Barnesy's cover version

By RUSSELL BAILLIE

Critics have often thrown the book at Jimmy Barnes. Whether it was for breaking up Aussie rock institution Cold Chisel when he departed for a solo career 20 years ago. Or for his strident singing style, which has long been described as "leather-lunged", "larynx-lacerating" and the like.

Now Barnesy, who is on tour in New Zealand this week, has a book to throw back. Say It Loud follows the life and times of the rock veteran born James Dixon Swan in Glasgow nearly 47 years ago.

If it offers no great insight into the mind behind that voice or any backstage revelations, it still tells some entertaining yarns.

Like the time Barnes had a run-in with Bryan Adams, or when he harangued Led Zeppelin's Robert Plant and Jimmy Page for being jaded old rock stars, or when he briefly kidnapped Charlie Watts when supporting the Rolling Stones in Europe ...

It's no chronological autobiography, jumping through chapters with titles like "Cold Chisel", "Family", "Spirituality", "Musical Influences".

That's because, says Barnes, speaking - inevitably - from a mobile somewhere out on the road, it grew from journals he had long kept and which a publisher friend suggested could be turned into something for wider consumption.

"It's pretty light reading, nothing too earth shattering or world changing - just stories about dealing with life in this business."

Underlying many of the chapters is a sense of frustration that his Australian profile couldn't translate into the Northern Hemisphere. And not helping was Barnes' own dim view of the rockbiz.

"Yeah, it showed how I dealt with the industry at the time - good or bad. Sometimes it wasn't so good.

"But it was sort of explaining the differences in how people in the industry, particularly in America and Europe, tend to look at it much more as a business and I look at it as a way of life - I'm a singer and it's something I do with passion, and I find it very hard to sit back and take the passion out of things on a business level like some people do, and it tends to annoy me when I see particularly successful people who are just so calculated."

It can feel in the book that Barnes, who's not been averse to dealing to punters making life difficult for him on stage, has pulled his punches.

"I don't like to hurt people unnecessarily ... There are certain things you don't need to relive or drag out or whatever. The stuff that I spoke about I spoke about honestly."

Yes, he laughs, memories of the vodka-soaked years of Cold Chisel can be a little hazy - Barnes has given up drinking in the past year.

"These things are only as accurate as my somewhat clouded and selective memory will allow. I'm sure if Don [Walker, the band's keyboardist and chief songwriter] writes a book he will tell a different story."

Though he may be too busy writing songs for the band which, having already had one reunion tour, is planning another across the Tasman with plans for recording a new studio album.

"It's almost like the band starting over again, which is great."

It would seem that with the book and the Cold Chisel revival, Barnes is taking stock of his career, maybe pondering where he's been more than where he's going.

"Ah, yeah. It's a period of summarising, I guess, so the book made sense in that respect. It's one of those things where I guess it's good to round up that part of the career and then look at moving on and also to do that with my life as well."

Jimmy Barnes' concert dates:

Bay Park Stadium Conference Centre, Tauranga, tonight; Mangawhai Tavern, Sat Apr 26; Onekawa Tavern, Napier, Tues Apr 29; Altitude, Hamilton, Thurs May 1; St James, Auckland, Fri May 2; Roadhouse, Papakura, Sat May 3.