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Cristiano Radtke
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT - 'Nothing prepared me for how little they were': Australian rock veteran Tex Perkins reveals what life was like backstage with The Rolling Stones
Tex Perkins has swaggered across Australian musical stages for three decades
The rocker has fronted The Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and Don, Tex & Charlie
Iggy Pop has said 'Tex is the realest dude out there - I wish I was more like Tex'
His new autobiography tells how skinny Gregory Perkins became rock god Tex
Perkins says he was stunned at how tiny the Rolling Stones were off the stage
By Stephen Gibbs for Daily Mail Australia
PUBLISHED: 09:50 BST, 30 July 2017 | UPDATED: 09:50 BST, 30 July 2017
Rock god Tex Perkins has fronted some of Australia's most popular bands including The Cruel Sea, Beasts of Bourbon and Tex, Don & Charlie.
From a skinny Brisbane Catholic schoolboy named Gregory, Perkins grew into the rogue band leader and sex symbol who has dominated stages with his swagger and powerful voice for more than 30 years.
Musical legend Iggy Pop has said of Perkins: 'Tex is the realest dude out there. I wish I was more like Tex.'
The following extract of his new autobiography TEX is from a chapter called Touring With The Stones and features Perkins hanging out with Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Ronnie Wood:
I was a bit of a cheeky p**** at the time The Cruel Sea toured with the Rolling Stones.
It was the Voodoo Lounge tour of Australia in March 1995.
As much as I love the Rolling Stones - so many great tunes, so much mythology, they are for me THE greatest band of all time and have given me more joy, more pleasure, more inspiration than anyone else - by this stage they had been making a lot of s*** records for many years so I was a bit blase about the whole thing.
The whole SHOW that they put on is stadium entertainment - lots of running from one side of an enormous stage to the other. Over-the-top gestures and a ridiculous amount of lights, screens and special effects.
But the coolest thing was seeing their sound checks, where they just played music - no show, no bull****, just them playing their songs to themselves. They played songs at sound checks that weren't in the show; songs that their massive audience of people who come to just one rock concert a year wouldn't care to hear. Things like 'I Got The Blues' and Keith's 'You Got The Silver'. It was heaven. So yes, it was extremely cool to get to tour with the Rolling Stones but I was a little, well, loose with my respect on the tour.
For starters, The Cruel Sea were really given the 'support band treatment'. Some people have even suggested that we went on before the gates were open and people were let in. That's not true, but as you'd expect we played while people were coming in and finding their seats. We weren't surprised when it happened. We were in awe of our surroundings, but some nights I couldn't help myself. Once after we finished I said to the crowd, 'Don't go home ladies and gentlemen, there's another band on after us.'
Then I upped it a bit the next night with, 'Ladies and gentlemen, next on ... The Beatles.'
I'm not sure whether any of the Stones heard this. Probably not. But it felt like maybe Keith did. We were backstage one night in this area they called the Voodoo Lounge which was like a really extended Green Room. It had a huge food buffet with couches and TVs and the latest pub-style video games. One of which was a favourite of mine at the time - Daytona. [Cruel Sea drummer] Jim Elliot and I, having just finished a race were standing near the machine.
Enter Mick Jagger.
'Ello lads ow ya doin, aw rite?'
'Yeah man, how are you? Just enjoying the facilities.'
'Daytona ay? Fancy a race?'
'F*** yeah!' I said, pushing in front of him and Jim and sitting back down in one of the driver's seats. Everything was free, so away we went. Me and Mick.
Mick fumbled with the gear stick and steering wheel, meandering all over the virtual racetrack. Realising how awful he was, I slowed down and tried not to completely destroy him, but he made it very difficult for me to do a convincing job. 'He spent a lot of money getting that good on that machine,' Jim said comfortingly to Mick as we stood up after the race.
Perkins 1, Jagger 0.
There was a full-size billiard table for Ronnie and Keith and they seemed to have a game before every show.
On another night, I wandered over to the table to watch them play and I noticed that Ronnie was quite good and Keith was quite terrible. I felt uncomfortable and regretted coming over as Keith pushed the balls around the table with no results. No one likes onlookers when they're playing badly.
It was a rainy day and there was no cover on the stage. I asked the WAY too obvious question of 'what happens when it rains' and Keith looked at me and sneers, 'You get wet'.
Ronnie, attempting to lighten the mood, pipes up with a cheery, 'Once in Rio we were playing in a raging hurricane and the rain was coming in horizontally, but we played on. Nothing stops the Stones.'
Jagger was professionally friendly. He was like a politician in that he has a little bit of information on everyone so it seems like he remembers you and cares. He said he'd been listening to our current album and went on to describe a couple of aspects of it, trying to make us feel good, and it did, bless him. But nothing prepared me for how little they all were - I mean they were tiny. They were like miniatures. It seemed like they couldn't have been much more than five foot tall! Jim and I are both around six foot four; we felt weird towering over these giants of rock.
Some people thought it was a bit of a coup for us to get that tour and I suppose it was. On the other hand, I think they just got the biggest band in the country at the time and that just happened to be The Cruel Sea. Six months later it would have been Silverchair.
TEX, by Tex Perkins with Stuart Coupe, is published by Macmillan Australia, RRP $34.99
[www.dailymail.co.uk]
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Rockman
THE AUSTRALIAN --- 2 August 2017
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Cristiano Radtke
EXCLUSIVE EXTRACT - 'Nothing prepared me for how little they were': Australian rock veteran Tex Perkins reveals what life was like backstage with The Rolling Stones
whole interview up ^^^ there... not copied to save space...