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The Whitlams’ frontman Tim Freedman grew up running through the bush in Collaroy. He tells Editor in Chief Michelle Giglio about his musical journey and new album with his Black Stump band.
“A letter to you on a cassette, ‘cause we don’t write anymore.” Anyone of a certain vintage knows the opening lines to The Whitlams’ ballad No Aphrodisiac, ARIA song of the year in 1998, which so captivated the nation. The heart-wrenching song was released from Eternal Nightcap, which became the biggest selling independent album in Australia, putting the band firmly on the national stage.
After they formed some 32 years ago, iconic Australian band The Whitlams is still selling out shows, with frontman Tim Freedman’s voice and piano tunes as ethereal as ever. Whether he is singing about love gone wrong, making hamburgers or blowing up the pokies, songwriter Tim has the ability to connect with his audience.
Just don’t call him a rockstar. “I’m a musician!” he says, adamantly. “I’ve never done the celebrity thing. People don’t really know much about me at all, which is really great.”
When I point out to Tim that he has spilled his heart out in a lot of his songs, he laughs: “Yeah. But it’s pretty vague. All the names have been changed!”
Luckily for Peninsula Living Pittwater, Tim was happy to sit down one stunning morning at The Beach Club in Collaroy to chat about his upbringing on the Northern Beaches and his latest project, The Whitlams Black Stump – which is the music we know and love with an aroma of country.
The 59-year-old was raised in the hills above us, halfway up Collaroy Plateau, where his parents were the first to build a house in the bush in 1961. “It was idyllic to grow up with the classic bush and beach culture,” Tim remembers, smiling. “My little brother Nick and I were always just running out the front door at nine in the morning and building bush shacks and playing with lizards and beating a path through the Crown land.
“And then in the summer, of course, we’d walk down Anzac Avenue all the way to Long Reef or Collaroy beach and surf and swim. It was wonderful.”
While the bushland where Tim and Nick played is now mostly houses, his mother still lives in their original brick home. “I got (to live there) when it was very sleepy and beautiful.”
He remembers trudging up the road to Collaroy Plateau Public School, where he has fond memories of the ‘very imposing’ Year Two teacher Miss Best, with her steel blue hair, who taught him to love maths. Being a ‘sports-mad’ child, Tim played rugby for the Collaroy Cougars and cricket in the Manly Warringah Junior Cricket Association – his ‘crowning glory’ was winning the best bowling average trophy for a stunning 2.1 runs per wicket.
Just how did the sport-obsessed child start his musical journey? Tim’s mother had a piano so when Tim turned five, she took him to ‘Mrs Richie’ down the road.
“She was a great teacher because she just taught me songs that I’d enjoy playing.”
So whether it was ‘boogie woogie’ songs by the renowned Trinidad composer Winifred Atwell, or Elton John’s Yellow Brick Road, Tim ‘just had fun’ learning music. “And that’s why it was always just a pleasant hobby rather than a chore.”
As for singing: “I just opened my mouth and blew like Marilyn Monroe!” he laughs.
It was when in high school at Shore in North Sydney that Tim formed his first band – and it was also when he started composing.
“I remember writing songs when I was about 13 and getting my band at high school to play them. They were never any good. But you have to start somewhere.”
Their first professional gig was at the Scout Hall in Belrose. “I put on school concerts, starring myself of course! I’ve always had a bit of an entrepreneurial streak.”
Early influences were John Lennon, Kate Bush and particularly Elton John. “His piano songs just lit me up when I listened to them. Dad worked at the ABC in town and he would make cassette tapes of LPs he’d get from the library. So I had a good selection.
“I just loved the sound of it and I wanted to see how it worked. Simple as that. I wasn’t thinking about girls and I wasn’t thinking about riches. I was just following a passion.”
Tim and brother Nick both ended up studying at the University of Sydney in Camperdown, and their parents bought a property in Newtown. And so began Tim’s 35-year ongoing love affair with the grungy, vibrant area, which still boasts a thriving music scene.
Despite getting to the last year of a law degree, Tim ‘pressed the eject button’ and decided to pursue what was really calling him – music.
The Whitlams sold out their Twilight at Taronga show last month
“I was in two bands and I wanted to follow my passion, which was pure folly because I didn’t make a buck till I was 33. But luckily I stuck at it because I’ve been able to do it ever since.”
A self-taught singer and songwriter, Tim says he was amazed with the success of Eternal Nightcap. “I made the album for myself, so it was very personal. And then I was surprised that it managed to emanate some universality that people connected with it on an emotional level, especially the spine of it, which was about friendship.”
The band’s themes were ‘love, heartbreak, booze and errant friends,’ Tim says. And those themes still resonate with new generations of fans who populate the crowd at The Whitlams’ concerts – yours truly was dancing with a whole lot of them in front of the stage at their most recent gig, Twilight at Taronga.
Does it surprise him that people keep coming back?
“We just pride ourselves on always making each show sound good. And I suppose we bear the fruit of that now – we’ve always worked hard and taken it very seriously.”
Tim and band drummer Terepai Richmond are about to kick off a national tour at Bluesfest Byron Bay with The Whitlams Black Stump, formed in 2021 on a ‘pure whim’ after Tim performed solo through regional Australia.
“I was listening to the country radio when they started playing one of our tunes, Man About a Dog from (the 2022 album) Sancho. I was playing in Mudgee and Tamworth and I just suddenly thought, ‘Why don’t I try and play some country music?’ Especially as I was friends with one of Australia’s best country music producers, Matt Fell.”
Tim with ‘his first girlfriend’ at Collaroy Beach, aged 3
Tim and Nick at Christmas in 1971 with their Manly Warringah jerseys. Nick got Bobby Fulton’s number!
Matt got a band together, filling the bass position himself, and the ‘the experiment just kept pleasantly surprising me,’ Tim says. The band has just launched first album Kookaburra in Newcastle, featuring nine original Whitlams’ songs, including new tune Fallen Leaves – all wrapped around by that beautiful country sound: fiddle, banjo, pedal steel guitar – and a lot of mandolin. “It’s ‘Americana,’ Tim explains. “It’s basically Australian stories played with instruments from the American south.”
Opening track Man About a Dog sets the album’s tone, with the distinct peels of the banjo and an echo of mandolin sure to pull at your heartstrings.
Having toured a lot of regional Australia – and about to visit places like Gunnedah and Gunderoo and even Dangar Island on the Hawkesbury – how has it changed?
“You’d be surprised how many towns are starting to look like the main drag of Avalon,” Tim reflects. “The ‘tree-changers’ are bringing a certain amount of polish to the country. So I’m finding it exciting that there are now little cabaret rooms opening up in country towns.
“There’s a bit of a resurgence as more people with urban tastes are filling up a lot of the regional centres.
“There’s a lot of gigs in breweries and there’s some lovely little theatres that once again are getting an audience. So it’s quite an exciting time to spread your wings.”
As for how the new band got its name, Tim is happy to admit that he calls himself a ‘black stump musician’. “Because I didn’t really learn (piano) classically or theoretically. And so I’ve always liked that phrase.
“I also like a ‘black stump philosopher’. That’s the bloke in the front bar who imparts wisdom though he has never been to university.”
The new band is inspiring Tim to write more music, with an album of new songs for The Whitlams Black Stump on the cards. After a ‘quiet decade’ to raise his daughter Alice, now 18, Tim is happy to have his ‘mojo’ back. “I was a bit burnt out and I needed to tackle the rewarding challenges of raising a teenage daughter,” he reflects. “As the decade proceeded, I realised how lucky I was to be able to play music around the country. And so I put my foot on the pedal again in 2019. I hadn’t put out an album for 15 years. And now I’ve put out two in two years. It shows you that I’m back at the wheel.”
The Whitlams Black Stump (L-R): Rod McCormack, Ollie Thorpe, Tim, Matt Fell, Terepai Richmond
Tim says that while he no longer writes about ‘booze or heartwreck,’ he still writes about love and errant friends – with Australian stories a strong theme.
So the Black Stump band sings about Kate Kelly, sister of bushranger Ned, and NRL legend John Sattler who played the 1970 grand final with a broken jaw. “I define myself as an Australian lyricist.”
The writing process can be tortuous, but that’s the lot of a musician, Tim says. “I drag myself to the piano and padlock myself to it. Then I write some really bad songs that really annoy me. And slowly over a few months they get better and better. It’s a muscle that has to be exercised.”
Right now, as he prepares to get on the road with The Whitlams Black Stump, Tim says he is feeling ‘challenged and content’. “I’ve been adventurous and I’ve been lucky enough that it’s paid off. I have a good old-fashioned vocation. And being your own boss can’t be diminished. I’m lucky that I’ve never had to ‘work for the man.’ I’ve always paddled my own canoe.”
As for what keeps Tim going after some 30-odd years in the band, he says being with new musicians and playing to new audiences is energising. “It’s like I’m signing up for a new game – and life’s just about trying to stay playful and whimsical.
“I keep swimming up and down that pool,” (he says, motioning to Collaroy Rockpool, where he learnt to swim and still does laps). “That’s the secret.”
The Whitlams Black Stump performs at Avalon RSL on 1 June (sold out) and 2 June. Tickets: thewhitlams.com