WIPPA Does anyone call you Johnny?
JOHN My parents and my immediate family do. Anyone that grew up with me in Springfield pretty much calls me Johnny.
WIPPA Because that’s a problem we have here in Australia. Sometimes we can be overly friendly, too early on in a relationship and maybe I should have just started with Sir John or the legend.
JOHN Sir John, that’s a lot.
FITZY What about when you’re in trouble with your wife? Is there a full name that she gives you when you’re in trouble?
JOHN No just curse words.
FITZY Congratulations mate, third child. That’s amazing news.
JOHN Thank you very much, we’re very excited.
WIPPA How’s the news settling in buddy?
JOHN Well we’ve known for a while, it’s news for you guys.
WIPPA So exciting. There’s no greater gift. Fitzy’s got a couple of kids. I’ve got three and we’re still trying to juggle it here.
FITZY And when you have multiple kids, John, we worked out very early that work is important just to get out of the house sometimes if you know what I mean.
JOHN I bring them with me sometimes, they travelled with me on tour this summer. But there’s plenty of times when work means I got to be away from them too. So you know, a healthy balance.
WIPPA You got to balance it out and did like during COVID? Did you have some where you could run off to because that was probably the issue with having a studio at home?
JOHN Well, our studio is a separate home. So it’s like, we’re about 15 minutes from where we live, really. And we drive over there and work there. But it’s still our space. But it’s separate from where we live.
FITZY John I’ve always wondered when you have your own studio, I love this stuff. And I you know, like I just I watched the Foo Fighters back and forth documentary again the other day, and they recorded a whole album out the back of Dave’s house. And when you want collaborators and people to come around just to your studio at all hours, could be two o’clock in the morning? Like can you just give us some names, where you just got people rocking up to your studio and helping you out?
JOHN Well, I don’t work late, like I work Dad hours. I would usually work during the day while the kids are at school and then try to be home by dinnertime so I can put them to bed. So yeah, I’m not living the Rockstar life in that sense. But you know, we would have all kinds of folks come over but these days you don’t need to have them in the same space all the time. So a lot of a lot of our collabs people you know did them in their own studio, particularly during COVID. You know people were all over the world and they got their vocals in but it sounds like we’re in the same room but a lot of times we’re not.
WIPPA John do you find like if you have something come into your head where you think that could be a song and you’re trying to parent at the same time are you just recording little notes into your phone?
JOHN Yeah I do voice notes. But I like I said my studio being away from home is on purpose. Because that way I can you know separate my day you know when I’m there I’m focused on music, when I’m home I’m focused on home.
