Celebrating 30 Years Of Chocolate Starfish

Chocolate Starfish marks thirty years with a spectacular Australian tour that celebrates the best of everything – the albums, the songs, and the exhilarating shows for which the band is widely renowned. Tonight, the tour hits Adelaide at Norwood Concert Hall for what promises to be an awesome night. Hi Fi Way spoke to front man Adam Thompson about the tour.

Congratulations on thirty years of Chocolate Starfish, a fantastic milestone to be celebrating.
Yeah, it is and I think what we’re most proud of is that we’re not dialling it in but really extending ourselves in everything we we do over the last decade. We have evolved into probably an even stronger entity that is able to do a lot more and adding many more strings to our bow than what we had previously.

Do you think that’s part of the secret to longevity is the fact that you’re not dialling it in and not just relying on what you’ve done previously and that you are continually moving forward with new songs, playing concept albums live and so on?
I think it’s both those things and probably more. Even just having an open mind about who you’ve evolved into a. A lot of times audiences and bands pigeonhole themselves into a dimension that this is us. This is not us, and I think if you’re open to explore, probably like you do when you’re first creating a band thirty years ago, you’re exploring, who are we and what can we be and do? A lot of times that tap gets switched off after success. I think our tap is well and truly on still where we discussed a lot of possibilities, not not all and come to fruition of course, but we’re open minded and hardened enough to consider things and and and push that boundary to go right this is probably another avenue we can we can experiment with now to see what that works.

Are you seeing the generational shift with the fan base particularly with these shows you are playing now?
I really do, we’re probably in a bit of a sweet spot, a bit like Daryl Braithwaite was a few years ago when Horses was the thing. We are getting these younger fans because these are the kids with parents who grew up, but also, like you said, the classic albums that we’ve approached without doing like a cover band. We dress up and be that particular band and try to play them with Starfish integrity and the integrity of what perhaps the album was when it was out. I think a lot of young people really love that, that it’s that it’s played by a band and performed like a band that is trying to give it all the integrity that the album or the or the song needs.

How has the tour gone so far?
It’s been incredible and well beyond what we thought, obviously we’re doing a lot more Starfish songs as well as selections from the classic albums. Just the the passion of the audience. The other weekend in Brisbane was a great example where they were just so into it from the word go. We’re supporting ourselves by doing a scaled back acoustic set, which we don’t really get the opportunity to do that very often anymore even though that’s how we started in little corner bar rooms in towns all around Australia. We’d do that semi-acoustically and that’s how we we cut our teeth and be able to do that in a theatre environment now leading up to the intermission, and then into the rock set that means that we get to cover a huge gamut of our songs, also stylistically. That first forty minutes is very, very musical. We start off a cappella on the song Ten Feet Tall and it’s a complete a cappella version of that and then all the way through to Your So Vain and What’s Up and stuff at the end is the full rock sing-a-long anthem style. It’s a real cross section of what we’re able to produce as a band.

Do you get nostalgic going back through the back catalogue?
It’s kind of hard not to, particularly in that in that first set. So we’re doing the song Motherless, which I wrote about my mom. That’s of the Box album, and it is an intense song about my missing my mom. She was falling and and that was me pathetically trying to do with it. That’s reflective enough in itself but then in this context we are inviting a local choir in every town, and we sort of changed up the song. If you’re familiar with Like A Prayer by Madonna, you know that sort of mid-point where it goes gospel and changes the chords into more major scenario. We’ve done that with Motherless and a local choir comes on in every town. The inflexion of that was so powerful because I talk about not only the death of my mum, but also how many times we’ve been in situations where the community has embraced us and that’s why I think, particularly in regional areas, we’ve stayed loyal with our fan base.

When you look back over thirty years what moments stand out for you?
That’s a good question. I think being able to come back as a band after Zoran’s passing twelve years ago. There were some non-negotiables from my end that we talked about was doing those roles and not being that RSL kind of band that just plays the hits, that they haven’t ventured forward. I was quite insistent to the band and if you’re going to reform we have to always push the envelope, whether that’s music, those classic albums and even the way we present, I look back thirty years ago, when it came back together and we were a little bit lost honestly. We were a bit underwhelming and I look back at the very first Red Hot Summer tour we did, how we present as a band and the five percenters they talk about in a sporting context, we make sure that they’re all delivered and met across the band, so that we’re still evolving and we’re still improving, we still getting better and we’re still challenging each other to be the best version of ourselves as a band that we can be.

Candy Man Blues was a bold choice for a single. Was that an obvious choice for the band to release that?
It’s quite funny, I actually played Willy Wonka when I was twenty-one, back at uni in the Geelong theatre production of it. Even back then, I asked the producer if I can sing it. So, they let me and I thought let’s just try it, they call me Mr Chocolate and all that sort of stuff. I said, let’s just try it this year during the Red Hot Summer tour, fairly verbatim, as it was done by Sammy Davis and it was OK, but it wasn’t Starfish enough. Then it was literally midway through the tour and I was driving in the outback and Roadhouse Blues came on with that riff and I started singing The Candyman over the top of that. Alright, geez, that’s actually it. That’s the mix up. That’s the t mash up that’s going to work really well. I showed it to the boys that went OK, now I see what you’re get now. Just that hybrid of the two, now it’s such a stomp. It’s amazing! It’s not just a. cabaret kind of song, it’s a driving, bluesy, ballsy backbeat and then singing Candy Man over it, it’s pretty special.

Are there plans for more new music at some stage?
Definitely next year, it’s underway. In fact, the band is taking the first half of next year off, largely from touring, so that we can concentrate on on that. There are so many songs in the wind, new ones as well, new original pieces that a lot of which I wrote when I was in Italy recently. Just little ideas. As soon as I’m away from responsibility that’s when new ideas come. When you’re in work mode, gigging and managing the day to day of the band, I find it very difficult to switch hats for five minutes and then switch back. I’ve got to be in a zone where maybe I might be driving for five hours and that’s when it comes or walking up a mountain in Mount Etna in Sicily then all of a sudden this new idea comes because you’re not distracted by anything else. A lot of brand-new concepts came when I was over there and a lot of those we’re starting to flesh out now.

With the interest in Chocolate Starfish right now are there plans to reissue previous albums on vinyl or CD reissues?
Yeah, it’s really interesting because we’ve done a few shows now of this tours and we’ve still got twenty odd to go. But I’m getting a real push from the fans to have a best of compilation, best of everything compilation that would be on vinyl as well as other formats. That’s probably something I’ve got to get down to really soon for the fan base that love that, I think it’s a must to augment where we’re at as a band and and perhaps even get their opinion on what they think the best thirty songs are. It might be the thirty songs over thirty years. I don’t know. It might be a double double album.

Sounds exciting! So you’ve done Meatloaf, INXS and Queen, who is next?
Well, I don’t have it yet. I’ve got some ideas, but I don’t have one that I can particularly talk about now, but it’s got to be right for us, and it’s got to be the sort of thing that I think we can put Starfish spin on. So all those three albums we were able to feel that instinctively as a band. But I think that we couldn’t do Prince, for example, or Michael Jackson or anything like that. It just it doesn’t resonate with me as a singer, but also with the band. There’s a couple of things that I will announce later on that I think are a possibility, but I’ve got to bring it to the band, which I’ve not even done yet.

It is going to be a huge night at Norwood Concert Hall. Are you looking forward to playing Adelaide tonight?
Yeah. Last year when we did the “Bat Out Of Hell” show there it was fantastic. It’s an interesting venue. It’s not the big Princess and it’s not the pubs, it’s a really good mid size venue that’s right for us, we can get into it with the band, but with the audience we can also get them up and rock, which is what we will do one hundred percent in the in the rock half of the show. It lasts for about two hours and twenty minutes of us performing each show so you certainly get your money’s worth.

Interview By Rob Lyon

Catch Chocolate Starfish on the following dates, tickets HERE…