Chords for Iva Davies - ABC News Breakfast - 29 November 2016

While we're speaking music from a Sydney pub band to a group that helped lay down the soundtrack for Australia,
our next guest is celebrating 40 years with the band Icehouse.
We'll speak to frontman Ivor Davies in just a moment, but first, here's a walk down music's memory [G] lane.
Well, [C] you've got to be crazy to play _ _ [Am] _
like me
_ _ _ Yeah, [C] you've got to be out [Bb] _ _ of [C] your mind, baby
Every [Bb] time you see through me [F] and it's all over you _ [Bb] Electric loon
_ [F]
In too deep, [Bb] standing here waiting [Dm] as I'm breaking in two [Bb] Electric [B] loon
I [A] will tell you it's a prison ride
In [B] and in the summer for a million years
We've suffered [Db] pain _
_ _ And of course everyone knows the words and so they could all join in the chorus.
Ivor Davies of course has been at the front of Icehouse from the beginning, in fact since there were flowers,
and he joins us now in the studio.
Ivor Davies, good morning.
Morning.
Nice [A] to see you.
I was just loving watching that curly mullet [E] again from all those years ago.
It's the evolution of [Em] man.
[B] It is, it is.
What were you [Am] going for there?
Well, look, I aspired to, the [B] headmaster wouldn't let us grow our hair.
Of course.
But I [E] wanted the full Robert plant.
I eventually got to the full, [A] you know, Led Zeppelin, [Bb] Brock God.
The screaming angel with his flying [Am] hair, I remember.
Yeah, I eventually got to that and then I ran about that point and kind of went, you know what,
the [F] ponytail looks like an old hippie, it's got to go.
_ _ [C] Icehouse about to embark on a tour marking 40 years on the road.
[G] Take us back, Ivor, to the very first gig [F] at the Worrywood Surf Life Saving Club on Sydney's northern beaches.
That, well, I actually can't remember [G] that one.
I was reminded of that.
The one that I remember was [F] a place called The Time and Tide in D.Y. which had never had bands on before.
And so [G] it was interesting because our bass player, Keith, [Ab] who I'm still working with,
went and convinced the publican to let us set up in that corner over there, [Bb] no stage or whatever.
And he was incredibly stingy.
[Ab] How unusual.
He _ paid us $60 a [G] night and we had to buy our own soft drinks.
And then after a residency on Friday night, after [C] a couple of months, the place was absolutely packed
and we got an alternative offer from the [Am] Royal Antler up the road for $200 a night.
So it came the last night we were playing in this place and [Bb] we refused to stop [F] playing and there was a riot.
The police turned up [C] _ and it was proper rock and roll.
I love it.
How old were you back then?
When did it all start? _
_ [Am] Very early 20s. _ _ _
I [Bb] bought my first solid [Fm] body electric guitar on the day of my [C] 21st birthday,
but I'd already been a folk musician before that and part of the whole Vietnam [Bb] protest movement [Ab] and all that sort of thing.
So I would have been 23, something like that.
[Gm] How did the band first get together, originally known as [Bb] Flowers?
Well, [Ab] I had been a very serious classical musician.
In fact, I was [Bb] 19 and in the _ orchestra for the very first two [G] Australian operas, [F] performed in the Sydney Opera House.
And I'd been professional with a number [G] of orchestras and so on and so forth.
[F] And then I just stopped completely.
And so I was unemployable, really.
I got a cleaning [C] job at the [F] squash court next door and the manager, S.S. Sun, was a bass player and that was how the whole thing [Bb] started.
Why did you [Dm] stop?
Was there a part of you that just didn't make sense [Bb] to you?
I'd [F] had a difficult relationship with the oboe, which is one [Bb] of those love-hate things.
And then eventually, [F] in my continual effort to [Bb] become better and better and better at it,
[F] I took it to Sydney's leading woodwind [Bb] repairer to re-pad, got it back [F] and couldn't get a note out of [Eb] it.
And it was only then that I learnt that it was handmade in France and the only [Gm] people who should have ever touched it.
And that _ [F]
effectively just ended [C] [Ab] years and years and years and years of training.
Rob, it's said you kicked on with Icehouse and we were [Dm] just reflecting this morning,
just playing these songs as [F] we're hearing at the moment.
You guys had [Eb] so many hits, so many great, you know, the hooks, the [C] lines, everything [Cm] in them.
I mean, they were just [Ab] so catchy and so memorable.
Did [Cm] these songs spring fully formed out of your [Gm] mind either?
Were they hard work?
They were hard work.
[Dm] Okay.
_ 98 [Cm]% of them were hard work and there were a couple of [Bb] standouts, including Great Southern Land,
which seemed to be piped in from another [F] universe, fully formed, as you said.
And they were quite sort of magical.
[Abm] It was quite a sort of, the _ _ [Dbm] song for which I have probably the most affection,
because it's probably more personal than others, is the song Man of Colours.
And I remember sitting there almost kind of in shell shock going, what just happened?
And it was amazing.
Now there was this hiatus of 16 years [A] at Icehouse.
We didn't play together.
What was the [N] trigger? _ _ _ _
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