It was really strange for me when I started to play concerts in America where the audiences were all sitting down.
When we signed our deal in 1974, we'd already been together for six years. When they lowered the drinking age in Ontario in 1971 to 18 years, we went from playing two or three high schools in a month to playing clubs two or three times a week.
People love events - they love performances, they love music - and I think Australians are great entertainers.
I certainly want to get back to the U.S. to play. It's such a big country. I've always liked playing there, and enjoyed living there. I lived in New York, LA, and Florida.
I'm a working travelling musician, but just on a bigger scale.
Looking back, we had the hard time, but the privilege, of actually coming up playing biker bars and little bitty college bars.
At the end of the day, a playback singer has to depend on live shows as their source of income.
We didn't have the Grand Ole Opry or country radio stations in Nova Scotia when I was growing up.
I think that it's crucial. I think that playing live, if you want to be an artist - that's what artists do.
I tried to play anything people would hire me to play, because I was a musician.
We've gone from venues that hold 500 up to 3,000 on our own, so I guess we're not entirely unknown. But there is a difference between a few thousand people and 20,000.
The truth is, I initially became a singer-songwriter while still in my teens because it was the only way to guarantee that somebody on earth would sing the songs I was writing. Since then, I've performed just about everywhere: rock clubs, concerts halls, arenas, TV.
Bands like Culture Club and artists like me, you tend to concentrate on the live arena because that's where you can be your most authentic. That's where you have the most power.
People think top singers are overpaid, but opera houses have a top fee, which is a good thing. Of course concerts are different- everyone wants to make as much money as possible.
About music shows... um... I do want to go on music shows.
Hee Haw was probably my biggest exposure to live music at a young age, because there wasn't any live music around my town and no one in my family played instruments.
I like the dirty venues better - Brixton Jams is like home.
I think I was made for live music. It's just great.
To be in a band on the road is to have anything and everything you want just by picking up the phone.
I think the thing that L.A. had on Sydney is an awesome music scene, especially for what I do.
It's like Liverpool. Everybody went for the music. All the young musicians seemed to gravitate to Asbury Park.
I've been lucky enough to support some absolute legends and incredible songwriters over the years, including Hozier, Daughter, Willy Mason, Catfish and the Bottlemen, Nick Mulvey, and Benjamin Francis Leftwich.
As far as the live shows go, we're not leapfrogging all the smaller venues. We would have bypassed these kind of shows and gone straight to the Arena shows, but we didn't want to.
I miss touring. I miss seeing people on the road. I miss that adrenaline rush; there's nothing like it.
I've been to Philadelphia a lot of times over the years, playing the old Celebrity Room and most of the other clubs around there that don't exist anymore.
