3:36
The vinyls were treacherous, fearless, energetic rock and roll. And at the front of this powerhouse was the great Chrissy Hamlet. Chrissy is the greatest front woman I've ever witnessed. No one touched her on stage as a performer. I see her as the epitome of a front person. Like in the entire world because of the persona that she created. People need to learn about Chrissy Amphlet and what she did for us all.
Chrissy Amphlet created an icon for Australian music and particularly women in Australian music. She wanted to be out the front running the band. She doesn't need to support a bloke on stage. She can do it all by herself. My persona was pretty scary because I was very confronting and fullon and people would say, "Well, you're a pretty girl. Why do you behave in that manner? Chrissy lived a big life. It was chaotic, uncompromising, courageous, and ultimately doomed.
You know, I was only lonely. That's all. I WAS ONLY LONELY. Come on. That's enough. So, I have a few things, a few photographs from the collection I was able to get a hold of. I think I'm a pretty big Finals fan. Die hard fanatical. I'm a collector. Yeah. Um, I wish you know there was more I could get my hands on. Chrissy on stage. This is beautiful shot. And this is our I Touch Myself project. Breast cancer prevention starts with early detection.
I don't think I'd be here without the time my the 20 years I got to spend with Chrissy and that was with someone who cared for me and just loved me so unconditionally. Chrissy's songs have well and truly become part of social commentary. And I believe that Chrissy's contribution to all of us has never ever been truly understood. Chrissy grew up in Belmont near Jalong. She came from a musical family. Her great uncle Ernest Sage was an opera singer and her mother Mary was a dancer, singer and comedian with the Jalong Musical Comedy Society.
You know, every weekend there was all everybody around singing and dancing in the lounge room. But it was just it was encouraged and performing was encouraged. I think I did my first performance in front of a thousand people on a seven or something and it was I was always performing. Um I saw my cousin on the TV. She used to say to members of the family, unbeknownst to me, that you know, if she can be a star at 14, so can I. Chrissy was a rebellious teenager from all accounts. Hated school, did her very best, but couldn't wait to leave. Early on when she went surfing in to um she had lots of boyfriends. It was a pretty big drug scene at the time.
I don't know if I was really wild in those days. I was quite shy but I was very adventurous and I to connect with people I would sing. I felt at some deep level I felt special. Even though probably I had low self-esteem and everything, somehow I felt good because I had this vocal thing. She was desperate to get out of Jalong and move to Melbourne. When Chrissy was 18, she had her first musical in a rather controversial production called Let My People Come. In fact, it was a nude musical. She didn't mind that at all. She thought it was funny. I mean, it was extraordinarily liberating being naked on stage and I really enjoyed up there shocking people. all that was sort of developed and
seeing people's faces and embarrassing people and I sort of got a taste for it and I felt just strong and powerful but I felt really good about my body and it was so weird from that show a lot of things came my pathway I first met Chrissy at a party. Guitars were playing and people were singing and she was right next to me and I was so taken by this voice. When you hear a voice like that, you know that there's there's something a foot. There's there's a destiny that needs to be played out. Chrissy felt that her role in Let My People Come was a stepping stone to a bigger career, but her dream was to be a rock singer in a band, and this was a way to get into that world of performing every night, of getting reactions from the audience.
I sang in a few bands, but I could never really stick at it. And I was always getting the sack or something would happen. I just couldn't fit into the style that they wanted or something, but I just kept on trying. The vinyls came about when Chrissy became friends with a wonderful guitarist named Mark McIntye. It was the genius idea of a bass player called Jeremy Paul who was from Air Supply. He knew independent of each other Mark and Chrissy. He had the inkling that Chrissy would be a unique uh you know artist. He put the two together. They very quickly started writing and he just engineered for other mus that he was familiar with to come in and I was the second.
It's such a wonderful journey being in a band. So, I thought we did needed some videos. Get that through there. I can't remember whether I had or I purchased a Super Eight uh camera. This is the first time I'll see it in 42 years. And I started buying up film and shooting events. Oh, goodness. So, we're on a rooftop. These were early days in the band. So, uh this is the first big film clip that we shot. And this is all footage sort of behind the scenes. And I remember the excitement, uh the thrill.
They were keen to write original music to try and be distinctive and create a band voice as well as a Chrissy voice that was unique and special. There was a little bit of punk in the band. There was a little bit of pub rock. There was a little bit of new wave bar sitting down in between shots. The band was looking for a name. the boys in the band and I was with a friend and I heard the word divinyl as a description of something and I it was like a light bulb moment for me that the divinyls that's the name of the band. So we told Chrissy and that's how it happened. We used to talk about the gang we had you know a family it was a gang and we wanted to take over the world. We wanted to be the best band in the world.
Chrissy realized that she didn't have a conventional pop singer's voice. She was told time and again that she had no future as a lead singer. She was just too weird. First time I ever saw Divinyl was at a little pub in King's Cross and there was Chrissy who was like a fain doll, you know, standing with her back to the audience at the back of the stage alongside the drummer. No confidence whatsoever. When I'd wear my own clothes on stage, I was kind of too vulnerable. So, I was shy. I felt shy and I wasn't playing a character or anything. It was just me. And at that point, I needed to get good fast. And Vince and I went to an AC/DC concert and
I saw Angus jumping around the stage and he had this persona. And Vince looked at me and said, "That's where you've got to be." So, he said, "Why don't you go and get a school uniform? Once she dawned her school girls uniform, she became magnetic. She became a different person. And it was um it was a mask for her. She was able to live all her um frustrations on stage. She was very feminine but at the same time um she had balls you know and that was very unique thing in those days. She did it through performance and she did it through figuring out what she could get away with on stage and
reacting to the audience and reacting to people calling her names and touching her and [__] with her. Yeah, I'm hugely influenced by Chrissy. THAT'S THE NAME OF YOU. Don't think that I'm a pushover or that I'm submissive because I've got these suspenders on and then I've I'm a [__] basically. Don't mess with me. That was her life. There was nothing outside that. Once she'd locked into that persona of being the divinels and putting the Chrissy Ampla charisma coat on, there was no going back. We became very close and she uh became a confidant.
She always wanted to have a baby. She wanted to be a mother and uh I guess she made a decision that wasn't going to happen. I first came across the Divinyl in 1980 and I listened to a demo of a song called Boys in Towns. The performance is wild. The vocal is just got so much energy. So the song was great but the lyrics you can see her frustration with you know I must have been desperate. I must have been pretty liar. So the lyrics in that song priceless. Absolutely. Boys in town is one of the stories of her life. The mickey was taken out of her because she was beautiful teenager and boys in her
opinion gave her a bad time and probably said horrible things to her. What they'd like to do with her, to her, etc. And she gave a some lip back to them. I don't want to be there with these boys in town. I want something better. I'm looking for more. She wanted more from everybody. But most importantly, she wanted more for herself. All I needed now was a vehicle to promote that song. But fortunately, Pavilion Films approached me about would I provide the music for a movie called Monkey Grip. Oh, and by the way, would you know of a band that has a girl singer that we could use?
Penny's from Heaven. I've got my vehicle. I mean, thinking you've had this habit of using people up and then just throwing them away. But it's all right cuz I don't hate you anymore. Chrissy played a character who was the singer in the band. I thought Chrissy was terrific. She Yeah, she really had a presence. I said, "Pon proviso, while you're shooting the scene that you need for monkey grip, I want you to shoot my video." Too much again.
We got what looked like a live gig performance. That's what I was after because that means that when people look at that, they're attracted to see them live. And Monkey Grip helped us immeasurably. And with me now, the Diviners. Guys, thanks very much for coming on the show. Just watch out for that dish water, mate. Oh, sorry. Maybe if you could just wipe that up. With artistic relationships within a band, there's all sorts of politics. It was uh always going to happen that there was going to be something between Mark and Chrissy. I mean, they're they're together all the time. They're writing all the time.
Usually, I'll come up with a bit of a tune or something, won't I? And then we'll see if Chrissy's got some words that'll go with it. usually I've been got something a little hanging around I think oh that'll go with that. So usually that's what happens and uh then we develop it from there. It was no surprise that Mark and Chrissy became an item. Huge chemistry between Chrissy and Mark. But when they were together it was fire and ice. They adored each other and I know that they fought like mad as well but by gee they wrote some good songs.
Mark Mcinty and Chrissy had started a relationship and obviously had some sort of disagreement and I took this photo just after that's a fantastic captures it. The two of them clashed dramatically. They used to uh have physical altercations. Huge thing that made the band special was that tension. We weren't really sure whether it was going to fall apart or um you know something crazy would happen in the middle of a song.
Chrissy and I had a full-on confrontation on stage where she was trying to whack me, belt me, slap me, and I was holding her off me uh with my guitar. It's kind of ludicrous. All that made for a more interesting performance. The cost was no life, no sort of normality. It was there was a lot of drama. There was a lot of, you know, but it made for a good song or a good performance or a good record. It would seem I've been photographing bands for quite a long time, lots of different bands. And here's early 80s Chrisy Ampler at the Kronola Endeavor Field.
I was just as spiring photographer and in that little period of timing they became from an obscure band from a pub band to a big band. I watched the development of the band and Chrissy became the performer she became. This here would be Chrissy Amph 1982 Piccadilly Hotel in King's Cross. I was photographically infatuated with Chrissy Amphlet. She was a headbanger. She prowled the stage. She was cat-like. The stage was hers. She owned it. Chrissy headbanging, cliched the headbanging. I mean, just pure performance.
The Divinyl definitely had a game plan. They were very ambitious and they got there quite quickly. Um, possibly too quickly. They had hit single after hit single and they went to America quite quickly after that. Next thing I know, they're doing the US festivals, playing in front of 80,000 people at some big festival. This is a dream come true that I'm actually in New York City. I'm here with the band. We're here to record our first album at the Power Station, one of the greatest recording studios around. And I was the only girl on the tour. And
I remember trying to find a spot on the bus where I could be alone or I'd be asleep and I'd wake up and I'd have all these roies standing over staring at me and teasing me. And it was just, you know, you had to be you had to sink or swim, you know, you had to stand up for yourself. So I suppose I built up this shell around me and this persona. So people were a little afraid of me and they wouldn't come near me and it worked. And um and on stage I you know I was quite aggressive. Men were quite scared of me and I like that she was too controversial. She was too loud on stage. you know, blah, which was a really weird thing because there was Cold Chisel, Midnight Oil, The Angels, all those kind of bands at the
time. But because she was a woman, um, they didn't see it. They just thought, "You can't have a woman being that wild on stage." The Americans saw it immediately. She wasn't interested in Australia. She wanted to hit straight globally. And when the time came for the band to record Pleasure and Pain, it was groomed um for the American radio market. Mark and Chrissy was seen by American record industry as being rough around the edges, um which was part of their charm.
They wanted to smooth them out. Nothing would ever smooth Chrissy's rough edges out. But what could smooth them out was a smooth record production. Credit to Mark and to Chrissy. They worked on it and turned it into something that had a divine edge to it. So, it did change from being something that was very smooth and keyboardy uh to being something that had grunt. She loved the lyrics. I remember that. Identified with the lyrics, I guess. Fine line between pleasure and pain. She sang the words and I know Chrissy wouldn't sing any words that she didn't believe. between pleasure and when my career first started, we female
performers knew that the expectation was that we remained seeming like the girl next door, almost virginal. So, I went the other way and was as horrible as I possibly could be because I didn't want to be all nice and predictable and well just nice and showbiz and had put on this phony smile because everybody I felt all the girls up to then were and they weren't really what they might have been. I mean, she had courage. She was a pioneer. She was a feminist saying look out here I am. Move out of my way. I'm not staying in the background any longer. Chrissy Amphet without a doubt is not the easiest person in the world to know or be around. Um I don't think anyone would ever say she wasn't difficult. She was difficult.
I didn't think she was difficult at all. She just had an opinion. She had a strong opinion on things and um and she would all always stand by her guns. She looks so beautiful. She could be the most ferocious person. No, Chrissy Amphlet was an act. It was, as her mom said, it's theater, darling, theater. when she was on stage. I'm now Chrissy Amphlet rock performer. I mean, it was very enabling because everybody's egging me on for more, more, more. And I was going to give them more, more, more. And you know, before you know it, you're just dedicating your whole, you know, 24 hours a day, 7 days
a week is for this performance and this person. She was hard and tough and impenetrable on the surface, but inside she had this, you know, beautiful softness and real tender care and concern for people and for the world. I'm really sad that not many people knew the real Chrissy. to see that lovely side of her and compare that with Chrissy Amph on stage. What two different people when we first started playing, you know, going on stage drunk or on drugs was unheard of. We wouldn't do that. As the years went on, those long tours in America, the substance abuse for all of us went up.
Chrissy was drinking a lot, a lot more than she used to. Chrissy, you know, drinking problem only really came about when she really thought that it was a necessary requirement to keep the character going, you know, because she'd become the character. And what alcohol did was keep her in character 24/7. So alcohol was her bad friend. I don't know whether she could switch on and off the bad girl or whether that just became part of her. I think because of the alcohol. The record company did little to stop Chrissy from drinking. They told her that she performed better when she'd had a few drinks.
Alcohol was my everything and I it was my quick fix and it was how I coped in the beginning and then it was the only way I knew how to cope. She would come off stage dripping with sweat in a elevated state of euphoria and she would want the party to keep going. So she drank more and it reached the point where she wasn't able to stop. I put it in the back of your hand doesn't make sense from where I stand baby. Throughout this period, the band was not what it was. Uh there was animosity among the group. The record company thought they needed some improvements. So they hired some very good
American session musicians. The drummer who was brought in to beef up the sound was a gentleman called Charlie Drayton I'd say Chrissy was singular. There's not too many singers like her. I think she felt inspired a certain way by how I listened to her sing and how I, you know, kind of the chemistry that we sort of had musically. It was an experience up to that point that I had not had musically with anyone. When Charlie came into the band, Chrissy and Mark were still together. They were arguing and in the end they broke up.
Chrissy grew closer and closer to Charlie. One of my best friends had kind of pulled me to the side and said, "Hey man, there's some other energy going on between you and Chrissy." I was like, "Absolutely not. That's not like a line we're going to cross here." Like, you know, he's like, "Takes a good friend to sometimes tap you on the shoulder and kind of go, there's something going on." And then things sort of became romantic at that point. It was probably a bit torturous at times because um Marky was still with the band, you know, figure that one out. That would not have been easy for anybody. the Dinos, they were really looking up and excited about the music they were
making to enter the '9s. So, I think it was, you know, it was a great time for them. They had so much more to reach. The record company was needing a big hit from the Vinyls. They went into the studio. Uh Charlie joined them and they recorded I Touch Myself. I love myself. I want you. You could look at it as a bit of a pop song as opposed to a rock and roll song. You don't hear too many drum fills. It was about a feeling to help Chrissy's voice dance through that melody. I touched myself video was so expressive and so daring, so brave. Yeah, that's Chrissy. She's pushing the boundaries once again.
What's great about that song is she's done a song about female masturbation and taken it into the top 10 nearly everywhere in the world. It was liberating. And I think everybody went, "Yeah, I'd do that, too." Apparently, women are allowed to masturbate as well. According to Chrissy, it was a worldwide hit. It was a smash. That gave them a touring platform that gave them exposure. That let the world see who this band was, who Chrissy Amph was. That was the high the pinnacle. That should have been the catapult to go bang and be a massive band. They should be as big as the pretenders and the
blondies of the world. And from there, it didn't happen. Um, and it's the great lost band of the world. Certain things get in the way. Alcohol, uh, drugs, fame itself is a bizarre master. They never followed it through because they gradually had been imploding within themselves. Remember at that stage when they'd had that hit, they'd been around for 15, 16 years. By then, the relationships, the Mark and Chrissy thing had exploded and the lineup just kept changing every 5 minutes. You know, the band had split into two camps, two distinct camps, and it wasn't good.
There was a struggle there. The vinyl wanted to remain a rock and roll band. Some people started to see Chrissy as maybe it should just be Chrissy and she really wasn't feeling that. Then suddenly to her horror, Chrissy discovered that she was deeply in debt to American and Australian record companies, to promoters and management to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars. I think she dealt with these issues that were besetting her by being out of it. Basically, I was hearing that she was drunk a lot and taking drugs and things like that. I didn't want to believe it, but I came to believe it.
Even just making the music was difficult because their confidence was down. They were like, "We just want to finish this. We're not We don't have any more blood to give to this." In the end, the band did fall apart. There was no last show. There was no last anything to stopped. It was heartbreaking for her. You know, she loved the band. Need a drink? Yeah. Took a while for me to realize that Chrissy was in trouble with her health and her habits.
It was getting in the way of everything that she wanted to do. That's not the person that she wanted to be. The audience loved her, but I think she was hating herself. I think she was disliking herself immensely and didn't really want to be like that. You know, I was playing a part or playing an image or people pleasing always. You know, the audience was everything and giving. But you know I was just empty because I was just constantly striving to perform but I wasn't putting back in myself and I had become quite bankrupt in myself. until one particular epiphany on Christmas Day in 1996 when it all came down in a heap.
She was at her parents' place and her relatives were all there. She'd been drinking all day. Didn't know what was going to become of her life. Would never be able to pay her debts back. She was abusive to everybody and told them what she thought of them in a drunk way and wasn't nice and it was embarrassing for her. I don't think she ever came to terms with her behavior that day. Poor girl. you know, everything was falling down around me and I couldn't control everything anymore and I was going in and out of a blackout and I remember this fight going on
and I remember my sister sitting at the end of the bed. I remember the doctor there. I remember him having this needle and injecting in my arm. And I remember waking up the next day and the struggle was over. That was the day that Chrissy began to turn her life around. She could have died, but she really wanted to live. Something I don't know what it was. I just gave in. And it wasn't about will because I had a strong will. It's not about willpower. It's about giving in. And I just went and I changed. And then I just had to rebuild myself. Chrissy loved New York and wanted us to spend time there together. You know, she would say to me, "I have got to get out of Australia to figure this out a little
bit." New York, it felt like her second home away from home. This was a place that we like to have a good time, talk each other out of drinking and talk about love, talk about life. And I asked Chrissy, I said, "I love you. I want to spend the rest of my life with you, but there's three people in this relationship right now." That third person was alcohol. And that sort of hit home. I mean, Charlie wouldn't have stuck around. She accepted that was something she wanted to change. Something like that we can't do in a day. After that, she checked into a 12step alcohol program and she went to see a psychiatrist to try to help her deal with the problems that were besetting her.
Yeah, she was a different person. Happy together. I mean, together mentally. Her heart was strong and in love. I believe they were good for each other and they had a good relationship. There's some people that had known Chrissy longer than I had that said they'd never seen her happy before. We were really in love, man. like Yeah, she sacrificed a lot by going and living in America with Charlie. She kind of sacrificed her career in a way. She used to ring me and say, "It's Mrs. Charlie Drayton here." So, I know that bugged her, you know. I think she um would have liked to have done more musically.
She was getting older. She couldn't be doing what she'd done for the last however many years, but the debts were still there and she was looking for something different. Being offered the role in The Boy from Oz was a godsend to her. Australia's Todd McKenna has been picked to star in the homegrown musical The Boy from Oz. Rock legend Chrissy Amphlet plays his one-time mother-in-law Judy Garland. She was mindful of taking on a role like playing Judy Garland. That's enormous role. Judy Garland, she had a tortured life and she too drank too much. Maybe Chrissy could relate to that. I don't know. But many people said, "Oh, she'd
never do that." And that's all it took was for one person to say, "Oh, you could never do that." And she said, "Yeah, you want to bet?" I guess on day one of rehearsals, it felt like there was somebody very famous in the room and you're in your sweats, you know, and your tights and t-shirt and then over there is Chrissy in her, you know, incredible sunglasses and you're like, "Wow." And she's just doing the work though. She's there doing the work. Isn't it exciting? Chrissy said to me, you know, that she was a bit nervous. And then, of course, you know, come opening night, she was a sensation.
You do the job, but you never show yourself. You never show what's here. You're a great opener, but at the end of the night, people want to see a human being. These people want blood and that's what I give them. Judy's enemy was alcohol. And so I think that Chrissy was able to take on that role because she'd got past that demon. She'd been down in the depths, but she'd come through it. I didn't want to be pushed aside, forgotten on a shell. This was the first time standing in the wings that I wasn't going having a quick nip and I had to do it um you know with all I had to use my inner strength my inner life. It was a wonderful thing to
achieve for me and to do it soberly. All I wanted was the time. Thankfully, Boy from Form was successful and had a long run because it helped her pay the bills she needed to pay. Chrissy's not one to miss a performance, but she did so that we could get married. I think she was just feeling what peace could be like a bit in her life at that point. Chrissy had worked to get her life back on track and I think she was bright about what the future could hold. I think the first sign of change for her was walking. Um she called me on the phone one afternoon. She said, "I was in Sydney
walking on the street and got to the corner and I tripped." That stuck in her mind. It was very strange to her how that had happened. And you know, it happened a second time when Charlie came out to play with Cultisle for the first time. time Chrissy came out to accompany Charlie on the tour and I was struck because Chrissy was using a cane to get around. She was very unsteady. People were saying that they saw her staggering around drunk and she was actually going to AA. She was sober. I took her to a doctor who gave her some as swiftly as possible gave her some serious tests and within 24 hours she knew she had MS, multiple sclerosis which was just the worst news. And it was one of disbelief for me in
the sense that um this was the hardest woman in the world. She's bulletproof, you know. Clearly not. Chissy sat down with me and said, "Look, you know, I'm used goods now. And I want you to set yourself free if that's what you feel you want to do." And that just brought me in closer, you know, and deeper. Like Chrissy deserved to have someone by her side, and that'd be me. I want to introduce first of all the amazing woman who's going to play the role of Judy Garland, Chrissy Amphlet. So in 2006, we did a new production with Hugh Jackman in the lead role of The Boy from Oz. I had no clue that she had any health problems.
Chrissy at first was tentative about the idea of returning only because she knew she had MS. You know, she also decided that she wasn't going to say anything about it for as long as she could. She just wants to go to work. All I wanted was the time to obliterate my past. We've been working really hard and I'm dancing. My god, I didn't know that I would be. And um so you know it's quite a challenge for me but I like that. I didn't know that time can come and go so terribly fast. I suspect that Hugh was the only person who knew and Chrissy told him that uh she had MS and he said, "I'll help you on stage," which he did.
He's a great man. So, it wasn't until later that she told me she had MS and had it during the show and I thought, "What? What? She had to do this incredible choreography. It's hard to lose it. So, of course, Chrissy must have decided that nobody would cast her if they knew that she had MS. Talk about pleasure and pain. Well, I can tell you there's a lot of pain in that. But there also was a lot of pleasure in that for her as well. The fact that she could achieve it even with MS, I mean, that's legendary. someone
like that to be able to do that strength that's in the strength that not many people have. And Chrissy did it. Chrissy's appearance now was presenting more that something wasn't looking right. Chrissy had a decision to make about how this would get exposed. Either someone else would expose this or she'd have the opportunity to say something herself. I was really nervous coming because to talk about this because I've had to re-evaluate my self-image. In what way? You know that I'm not perfect. You know, it's focused me more. It's good. It's been good for me this MS.
The show must go on, huh? Oh, yes. And that's the most important thing to me. You know, there's an audience and there's songs to be sung and I've got a great team around me. When she let it out, one, she found out immediately how much how cared for and how loved she is. And it had made her feel more content that okay, it's okay. They still love her for who she is. She wanted to do a onew woman show. She wanted to do a show of torch songs, you know, old sort of spirituals and original songs and tell stories and would have been great. Didn't happen.
She got sick. She still looked radiant and healthy, but that's when she told me she had breast cancer as well. And there was a conflict with um treatments. She was downed. She was devastated. To see her, you wouldn't guess it, but Chrissy Ampler is counting down the hours to the radical surgery she hopes will save her life. You know, you have to you cannot. It's death row or front row. Front row or death row. Her MS means she can't have chemo or radiotherapy to prevent the cancer spreading or returning. So she'll need a double mastctomy.
First of all, get your spirit and your strength and your resolve. Do you want to live or you want to die? And that's the decision. Do you want to live or you want to die? Everybody's been fantastic. I've had the best nurses, the best to everything, but it's time. I really want to go home. I really wish now that I touched myself. It's so appropriate now more than ever, you know. It really should be the breast cancer song, you know, and you know, for us all and not to be prud and to find the health in that now to really touch ourselves and feel ourselves and
connect with our bodies more than ever. Oh, she fought all the way till she fought till the end. Eventually, you know, we found out that the cancer had now spread to her bones. When I was speaking to her, her voice, that wonderful, expressive voice was very small and very fragile. And she said, "I'm so sick of being sick." And she rang me one night. She said, "I'm going off all my medication. I'm sick to death. I'm I'm I've had it. I remember saying that's a big decision to make. And she went downhill really quickly. She was like a warrior in a way that she'd fought many battles and in the end maybe she took the armor off.
She just had become soft but also at peace in some way. We were all around her at the time. We were with her when she passed. The wild woman of rock, Chrissy Amphlet, has died in New York after losing her battle with breast cancer and multiple sclerosis. I don't know. There's something about her that kind of seemed immortal to me. Like she'd always be there and she still is. You know, think I would die.
A year after she died, they established a foundation called the I Touch Myself Project. Pretty much every iconic female performer in Australia and they're singing I Touch Myself to encourage women to get their breasts checked. I touch myself. It's a beautiful campaign and it's very raw and it's implied that they're all topless which is very in keeping with the song as well is always like bit provocative. I think if Chrissy had seen the result of that campaign I think she'd have cried. That campaign should be constantly reminding people. It should never ever disappear. That campaign back in 1998, Chrissy and myself wrote three songs around an old Beexstein piano. And I probably started by playing
these chords to her. I'd come out of Swedans. Chrissy was seemingly emerging from the divinyls and so we were both similar kind of animals. It was a good time for us to meet because she was looking for something new, something different in her life musically. They decided that they would book a studio for two days and go in and just record the songs and I was invited to join them in the studio. Yeah, it was pretty magical session really. We thought they were demos and left them for the moment to be finished or worked on more or whatever. After that, we just moved on and we never saw each other again. For 25 years, I didn't really think about it.
We didn't know where the tape was. Big old 2-in reel. But we thought it was lost for sure. A few years back, I knew that I wanted to look for this tape cuz I really wanted to hear these songs again. Here's the garage. I've moved house three times since then. I thought I better look for that bloody tape and uh Charlie will you know get mad at me. My prayer was answered one day when Tim reached out to me and said I have found the master tape. Here it is. Chrissy Amphlet and Tim Finn. 30th of the 11th 98. What a duo. What an act. What's that sound in your voice? To hear her voice clear and just on its own sounds amazing. Knowing that she's passed and they're not with us anymore
I don't think we've had closure with how Chrissy left us. What's that sound in your voice? We got the tape restored and so we have three songs now. 25 years later, they're going to be released. People are going to hear Chrissy Alfred's voice again, fresh, you know. Stag people. Sometimes I'm crazy. Sometimes I'm laz. God bless Chrissy. Her music is going to live on forever. Sometimes I'm courageous, sometimes I don't feel so good.
Chrissy definitely influenced and still is an influence to a lot of particularly, you know, female artists of whom there's far more now than there was back then. I think she lived a big life, a hard life in a lot of ways, but she chose that hardness and it made her who she was. She lived a crazy life. She lived a good life with some ups and downs, but people would remember her for being the fabulous, magnificent Chrissy.
People need to criticize. They want to bring you down a size, but they don't feel so good themselves. This goes out to anyone who's trying to do the best that they can. I'm trying to do the best that I can. I'm with you. I'm trying to do the best that I can.
