Raising His Voice – John Farnham Settles Some Old Scores In His New Book

When it comes to music books, a John Farnham autobiography has always been the holy grail for publishers. The story has everything: stardom, struggle, triumph, tragedy, comebacks, and classic hits.

The only problem was, the subject didn’t want to do it.

“I’ve been asked to sit down and write my story many times over the years, and I’ve never wanted to,” Farnham confesses. “I’ve actually dreaded it. I didn’t expect people to be interested in me or my life.” 

Biographers have stepped in over the years to tell the tale. Clark Forbes did an authorised book, Whispering Jack: The John Farnham Story, in 1989. Jane Gazzo’s John Farnham: The Untold Story was released in 2015, while Jeff Apter’s Playing To Win: The Definitive Biography followed in 2016.

So, what more is there to tell?

“I didn’t want my story to be boring or show I’m not the brightest penny in the till, but to be honest, it hasn’t been as bad as I thought it would be,” Farnham states in The Voice Inside, the new book he wrote with Poppy Stockell, who also directed Finding The Voice, the biggest Australian documentary of all time.

“Yes, going through this process has been challenging at times,” Farnham admits. “I have all these wonderful memories, but I have a lot of painful memories as well. Talking about losing people I love is hard. Talking about some of the choices I made was difficult. I wanted to be honest, but I didn’t want to bash people, either. I’d rather say nothing if I can’t be positive. But here it is, in my own words.”

Allegations that Farnham’s first manager, Darryl Sambell, drugged the star with speed and sleeping pills to control his client have captured the headlines. But there’s lots more in the book for Farnham fans.

Here are 18 things we learned from The Voice Inside:

“Soon after we arrived [from England], Mum, Nan and Aunty Mary pooled their money and bought a lottery ticket [and] they bloody won! They won £10,000, that was a lot of money back then.” The Farnhams used the cash to build a house in Noble Park, a Melbourne suburb.

“Being a fat kid, in those days, made me a prime target for bullies. There was one boy who used to give me hell. One day I tried to get my own back – I tried bullying someone else.” That kid smacked young Johnny in the nose. “I ran away crying. I wanted to crawl under some rocks. I knew I’d done wrong and I knew I deserved that punch. It was a valuable lesson. If you don’t know pain then you never understand it in others.”

Farnham was friends with the legendary Aussie thespian [he would later appear in the Pressure Down video]. When the singer visited Thring, he was handed a stack of photos. “They were all men dressed up in uniforms in pornographic poses. I looked over at Frank and he laughed and said, ‘Pornography, Johnny, I want to get you hot.’ Not the way to do it, Frank! I said, ‘I’m straight.’ Frank replied, ‘That’s okay, darling, I love straight men.’”

Farnham sat next to American actress Raquel Welch at the Logies. “As the night wore on, Raquel took quite a shine to me. She let me know in no uncertain terms that she wanted to become friends. And I mean – nudge, nudge, wink, wink – friends.” Farnham turned to the other person next to him – his wife. “Just a minute, Raquel, let me ask Jill.” Then he told her, “Sorry, my wife said no.”

Farnham’s second manager was the legendary promoter Kenn Brodziak, who brought The Beatles to Australia. He showed the singer the contract and tour papers. On one hotel bill, Paul McCartney’s name was written as Paul McCarthy. “I was spellbound. I asked Kenn if he would leave the contract and papers to me in his will. ‘No, but you can buy them off me,’ he said. So I did.”

“People always talk about Whispering Jack and You’re The Voice, but I think what changed things was the single Help … that’s what really got me started again. And it’s ironic because at that time, what I needed more than anything was help. Someone once told me that Paul McCartney heard my version of Help and said he liked it. I never heard definitively whether this was true or not, but I hope he liked it.”

When Farnham was trying to resurrect his career, he visited Roger Davies, an Aussie who was becoming a big manager in LA. “When I walked into his office, he took one look at me, put his boots up on the desk, got out a toothpick and then started cleaning his teeth. I played him my demo tape, including my version of Help. Afterward, he said, ‘Now, what can we do about making you a star?’ He made me feel even smaller than I already felt. I looked at him, thought about his question for a moment then responded, ‘Nah, nothing. I don’t think you can help me.’” 

Four years later, Davies’ client Tina Turner released her version of Help, which was issued as a single and featured on the international edition of the Private Dancer album. “I heard she was interviewed on radio and asked whether she got her inspiration from my version. She denied ever hearing it.”

Little River Band’s Graeham Goble produced Farnham’s 1980 comeback, Uncovered. Farnham became LRB’s new lead singer two years later. He stayed for four years, but it wasn’t an enjoyable experience.

“Later, it would seem to me that he [Graeham] wanted a puppet out the front of the band, not a true entertaining front man … we certainly weren’t mates when I joined, and we didn’t become friends – Graeham and I didn’t gel that way. As it stands, I haven’t spoken to Graeham for over 30 years.” 

Farnham also didn’t bond with LRB’s other key member, Beeb Birtles. “Beeb and I irritated each other – he’s not my cup of tea and I wasn’t his.” Farnham channelled his frustrations into Playing To Win, the title track of LRB’s 1985 album. “I wanted to get out of the chains I felt I was in.”

“I don’t think anyone got paid for doing Countdown; I certainly didn’t. Same as Hey Hey It’s Saturday, the variety show on Channel 9. But Hey Hey was commercial, so they should have paid, whereas Countdown was on the public broadcaster, so they had some excuse.”

Glenn Wheatley tried to get Quincy Jones to produce Whispering Jack. The American legend – who produced Michael Jackson’s Thriller – was keen, “but could only give the project a small amount of his time. It wasn’t enough. To be honest, the thought of working with such a big name got me worried. I felt that I was going to be right back in the same situation I had always been in, where the producer would call the shots. With someone like Quincy Jones, how could I disagree if he wanted to do something a different way to me?”

When Farnham was sorting through potential songs for Whispering Jack, he came across a song called We Built This City, co-written by Bernie Taupin. “The demo was amazing and it definitely grabbed Ross [Fraser] and David [Hirschfelder], but it wasn’t one for me. If your heart’s not in it, then you’re not going to do it properly, and after a career of forcing myself to sing songs that weren’t really me, I didn’t want to do that anymore.” We Built This City was later recorded by Starship, and it hit #1 in the US.

“I don’t often think about sliding-door moments, but this song changed so many lives in such positive ways … it helped Glenn [Wheatley] through all his monetary problems, it helped me through mine, it put our kids through school. All sorts of wonderful things happened because of that song.” Until Farnham heard the You’re The Voice demo, “Pressure Down was the strongest song we had”. Would Whispering Jack have roared if that was the lead single?

Manfred Mann’s Chris Thompson co-wrote You’re The Voice, and he didn’t want Farnham to record it. “He said some things that felt pretty mean to me early in the piece, and apparently he didn’t want me to record the song because he had doubts about my credibility.” 

For the Whispering Jack follow-up, Age of Reason, Farnham recorded two more songs Thompson had co-written, Don’t Tell Me It Can’t Be Done and The Fire. Thompson phoned Farnham to tell him he didn’t like the way he sang Don’t Tell Me It Can’t Be Done. “I picked up the phone and without much lead-in, he said, ‘You didn’t sing it very well.’ I was taken aback and angry, and I replied with, ‘Fuck off, never ring this number again.’”

“It’s a bit disconcerting when a young lady comes up to you, flashes one of her boobs and says, ‘Here, sign it, please.’ It’s awkward, because usually you’ve got to hold onto something in order to sign it, but a bare breast made that problematic. I was always very careful where my hands went on those occasions, but I did always sign my full name: Johnny Peter Farnham.”

Farnham was playing Scrabble with Michael Gudinski on holidays in Queensland. “Michael, can I just say something that I think would really work for Kylie? She is so pretty and so gorgeous and so tiny, I reckon you should get her to dress up as a showgirl. Get her in feathers and high heels, you know, the whole outfit. 

“The next thing I know Kylie is touring Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour. I never managed to ask Michael if that idea came from our Scrabble chat, and now I never will have the chance. We miss you, Gudinski.”

“I started smoking when I was about 14. Smoking a hundred cigarettes a day didn’t help … I’d be in the studio puffing away while I laid down vocals. It’s just crazy to think back, absolutely stupid, but we never knew how bad it was for us. When I quit cigarettes, I took up cigars. If I was awake, I had a cigar or cigarette in my mouth 99 per cent of the time.”

“I did a fair bit of damage to my hearing over the years, right from day one, and now I can barely hear. Industrial deafness, if you like. It’s shocking.”

When Farnham did shows with Whitney Houston, her manager issued some strict instructions. “We all got the message from him that if we came across Whitney in the corridors at the Entertainment Centre, we had to look away. Under no circumstances were we to look directly at Whitney. Of course, I couldn’t wait to come across her. I left my dressing-room door open and I was constantly looking out to see if she was coming. Then as soon as I saw her, I yelled out, ‘G’day Whitney, how are you going?’”

And that’s why we love him. John Farnham is an Aussie legend.