Most people know Geoff Peterkin as the man behind the console managing the sound and stage needs at the Cardinia Cultural Centre. What they don’t know is that he once appeared on Molly Meldrum’s Countdown, was the drummer for hit 1980s band Ol’ 55 and had a cameo in the iconic Aussie film Puberty Blues. Now this old rocker has rediscovered his musical roots, as GARRY HOWE reports.
It was very evident very quickly that I had bitten off more than I could chew…
“Listen to this track,” Geoff Peterkin says, firing up the track Be Guided By Your Heart. “I’m having a bit of a talk to myself there.”
It’s impossible to have a conversation with Geoff Peterkin about his life that’s not punctuated by music, particularly now he has released an album with auto-biographical overtones.
Like most musicians, he prefers to let the music to the talking. Not quite to the extent of Bob Dylan who famously shut down interviewers who were ignorant to the meaning of his lyrics.
Geoff’s more than happy to talk about his new project, a self-titled album by his new band Ready-Set-Jump, produced out of his Pakenham home.
Its genre, he says, is best described as soft rock, or classic pop rock, influenced by music heroes like George Harrison and Roy Orbison.
At this stage the band comprises Geoff on vocals and drums and long-time muso mate Andy Colville on guitar and bass.
They will recruit another couple of members when they need to take it on the road.
The first single, Watching You Watching Me, was uploaded onto iTunes, YouTube, ReverbNation and Facebook in January.
Geoff and Andy’s heart skipped a beat when an email from ReverbNation said it was number one on the charts, but then they read further to find it was number one in Pakenham, Australia!
“It’s a start, but we’ll take it,” Geoff smiled. “Thanks Pakenham.”
Geoff could not be happier with the album – 10 original songs and three covers – but is pragmatic about the prospect of making it big as he approaches his mid-60s.
“I’ve got a lot of faith in my music, the album is definitely good enough,” he says.
“But there’s no guarantee that if you make a good album it will be a success.
“It would be like winning Tattslotto – but just like lotto, you’ve got to be in it to win it.”
When asked to recount the start of his musical journey, Geoff reaches for the control panel again to play one of the covers – Johnny Chester’s 1971 song Glory Glory.
The lyrics are based on a journey of self-discovery down Australia’s eastern seaboard, with the opening lines “I bought a one way ticket on the Pioneer Express, with the change I got myself a magazine. We are headed down to Melbourne…”
Geoff first heard the track when he was on a similar journey – driving from his home in north Queensland to start a new life in Melbourne, so the song immediately spoke to him.
Johnny Chester went on to become a good friend – Geoff produced a few of his albums – and he has collaborated on the lyrics for that song on the album.
Geoff was born in Macksville on the New South Wales north coast and his family moved to Queensland when he was 12.
After school he went to Townsville Teachers College with a view of becoming a primary school teacher, which didn’t last long.
It soon became apparent that the responsibility of the job was more than Geoff was willing to give, so he resigned, packed a bag and headed to Melbourne.
That was 1973. By that stage he was already dabbling in music and in Melbourne joined a band called Springwater.
One night towards the end of 1976 Springwater supported Ol’ 55 at the Goulburn Valley Hotel in Shepparton.
Fronted by Frankie J. Holden and with Wilbur Wilde on saxophone, Ol’ 55 had one of the biggest hits in the country at the time.
After the gig, bass player Jim Manzie approached Geoff to join the band and he moved up to Sydney to begin an amazing few years touring with them.
The only down side was having to juggle a long-distance relationship with wife-to-be Freida who remained in Melbourne.
In one of their many long distance conversations, Geoff mentioned that the air fares and phone calls were costing too much, so “we might as well get married”.
“That was my proposal!” Freida laughs.
Their 1978 wedding was in Sydney. Geoff’s family was from Townville and Freida’s from Melbourne, so the bride and groom were the only ones who didn’t have to travel.
A few years later, when Ol 55 came to a “logical conclusion”, Geoff and Jim Manzie formed a band called The Breakers.
They had a bit of success, earning its rite of passage through an appearance on Molly Meldrum’s iconic music show Countdown and scoring a pub scene cameo appearance in the Aussie film Puberty Blues.
The song they played for the film, the aptly-named When I’m On TV, appears on the recently released album Glory Days of Aussie Pub Rock – Volume Two.
Another couple of bands followed – The Hitmen in Sydney and a synthesized style band Myokyo in Melbourne.
Then in the early ’90s Geoff formed a country band with Andy Colville and a few others.
Again using the name The Breakers, they released three original albums of Geoff’s songs and toured Australia playing all the big festivals, both in their own right and as a backing band.
The Breakers won Group of the Year at the Victorian Country Music Awards in 2002 and his company Pakart Productions was born mainly as a recording vehicle for the band.
Around the same time, Geoff also played in a bush band called Terra Australis, which in 2002 won Australian Bush Band of the Year and Heritage Track of the Year at the Australian Independent Country Music Awards with a song called Darling River Darling.
Geoff and Freida moved to Pakenham from Brunswick in 1991. He wanted a tree change and she was a city girl at heart, so they thought Pakenham provided the best of both worlds.
In 2003, they started what Geoff describes as a “13 year adventure with Cardinia Shire and the people of Pakenham” when Pakart took over production duties at the new Cardinia Cultural Centre.
“It was very evident very quickly that I had bitten off more than I could chew trying to juggle the bands and the cultural centre, so I put my drumsticks away and relished the challenge of operating a brand new theatre and function centre in partnership with the shire and Khan’s Hospitality.”
They were able to occupy the building only 24 hours before the gala opening concert, then moved straight into a three-day season of Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat by the Gemco Players before three weeks of Les Miserables put on by the Cardinia Performing Arts Centre.
“All of this while commissioning a new theatre!”
Over the years, the cultural centre has hosted school productions, professional touring theatre groups and concerts, local theatre productions, awards nights, dance competitions, corporate events, major functions, weddings, funerals fashion parades and the like – “just about any type of event you can imagine that involves a stage and an audience”.
“In our last year at the centre, we passed 10,000 events and had a concert where a large number of our long-term clients donated their talent to celebrate the occasion,” Geoff proudly recalled.
“When I think of it, the 13 years passed in a flash of amazing memories, friendships and job satisfaction.”
In 2015, Geoff applied again when the contract came up for renewal, but then had a change of heart.
Acting on advice from Freida, he decided it was time to stop working so hard and actually use the caravan they had bought and hardly used.
A heart attack just a few months down the track reaffirmed the decision to take it a bit easier.
Now fully recovered, Geoff says he’s in a good place.
“Life’s pretty uncomplicated at the moment,” he says. “It’s just me and my music. I have all I need to keep me going week to week.
“All I want to do is make something I believe in and love. If the album doesn’t sell, we will be all right.
“If I can make a living out of it, fine. If not. I’ll keep doing it anyway.”
