Vic Simms: ‘I Wasn’t In The Position To Make Demands’

With the long-awaited reissue of his prison-recorded 1973 cult classic ‘The Loner’, Indigenous Australian songwriter Vic Simms reflects on nearly six decades in music, from a teenage rock ‘n’ roll career to an upcoming all-star reworking of ‘The Loner’. Interview by AARON CURRAN.

[Historical image is withheld pending rights review.] Congratulations on finally seeing The Loner reissued and available again after all this time. How are you feeling and how’s it all going?
It’s exciting. The Loner’s been a missing link for me and this [reissue] was in the making for such a long time – 13, 15 years – that I gave up on it, to be honest. I’d tried to find funding and release it myself but got knocked back until I just thought, to hell with it, I’d had enough. Luckily others behind the scenes were still in motion.

There’s some other news too. I’ve been helping a young musician in Brisbane (Luke Peacock), to remake different tracks off The Loner, completely new versions. I’ve worked with musicians like Ed Kuepper, Russell Hopkinson [of You Am I], Nick Barker, and they’re fabulous, the way they’ve reworked them to suit their own styles, taking what they liked about the originals and doing something completely different. Others are coming on board like Paul Kelly, Tim Rogers.

“I bought a guitar for two packets of Drum tobacco … It wasn’t hard to find the time to [write songs in prison].”

Tell us about how you came to write the songs on The Loner.
I wrote those songs in an old battered notebook that’s a treasure of mine I still have today, full of thoughts from my time in Bathurst Jail. It’s even got my name and the jail number pressed into it. That notebook is what I think of when people ask me about The Loner. The words came first for every song. I knew that I had to learn to play the chords that I was hearing in my head, so I bought a guitar which I swapped for two packets of Drum tobacco. I had the melodies but had to learn how to construct songs around them. It wasn’t hard to find the time to do it. Singing and playing guitar was a way of passing the cold miserable days and all the time spent standing around in the yards.

How did RCA come to hear about your songs?
Some people visiting from a charity group heard me singing; they taped some of it. The next thing I know the hierarchy at Bathurst is telling me, “There are people getting very interested in you.” Weeks went by – I was in no hurry as I wasn’t going anywhere – then one day the guards came and took me aside, saying there were people in the next room from RCA Records and that I should sign their contract to make a 10-track album. I nearly fell over. I wasn’t in the position to make any demands, so just went along with everything. That’s the way it was.

What do you remember about the recording sessions?
RCA sent a mobile studio up to Bathurst on yet another freezing miserable day. The musicians came up with them. They said they’d allocate me only one hour to do the show; an hour flat was all the time they’d give me. Then they took the tapes down to Sydney for some final work, overdubbed some brass and mastered it at ATA Studios in Glebe.

“We had a captive audience, you see.”

You can hear people clapping on some tracks, so was it all recorded live?
Oh yeah, I had a live audience and it was a live recording. We had a captive audience, you see. [Laughs] I bet they were glad that we were giving them something to take their mind off where they were; it was so bloody cold and wet.

So what happened after The Loner was released?
It led to me doing lots of shows. I was going out to other prisons and playing there, or doing live appearances in shopping malls. I did three big concerts at Sydney Opera House in 1973, in the very first week it was open. Maybe I'll get an invitation back for the 40th anniversary. But it didn’t last long. I hadn't understood that people high up had different purposes for me, and that there’d be other consequences. Turns out it was all a bit of a public relations exercise for the Department of Corrective Services. I was caught up in something bigger than me and I didn’t feel like I could fully control it, so I decided I didn’t want any more to do with it. It was making me unpopular with friends inside. So I refused to go along with things [and] it all collapsed. I was moved and put into isolation. That was the consequences of me refusing to play the game.

“It was open to the elements so it was bloody freezing. In 1969 it snowed in summer on Christmas Day.”

What were conditions like inside?
Bathurst Jail was a very hard place to be. The food was absolute garbage. There was no glass in the windows, only bars – it was open to the elements so it was bloody freezing. In 1969 it snowed in summer on Christmas Day. Christmas Day! The rain and sleet blew straight into the cells. They’d only give you one thin cotton jumper and if you were caught trying to get another jumper you’d earn six days in solitary. You’d get solitary for 24 hours or even 48 hours just for having a button undone. The rules and regulations were archaic, so restrictive, like colonial times. You had to keep on your feet all day; you weren’t allowed to sit down. All the taps would freeze so there’d be no water too. All that eventually led to the riots there.

So the songs I wrote reflected what I saw around me. The anger that I felt in Bathurst, or the memories I had from life. ‘Back in the Shadows’ is about this racist pub I went to, where they kicked me out for being black. ‘Stranger in my Country’, well, the meaning of that is pretty clear. There’s another track on the album, ‘Try to Understand’ … well, I was listening to indigenous radio the other day [and] I heard one of my brethren singing about [AFL footballer] Nicky Winmar: “It’s the colour of your jumper, not the colour of your skin” and I thought, aaah, someone might have been listening to songs on The Loner after all.

Can we jump back to when you first started performing as Vicky Simm in 1957, under the management of the Jacobsen brothers, Col Joye and his brother Kevin?
I was only 11 years old, just a boy, when Col and Kev discovered me singing rock ‘n’ roll. It was at a dance in Maroubra. I ended up performing with lots of young stars of the day, like Rob EG, Johnny O’Keefe on Six O’Clock Rock. I think I was the first Aboriginal to perform on commercial television: I did all the big television shows in every state, we played every major show in Australia, right up to when I was 14, 15 years of age. I recorded with [Col Joye and] the Joy Boys too, released some singles on Festival. Good memories.

Where did a ’50s teenage Australian kid come across an obscure American rockabilly track like ‘I Wanna Bop’, which you personally chose as the B-side of your first single?
In those days we got sent demo music from the States. All these 45s you’d never heard of would arrive from overseas and we’d get listening to them, to see what we liked. So I heard one of these singles, it was a Billy Harlan song. I didn’t know who the bloke was or anything but the song was a cracker. The Joy Boys backed me on my version and while the recording techniques were very primitive in those days – only four tracks – it came out pretty solid. Let me tell you we love ‘I Wanna Bop’ so much we’re going to do it again as a bonus track for this new Loner tribute record. We’ve already got the music beds, which sound fantastic, and I’m going to add my vocals soon in Sydney at Russell Hopkinson’s studio.

What were your musical influences? I hear a lot of Dylan in your songwriting, also a bit of Elvis in Memphis when I listen to the record … the horns and upbeat arrangements remind me of the stuff Elvis cut with Chips Moman in the late 1960s.
I never liked Elvis’s lyrics much but yeah, the music was an influence. I really loved Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash. Elvis was more of an influence on my early career, along with Little Richard, Bill Haley, who I met. I met Buddy Holly too back in 1958; I was only 12 years of age for god’s sake! It was at the Sydney Stadium; I’d get to go backstage because Col Joye would be supporting all the stars of the time. At The Tivoli, I supported a lady named Shirley Bassey so I’ve kept good company over the years.

“[I was] 12 or 13 years of age, mixing and talking music with all the greats.”

Shirley Bassey, Little Richard … it must have been inspiring for you to see those successful black role models?
Mate, I was just fascinated by it all, but to me they were all stars. Here’s this young black fella, 12 or 13 years of age, mixing and talking music with all the greats. I got to talk about music with Buddy Holly, you know? How many black or white fellas still alive can say they’ve done that?

Who was your favourite Australian musician?
Peter Allen. We worked and toured all around New South Wales and across the country. He was such an influence on me. He could do it all … sing, dance, write songs. He could just turn the world around with all that talent.

Peter and I got kicked out of Moree swimming pool together, when I was still a kid. We were ignorant of the colour ban at the pool. We’d set up the show already for that night but went swimming in the afternoon: me, Peter and his brother. I think Judy Stone was there, Frankie Davidson, Rob EG, all of us down at Moree Baths. I didn’t know that people of colour were barred from the place. None of the people I grew up with ever cared about colour so I’d learnt the same. I’m running and diving in this pool, having a great time, when this guy comes up and taps me on the shoulder, asks me to leave. “Why?” I asked. “Take a look around kid,” he said. “Get real, how many other black faces do you see in here?”

“Some Australians acted like racism was perfectly normal.”

Then he hit me. I was pretty shook up: I grabbed my gear and started leaving, and then Peter asked me what was wrong. I told him I had to go, that blacks weren’t allowed. So he went over to the bloke who’d hit me and said that if I wasn’t good enough to swim there then they could, pardon my language, stick their pool up their arses. Then we all walked out.

Things like that gutted me, I’d never experienced anything like that before and yet some Australians acted like racism was perfectly normal. But not most of the people I’ve worked and sung with – you see, that’s why I’ve kept doing what I do. I’m looking at 57 years working in the entertainment business this year. If I can go another three years then I’ll have six decades of music in my lifetime. That’d make me really happy.

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The reissued ‘The Loner’ is out now through Sandman. Read Aaron Curran’s review.