Just as predictable as the rain in Tassie we come to expect a Tassie visit from that other Reyne, singer/songwriter James Reyne.
Chatting to James last week he tells me he gets to Tassie for a show about once a year.
James’s background in arts/law no doubt has given him the wordsmith’s ability to write fine songs. James ended up not finishing his degree, instead he opted to swap direction to an acting course, encouraged by his mum who noted he wasn’t that committed to his uni studies and thought something different such as the courses offered by the Victorian college of the arts would better suit him.
James went on to become an actor and in his most familar role that of the outlandish hedonistic playboy in the tongue in cheek blockbuster classic mini series Return to Eden. He played a shallow young man who tries to kill his wife by throwing her amongst the crocodiles not factoring on her resilience in survival and subsequent revenge.
Tongue in cheek appeared again in James’s time in Australian Crawl. They were often described as being the epitome of the bronzed Aussie life saver in comparison to more hard rocking bands at the time. It was an image the boys wanted to shrug off so they decided on a bit of reverse psychology. They made a soft drink commercial where they incorporated almost every healthy water sport possible to hopefully show the impossibility of the image but it backfired and increased everyone’s belief about their healthy surfy image.
James also had a problem shaking the image that the portrayal of the shallow husband in Return to Eden built. People started to fuse James with his character’s less appealing attributes.
James discovered a parallel of misconceptions while reading an Errol Flynn biography. Here was an intelligent man that was misjudged because of the larger than life antics and persona that had grown around him because of this, like the band he struggled to be seen as who he truly was just as Australian Crawl did.
This resonated with Australian Crawl, and in tribute to a like soul, they made the album Sirocco named after Errol’s yacht.
James has been writing consistently for 30 years and his latest offering includes a single called ‘English girls’. A tribute by James to the English and expat Aussie girls living in England that have made an impression on his life.
You can see James perform classic hits and new, at Launceston Country Club on Friday 21 October and Saturday 22 October at Hobart Wrest Point Casino.
Paula Xiberras
