"It was most unexpected," says Moss. "When we called it a day in '83 I thought 'it's over. It's time to get a real job. Forget all this silliness'."
In barrels Barnes: "Even after Cold Chisel I went out and had seven number one albums and my Mum said to me 'ok you've got it out of your system now, why don't you get a real job?' "
Cold Chisel - or just "Chisel" to fans - might be on their umpteenth reunion cycle, having first reformed in the late 90s. But the band still looks like a real job. There's been two albums, 2012's No Plans and the new The Perfect Crime, possibly the best of their reunion era - in four years.
The band's Auckland show tomorrow is part of a tour which began at the extremely Australian "Deni Ute Muster" at the beginning of October and ends with three indoor stadium shows in Sydney in the week before Christmas.
It seems that Chisel, once the wild men - or at least a band fronted by a wild man - of Oz rock have become a respectable institution.
"We're not respectable by any means. We should be institutionalised," Barnes fires back. "If you stick around long enough people let you get away with a lot more.
"If we were behaving the same way we did back then it would be a different thing. If we were behaving like we did in the late 70s - and when I say 'we' I'm saying me - I would be an idiot. I'm 60 next year. We want to play rock'n'roll and we want to do it with grace and we want to do it with style.
"We are not afraid of growing old and it doesn't mean we have to be a retro band."
By retro band Barnes means just playing the old anthems night after night. Though the new album The Perfect Crime is fairly retro in another sense. It's an earthy rock'n'roll record which sounds like it could predate the band's 70s and 80s heyday. It reminds that for all of Moss's scorching guitar playing, the band's song engine is the pounding piano of main songwriter Don Walker.
Barnes: "We wanted to make a rock record. We sat there and thought: well we could make a rock record and sound like the Foo Fighters which is fine - but it's not the rock record we wanted to make. We wanted to make a rock record that sounded like Little Richard."
Moss: "We definitely wanted to go back past the 70s, further back to the real rock'n'roll."
If there's an urgency to the album and in the Chisel camp, maybe it's for good reason. The Perfect Crime is also the first album without original drummer Steve Prestwich, who died of a brain tumour in 2011.
His replacement is Charley Drayton, the American drummer who drummed for Australian band The Divinyls and married frontwoman Chrissy Amphlett, who died in 2013.
"Initially we thought we were just done, " says Barnes about Prestwich's passing. "We thought 'That's it we can't play any more. But the good thing that came out of Steve's death is that he was always the one who would be ringing up saying 'come on, let's do some gigs' ... and I started thinking 'I f***ing love the way he plays guitar," he nods towards Moss, "I love singing with this band ... we should have just played for fun'.
"Luckily for us we found Charley - he had gone through hell with Chrissy dying. We've been there for him. He's been there for us. We decided then that this is the gift that Steve gave us - we're here for a short time not a long time and we're here for a good time. Whenever we want to play, we should get up and do it. Don't let politics or fighting or anything hold us back."
Moss: "It was a good reminder that life is too short. Something could happen at any moment and end it all just like that."
As Barnes well knows. He was with his family, pushing his young grandson in a pram, near the Bangkok bombing in August. Last year he was in a Sydney hospital for back surgery and things didn't go to plan.
"I had seven surgeries in two weeks. It was a minor thing I went in for and it got complications. I nearly died.
"Bangkok was bad. I know they are out to get me. I am hard to kill. I have been trying for years. I come from tough stock."
Cold Chisel might be an enduring Oz rock institution but their roots run deep on this side of the Tasman too. They first played here in 1976. They played two Sweetwaters Festivals in a row in the early 80s. And in recent years, the solo Barnes has been a frequent summer tourist. But the fan attitude to the band is different here, he says.
"It gives us a sense of freedom in this country. I think New Zealand audiences have good taste - you can tell by the music that comes out of here. They are left of centre, they like good songs ... all the great bands that have come out of this country have great songs.
"What a lot of Cold Chisel is, in Australia, is that celebrity thing. We've been there their whole lives. We've played their weddings, we've played at their funerals, we've played everything. Here, people know us because we've come and played shows or they like the records. So it gives us a different approach here, which is very refreshing and it's good to play to."
And tomorrow, the king of Aussie pub rock bands will get to play fan favourite Cheap Wine in the pleasant environs of an Auckland winery.
"I was trying to talk the boys into making a cheap wine. A really cheap plonk," laughs Barnes of a possible merchandise opportunity.
"The good thing about the winery shows is you can lie on a blanket and eat caviar and drink white wine. Or you can go up the front and have people vomit on you. I like them."
Lowdown
Who: Cold Chisel, Jimmy Barnes' original band.
Where and when: Villa Maria Winery, tomorrow
