The Voice Inside is John Farnham's first ever memoir, written with Poppy Stockell who directed the 2023 documentary Finding The Voice. Photo: Supplied
By Dan Condon, ABC
"Sitting in that garage… for the first time in my career, I got to sing and be me in the way I wanted to sing and be me," John Farnham writes in his newly released memoir, The Voice Inside.
It's 1985 and the singer is flat broke, ready to take one last crack at the big time.
Eighteen years earlier, he'd been a pop superstar and teen heart-throb. His song 'Sadie, The Cleaning Lady' sold more copies than any other Australian song in the 1960s, but it also painted him into a corner. For years, he was tarred as the kid who sang 'Sadie'.
After being pushed around by managers like Darrell Sambell, old foes like the Little River Band (who he fronted, despite animosity with its creative core), and industry naysayers who saw him as a washed-up novelty more suited to playing half-full leagues clubs than modern rock concerts, it was in that garage that he finally began to back himself.
This lack of self-belief is one of the unexpected through-lines of Farnham's first-ever memoir.
We learn how one of Australia's most popular entertainers spent the first two decades of his career out of control, bowing to the whims of people he trusted, but who didn't always have his best interests at heart.
Anyone who saw Poppy Stockell's 2023 documentary, Finding The Voice, knows what came out of that garage. Farnham and manager Glenn Wheatley's last roll of the dice in making the singer a superstar resulted in 1986 album Whispering Jack, the biggest-selling Australian album of all time.
John Farnham performs on ABC TV's Countdown in the 1980s. Photo: ABC Archives
But there's a lot in The Voice Inside that didn't make that film. Farnham's guarded nature means a lot of this book might not have been heard outside chats with family or his close circle of friends.
For instance, we hear that a cat once bit him on the penis, that Bob Hawke once offered him a counterfeit watch, and that he almost fell off the boat that brought his family to Australia in the late 1950s. We learn that he has a terrible sense of direction and that he played Lleyton Hewitt's wedding for free.
Some learnings are more sinister: he was drugged, coerced and abused by a former manager. He faced financial ruin many times over. He and his wife Jill struggled to conceive children for many years. During the darkest months of Covid, he'd drink up to three bottles of wine every night.
For Farnham fans, it's all completely compelling. It's the look inside his life we always dreamt of but never thought we'd get.
The Voice Inside is John Farnham's first ever memoir, written with Poppy Stockell who directed the 2023 documentary Finding The Voice. Photo: Supplied
For Stockell, who co-wrote the book with Farnham, it was a chance to finally get to know someone she'd studied intently for years.
"I actually didn't meet John during the process of the film," she tells the ABC.
"I spent a good three years of my life reading, watching, listening to everything I could about John. I felt like I knew this guy inside, out, back to front, without ever meeting him. The first time I met him was when we sat down to write the book.
"He walked in, I walked in. We both got teary-eyed, had a big hug, and we took it from there."
That was just earlier this year, when the now 75-year-old Farnham and Stockell sat for the first of a dozen long conversations that provided much of the book's content.
Those conversations weren't always easy. When your guard has been up for decades, reflecting on the toughest parts of your life is challenging enough. Knowing the world will soon read about it must be torturous.
"It was definitely hard for him," Stockell says. "There were a lot of years of really hard experiences, he was out of favour for a long time.
"I actually didn't meet John during the process of the film," she tells the ABC.
"I spent a good three years of my life reading, watching, listening to everything I could about John. I felt like I knew this guy inside, out, back to front, without ever meeting him. The first time I met him was when we sat down to write the book.
"He walked in, I walked in. We both got teary-eyed, had a big hug, and we took it from there."
That was just earlier this year, when the now 75-year-old Farnham and Stockell sat for the first of a dozen long conversations that provided much of the book's content.
Those conversations weren't always easy. When your guard has been up for decades, reflecting on the toughest parts of your life is challenging enough. Knowing the world will soon read about it must be torturous.
"It was definitely hard for him," Stockell says. "There were a lot of years of really hard experiences, he was out of favour for a long time.
"But he's the master of his story. He's the owner of his narrative. We gently peeked through it and sort of constructed it. I think he was really, really generous."
His generosity is welcome, but after decades of near silence, it is almost a bit jarring. The knockabout lad who'd dominated Australian pop culture for decades is indeed human after all. He loses his temper, has an "obese" ego and doesn't like to be among a crowd of people.
He also seems genuinely gracious, appreciative of the audiences who have supported him - he doesn't like to call us fans - and is happy to be alive. He's not sure if he'll ever sing again but, as his wife Jill writes in the book, he "still has life to live".
The Voice Inside is probably the closest look into John Farnham's life we'll ever get. It's been worth the wait.
The Voice Inside is out now.
- This story was first published by ABC