Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
What's lead singer of The Choirboys, Mark Gable been up to lately? OR How to go viral during a global pandemic!
Join Cheryl Lee - That Radio Chick on STILL ROCKIN' IT for news, reviews, music and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians.
Today we share a recent zoom room chat with zany lead singer of The Choirboys, Mark Gable, 71 years young.
After 11 albums and numerous huge legendary Aussie hits later, he’s still doing what he does best, juggling Choirboys, a solo career, hosting the occasional radio show, as well as being father to five young adults, and life with his sweetheart singer/songwriter Melinda Schneider and their boy Sullivan.
Includes Songs:
The Choirboys - Run to Paradise
The Choirboys - Never Gonna Die
Mark Gable & Melinda Schneider - Stuck in Paradise
He She Wonderland - I Will Not Hurt You
The Lazys - Half Mast Blues
The Choirboys - Boys will be Boys
What's Mark Gable up to at the moment?
Let's find out .....
Get out when you can, support local music and I'll see you down the front!!
Visit: ThatRadioChick.com.au
That Radio Cheat, cheryl Lee, here with you. Welcome to the Still Rocking it podcast, where we'll have news, reviews and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians and artists. Today I share a recent Zoom room chat I had with Zany lead singer of the Choir Boys, mark Gable. 71 years, young, 11 albums and numerous huge Aussie hits. Later, he's still doing what he does best juggling Choir Boys, a solo career, hosting the occasional radio show, as well as being father to five young adults and life with his sweetheart, singer-songwriter Melinda Schneider, and their boy Sullivan. What's Mark Gable been up to lately? Let's find out. How are you, mark?
Speaker 2:Yeah, not bad Having a cup of tea.
Speaker 1:Thank you so much for spending some time in the Zoom chat room with me today.
Speaker 2:That's all right.
Speaker 1:You're with Cheryl Lee, that radio chick. I'd like to welcome into the Zoom chat room legendary Australian frontman for the Choir Boys, Mark Dixon Kitchen.
Speaker 2:Ah, that's a tricky one, isn't it?
Speaker 1:How did Mark Dixon Kitchen become Mark Gable?
Speaker 2:Well, I was trying to do a solo thing and my mum back then this is in the 70s and she said what you need to do is you need to pick a name that's got great numerological assets about it. And so she picked the name and said this is a winner's name. Little did she know, or that. Even I knew, that if you follow numerology, it's the name you're born with, not the name that you might choose, right, that influences you. And so when I was getting married in 84, my now ex-wife then said I really like Gable, I don't like Kitchen, so I changed it by deed poll. And then what I found out is that you can go and change any. Well, you could have changed anybody's names or name just by having their information. I didn't do that because I wanted to change our tour manager's name. At the time His name was Bob Hunt. I won't tell you what I was going to change it to. So there you go.
Speaker 1:You are from Sydney. You formed the Choir Boys in Sydney. But when did you realise that music was your future? Was it in your DNA? Did you come from a musical family? How did that all come about?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, it was a musical family in terms of apparently I didn't know this my mother and father sang and I didn't know that. But we had a piano back in the day and my sisters not so much Dale the oldest one, but Penny Vicky they used to gather around the piano and sing and Penny could play the piano my middle sister and so that's how it really. You know, that isn't how it started. The first music I heard was up in New Guinea back in the 50s with the Papuan singing. They'd sing at like six o'clock every night and it was amazing. I couldn't remember that music until I went to the Solomon Islands in the 2000s and I heard them doing it down there and it was very similar and it brought back memories. So that was the first music that I really listened to up there.
Speaker 2:But it wasn't until the Beatles came along that I went. I want to be Paulul mccartney. That looks like it's fun being paul mccartney, you know, much better than being john lennon or jewel charlison, you know, I think I want to be paul mccartney, so that kind of you know, listening to the songs. They were just amazing and I didn't really listen to that much music before that. It was just something that happened. Then I went, oh, this sounds great. So I just and I was a creative type anyway, you know, like with the ass and everything like that and so I just went, oh well, I want to, I want to do this, and away I went and I've never sung this before, apart from back in the day, but I'll do it now, and it's the first song that I ever wrote and it goes.
Speaker 3:Please be my Sunday woman. Preach innocence to me right now. Please be my evil.
Speaker 2:Sunday, and I can't remember the lyrics that I had, and it went further on. So that was something that I wrote when I was 15 or something, but I can't remember the rest of it. Maybe I'll get it done one day.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you can finish that song. You heard it first here. That's a heap Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. Let's listen to the Choir Boys, with Mark Gable out the front, of course. One of their biggest hits Run to Paradise. This single reached number three on the singles charts in 87, written by Mark Gable and Brad Carr. We're going to listen to another hilarious version of this later, no-transcript. So how did it come about that you got together with the other fellas and became a band called the Choir Boys?
Speaker 2:I think that Todd Hunter, because you know the years on and off that I've been doing radio, and I remember interviewing Todd Hunter and I said, well, you know what was it like. Similar question he goes not so much about how they got together, but you know what they did as they moved forward and he said it was like bumping into walls. And that's what it was. It was like you know, you run into these guys, like I was working in a music shop down at brook farm, which is on the northern beach of sydney, and a couple of guys come in, they go, we're in a band we play at the royal antler hotel, the band school, hot lips, you come to see us, got a residency there on a thursday night um, not that that ever happens anymore and and so I went along and I went, oh, they're pretty cool, I really like the guitarist and the bass player. They were the two guys that came in. And so you know, after that band broke up, then you know I was forming a band and that kind of they came along and it just was all accidental.
Speaker 2:And I think that all bands are accidental, even we talked. I mentioned the Beatles. That was purely accidental. They go. Hey, you want to start a band Because they ran into, you know, john Lennon, ran into Paul McCartney, right, and then it just oh, I know this younger guy, george Harrison, who plays guitar, you know, and it's just like that they weren't in the right place at the right time. It wouldn't have happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it sort of happens so organically and speaking to people, so many of the stories are like yours that it was actually the Beatles that inspired a whole generation of bands just like yours. Guys like you, just wanting to be like them.
Speaker 2:The competitors in America were still Elvis Presley and they're coming out of the 50s things and I don't think the 60s had really, even though America invented the hippies and that kind of movement, the free love movement, everything like that in San Francisco. Of course the 50s music was very influential so it wasn't didn't really develop anything when the Beatles came along.
Speaker 2:It just changed the whole atmosphere of everything you know and, as a consequence, you know, the Beach Boys came along and well, maybe it was about the same time, but you know this whole thing was really an English thing. That was the thing that you know was the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the who, the Kinks, so many great English bands, and even Jimi Hendrix, being American, was discovered in England. You know, because they weren't. America wasn't ready to have something like that happening.
Speaker 1:And in Australia we were adopting a whole heap of people from the UK and they were bringing all that musicality with them. So many of our Aussie musical icons are from there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, that's why you know, like Billy Thorpe was born there and Olivia Newton-John was born there, the Easy Beats, apart from bass player. Oh no, the bass player was Dutch as well, dick Diamond, but Snowy was from. He's an Australian, from memory.
Speaker 1:And Barnsey and ACDC.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, acdc, you know, and it was, like I said, with Easy Beats. Of course that was George Young, and then his younger brothers were Malcolm and Angus. Of course they had their brother, alex, who I met over in Paris. He was a wonderful guy and he was in a band called Grapefruit, and so he didn't leave to come to Australia. Unfortunately, he stayed over there, and so, yeah, there were so many of them. You know, john Farnham is born in England, and the list goes on and on and on. I've discussed this with other people. We wouldn't have heard of Shannon Knoll if it hadn't been for that type of television, primarily because Australia has always been fixated with overseas, so anything Australian they've always treated as second best, apart from, of course, the angels came out, um, and of course doc was irish but, um, you know, cold chisel, and then you had, uh, midnight oil and in excess, you know, uh, so many great local artists. Kylie monaghan was born in melbourne, um, but we won't hold that against melbourne, I mean her, um. And yeah, sorry, kylie.
Speaker 1:Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, Cheryl Lee. Let's listen now to the first single from the Choir Boys' self-titled debut album, recorded at Albert Studios Never Gonna Die. Then we'll hear what Molly thought of it. On the strength of this debut album, Choir Boys were invited to open for Cold Chisel on their last stand tour Back with more with Mark Gable shortly. In 83, Never Gonna Die was hailed by industry music guru Molly Meldrum as destined to become an Aussie classic. And gee, was he right.
Speaker 2:I think he was talking about that album and particularly the song Boys in a Band. He loved that song and so he was talking about that album and of course that you know I lost my voice in the middle of promoting all of that, so it fell over, and it wasn't until the next album that everything really took off, and so Molly was um, and the rock scene wouldn't have been the same without well, the pop scene wouldn't have been the same without molly. You know he was great intuition, in the right place at the right time on a great show, countdown, and countdown did everything that youtube and you know, twitter and all the rest of it can do now.
Speaker 1:So it was a very, very different time it's like if you were on countdown, it's the rest of it can do now. So it was a very, very different time. It's like if you were on Countdown. It's the equivalent of going viral now.
Speaker 1:That's right, yes, Eleven albums and huge hits later, including, you know, boys Will Be Boys, struggle, town Empire Never Gonna Die. The list goes on and on and on. You've also been on this side of the mic as well, hosting the occasional radio show, on top of being, like me, a parent of five children. Well, how old are yours.
Speaker 2:Well, have you got five kids, have you? Yeah, you don't look like you've had any. You're not even 30 years old yet, cheryl.
Speaker 1:It's the magic of television, the magic of television.
Speaker 2:Yeah, the eldest is 35. Then it goes 33, 31. And the twin girls identical twin girls are about to turn 30, January 3rd. And then Melinda Snyder and I have got a nine-year-old Sullivan. Yeah, so I had a lot of fun with him. You know, I tried not to miss a moment of him growing up and doing his thing and cuddling him, and even though I might be busy and he's talking to me, I have to remind myself to stop doing work or whatever and just focus on him, because he won't be like that forever, Exactly.
Speaker 1:That's funny. I've got twins as well in there, forever, exactly. That's funny. I've got twins as well in there. Really, are they identical twins? No, they've got different bits.
Speaker 2:I've got a boy and a girl twin oddly enough, one of one of my twins. They're identical. One of them ended up she was gay and she was going to marry a girlfriend and I said to them look. And they ended up not getting married. But I said, look, you're going to need, maybe you want to have a child. How about I be the surrogate father? But not with my daughter, of course, with her partner and then my daughter. I said that you will. Then, if you have a boy, you will have a son and a brother, and if you have a girl, then you will have a daughter and a sister.
Speaker 2:That's blowing my mind they said you're disgusting, they were joking and they knew I was joking anyway.
Speaker 1:Look, and I know what you mean about you enjoying every moment with Sullivan, and we've watched that. You know it's just beautiful on social media a little bit, so you know. Thank you for sharing that, because we had our first four, four and under, so you'd know how busy that is. And then the last one was a bit of a surprise, quite a little bit later and it was like having an only child again and I, just like you, I'm getting to enjoy those moments with him because I've got the time. Cheryl Lee, what are their ages? 24, 22, 220 is about to turn 21, and the baby is now big strapping 14-year-old 14.
Speaker 2:So obviously you know you were how should I say, you were obviously being very promiscuous 24 years ago, down to 20 years ago, and then you just thought, ah, why not? You know, let's just clown around, and 14 years ago, and there you go.
Speaker 1:That's right. Got the baby bonus and, like you, relishing you know every moment, because I think when you've got so many it's not as easy to do that. You're just busy being and surviving, and feeding them and changing their nappies and getting them to school and everything. So good on you and thank you for sharing that, you and Melinda for sharing that on social media. It is, it's beautiful to watch and he's growing into, you know, such a beautiful, independent young man.
Speaker 2:Oh he is beautiful. And I guess I got to the point where in my life generally I'm very wary of and you may be different, of course everybody is and I accept that I try not to believe in anything apart from love, and I think that even a lot of people go. I say to them well, I'm just bringing him up with love and they go, well, good luck with that. But I think that humans' belief structure is the thing that destroys us, because once you believe in something you can't believe in something else. And so I just believe in love and respecting him as an individual and as an equal, and we decided to do that, you know, treat him as an equal all the way through.
Speaker 1:That is obvious to us. I must say I'm really enjoying watching him grow up with you and Melinda. I think you're great parents and funny buggers, aren't you?
Speaker 2:Well, yeah, we can be funny buggers, you know, but I can't tell a joke. I'll try and tell a joke, okay. So what did the dog say when it ran into a tree? What Bark? Very good, and tell a joke, okay. So what did the dog say when it ran into a tree?
Speaker 1:what very good I made that one up myself.
Speaker 2:Well, that's not bad.
Speaker 1:Actually, I'll give it a nine. Nine out of ten, thank you. So, um, I loved your parody that you posted on the socials. You're stuck in paradise song very funny and it's been viewed over two million times. So talk about you know going viral. It's like you had it on countdown.
Speaker 2:Well, basically yes, and, as I said, you know the internet, I love the internet. A lot of people don't love the internet but I do, and I was talking to uh someone the other day as I about the internet and they go, oh, gigs aren't there and radio isn't supportive, and I go. But you know, have a look at this. This is George Ezra doing. I'll be riding shotgun Now. I love that song because it's really dumb, right. It's kind of inspired me because I go, that's just like the music that people used to write and without the internet we would probably have not seen that guy and it makes it easier to access. And so I think that I think the internet has actually made it more creative, particularly with the video side of things. You know, there's just some like what sia did with chandelier, you know, getting that she was 10 year old to do the dancing and see it doesn't even appear and I go, that is amazing art, you know amazing art.
Speaker 1:We have access to so much. Our children don't know what it's like to live life without the internet no, they don't, you know.
Speaker 2:When we lived in New Guinea, you know, for dinner we used to eat our dad's poo-poo dessert. We would have mummy's wee-wee, you know. So kids today don't know what it's like. Do you believe that? I'm not sure I'm lying.
Speaker 1:How's it go? You lived in a shoebox in the middle of the road or something like that, I know, got up before you went to sleep and all.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's right, that was Monty Python. Yeah, yeah, they understood humour.
Speaker 1:Oh that's right. They, oh, they understood humour. Oh that's right, they sure did. Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. Before we go on, I think we should have a listen to that COVID song Stuck in Paradise, mark Gable and Melinda Schneider, a COVID-19 parody. Look it up on the Google-o-meter. It's on YouTube. It's even funnier watching it. We will be back with the choir boys, front man mark gable, and we'll get back to talking about tours and music and such. Now you've just finished a tour, is that right? But essay, it would be great to have a scoop if the choir boys are coming our way, but I do know that you're coming our way this weekend actually.
Speaker 2:Yes, that's what I am. I'm doing the Rise Up. Rise Up and it's for Support Act and it has a whole bunch of people on it, like Ross Wilson's there, leo Sayers there. I've been catching up with Ross, but I haven't caught up with Leo for a while, so we're going to talk about, you know how his managers ripped him off, but here he is doing this wonderful charity event at the Theberton Theatre on Sunday. Yeah, so it'll be, you know, a bunch of other people there. It'll be really good to catch up and sing a few songs. And I haven't been to Adelaide for a while. I think it was this time last year that we were in Adelaide at the Gulf. We're back, or I'm back. I'm sorry It'll only be for a short time, but I'm looking forward to it. And then I'm going down to Highley Street and I'm going to get a bloody pizza, mate. Yeah, afterwards, yeah, and I'm going to down that pizza. Oh yeah, baby.
Speaker 1:I really thank you for coming and supporting the Rise Up. I don't know if you know, but I'm the fundraising coordinator for Support Act here in SA. Well, good on you, thank you. And we're one of the recipients, along with Crew Care and Breakthrough Mental Health, of the profits from Sunday. So I personally and on behalf of Support Act SA, want to thank you so much for being a part of it and I can't wait to see you there.
Speaker 2:Cheryl Lee, just for you. I'm going to endeavour and I don't generally try, but I will try hard to sing in tune. All right For you, just for you. Thank you, I don't know whether I'll succeed, but I'll try.
Speaker 1:Also, I'm a fantastic tambourine player, so if you need a tambourinist, I'm your woman.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you. I just saw somebody make a post. I think it was a guitarist out of I could be wrong guitarist out of Screaming Jets made a post, you know, with a meme and it said oh no, beware white chick with tambourine.
Speaker 1:Was that Jimmy Hocking? I think it was Jimmy the human.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, the point is that if you've ever tried to play tambourine, it is not easy, it's incredibly difficult. I can't do it. So you know, and I've got pretty good rhythm, but no, difficult, I can't do it. So you know, and I've got pretty good rhythm, but no, I can't do it I'm only falling, although I did play.
Speaker 1:I was guest tambourinist for one song with the masters apprentices once. That's wow claim to fame that would have been cool. It was actually lots of fun. I don't know if I was any good at it.
Speaker 2:I enjoyed it. It doesn't matter. White blonde chick, you know, with a tambourine.
Speaker 1:It's all good, I'm going to have to go and check Jimmy's post out in a minute. Your inspiration first, we know, was the music coming out of England. What do you like to listen to now when you're alone in your car or whatever.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, I've been, I've been trying to get into Ed Sheeran, but he keeps on talking about love songs which, as he's singing, you know I love you. When the moon's out and the light will be in the sky and then we'll be holding hands, you'll be eating a rubber pie. I'm like going. I don't want to hear love songs, I want to hear about your life being a, a redheaded bastard in well, he wasn't a bastard, but in England, growing up, what was it like? I want to hear the stories. It doesn't seem to talk about that. So I got a little bored with that.
Speaker 2:So I keep going back to Bob Dylan and people like that and I can't really listen to the Beatles anymore because I can't stand their production. I listened to it in hindsight and I go. They were really trying to turn them into the Everly Brothers. I keep on going back to my son's band and he was only in it for a few years and he decided to chuck in music. My son's band Augustus is his name, brilliant singer, great songwriter, brilliant on stage had everything and the band was called he she, wonderland and they're on YouTube and it's just just like I keep listening to the songs and you know I just go wow, he totally had a free mind and I love that music that has a free mind, you know.
Speaker 3:I will not hurt you baby, unless you want me to?
Speaker 2:Now, who would think of a lyric like that? I will not hurt you, baby, unless you want me to.
Speaker 1:I'm going to write that down. I'm gonna play that, still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl lee. Here it is august, son of mark gable and his band he she wonderland with. I will not hurt you. We'll be back shortly to find out what occupation august swapped music for.
Speaker 2:But yeah, he's very, very clever. But he decided he didn't want to live that lifestyle and just finished his Master's in Psychology degree last year because he thought that would be easier. Oh boy.
Speaker 1:My eldest has done the same Very, very, very difficult to do. Yeah, yeah, that's for sure A very difficult profession, especially if you tend to be empathetic. A hard occupation to be listening to. You know such problems all the time and not letting it affect you personally. That would be the tricky part.
Speaker 2:Well, yes, because we have to remember that only psychologists and psychotherapists. Psychiatrists don't have any emotional or mental problems. They're absolutely perfect in all those areas Not and so we go to them for advice and you know, some of it structurally has been very good. I saw a psychologist, uh, earlier in the part of the year just to help me get back on medication. She was wonderful. Yeah, so august decided to do that and not do music anymore, and even melinda would listen to his stuff and his voice and go, wow, you know he had it all, but that's what we choose to do and, like I said, right place at the right time. It's not about talent.
Speaker 1:Never say never. He's got music obviously in his DNA. He could always come back to it. It may be five years, 10 years, 20 years down the track, music will always be with him.
Speaker 2:Yeah, well, you know, I used to be a stripper. I think, why are you laughing, sorry? So I'm thinking about you know, taking it up, taking that up again, maybe with a pole. Eh, maybe with a pole. Oh, I thought you said maybe it's too cold.
Speaker 1:And that and that. Yeah, the cold is not the stripper's friend, no, well, not the male stripper. It's a bit nippy, oh dear. All right, anyway, on we go. So Ed Sheeran, not so much Bob Dylan, yes.
Speaker 2:You know I do listen to Bruno Mars because I know it's weird because it's not rock and roll. But I have been getting into Foo Fighters. I really like the message there and you know I've always been in a green day and stuff like that. But I'm like I'm having a lot of trouble getting into the newer music and there's an Australian band called the Lazy's that I love and they're kind of from the central coast in Sydney and they're getting back together and writing songs again after having a nasty breakup. You know there are some elements out there that are good but I'm always looking for it's like I like songs and that's why I like Adele, you know, because she writes songs, yeah, or she writes songs with people that are songs that I'm not really interested in.
Speaker 2:You know I'm having a lot of trouble getting into the hip-hoppy side of things. Even though we are re-recording our first album, 1983, the Choir Boys album, we've got a rapper on there doing some of the stuff you know intermixed with the band. So it's really quite weird. But it's not my thing, you know. No, I really like songs, I love songs.
Speaker 1:Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, Cheryl Lee. Well, let's hear one of those songs that Mark likes now. Here is Half-Mast Blues by the Lazies. We'll be back shortly to find out a little bit more about this up-and-coming album. When is that coming out?
Speaker 2:Well, we've got to finish the bloody thing first. A whole bunch of people are meant to be singing on it. I've been trying to get Shannon Knowles to sing on it and Rhys Maston singing songs, so hopefully it won't be until mid-next year. I don't think that's the anniversary the 40th, I think anniversary of that album.
Speaker 2:And there may be a tour that might go with that and come to south possibly yeah, you know, I think that we're more interested in just trying to finish the album, yeah, first, but I'm trying to write songs at the moment too, you know.
Speaker 1:Yes, new ones thank you so much, mark, for being so generous with your time and having a chat with me in the Zoom room today. I'm really looking forward to seeing you perform at our historic Febbiton Theatre on Sunday afternoon, and thank you again for supporting such a great cause for us here.
Speaker 2:All right, well, we'll see you then, and I think in the meantime, cheryl Lee, that if you could make more babies, it would be a really good idea.
Speaker 1:Oh no, and look love to Melinda. Is she coming to Adelaide with you?
Speaker 2:No, no, no, no no, she's busy doing her own things up here. It'll be a fly-in, fly-out.
Speaker 1:Well, send our love to her. We'd love to see her in Adelaide, our beautiful town of Adelaide, as well, so I look forward to catching up and giving you a wave on Sunday. All right, we'll wave then Cheryl Lee.
Speaker 2:Thanks, mark. See you, mate Ta-da.
Speaker 1:Still rocking the podcast with that radio chick, cheryl Lee. We'll leave you now with another great choir boys. Hit boys will be boys. You're with Cheryl Lee, that radio chick. Thank you so much for joining me on the Still Rocking it podcast. Hope to catch you again next time. Get out when you can support Aussie music and I'll see you down the front.