Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
Join Cheryl Lee That Radio Chick on Still Rockin' It for news, reviews and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians.
What are they up to at the moment? Let's find out .......
Still Rockin' It - Cheryl Lee
What has Deborah Conway been up to lately? OR Which family member was asked to not sing, but mime, in the choir?
Join Cheryl Lee - That Radio Chick on STILL ROCKIN' IT for news, reviews, music and interviews with some of our favourite Australian musicians
A fearless voice, a late-blooming guitarist, and a family-built record that says the quiet part out loud. We welcome Deborah Conway for an unfiltered tour through four decades of songs, risks, and reinvention, from early band days to a duo and marriage with Willy Zygier that has become one of Australia’s most enduring creative partnerships.
Deborah shares how performing grabbed her long before the guitar did, why her father tried to steer her away from rock and roll, and the moment a gold record changed his mind. We dig into the big swings: Rolling Stone acclaim, recording Pete Townshend’s Iron Man, singing Michael Nyman’s Prospero’s Books, and the Patsy Cline stage show that became a vessel for collective grief the day after 9/11.
The heart of the conversation is the new album, Right Wing Propaganda, a raw, two-voices-and-two-guitars statement shaped by lockdowns, culture wars, and the fraying of civil discourse. Deborah explains why they stripped away drums and keys to let lyrics and harmony carry the weight, and how cancel culture pressures artists to self-censor. Their three daughters join with luminous harmonies, turning family into an instrument and memory into melody.
We even laugh through the AI cover art saga: the software nailed Willy at once but struggled to “find” Deborah, a fitting irony for a project about identity, perception, and truth.
You’ll also hear about the Broad concert series, which brought women singer-songwriters across rock, folk, country, and jazz onto one stage, and the recognition that followed—Member of the Order of Australia, the Victorian Music Hall of Fame, and multiple Archibald portrait finals. We close with two live cuts—Always and the title track Right Wing Propaganda—that showcase warmth, edge, and the space where listeners can step in.
Stream the album, grab the vinyl or CD, and share this conversation with someone who still believes songs can make room for disagreement without losing the tune.
What have Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier been up to lately? Let's find out!
Get out when you can, support local music and I'll see you down the front!!
Visit: ThatRadioChick.com.au
Welcome to the Still Rockin It podcast, where we'll have music, news reviews, and interviews with some of our favorite Australian musicians and artists. Deborah Conway has never been one to fly away from provocation across four decades in the Australian music landscape from die rounding to IT high days. To catch up on podcast with other favourite artists, simply go to that radiochick.com.au ready. You're with Cheryl Lee that radio chick. I'd like to welcome you to this week's episode of Rider TV. I'm so pleased to introduce you to Deborah Conway, who's joining us at Crabtree Studios today. Coming to Adelaide for three shows. We're so pleased to have you in our town. Thank you so much. Lovely to be here. We've got a brand new album that came out a month or so ago. And your beautiful daughters appeared with you on that album. Because I'm going to ask you about your family DNA. When did you pick up a guitar and decide that guitar, you know, music was your thing?
Deborah Conway:Oh, I think I decided music was my thing way, way before I picked up a guitar. The guitar was like an add-on sort of further down the track. I was 18 when I first got a guitar. It's late. It's actually very late. And consequently, I am have always been a very, you know, moderately, less than moderately talented guitar player. I mean, I you know, I I I can I can keep the beat. And I can write a song. And Willie does all the fantastic, fancy stuff. And I just, you know, I sing along. I am is the bass upon which he elaborates those beautiful uh musical fantasies on top. But yeah, musically, I I always knew that I wanted to sing and perform. I loved performing. I loved to entertain people. And that's kind of been something I've I think I've done from like the age of four or something like that. So yeah. So you were born with it. I th well I you know, if as as much as one can be born with something like that, yes, I felt very strongly that uh that that pull. But like lots of kids do that too. I mean, that's a kind of a standard kid thing. You want to, you know, get up in the room and just sing for everybody. Or you know, dad. Not that I was ever much of a dancer, not that it stopped me, but I think that's kind of a natural thing. And then but when I so I joined a band at 20. Earlier, really, but the my first kind of formal band at 20. And I just that's what I wanted to do.
Cheryl Lee:Because you're not necessarily from a musical family. Dad was a lawyer, and in fact, he wasn't too happy about you joining a band initially, was he?
Deborah Conway:That's true, but he was in fact very musical. He didn't pursue and he'd studied. He studied at He grew up in in the UK and in Leeds, actually, and he was accepted into RADA, which is the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts famously. And he was accepted, and then he they he and his they came out after World War II and to make his parents happy he became a lawyer. Right. And I think his attempts, if I really think about it, I think his attempts to dissuade me from a a musical career, he was concerned.
Cheryl Lee:He didn't want you to be a starving artist.
Deborah Conway:He he he was concerned. Well he he wasn't a starving artist, he was a he was a successful barrister solicitor. We were a nice middle-class Jewish family, and that was a absolutely unheard of that, you know, his daughter would would, you know, join a rock and roll band. You know, what about the sex and the drugs? I said, Yeah, well, that's right. The uh the bonuses. But you know, look, he was fine. He was very emotional when I turned around and gave him my first gold record. He wept. But yes, he did initially send me to a psychiatrist to make sure that everything was okay. And we decided it was my father who had the problem. Yeah, his problem, not your it was fine. He he was fine with my choices in the end.
Cheryl Lee:Good. Well, clearly you've got some musical talent and artists in your DNA. Little bit.
Deborah Conway:My mother was the only person in her, she tells me, I don't know if about that proudly, but she tells me that she was the only person in the school choir that was told to mum. Very unfair. They would never do that now. No.
Cheryl Lee:Your husband Willie, he clearly has it also, and you've passed that DNA down to your three beautiful daughters who appear on this newest album. Yes. Are you really proud of that?
Deborah Conway:Yes, absolutely. They they all three of them have been learning piano since they were four. We both thought they're going to have some musical talent because both of their parents are musical. It's inevitable. What they do with that is their business, of course. But you know, just to give them a basis in it, we thought uh, you know, a good learning, a good grounding of uh of piano from from an early age would would work. And they they all, I mean, you know, they hated it and then they loved it, and we'd say, Oh, we don't have to do it anymore. And they know we want to do it. You know, it was like don't tell anyone. It was one of those things, you know, that they it was this bargaining, whatever. Anyway, so they can all play the piano, they all sing incredibly well. They're just beautiful singers, and they all three have been uh write songs, have written songs at some point in their life. Sid started really young, she was 16, she had a whole set of songs together. They had a band, they were called the cigarettes, or she said z, they were called the she said zed. And then, you know, Alma later on started, she was writing songs, and then Hetty, she got a punk band together and she was writing songs too, and they actually had some success in France. They were they were doing really well, and she was she had her band, the pinstripes, and then she was writing solo stuff. Alma is now a jazz singer, has been a jazz singer all along, but she was also dabbling in writing her own material. So she is the one, the middle child, who has gone on to become a professional musician. And as a jazz musician, it actually astounds me that she makes money. It's wonderful. It's wonderful. And she is she is wonderful if she's been to Adelaide and has wowed the audiences here to do so.
Cheryl Lee:I can see as a mum, you are so, so proud of the mom.
Deborah Conway:Oh, they're so extraordinary. I mean, it's the most wonderful social experiment that you could ever embark on, and then they grow up and they're completely independent from you, and you've got no idea what they're gonna do next. Wonderful.
Cheryl Lee:Yay! How are we gonna fit all these years of success and albums and into a quick half an hour? But I thought we might just touch on a couple of things because you've got the memoir, so if everyone wants to know the nitty-gritty, they should get hold of that. Absolutely. That is called Book of Life. Book of Life. And that's an audiobook, also. It is an audiobook, yeah. So get on to that. We'll just touch on a couple of the other interesting things. Well, congratulations. Rolling Stone Australia in 88. He said you're the best Australian female singer. It's a nice accolade. And then shortly after that, you worked with Pete Townsend of The Who on a very interesting program.
Deborah Conway:Yeah, that's right. He was casting around for people to put in his musical adaptation of The Iron Man, which was a Ted Hughes, oh kind of a novella, I guess. Ted Hughes was the poet laureate once upon a time, married to Sylvia Plath, who famously gassed herself. But anyway at any rate, maybe because of him, I don't know. It's all very scandalous. So he had written this a metaphor for I don't not exactly sure what it's about, honestly. It's very hardy party. It's it it is how do you explain the Iron Man? I mean, there's this great big Iron Man, and he comes, eats all the farm machinery, and a little boy tries to stop him and then finds out that he's actually very gentle, and then there's a space laser dragon that comes down and it's substances involved. It's enormously complex. And I kind of looked at it and went, why would he want to make a musical like this? But anyway, he did. Yeah. And apparently, well, not apparently, it was in its first instance a double album. I think it might have made more sense at that point. Condensed it. Condensed it down to one album. It didn't make as much sense. I mean, I read the book and it didn't make that much sense either, so I'm not sure that he had much of a heart. Sorry. I'm sorry I'm being rude. But anyway, I look famously cast with along alongside Nina Simone and John Lee Hooker, and uh, and and of course Pete Townsend and recorded in his his famous Eelpie studios. And it was amazing, like plucked from you know obscurity and not entirely obscurity, because we had had some success in the UK, but we were sharing the same record label. We were both signed to Virgin UK, and he'd seen a clip of Doray Me in the managing director of Virgin's Officer, Simon Draper, and you know, I had said, I want her. So he got me. Yeah, what happened? And that was great. And then in the same year, or maybe the year after, uh, Michael Nyman also asked me to sing a role. He was the composer for most of Peter Greenaway's films. And this one was Prospero's Books, which was a singular interpretation interpretation of The Tempest. Yeah. It's kind of confusing. Another very confusing interpretation. But because Sir John Gilgude was playing all of the characters, which he kind of didn't really realize at the beginning. But anyway, it was incredibly sumptuous to look at. Beautiful to look at. I was asked to play the role of Juno, the goddess, in the marriage feast. There was Uta Lemper and Mari Angel and myself, and we're all wearing these massive Elizabethan collars. Yeah. And fully dressed, unlike the 150, 200 other extras on the set who were completely naked, apart from you know the colours that were, you know, pink penises and red arms and green feet, and every kind of colour imaginable, and and a lot of a lot of stuff there waggling around.
Cheryl Lee:Those were the in 1990 you had draw cards and rows of monk thorns, and then in 91, your debut solo album, String of Pearls, won an Aria, best female artist. Is that where you and Willie met and fell in love?
Deborah Conway:String of Pearls had been recorded, and I needed a guitar player. Or I needed a band, and I'd kind of got I'd filled in most of the parts, but the guitar player was proving elusive. And a couple of other musicians, close friends of both of us, recommended Willie. So I gave him a call and I offered him this tour. It was a very substantial tour, probably nine months worth of dates. It's only the beginning was had or was already out there. It was climbing the charts, and Daremie was a known entity. So he knew who I was, but he said to me, Oh, look, sorry, I'd love to, but I've got a gig. And uh and I found that so extraordinary and intriguing that he was turning down this enormous block of work for his one gig. So I I said, Okay, no problem. And I hung up and uh I thought about it, and I rang the next day and I said, What if I put up my tour for a few weeks so that you can do your gig? And he said, Okay. We arranged to meet at my little flat in East Sting Kilda, and he turned up at the door and I opened it. And I think there was just that moment, that flash of some recognition. Yeah, it was something, it was it was something very powerful and very strong and unacknowledged by both of us. And you know, we chatted for a a long time and then he said, Yes, let's do it. We started rehearsal and we started flirting and started the tour, and we started an affair, which was terrible because we both were with other people, which ended up, you know, we weren't with other people anymore, and we became a couple, and then we and then we started writing songs together, and then we started breeding and had children, and 17 years after that we got married, and 17 years after that again, and I think actually we're about to celebrate our 35th anniversary together.
Cheryl Lee:So uh yeah. That's no mean feat. No, it's not. Put it up with each other for that long.
Deborah Conway:A lot of time together. Yes, like more than most, I would say.
Cheryl Lee:Exactly. You and Willie are gonna sing a song in a little while. We're gonna touch on a couple other things because I really, really love that you did always the lead role in Patsy Klein's stage show. Yeah.
Deborah Conway:That was fun. And actually I write about that in the book because we performed in Adelaide, we were doing our shows in in early September here. So I was here on the 12th of September and and I woke up and to Willie's phone call saying you've got to turn the TV on. And I said, What's what's going on? I turned the TV on.
Mark Thurston - Camera Crew:Can we go back a couple of minutes? Yeah, the noise you make you on the mic is really extreme.
Cheryl Lee:Which bit do we have to go back to? Where the television on? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Willie said, Pop the telly on. Sorry, that was.
Deborah Conway:So Willie woke me up on the the morning of the 12th of September. He said, put the TV on. I said, What's going on? He said, just turn it on. So I turned it on and there were just kids' shows. They hadn't weren't broadcasting it in Adelaide. It took me quite a while before I figured out what was going on. And then, of course, you know, the horrific images of the plans going into the World Trade Centre and people jumping out the window. It was horrific. It was horrific. We had a show that evening for which people would have bought their tickets months in advance. It was a full house and it was we were all just so fragile, so emotional. And the the songs of Patsy Klein were actually a really beautiful vehicle to spill that emotion out, and it was a kind of it was a kind of a collective hug. I'm sure that the people that were there would have rather been just anywhere else. I mean, I felt the same way because I just wanted to be at home with my kids and my husband. But yeah, there we all were, and Patsy was uh cradling us all in the tragedy of her tale and and the beautiful songs that she brought into being. So yeah, it was very uh quite a thing. But it was a it was a terrific show, and I really loved I loved being able to channel those incredible songs with for that with that extraordinary singer. She really is the one of the great singers of the century. Yeah. And yeah. I hope I did her justice.
Cheryl Lee:I think you did. I think you nailed it. Also, uh something that I think you're very proud of is the broad festival project that went for a few years.
Deborah Conway:Yeah, we did that in 2005, 6, 7, 8. We uh invited female singer-songwriters from a very broad range of genres, which is where the title of broadcast, well, it was a slang broad slang term for women, and also the the reference to how how very broadly representative the um the genres of music were. And we put the five of us together on stage and we talked about our craft and we contributed to each other's pieces, and you know, we had you know the the hard rock guitar player with a folky player with a jazzy kind of player, and it was it was really quite a magical combination of things, and and those concerts did really well, and some household names kind of emerged out of it. Kate Millerhike was just a very, very young woman when she did that, so was and and so was Claire Bodic and Melinda Schneider was was somewhat known but not very, and uh and Ella Hooper, who had been in Killing Heidi, was launching a sort of solo career, and Mia Dyson also, you know, I mean there were just so many incredible, incredibly talented women. It was a real joy to share the stage with them. And you know, we selected the songs that we wanted to sing as a group together, and Willie was, you know, amazing, did all these extraordinary arrangements. I sang them all so that they had them on tape to listen to. It was an incredible amount of work. We didn't do anything else for years. We just did that. But it was you know it was a great thing to do.
Cheryl Lee:And so amazing to see women supporting women, supporting women. Because sometimes we don't do that enough, I think.
Deborah Conway:I haven't noticed that. I've I feel like I feel like all the women in my life have been very lucky. Yeah, you've are you're very lucky. I feel lucky.
Cheryl Lee:I wanted to also congratulate you, member of the Order of Australia, in 2020. Thank you. Well deserved. And also I'm wearing my little pin. Oh, there you go. There you go. Also, 2022, the induction into the Victorian Music Hall of Fame. Yep. That was nice and well done. Yeah. And something just a little bit of from left field because I've got to stop talking and let you sing us a song. But just a little bit different. Twice now you've had your portrait as a finalist in the Archibald three times. I think it's three times, yeah.
Deborah Conway:Wow. Uh yeah, there was Rosemary Valadon, that was a very long time ago. Esther Ehrlich and Wendy.
Cheryl Lee:Wendy Spindler.
Deborah Conway:She did two portraits. I didn't like um, I didn't like the first one. I don't think she liked the first one, she did a second one. Oh, so there's wait a minute, there's four. Oh wow! And uh and uh Lewis Miller. And Louis Miller. Yeah. So it's it's fun. People want to paint my portrait, and I love it. I think it's amazing because I love the fact that you are interpreted by someone else. The Lewis Miller portrait was um it's quite controversial in our family. They all thought it and he made me look too old. But I really liked it. Yeah, I thought it looked uh full of character. And you know, forever now on canvas. Absolutely, it's a kind of a legitimizing kind of, you know, here I was.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah. And speaking of art, I did want to do a special mention to the artists who did your artwork for the new album. Because the new album is like delicately, you know, about AI and its intrusion into music and that sort of thing. Is it ironic that it's an AI?
Deborah Conway:We did it. Did it? We talked about it and uh it was Willie's idea. Yeah. So he he put I love it. He put the he put the images into AI and it got him immediately. And we just rolled around the floor laughing. It was so hilarious. It was just perfect. But they could it couldn't get me. And I'm like, come on, we've got to give it another photo, another photo, another he used, I don't know, there was like three or four different AI programs that he used in order to get me looking. So pretty much, pretty much how I look. I mean, the hair is fantastic, isn't it?
Cheryl Lee:It's so good. That's what got me. Oh, hair is so amazing. I just love it so much. Me too. And you and you, Willie, you just look like the arch typical, you know, newsreader or something.
Deborah Conway:It's Natasha and Boris, you know, it's perfect. I'll just show you the picture. So, hey, there's the book. What a shame. We've got it, we've actually got colour ones in the car, but anyway, you can find them online. Yeah, we'll overlay it and insert them.
Cheryl Lee:Insert them, yes. Mark's got the technology. Oh, yeah.
Deborah Conway:Well done, Mark.
Cheryl Lee:And this great cover of the new album, which we'll just talk about really quickly before you sing us a song from it.
Deborah Conway:Sure.
Cheryl Lee:Great fun making it.
Deborah Conway:It's a family affair. So right wing propaganda is the title of the album. And it is a look back, I guess, on the last five very tumultuous years of this decade. We've we've gone through so much. We've we've experienced COVIDs and lockdowns and wars in so many different parts of the world, and AI, and the intolerance of of what people are able to accept. And the breakdown of just civil discourse, I think. And the rise and rise of intolerance and uh I think you know it was and my industry, the the music industry, has become quite intolerant, I think, of any any view that falls outside of a very a very prescripted set of of views. And very happy to punish people for not falling within that prescribed set of views. You can be cancelled. That's right. Cancel cancel culture. Absolutely extraordinary stuff. And we we we it's it's touched us quite we've been scarred from it. So these are songs you can trust. So these are songs you can trust, and we have and we've kind of lived through this stuff, and you know, we think these are songs that that actually mean something. And uh and they're stripped back, aren't they? Right back. We have we have recorded this album, unlike most of the other in fact, all of the other records that we've made where we always use a drummer and a bass player and a keyboard player, and we we laden up with you know lovely lush you know, overdubs, etc. But we've gone very sparse on this. It's just two guitars and two vocals and the addition of uh very talented three daughters, yeah. Who came in one day towards the end of the recording session immediately had a fight. Oh yeah. Immediately, because that's their daughters too. That's their remote. Hilarious. You're going, no, listen. We're adults now, yeah. And then sang these songs that they'd never heard before so beautifully. Made their mother weep, honestly. Yeah, gorgeous. And it's worth hearing. We there there's one of the songs we're not playing live because I can't possibly do it justice. Yeah, it's too, it's too beautiful. It's called I Don't Wanna Let Go of You. The album's available at at all the gigs. Yes, the album is available. We've got vinyl. We've haven't made vinyl since 19. I haven't made vinyl since 87, and Willie hasn't made it since 89. So for some reason, some crazy reason, enough people got in our ear and said, You've got to make vinyl. Yeah. And we went and didn't make vinyl. So please, you know, make us not regret that decision. Go to DeborahConway.com. Yeah, you can go to DeborahComway.com or come to a gear draw. Yeah.
Cheryl Lee:Available digitally on all the other gear.
Deborah Conway:Absolutely, you can stream it, you can form everything. And there's a CD, of course. Yeah. Yes. We'll we'll make some music now.
Cheryl Lee:Yeah. Thank you so much for having a beautiful chat with us tonight and sharing about your family. I'm going to get out of this seat and invite Willie up with his guitar. Fantastic, thank you.
Mark Thurston - Camera Crew:You are listening to Still Rocking It, the podcast with Cheryl Lee.
Cheryl Lee:First up, an absolutely beautiful song from the album. It's called Always. Deborah Conway and Willie Zeger, the insanely talented and genuinely beautiful couple, live from Crabtree Studios, and then we're going to take the show out with the title track from the album, Right Wing Propaganda. Please enjoy. Thank you.
Mark Thurston - Camera Crew:Truth is a surprise. Don't teeth the root of the course. Don't let me baby out.
Cheryl Lee:Thank you so much for joining me on the Still Rocking Up podcast. Hope to catch you again next time. Get out when you can, support Aussie music, and I'll see you down the front.