Mark Gable on the Choirboys and the golden era of Oz rock

ROCK and roll icons the Choirboys are bringing the band’s tour Run to Paradise: Great Australian Rock ‘n’ Roll Stories to Tweed next month.

Billed as a ‘spilling of the beans’, the show is part story, part song catalogue, and chronicles some of the wildest, most risqué, and outrageous stories of Australian music in the 1980s.

Formed in 1978, the band exemplified the wild, hedonistic lifestyle of the era, and in 1988, released its seminal anthem, Run to Paradise.

Thirty-five years on, frontman Mark Gable views it as just the first chapter of a long book filled with stories recalled by a band that’s seen it all, heard it all, and had a ready hand in the craziness.

From the vantage point of decades and the view from Killcare on the NSW Central Coast, where he lives with his wife, country artist Melinda Schneider, Gable said the veracity of the stories was subjective.

“Put it down to hearsay – some of the stories are so funny and just plain stupid because back then, we could do things that nobody else could do,” he said.

“It wasn’t a normal job. There were no rules.

“There’s a lot of tale telling and a lot more engaging the audience with stories and putting the songs to those and just doing it a bit differently, rather than a straight gig.”

From the rich pickings of Gable’s memory and those of a few mates, he has drawn a show celebrating and having fun with the wild shenanigans of yore.

“It was just an amazing time, but I didn’t twig until we did the Countdown Spectacular,” he said.

“The talk backstage with everybody was wild, and I was listening to all the stories.

“I thought, ‘No, the public could never hear these’, but I was wrong, of course.

“I grew up in a time in Australia that was never going to be repeated, and it was an amazing time to be that age and into music.

“That was a freaky luck thing because all the people that we met were the same thing.

“There were so many people making original music back then. It’s what everybody did.

“It’s become so much more of an online and social media thing, but back then, it was a deeply artistic, cultural, live thing, and the main outlet.”

To find out what Chuck Berry’s weird work tactics were, or which movie star the Divinyls bass player met under a nightclub table, or if Gable’s long-time limp was the fault of a long-ago friendly misdemeanour by Deep Purple, the Choirboys play Twin Towns on July 12.

For tickets, visit twintowns.com.au/events/choirboys