Feature: The Whitlams will play their first three albums (and more!) featuring songs formerly performed by double-bass player and late band member Andy Lewis. The Living End’s Scott Owen will be handling Lewis’s duties for the first hour of the show. YELO music editor Penny Brand shares how her life has intertwined with the tragedy that is Tim Freedman, as the band tours South-East Queensland.

Photo: Tim Freedman (left) with original bandmates who both died by suicide, double-bass-playing Andy Lewis, centre, and guitarist/vocalist Stevie Plunder, right. Source: Wikipedia.

Trigger warning: this article is also about me.

I first saw The Whitlams in 1998 when crowdsurfing for the first time at an all-ages University of Queensland show in St Lucia, Brisbane.

They joined Brisbane band Custard in head-lining “O-Week”, and my cousin and I decided we needed to join in the action, both loving the two Aussie-faves and their bangers “I make Hamburgers” and “My Apartment”.

I bought the Custard merch T-shirt which read, “Music is crap”.

And in a coming-of-age moment, frontman Tim Freedman waved at me during his famous “Hamburger” song as I was passed across a sea of hands.

It was there my 16-year-old self fell in love with live music (and possibly with Freedman too) for the first time.

It was the same show where I also vomited up a can of Coca-Cola behind a food truck, and my mother didn’t believe me that I hadn’t been drinking. But that’s a story for another day.

I was oblivious to it at the time but former bandmate and guitarist/vocalist Stevie Plunder, who struggled with addiction, had only just died in 1996, found dead at the bottom of a Blue Mountains cliff.

In a sad twist, Plunder left the world the same day “I Make Hamburgers” made it to the ears of national listeners on ABC radio’s Triple J’s Hottest 100, ranked number 79.

Freedman had a choice: to either fall into a heap or continue on with the band as the sole member, and re-group.

And we’re just glad he chose the latter, because a year later the band released breakthrough-album, Eternal Nightcap, which peaked at number 14 on the ARIA charts and reached triple platinum in 1997.

It featured several tear-dripping songs about loneliness and addiction (which have been the haunting themes of my own life), with the fan-favoured “Charlie” songs, and massive hits such as “You Sound Like Louis Burdett” (“banana chairs out on the concrete”, woo!), which has been streamed 3.5 million streams on Spotify.

It’s the same year I also considered to be the worst year of my life.

Picture: That time I met Freedman after an amazing Whitlams show at The Triffid in 2019.

Our family had moved towns and I entered Year 11 at a very horrible, very religious school.

I hated my new school so much that I spent the next two years facing serious mental health battles with anxiety, panic attacks and depression.

And it’s probably another reason why The Whitlams is still my all-time favourite band, with Freedman’s compelling story-telling holding me through the most pivotal years of my life, and making me smile when he returned my wave that night.

Plunder also just missed out on seeing the band hit their ultimate peak with their most-favoured song “No Aphrodisiac” – which has more than 12 million streams on Spotify – score the top gong on Triple J’s Hottest 100 in 1998.

Proving heartache only spurred Freedman on, he released the band’s other major hit, “Blow Up the Pokies” the following year, addressing double-bassist Andy Lewis’s gambling problems.

It’s not surprising that I would go on to frequently sing that song post-divorce, when I drank too much red wine and broke up with too many men.

But it was the year 2000 when the unthinkable happened.

Freedman was struck by more tragedy losing second band member Lewis, who hanged himself after reportedly blowing a week’s wages in one night.

Ironically in the same year, their earlier track “You Gotta Love This City” was aired during the broadcast of the Sydney Olympics and features a protagonist who loves his city but feels so betrayed by its pursuit of money.

The character jumps into the Sydney Harbour after the song declares: “It dawns on him, the horror, we got the Olympic Games”.

Again, Freedman stoically pushes on.

Two years later, Freedman re-banded producing Little Clouds, with some the most heart-breaking songs you’ll ever hear, such as “the curse stops here” and lyrics, “my first days back and I was rolling around the town, saying stay away from edges and from ropes if you can!”

“Cause I am the last one, and the curse stops here.”

It was a song recorded with the Sydney Symphony orchestra and will move you to tears.

Picture: Tim Freedman broke several hearts in the 90s, always singing about love, but also about his former band mates and their struggles with addiction and ultimate suicides.

And if you think Freedman’s life couldn’t get any more devastating, there’s more.

In a disturbing “Single White Female” moment, a blonde journalist (hi it’s me, I’m the journalist), Jennifer Smith was murdered close to his home in Sydney’s Newtown in 1998.

Smith, who was part-muse/part-uni friend, had been knocking on his door around 5am, and with Freedman unable to answer, the 32-year-old walked home alone.

She was beaten to death just down Freedman’s street for the $100 in her handbag.

I also went on to experience having my own handbag ripped from my arms when walking home from a London pub around that time.

But this isn’t all about me.

And thankfully I am still here despite all the mischief I’ve been in!

Freedman told The Age newspaper in 2006: “People say ‘What a tough gig The Whitlams must be, because you either end up dead or mad’.”

Seems like he ended up mad like the rest of us and excellent at crooning songs about love and loss, which often had me crying into my red wine, having experienced several of my own break ups and issues with addiction.

So who better to rip through the double-bass classics from 1993-1997 than the human powerhouse who has driven The Living End’s famous rhythm section since its inception?

The Whitlams will give a nod to former bandmate Andy Lewis bringing in The Living End’s Scott Owen, who is known for theatrically jumping on his giant string instrument, when they revisit some of their earliest material – songs from 1993-1997.

Stepping in as Lewis, Owen will bring the distinctive slapping catgut of the double-bass that propelled The Whitlams onto the airwaves through the mid 90s, and he joins the band to perform three albums: “Introducing The Whitlams”, “Undeniably The Whitlams” and “Eternal Nightcap”.

Freedman has always been prolific with his music, no doubt using his illustrious and award-winning career as a healing tool.

But not only does he dish out incredible thought-provoking songs, his band never stops touring with 19 more shows between their South-East Queensland leg and next year’s Byron Bay’s Bluesfest in March.

Look at how quickly they skip around!

Don’t miss this opportunity to see The Whitlams perform at:

• The Tivoli, Newstead, Brisbane: Friday, October 13, 7.30pm.

• The J, Noosa, Sunshine Coast: Saturday, October 14, 7.30pm.

• Burleigh Bazaar, Burleigh Heads, Gold Coast, Sunday, October 15, 5pm.

Freedman recalled working hard, but playing harder in 2008 telling MAG: “We were young and drank a lot, we were full of the devil.”

“We had a lot of laughs and did 150 gigs a year. Sometimes I felt like I was dragging a couple of drunks around the country. They more than pulled their weight musically, but I had to be a taskmaster.”

And if you got this far in my article, I will tell you that I went on to see The Whitlams play twice, getting to meet “the man, the myth, the legend” himself at The Triffid in 2019.

It was the first and only time I met the mythical beast (who has always had a reputation for being grumpy, and it’s kinda true haha) but he obliged to take a photo with me and have a quick chat.

And in an even more harrowing admission than Freedman’s entire life combined, I put the photo of us next to my bed and it’s been there ever since (apparently it’s common among blonde journalists – too much?).

A few months later I saw Freedman play a solo show on a white grand piano at The J in Noosa.

This Saturday I head to my fourth Whitlams gig and I cannot wait to see them in retrospect.

While I was lucky enough to have a few small email exchanges with the main man over the years (usually stupidly drunk, then saying sorry the next day telling him my entire life story as though he should care), he declined to comment on this piece.

I don’t blame him for being a bit short with the media, though.

Do you?

The Whitlams these days is Tim Freedman on piano and vocals, and familiar faces – guitarist Jak Housden (in pale pink) and drummer Terepai Richmond (blue denim) – who both joined the band in 1999, and newest member Ian Peres (not pictured) on Hammond organ and electric bass.

Tickets and more information: https://thewhitlams.com/tour/.

Main Image: Supplied to Musicfeeds.