name was on the door for the band’s next gig. I had no idea what this expression meant and for the next two months I continued to pay my way into their shows. One night he saw me and said, “You know your name’s on the door, don’t you?” Not wishing to appear unsophisticated, I replied, “Yeah, I know. Isn’t that great,” thinking that somewhere – perhaps the band’s rehearsal studio – there was a door on which they’d written my name as a mark of respect. Just shows you how much I had to learn about the music industry.
By 1983 the Divinyls tour poster had had a snowball effect on my career and before long other bands were asking me to shoot their gigs. One day I walked into the offices of the free paper On The Street, then in its infancy and long before the term street press had ever been coined. I started getting work through the paper.
About a week before I went to “On The Street”, Margaret Cott, now publisher of “The Drum Media”, had just started as a layout girl and so began a professional relationship with her which lasts to this day. Within a year Margaret had become editor and I was photographing anything that moved, anywhere, anytime. All this and I was still working full-time at the Gazebo.
It was 1985 and for a short period of time during that year I got married. My wife was Swedish (and to my knowledge still is) but I won’t go into the topic any further other than to say she now lives in Sweden and I still live in Sydney. Anyway, she had suggested I head back to England and so I did, and with my few contacts in the industry I spent the summer of 1986 drinking a lot and generally having a good time going to music festivals. I went to Reading, Milton Keynes and so on, seeing tons of bands. I haven’t managed to work out how to this day, but I managed to photograph Queen at Knebworth, which was a hell of an experience. I also went to Paris and New York that summer, purely as a drunken wanderlust thing as opposed to seriously pursuing anything professionally.
When I got back to Australia, Mick Jagger was touring to promote his first solo album. While I was away, and unbeknownst to me, Jagger’s manager, Tony King had been trying to track me down wanting to hire me as Jagger’s tour photographer. To this day I have no idea who recommended me for the job but I’m extremely grateful. Eventually I made contact with Tony King and as it turned out they were not happy with whoever it was they had hired instead of me. By this stage the tour was in Melbourne so I went down and met Tony in his hotel room. I don’t think I would be giving anything away when I say that Tony King is what you would describe as an effervescent gay man and when I met him he enthusiastically expounded the virtues of Sydney. “Oh I love Sydney,” he said, “so many sailors in the one city.” I thought, what have I got to do to get this gig? Tony King, it should be pointed out, is a lovely man and I have always gotten on extremely well with him on a professional basis. But that was the start of my relationship with Mick Jagger and eventually the Rolling Stones. It was an enormous break which has resulted in me touring with the Stones three times. As I’ve said, I have no idea how I got the gig because I was only reasonably well-known as a live photographer in Sydney at that point. And to think I nearly missed out because I was getting legless overseas!!
To illustrate how absurd the music industry can be at times, at the end of tour party I could hear people behind me talking about the tour photographer and how “he’s just come back from working in London, Paris and New York, don’t you know”. I suddenly realised they were talking about me! Little did they know I was basically having a good time in these places and not doing the glamorous jobs they imagined.
As a consequence of the Jagger gig I toured in the same year with Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac. I wasn’t any better as a photographer but once I had gigs of that calibre in my CV I looked so much better. That period was the beginning of my first break.
It was 1988 and with these three enormous gigs under my belt I was going out at least five nights a week just to see bands. I’d worked out by now what having my name on the door actually meant so I was saving myself a small fortune. The Sydney scene during this time was fertile. There were great bands in great venues happening every night of the week; a favourable environment in which to grow as a rock’n’roll photographer.
More breaks came my way in the early 1990s. I did a book called Still Noise with four other photographers, the album cover photography for Tommy Emmanuel’s Dare To Be Different and the Beasts of Bourbon’s Black Milk. It was all moving along quite nicely in a relatively short period of time. I’m proud of both those album covers because they’re so radically different. Tommy Emmanuel’s album was so obviously mainstream and commercial while the Beasts of Bourbon was very inner city and independent, and that’s one of the things I love about working in the music industry – one minute you can be working with somebody like Lucinda Williams and the next minute working with the likes of Slipknot. They’re vastly different performers with vastly different personalities to be captured through the lens. But I digress.
I guess the next major event that boosted my career was the start of the Big Day Out in 1992. In the late 80s and early 90s I’d been regularly heading over to Europe and the US every couple of years to check out the summer music festivals. I really couldn’t understand why Australia didn’t have its own version of the UK’s Reading or Glastonbury festivals. Being staged in the UK, when those festivals take place, it’s an added bonus when it doesn’t rain, so why, with our weather and talented bands, why should we miss out??
Enter Ken West. Obviously Ken had been to these festivals, too, and had some thoughts about doing an Australian festival, and so began the Big Day Out. He’s now one of the most respected promoters in the country and the Big Day Out is highly regarded both here and overseas. It became very successful very quickly and in the space of four years was at the same level as the festivals in the UK. So the Big Day Out was a valuable break for me. Every year I go on the road with the Big Day Out as it tours around Australia. This means I get to build a rapport with the bands I shoot, which is a luxury not often afforded a photographer.
It’s always easier to work with people who you feel relaxed with and vice versa. I don’t work like a fashion photographer – I’ve never treated a musician as a model. A lot of photographers do because they presume there’s a lot of glamour involved. Musicians are not thespians and they’re not models so you need to build a rapport with them. Musicians can often feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, so relaxing them is an imperative. Obviously I’m referring to session work here. Live is a completely different kettle of fish. The disadvantage of doing sessions is that the artist is doing something that doesn’t come naturally to them. The advantage is that you as the photographer have complete control over the environment, things like lighting. The difficulty is getting the artist comfortable. The live situation is the opposite, the artist is in their natural environment but the photographer is not, you have no control over the lighting and so on. The quality of your shots is reliant on the lighting guy and the movement of the artist.
Eye contact is vital in photography. If you take a photo of someone and their eyes are out of focus the whole shot lacks impact. That’s how people look at photos, through the eyes of the subject. The eye is all important. In a live situation the subject is more than likely not looking at you, and there’s also the bloody ever present microphone getting in the way. In total I’ve had over 30,000 photographs published, the result of some 2,500 sessions and countless live shows, which have become 400 posters, 450 cd or vinyl covers and over 800 magazine front covers, and I’m still counting. It seems an age has passed since Vince Lovegrove used my shot of Chrissy Amphlett as a tour poster. I guess it has been a long time. Certainly much has happened and I’ve managed to collect some stories that I think are vaguely intresting along the way – some are downright bizarre and I hope you enjoy them.
Oh, and why did I change my name from Moulds to Mott? Well, when I first got a photo credit Moulds didn’t look so groovy so I had to come up with an alternative. I looked to the most influential band in my life, Mott the Hoople. The next decision was Tony Mott or Tony Hoople. I went for the former.
Everyone should have a Mott the Hoople. In my formative years in college they were the only band that I related to lyrically.They delved into social, political and more general matters, not to mention being a dynamic live act. They were punks before punk had happened, all that and glam rock as well.
I’ve always felt music is an important medium, it can be a sanctuary when things are not so rosy, and a celebration of the joys of life, the two extremes of emotion. And that is why Mott the Hoople have been so important to me. A couple of examples of that are in 1976, when I first left England for Australia, I related to the Ian Hunter album All American Alien Boy, an album about an Englishman arriving in the US, feeling alien and yet loving it. I totally related to the sentiments. Thirty years later, when I lost my best friend who died at an early age and I was finding grief very difficult to deal with, I found solace in the Ian Hunter song “Michael Picasso”, a song about the death of his long-time best friend and David Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson. That’s why I believe music is so powerful and important. Everyone should have a Mott the Hoople.
Russell 'The Real Thing' Morris has arrived at Ramble City showcasing his evolution in music across multiple eras, touching on the origins of some of his highest-selling albums like 'Sharkmouth' and the minds behind his Day of the Dead album 'Jack Chrome and the Darkness Waltz'.
Interview was originally recorded in 2021.
Watch video of this episode
Follow the RC Music Playlist
Listen to Russell Morriss
Listen to Bradley McCaw's music
Follow Brad everywhere @bradleymccawofficial
Brought to by True Arts Podcast Network
Created, produced, hosted & engineered by Bradley McCaw.
Original sound design by Matt Erskine at Crosspoint Solutions
Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
About Russell Morris:
Russell Morris is an Australian singer-songwriter and guitarist who had five Australian Top 10 singles during the late 1960s and early 1970s. On 1 July 2008, the Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) recognised Morris' status when he was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame.
The Real Thing was added to the National Film and Sound Archives Sounds of Australia registry in 2013.
Respected as one of Australia’s iconic musicians, Ian Moss (5x time Aria winner & original member / guitarist of Australian super group 'Cold Chisel' drops by to discuss his current live tour and Rivers Run Dry' Deluxe Album Release. Brad explores the history of the term ‘album’ and have a good ol’ ramble about the changing view of full length records in the modern music business.
Watch video of this episode
Follow the RC Music Playlist
Listen to RIVERS RUN DRY by IAN MOSS
Listen to Bradley McCaw's music
Follow Brad everywhere @bradleymccawofficial
Brought to by True Arts Podcast Network
Created, produced, hosted & engineered by Bradley McCaw.
Original sound design by Matt Erskine at Crosspoint Solutions
Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
About IAN MOSS:
Respected as one of Australia’s iconic musicians, Ian Moss delivers an unforgettable sound – not only as a telling soloist on guitar but especially with his silken voice, ringing with clarity and resonating with pure soul. While primarily recognised as an axeman of unusual tenacity and sweet melodic sensibility, Ian’s distinctive vocal is the essential signature of his soulful, bluesy muse – as it has been since his first tentative foray into music during the early 1970s.
Born and raised in Alice Springs, Ian started playing guitar in local teenage bands but moved to Adelaide after failing one of his high school years, planning to repeat in the big city. Fate intervened when he answered an advertisement for a guitarist in a shop window in 1973, joining the band that was to become a legend in Australia – Cold Chisel. After Moss joined organist and principal songwriter Don Walker and drummer Steve Prestwich, the group took shape with singer Jimmy Barnes and eventually bass player Phil Small, starting the hard grind of playing gigs on the back of flatbed trucks and in suburban hotels. Barnes remembered young Mossy as “a boy from the bush who didn’t wear shoes but played fantastic”. They hit the road and paid their dues, playing countless one-night stands across the country. The reputation and status of Cold Chisel steadily grew, mainly on the strength of blistering live shows, and in time their well-crafted recordings became staples of radio airplay.
By 1980, with the release of the seminal East album, Cold Chisel was the biggest band in the country. Moreover, they defined a national sound – hard-driving rock chased by a shot of blues, lyrics depicting the Australian experience and resonating powerfully with young working class fans. Moss’s voice began to shine through such seminal Cold Chisel songs as Never Before, Bow River (written by Moss) and a gorgeous rendition of Ray Charles’ Georgia. However, efforts to translate overwhelming Australian success to Europe and the United States failed to gain traction, serving to demoralise, frustrate and eventually dissolve the band at the height of its creative powers. While the band’s Last Stand tour in December 1983 closed an important chapter in Ian Moss’s musical career, Cold Chisel remains one of Australia’s favourite bands long after its demise.
Enjoying the status of Australia’s best guitarist, Moss carefully evolved into a solo artist of the same calibre and commanding the same respect as Cold Chisel. After five years of patient nurturing, Moss released his debut single Tucker’s Daughter in January 1989, and caused an immediate sensation. The anthemic song – which Moss wrote in collaboration with Don Walker – sat in the Top 10 for 11 weeks and hit No 1 for two weeks, achieving gold sales status after 15 weeks and selling more than 73,000 copies. Moss’s second solo single, Telephone Booth, was released in June that year, hit the Top 10 and remained in the Top 20 for 10 weeks.
This bold renaissance of his solo career amplified Moss’s willingness to embrace new ideas and influences. “It took a bit of nerve for me to unplug and play acoustic, but it injected this freshness into my playing,” he says. “It was a significant new path for me.” Heartened by success for that album, a second chapter of Moss’s acoustic recordings – his sixth solo album Let’s All Get Together, released in 2007 – saw the input of guests including James Morrison and Margaret Urlich adding colour to striking new interpretations of familiar songs, including Flame Trees and Choir Girl. To support the album release, Moss undertook an extensive tour with former Noiseworks and INXS singer Jon Stevens, and further touring in early 2008 showed Moss to be an especially dextrous musical stylist; not just a rock player, not just an acoustic strummer, but a truly seasoned and rounded musical talent.
In 2008, Moss was on the Australian television series It Takes Two, singing duets with celebrities and showing a side of his musical character that surprised many listeners. “When I put aside the guitar and sang a few soul ballads on that show, people were suddenly listening to me differently. They’d say ‘Yeah, we knew you sang, but we didn’t know you could really sing’. It was both flattering and frustrating. I kept wondering what they thought I’d been doing for past 30 years. It showed that there was a different side of my music that hadn’t really been heard by enough people before.” Mossy is now allowing his guitar work to take a back seat while he concentrates on singing – which is the focus of his new album Soul on West 53rd that features fresh takes on classic soul songs from the likes of Sam Cooke, Al Green, Otis Redding and Levi Stubbs.
This product of New York recording sessions with producer Danny Kortchmar and an all-star band of soul session musicians, including drummer Steve Jordan, Leon Pendarvis on keyboards, Neil Jason on bass and Hugh McCracken on guitar, is another bold venture from Moss that will certainly turn heads. When audiences hear the power and excitement on Soul on West 53rd, it will reinforce what Ian Moss has to offer as a vocalist of repute. The album release will also give him the impetus to reconnect with his supportive legion of European audiences – and maybe even reach America. “It’s nice to fantasise about that, taking my soul songs to America. I’d love to give it a try, but I know it won’t be easy.”
Significantly, as Moss prepares to introduce material from his new album to live audiences, the influence of his New York soul sessions has inspired a new burst of song writing for him. “Working with such classic songs has brought a lot of ideas for original material as well. For the next album, featuring my own songs, I’d expect it to follow the same style. There’s something really great going on here.”
The setting had been established for Moss to emerge as an important solo artist. His debut album Matchbook, released in August 1989, entered the charts at No 1 and remained there for three consecutive weeks. It stayed in the Top 10 for 14 weeks and has sold more than 185,000 copies.
When he went back out on the road, Moss’s live shows drew a hoard of Chisel faithful and a league of new fans. In 1989, Moss toured for 25 weeks, playing dynamic and energetic performances five or six nights every week to virtually full houses across Australia. Crowds were left hungry for more.
Moss closed off a triumphant year by winning five Australian Record Industry Association Awards in 1989: Best Australian Debut Single for Tucker’s Daughter and Best Australian Debut Album for Matchbook, Australian Song of the Year for Tucker’s Daughter, Best Australian Album for Matchbook and Best Australian Male Artist.
In 1990, Mossy took his music to the world, touring and gaining airplay across Scandinavia and northern Europe. At home, as a live video recorded on the Matchbook Concert Tour went Gold on the day of release, Moss returned to the studio to start recording his second album, Worlds Away. Released in Australia in October 1991, the album was then issued in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Scandinavia the following year. In 1993, Moss consolidated his growing European fan base with tours in April and May through Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, earning high praise in fantastic reviews.
Moss took stock of his musical output in 1995, changing direction to embrace the blues in bolder fashion, and in the studio this translated to recording a much tougher album than his previous releases suggested. Petrolhead, his third solo offering that was released in 1996, had Moss playing bluesy rock with none of the heavily produced, big budget sheen that had been applied his late-1980s and early-1990s recordings. With lan Rilen (from Rose Tattoo and X) on bass, Paul Demarco (Rose Tattoo, Catfish) on drums and Don Walker on occasional keyboards and song writing, the sound was recorded almost live, stripped back and honest without ever losing its innate power. “It was a conscious decision to get back to something I was always happy doing,” says Moss. “The result is tough, ballsy blues meets rock… plenty of heart, alive and kicking.”
A Cold Chisel reunion during 1998 – both in the studio for the recording of new material and subsequent touring to promote the resulting Last Wave of Summer album – put Ian back in the national spotlight as a showman and musician of dazzling ability. It reminded the Australian public of Moss’s alluring talent and diversity as a performer, as did another Cold Chisel reunion tour in 2003 and his input to Jimmy Barnes’ Double Happiness album of duets in 2005.
However, during 2005, Moss’s musical output took another exciting fresh turn. He was invited to record an album of acoustic songs for Liberation Music and the Six Strings album – part of the Liberation Blue label’s engaging acoustic series – was the result.
2018 will bring a new chapter in Ian’s career as he releases the new self-titled studio album, his sixth, and heads to the road for what will be his biggest national tour in decades. In 2007 he told the Sydney Morning Herald, “I haven’t made my definitive album yet.” Ten years later with his the self-titled “Ian Moss”, he might have just done that.
Mossy’s sublime playing – on his Fender electric and Maton acoustic – is as expressive as ever. “Sometimes the words are useless for what it is I’m trying to get across,” he confides in ‘Hold On (To What We Got)’.
Of course, that underplays Mossy’s vocal – a superb instrument in its own right – as well as the powerful personal stories on this record. But Mossy’s finest work is all about feel. And it’s that feel that tells you everything you need to know.
It’s no accident that the album is self-titled. This is the pure stuff. Classic Mossy.
In August of 2018 Ian was invited to take part in the Jimmy Webb and Friends concerts along side David Campbell, Kate Ceberano, Ed Kuepper, Cold Chisel bandmate Jimmy Barnes and of course the master songwriter Jimmy Webb and blew the room away.
In October 2018 he performed the Cold Chisel classic ‘Flame Trees’ to a global audience of millions at the opening ceremony of the Invictus Games on the Steps of the iconic Sydney Opera House.
2019 saw the 30th Anniversary of the iconic and landmark album Matchbook and a national tour with a killer band that received rave reviews. The album was released on August 1, 1989 and peaked at #1 on the ARIA Albums Chart. It remained in the Top 10 for an amazing 14 weeks, shipping more than 200,000 copies in the first 12 months alone. The album went on to win Album of the Year, Best Male Artist and Breakthrough Artist – Album, Breakthrough Artist – Single and Song of the Year (shared with Don Walker) for ‘Tucker’s Daughter’ at the ARIA Music Awards in 1990.
As Cold Chisel’s biographer Anthony O’Grady observed, “When Moss goes into guitar dream world he pulls out chords and notes and sounds that do not fit the plot as such, but which create new dimensions – astounding stuff that can never be reached through intellectual process, only through a quantum leap of intuition and imagination.”
After over 30 years of a career in Rock n Roll Photography including touring with the Rolling Stones three times amongst others, British born photographer TONY MOTT is one of a kind. He’s photographed Nicole Kidman, Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac… and even took some snaps of our host Bradley McCaw.
Watch video of this episode
Follow the RC Music Playlist
Check out Tony's photos
Follow Brad everywhere @bradleymccawofficial
Brought to by True Arts Podcast Network
This interview was originally recorded in late 2021.
Created, produced, hosted & engineered by Bradley McCaw.
Original sound design by Matt Erskine at Crosspoint Solutions
Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
About Tony Mott:
After over 30 years of a career in Rock n Roll Photography including touring with the Rolling Stones three times amongst others, Tony decided to branch out into Film and TV Stills Photography commencing in 2005 with the feature, Suburban Mayhem.
Tony has worked on numerous features and television series since and has become a sought after photographer in the field.
A 30 year retrospective of Tony’s work “What A Life” is currently touring Australia after opening at the State Library of NSW in Sydney .
Tony lives in Sydney with his wife Libby and two children Harvey and Lucinda Mott and his cat “kitten caboodle”.
Except from Tony Mott’s website:
Trainspotting… travel around the world… life as a Chef on the high seas, a passion for music and few photos along the way. Welcome to Tony’s Mott’s story – so far.
I was born in April, 1956, (that makes me sort of old) and raised in Sheffield, England, quite normally by mum and dad, Mary and Brian Moulds. I was trained as a chef at Sheffield Polytechnic and in 1976 I left England, arriving in Australia for the first time. Using my training I worked in Sydney at the Opera House and the Gazebo before helping a friend open a restaurant in Armidale, New South Wales, called The Blackboard Menu, but I had to leave after six months because I only had a limited working visa. It was at this point that I realised I wanted to live in Australia permanently. I returned to England with the intention of securing a permanent visa, which didn’t eventuate. Refusing to allow a little thing like a visa to stand in the way of escaping the UK, I managed to get a job on the SS Oriana as a chef, a wonderful job that lasted two years and took me to over 60 countries as diverse and interesting as Puerto Rico, Egypt, Panama, India, the Caribbean Islands, all around the Mediterranean, Nordkapp (where the sun never goes down and all its inhabitants are bonkers) and elsewhere. It was during this time I developed a strong sense of wanderlust, an affliction which has taken me to India seven times and helped me traverse the Himalayas on a number of occasions. In fact, to celebrate my 40th birthday I had to make a choice between getting pissed in Redfern or walking the Annapurna Circuit with my best friend, I chose the latter.
Eventually my job on the ship came to an end and brought me back to Australia and in 1981 I finally managed to settle here permanently. I got my old job back at the Gazebo Hotel in King Cross, which, as it turns out was a perfect location to embark on the next stage of my life.
I’ve often thought about my penchant for travel and trainspotting (that’s a whole other story right there!) and always go back to my childhood in Sheffield. When I was about eight or nine years old my mum and dad used to visit the local pubs, including one called the Castle Inn. My sister and I used to sit on the wall outside with our crisps and fizzy pop watching the trains go by. From this point we could see the trains disappear into a tunnel and I always wanted to know what was on the other side of that tunnel. Eventually I got to the other side of the tunnel and just kept on going!! Finally I got to and settled in Sydney.
In the early 1980s Sydney had a brilliant live music scene. Every night of the week you could see any number of excellent bands at any number of excellent venues, right across the city. Working as a chef meant I usually finished work around midnight, not a bad situation for somebody like me who loved music. I’d leave work and hop into any given venue. On Monday nights I used to go to the Piccadilly Hotel in the Cross to see the Divinyls play. They had a residency at the venue and at this stage they were unsigned and largely unknown. Singer Chrissy Amphlett didn’t do a lot in those days. The stage persona she later became famous for was non-existent but, suddenly it seemed, she became a loony on stage wearing the schoolgirl uniform and gyrating about.
During my days sailing the seven seas I’d developed a strong desire to document photographically the amazing places I saw. So every Monday night after work at the Gazebo I used to hone my fledgling skills by snapping away at the Divinyls. A lot of crap shots were taken but after four months the band’s manager, Vince Lovegrove, who’d obviously seen me shooting away, asked to see the shots, one of which he chose and used as a tour poster. I was well chuffed! To top it off he paid me 20 bucks – my first foray into professional photography.
I was very green in those days, typified when Vince told me that my name was on the door for the band’s next gig. I had no idea what this expression meant and for the next two months I continued to pay my way into their shows. One night he saw me and said, “You know your name’s on the door, don’t you?” Not wishing to appear unsophisticated, I replied, “Yeah, I know. Isn’t that great,” thinking that somewhere – perhaps the band’s rehearsal studio – there was a door on which they’d written my name as a mark of respect. Just shows you how much I had to learn about the music industry.
By 1983 the Divinyls tour poster had had a snowball effect on my career and before long other bands were asking me to shoot their gigs. One day I walked into the offices of the free paper On The Street, then in its infancy and long before the term street press had ever been coined. I started getting work through the paper.
About a week before I went to “On The Street”, Margaret Cott, now publisher of “The Drum Media”, had just started as a layout girl and so began a professional relationship with her which lasts to this day. Within a year Margaret had become editor and I was photographing anything that moved, anywhere, anytime. All this and I was still working full-time at the Gazebo.
It was 1985 and for a short period of time during that year I got married. My wife was Swedish (and to my knowledge still is) but I won’t go into the topic any further other than to say she now lives in Sweden and I still live in Sydney. Anyway, she had suggested I head back to England and so I did, and with my few contacts in the industry I spent the summer of 1986 drinking a lot and generally having a good time going to music festivals. I went to Reading, Milton Keynes and so on, seeing tons of bands. I haven’t managed to work out how to this day, but I managed to photograph Queen at Knebworth, which was a hell of an experience. I also went to Paris and New York that summer, purely as a drunken wanderlust thing as opposed to seriously pursuing anything professionally.
When I got back to Australia, Mick Jagger was touring to promote his first solo album. While I was away, and unbeknownst to me, Jagger’s manager, Tony King had been trying to track me down wanting to hire me as Jagger’s tour photographer. To this day I have no idea who recommended me for the job but I’m extremely grateful. Eventually I made contact with Tony King and as it turned out they were not happy with whoever it was they had hired instead of me. By this stage the tour was in Melbourne so I went down and met Tony in his hotel room. I don’t think I would be giving anything away when I say that Tony King is what you would describe as an effervescent gay man and when I met him he enthusiastically expounded the virtues of Sydney. “Oh I love Sydney,” he said, “so many sailors in the one city.” I thought, what have I got to do to get this gig? Tony King, it should be pointed out, is a lovely man and I have always gotten on extremely well with him on a professional basis. But that was the start of my relationship with Mick Jagger and eventually the Rolling Stones. It was an enormous break which has resulted in me touring with the Stones three times. As I’ve said, I have no idea how I got the gig because I was only reasonably well-known as a live photographer in Sydney at that point. And to think I nearly missed out because I was getting legless overseas!!
To illustrate how absurd the music industry can be at times, at the end of tour party I could hear people behind me talking about the tour photographer and how “he’s just come back from working in London, Paris and New York, don’t you know”. I suddenly realised they were talking about me! Little did they know I was basically having a good time in these places and not doing the glamorous jobs they imagined.
As a consequence of the Jagger gig I toured in the same year with Bob Dylan and Fleetwood Mac. I wasn’t any better as a photographer but once I had gigs of that calibre in my CV I looked so much better. That period was the beginning of my first break.
It was 1988 and with these three enormous gigs under my belt I was going out at least five nights a week just to see bands. I’d worked out by now what having my name on the door actually meant so I was saving myself a small fortune. The Sydney scene during this time was fertile. There were great bands in great venues happening every night of the week; a favourable environment in which to grow as a rock’n’roll photographer.
More breaks came my way in the early 1990s. I did a book called Still Noise with four other photographers, the album cover photography for Tommy Emmanuel’s Dare To Be Different and the Beasts of Bourbon’s Black Milk. It was all moving along quite nicely in a relatively short period of time. I’m proud of both those album covers because they’re so radically different. Tommy Emmanuel’s album was so obviously mainstream and commercial while the Beasts of Bourbon was very inner city and independent, and that’s one of the things I love about working in the music industry – one minute you can be working with somebody like Lucinda Williams and the next minute working with the likes of Slipknot. They’re vastly different performers with vastly different personalities to be captured through the lens. But I digress.
I guess the next major event that boosted my career was the start of the Big Day Out in 1992. In the late 80s and early 90s I’d been regularly heading over to Europe and the US every couple of years to check out the summer music festivals. I really couldn’t understand why Australia didn’t have its own version of the UK’s Reading or Glastonbury festivals. Being staged in the UK, when those festivals take place, it’s an added bonus when it doesn’t rain, so why, with our weather and talented bands, why should we miss out??
Enter Ken West. Obviously Ken had been to these festivals, too, and had some thoughts about doing an Australian festival, and so began the Big Day Out. He’s now one of the most respected promoters in the country and the Big Day Out is highly regarded both here and overseas. It became very successful very quickly and in the space of four years was at the same level as the festivals in the UK. So the Big Day Out was a valuable break for me. Every year I go on the road with the Big Day Out as it tours around Australia. This means I get to build a rapport with the bands I shoot, which is a luxury not often afforded a photographer.
It’s always easier to work with people who you feel relaxed with and vice versa. I don’t work like a fashion photographer – I’ve never treated a musician as a model. A lot of photographers do because they presume there’s a lot of glamour involved. Musicians are not thespians and they’re not models so you need to build a rapport with them. Musicians can often feel uncomfortable in front of the camera, so relaxing them is an imperative. Obviously I’m referring to session work here. Live is a completely different kettle of fish. The disadvantage of doing sessions is that the artist is doing something that doesn’t come naturally to them. The advantage is that you as the photographer have complete control over the environment, things like lighting. The difficulty is getting the artist comfortable. The live situation is the opposite, the artist is in their natural environment but the photographer is not, you have no control over the lighting and so on. The quality of your shots is reliant on the lighting guy and the movement of the artist.
Eye contact is vital in photography. If you take a photo of someone and their eyes are out of focus the whole shot lacks impact. That’s how people look at photos, through the eyes of the subject. The eye is all important. In a live situation the subject is more than likely not looking at you, and there’s also the bloody ever present microphone getting in the way. In total I’ve had over 30,000 photographs published, the result of some 2,500 sessions and countless live shows, which have become 400 posters, 450 cd or vinyl covers and over 800 magazine front covers, and I’m still counting. It seems an age has passed since Vince Lovegrove used my shot of Chrissy Amphlett as a tour poster. I guess it has been a long time. Certainly much has happened and I’ve managed to collect some stories that I think are vaguely intresting along the way – some are downright bizarre and I hope you enjoy them.
Oh, and why did I change my name from Moulds to Mott? Well, when I first got a photo credit Moulds didn’t look so groovy so I had to come up with an alternative. I looked to the most influential band in my life, Mott the Hoople. The next decision was Tony Mott or Tony Hoople. I went for the former.
Everyone should have a Mott the Hoople. In my formative years in college they were the only band that I related to lyrically.They delved into social, political and more general matters, not to mention being a dynamic live act. They were punks before punk had happened, all that and glam rock as well.
I’ve always felt music is an important medium, it can be a sanctuary when things are not so rosy, and a celebration of the joys of life, the two extremes of emotion. And that is why Mott the Hoople have been so important to me. A couple of examples of that are in 1976, when I first left England for Australia, I related to the Ian Hunter album All American Alien Boy, an album about an Englishman arriving in the US, feeling alien and yet loving it. I totally related to the sentiments. Thirty years later, when I lost my best friend who died at an early age and I was finding grief very difficult to deal with, I found solace in the Ian Hunter song “Michael Picasso”, a song about the death of his long-time best friend and David Bowie guitarist Mick Ronson. That’s why I believe music is so powerful and important. Everyone should have a Mott the Hoople.
Australian music legend Marcia Hines stops by Ramble City. We cover starting her career in Boston USA, moving to Australia, Gospel music, Woodstock, performing in Hair music at 16(!), what she would do starting out in the business today and lots more!
RAMBLE CITY is hosted by award wining Singer/songwriter Bradley McCaw, musing on art & life with artists & sportspeople from around the people. Welcome to RAMBLE CITY.
This interview was originally recorded in late 2021.
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Brought to by True Arts Podcast Network
Created, produced, hosted & engineered by Bradley McCaw.
Original sound design by Matt Erskine at Crosspoint Solutions
Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
Watch video of this episode
Listen to Marcia Hines
'Once We Get Started'
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Follow Brad everywhere @bradleymccawofficial
Brought to by True Arts Podcast Network
This interview was originally recorded in late 2021.
Created, produced, hosted & engineered by Bradley McCaw.
Original sound design by Matt Erskine at Crosspoint Solutions
Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
About Marica Hines:
Australia’s beloved musical treasure Marcia Hines, with a career spanning five decades, has released 22 albums, selling 2.6 million copies, and has garnered countless chart-topping singles and multiplatinum records globally.
Marcia is an inspiration to women and Australians everywhere, constantly reinventing herself and setting industry benchmarks. She moved from Boston Massachusetts to Sydney in 1970, at just 16, to star in the Australian production of Hair and then became the first black woman to star in Jesus Christ Superstar. She is an inspiration to women and Australians everywhere, constantly reinventing herself and setting industry benchmarks.
Marcia was Australian Idol’s favourite judge for the original show’s seven consecutive years and returns to the judging panel for the Seven Network’s reboot in 2024. She was inducted into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2007 and in 2023 she received the Support Act Music in the House Award for Excellence in the Community. This award and the Order of Australia (AM) received in 2009 acknowledged her services to the Australian entertainment industry as a performer, judge, mentor and the extraordinary contribution she has made to the community through a range of charitable organisations.
Since 2015 Marcia has starred in the circus/burlesque/discotheque spectacular Velvet, directed by Craig Ilott and now a global success story with shows running in Europe and North America. Velvet morphed into Velvet Rewired in 2023 and Marcia reprised her role in a sell-out Australian tour that included eight weeks at the Sydney Opera House. There have been other productions including Pigalle for the Sydney Festival, Saturday Night Fever at Sydney’s Lyric Theatre, and in 2020 she became ‘The Dragon’ in the Australian season of Shrek The Musical. In January 2024 Marcia will return to the theatre stage in the role of Teen Angel in the new John Frost/Crossroads Live production of Grease.
It has now been over 50 years since Marcia first arrived for Hair and to celebrate this extraordinary career, ABC Records has released ‘Still Shining’, a 22-song celebration of her amazing journey. From ‘Fire and Rain’ to ‘What I Did For Love’ to ‘From The Inside’ to elegant, up tempo discotheque standards like ‘You’ and ‘Your Love Still Brings Me To My Knees’, ‘Still Shining’ is a fitting tribute to a great Australian. There are also two new songs produced by the LA-based Australian producer/composer, Michael Fatkin.
A new album ‘The Gospel According to Marcia’, celebrating Marcia’s musical roots and memories from her childhood in Boston and her early experiences with gospel music is released on Friday 3 November through ABC Records.
It is a story of strength, commitment and relationship to an audience that has loved and admired her from the day she first arrived and became part of Australian culture. Marcia Hines is a wonder to behold and remains at the very forefront of modern musical endeavour.
This an announcement pod! Bradley McCaw is back with another rambling season! After a two year break ‘Ramble City’ is returning to your podcast feed.
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Produced by True Arts Podcast Network
Created, produced, hosted & engineered by Bradley McCaw.
Original sound design by Matt Erskine at Crosspoint Solutions
Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
Blake Dantier picks his TOP FIVE Australian Drinking Songs inspired by the release of his debut album DRY SEASON. The guys break down songs from Cold Chisel, AC/DC, Slim Dusty & more.
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Blake Dantier's Website
Produced by OFM (Old Fashioned Media)
Created, produced and hosted by Bradley McCaw
Enginnered by Kayna Statts
Editted by K-Leb Aisbett
Sound designed by Matt Erskine at Cross Point Solutions
And Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
James Johnston talks parenthood and it inspiring his latest single. Brad invents a game called “ARE YOU CONCERNED?” before discussing the 2022 Tamworth Country Music Festival.
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James Johnston Website
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Tamworth Country Music Festival
Produced by OFM (Old Fashioned Media)
Created, produced and hosted by Bradley McCaw
Enginnered by Kayna Statts
Editted by K-Leb Aisbett
Sound designed by Matt Erskine at Cross Point Solutions
And Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
The Tenor From Oz - Paul Tabone talks about the death of classical music, his 1600+ performances on London’s West End in “Phantom of the Opera” and THIS IS ME, his latest album.
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Paul's Tour Dates, Upcoming Performances
Who is Hal Prince
Newsletter - Join "Brad's Place"
More about Bradley McCaw
Tickets to Phantom of The Opera in Sydney
Produced by OFM (Old Fashioned Media)
Created, produced and hosted by me Bradley McCaw
Enginnered by Kayna Statts
Editted by K-Leb Aisbett
Sound designed by Matt Erskine at Cross Point Solutions
And Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
Adam Harvey discuss his TOP FIVE Adam Harvey Songs.
After selling half a million records, being nominated five times for an ARIA Music Award and winning eight golden guitars at the Country Music Awards of Australia he faces his toughest test… picking five favourites from his own catalogue and sharing stories from an incredible career.
Listen to "Adam's Harvey Top Five"
Adam Harvey Website
Adam Harvey Tour Dates
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Join BRAD'S PLACE (Newsletter)
Produced by OFM (Old Fashioned Media)
Created, produced and hosted by Bradley McCaw
Enginnered by Kayna Statts
Editted by K-Leb Aisbett
Sound designed by Matt Erskine at Cross Point Solutions
And Original Video designed by Adam Shaw at Axis Productions
Theme composed by James Ryan
The podcast currently has 38 episodes available.