Sean Frazer

Moving to the big smoke can be scary on your own… but the lure of Sydney was far too strong for Steve Kilbey. Before becoming the singer of popular rock band, The Church, Kilbey was working a mundane job in Canberra. “I was in the public service, I sat there watching the clock going around, I’d sit there going “oh it must be 4 o’clock, it must be 4 o’clock”… and then you’d look and it’s only 10 past 3” Kilbey recalls.

It’s 1983. Mick Thomas and his new rock band Weddings, Parties, Anything hit the stage in Melbourne. [Crickets] There’s no crowd. “When you start a band, you go through so many years of playing gigs to no one” Thomas explains.

Walking along Collaroy Beach, armed with a cassette tape, Choirboys singer Mark Gable was unknowingly working on what would become one of the biggest hits to come out of Australia. For many Australians, Run to Paradise is as well-known as the national anthem, and let’s face it, more of us probably know the words to the Choirboys hit. Three chords and a hell of a hook, enough to guarantee the songwriter from the northern beaches would never work a “normal job” again.