Six Australian acts who have shone over decades-long careers have joined ARIA’s Hall of Fame as it celebrates 40 years of music.
WARNING: Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander readers are advised this article contains an image of a person who has died.
Australian music greats are reflecting on their journey to the top of the charts as they take in their immortality.
Six artists — Gurrumul, Jenny Morris, Kate Ceberano, Spiderbait, The Living End, and Vika and Linda Bull — were inducted into the Australian Recording Industry Association Hall of Fame at a ceremony in Sydney on Thursday night.
ARIA, which typically inducts one artist a year, elevated six to top-tier status as part of its 40th anniversary celebrations.
The Living End frontman Chris Cheney (centre) says the recognition forces him to look in “the rear view mirror”. (ABC News: Isabella Ross)
For Melbourne rockers The Living End, the honour signalled a rare moment to stop thinking about what’s next and instead take stock of what the band had achieved in its decades-long career.
“We don’t spend a lot of time in the rear view mirror, but this has forced us to do it,” frontman Chris Cheney told AAP.
“It’s a pretty amazing journey from when we were 15 years old.
“Being that 15-year-old was day-to-day … let’s start a band, let’s write a song, let’s get a gig, let’s be inducted in the Hall of Fame — it’s the logical step, I guess.“
Renowned for the classic track Prisoner of Society, The Living End are viewed as Australia’s biggest rockers of the 1990s and boast six ARIA awards.
Singer-songwriter Kate Ceberano, who turns 60 in November, was similarly reflective.
Along with AC/DC, Midnight Oil and Kylie Minogue, Ceberano is one of just four Australian artists to have top 10 albums in five straight decades.
“It was a struggle … every venue, RSL, pub, club, you had to travel from Sydney to Melbourne three times in a car in a month … fuelled entirely on passion, your muse and the willingness to be amongst it,” she told AAP.
“[Hall of Fame] places you in a small percentage of those who’ve worked really, really hard and have contributed a lot to culture.
“To link arms with all of those people is just phenomenal.“
Gurrumul, seen her performing in Fremantle in 2011, rose to fame as a teenager in Yothu Yindi. (Wikimedia Commons: Stuart Sevastos)
Thursday’s honours included a posthumous gong for Indigenous icon Gurrumul, who died in 2017.
Credited with helping to take Indigenous music to the world, the legendary artist from the Gumatj clan of Elcho Island in Arnhem Land died aged 46 after a battle with kidney and liver disease.
The self-taught multi-instrumentalist, who was born blind, performed around the world including at New York’s Carnegie Hall and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert in London.
He has become one of just a handful of Australian performers to be inducted into the Hall of Fame twice, after joining with his former band Yothu Yindi back in 2012.
Spiderbait’s Janet English (centre) says the arrival of the US band Nirvana saw the music industry turn “bonkers”. (ABC News: Isabella Ross)
Spiderbait, who broke out in the 1990s but reached superstar status covering Black Betty in 2004, originated in rural NSW and took their hits to the world.
“When we started, it was ‘Farnsey’ and ‘Barnsey’ and these mega bands, but then there was this underground of punk,” bass guitarist and singer Janet English said.
“No-one expected anything would ever happen, and then Nirvana happened, and then it went bonkers … we never thought anything would ever really happen.
“It’s a weird journey.”
New Zealand-born, Australian-based singer-songwriter Jenny Morris and revered sibling vocal duo Vika and Linda were also inducted into the Hall of Fame.
Formerly of the Crocodiles in New Zealand, Jenny Morris’s career exploded when she moved to Australia in the 1980s. (ABC: Gemma Deavin)
AAP/ABC
