JIMMY BARNES - 30:30 Hindsight

‘Ride The Night Away’ with Steven Van Zandt



The whole 30:30 album has been made quite quickly and spontaneously. The first track we put down was ‘Ride The Night Away’ which was originally on For The Working Class Man album.
Back then, Steven Van Zandt sent that song to me via Gary Gersh, who was the A&R man for Geffen Records in America.
When I got it, it was just the perfect demo. I just put it in the right key for me and I did it.
I’ve been a fan of Springsteen since 1973 – the E Street Band is one of my favourite bands in the world, but I’d never seen them live – we’d never crossed paths and I was always working when they were touring.
But when they came back to Australia this time (March 2014), and I was working with them in New Zealand, I got this idea in my head that I would like to do this song with Little Steven. I went up to him and said, ‘This song you sent me 30 years ago, I wouldn’t mind recording it with you.’ He was a fan. And he loves music. So Steven came to my house.
My son Jackie played drums, and I got Steven playing the guitar solo and singing harmonies. Virtually, it was take three, but we spent about 12 hours together, just talking. I got him to tell us stories about The Sopranos.”


‘Going Down Alone’ with Journey



While I was in America earlier this year, I wanted to tip my hat to an old friend Jonathan Cain.
Freight Train Heart was a really big record for me, one of the best records I’ve ever made, and a lot of that record was written with Jonathan Cain, who was the piano player in The Babys and then Journey. So Jonathan and I got together with Neal Schon, the guitar player from Journey, and we made the Freight Train Heart album together.
So I got those guys in to record ‘Going Down Alone’. It’s one of my favourite songs and the guys helped me breathe new life into it.”