Music legends 10cc are currently in Australia on a month-long tour that wraps up on July 2. The English group ruled the airwaves during the ’70s with hits such as Rubber Bullets, The Things We Do For Love and famed cricket anthem Dreadlock Holiday.
“They’re going to get all the hits and more,” the group’s long-serving bassist and songwriter Graham Gouldman told me recently when asked what fans could expect to hear at the group’s Aussie shows. “As well as various album tracks and a couple of surprises.”
Australia has been a favourite for the group, which has toured here on a regular basis.
“We first came to Australia in 1978,” Gouldman said.
“It’s a love of playing, the love of being with the band and the great music to play, and as long as there’s a demand for it, we’ll keep doing it and coming back.
“We like to get out there every three or four years.”
With as much touring as 10cc does, the band members have seen changes over time.
“We’ve never sort of travelled in vans,” Gouldman said.
“We’ve always travelled well, and we continue to do so.
“And even though we do sort of quite long trips, particularly in Australia, where it’s quite big distances between places, but because we get on so well, it never gets boring.
“It’s generally quite a lot of fun to be on the road with your mates and playing music.”
Having written hits not only for 10cc but other acts such as The Yardbirds, The Hollies and Aussie legend Normie Rowe, what’s Gouldman’s advice for up-and-coming songwriters?
“Just try and be original,” he said.
“A lot of songs I’ve written have been sort of total fantasies or part fantasy.
“But now I’m writing more from personal experience.
“And if you can write from your own personal experience, it will ring true to the listener.”
For full tour dates and further information, visit www.10cc.world
Music news
This month is the 30th anniversary of the release of The Cruel Sea’s The Honeymoon Is Over album, which garnered five ARIA awards in 1994. And to celebrate, the album has been remastered and is being reissued on 12” heavyweight vinyl along with a two-CD deluxe edition with bonus material.
Are rock legends Queen in talks to sell their music catalogue for a reputed $1 billion?
Country music superstars The Chicks (previously known as The Dixie Chicks) are heading down under this October for an extensive Australian tour. They will be joined by a special guest, country-blues rocker Elle King.
And speaking of tours, Foo Fighters have just announced they’ll be returning to Australia in November and December. The last time the Foo Fighters toured Oz was in 2018.
Joe’s industry editorial
Will artificial intelligence take over the music industry in the future? There’s much talk of late of songwriters using AI to write songs. The music industry has gone through enormous changes over the past couple of decades and not always for the benefit of the art itself or the artist. The Napster saga at the turn of the millennium proved to be a watershed moment where for the first time, fans were able to access music for free, so not a single cent was paid to the artist for their work.
Later streaming giant Spotify came along, and again, the music continued to lose more of its inherent value especially for the artist. Streaming has proved to be a major windfall financially for the record labels and Spotify, but again, not for the artist. Unless that is, you’re in that small percentage of multimillion-selling artists where a billion streams earn you decent royalties. For the rest of the artists, streaming is no more than a free promotional platform.
Back in the golden age of music, songs were written mainly by one or two chief songwriters. Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody, for example, was written solely by Freddie Mercury, but today, a quick perusal of songwriting credits will show that half a dozen songwriters on one song is par for course. Justin Bieber’s most recent album, Justice (2021), for example, featured a multitude of songwriters on individual songs. Check out Peaches, which has 11 songwriters credited!
Does adding a word or two make you a songwriter? That’s like saying writing a paragraph makes you an author. This is a worrying trend; will the art of songwriting be lost? I think it’s more a case of those in the upper echelon of the industry wanting to find a formula that will guarantee commercial success. AI may just be their answer. Yet it will open a Pandora’s box. And then what comes after that?
Fun fact
The wild woman of rock and roll, Suzi Quatro, has toured Australia more than 30 times since her first visit, in May 1974. In 1990 she performed at the GV Hotel. I was in the audience and remember it being packed to the rafters, sweaty while Suzi Q and her band rocked out a greatest hits set.
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