September 15, 2026 · Episode 83
1 Hr, 40 Min, 56 Sec 

Summary

What does it actually take to walk away from a career that pays well but costs you almost everything?

This week we’re joined in the studio by Bill Bate, a long-time listener who has quietly lived one of the more interesting creative detours we’ve heard in a while. Twenty years in the fly-in, fly-out oil and gas industry. A slow-burning disquiet. And on the other side of all of it: a photography degree, a music festival in regional Victoria, and a brass fountain pen he’s carried every day since 2010.

We talk about what it costs to stay too long in the wrong life, how creative people find each other and why Bill thought the only real solution to missing a creative community was to go and build one himself.

You might want to listen if:
• You’ve spent years doing work that pays but doesn’t quite fit and you want to get out, like yesterday
• You’ve been thinking about starting something – a group, an event, a regular gathering and you feel time is closing in
• You’re at the stage of life where you’ve stopped trying to name what you are and you just want to live creatively

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Transcript

Lyndon: Um, ooh, it’s recording. Can we just have it on record? That Bill has said there’s not too many guitars in this room. There’s never too many guitars.

Bill: No.

Lyndon: And he also thinks that when our son moves out, you know, ’cause he’s betrothed, that we should turn his room into a drum room.

Bill: Yeah. Why not? Make it a soundproof room upstairs.

Lyndon: This is turning out —

Bill: Cables through the roof, you know?

Lyndon: See, I’ve got this whole new attitude —

Bill: Patchbays.

Lyndon: Yeah, I’m with you. I’ve got this whole, like, new attitude I’ve been trying on, you know, since the breakdown and whatnot. You wake up and you go, “Today’s gonna be a great day.” And I forgot to do it this morning, but now —

Breallyn: You’ve come a long —

Lyndon: Way. Bill, you’ve, um, this is the greatest day ever. Wouldn’t you agree, Bre?

Breallyn: Well, I think Bill’s no longer invited.

Bill: I can leave now.

Breallyn: Yes.

Lyndon: We’ve got a good spread here that no one can reach, so it’s interesting as well. Yeah, it’s just taunting us. Yeah, it’s like — what are you gonna, how are you gonna… If you want to, seriously though, you can just — yeah… the mic around and you can get it and —

Breallyn: Yes.

Lyndon: Maybe while I’m talking — no one trusts you. ‘Cause generally I edit out everything that I say. There’ll be enough moments where you go, “Yeah, he’s not saying anything of great note really. I think I’ll have a cracker and cheese.” And just —

Bill: Just hear in the background this little like —

Lyndon: I mean, I get sick of myself, you know what I mean? Sometimes I just wanna shove crackers and cheese in my mouth just to shut me up. We shall, um, say that we’ve officially started this podcast.

Breallyn: Great.

Lyndon: And if there’s gonna be not eating, not whatever, I don’t… It’s all ASMR today. Is that what this is? ASMR? Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: No one knows what it stands for, but we’re doing it.

Breallyn: We just know that it means when people are eating.

Lyndon: Yeah. Well, there’s a whole podcast called Junkies, yeah. Have you ever listened to that?

Bill: No.

Lyndon: It’s Kitty Flanagan and Dave O’Neill reviewing junk food.

Bill: Nice.

Breallyn: Wow.

Lyndon: The Junkies.

Bill: As an audio engineer, though, I’m sure that that noise just rattled some bit in your brain going —

Lyndon: Did you, did you see it on my face?

Bill: Yeah. Those little clicks —

Lyndon: Clicks. Yeah. There’s —

Breallyn: I —

Lyndon: Bet they’re —

Breallyn: Not gonna make it —

Lyndon: Yeah —

Breallyn: Into the final cut.

Lyndon: But Bre has this thing that she does, and it is like a little lip smack. Everyone does it, like that. No, I can’t. It’s like — like that.

Breallyn: Yeah, you’ve been so kind about my mouth noise.

Why Podcasts Feel Like Community

Bill: I was one of those people who started a podcast during COVID.

Lyndon: Mm.

Bill: Oh, did you? And I think I got seven episodes in —

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And then went, “This is way too much work.”

Lyndon: Yeah. I was… You’re one of the smart ones. I’m counting on people like you, just so that podcast gets elevated over time by people just dropping out.

Bill: It’s one of those things that I randomly every now and again go, “I’d love to do that again,” but it’s just so much work.

Lyndon: But let’s talk about this. Like, people that are guests on podcasts seem to really enjoy the opportunity to have a chat, especially if they’ve done chat shows and that where they only get seven minutes and it’s all prearranged, you know, what they’re promoting or what they’re gonna be talking about.

And obviously, podcasts are a massive hit around the world. It’s kind of comforting, isn’t it, to know that people wanna spend time together and hear genuine stories, and, you know, I think that’s kinda part of the attraction, isn’t it?

Bill: Absolutely. And I mean, that’s… So when I was doing that, it was during COVID, and we were talking about creativity in creative spaces.

Lyndon: Mm.

Bill: Ooh. So that was how it — it was actually about the space.

Lyndon: Yeah. Well, okay.

Breallyn: Right.

Bill: For creativity.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Um, and to me, what I love about that — and doing stuff like this — is that talk about creativity, because it’s one of the big things that I miss living where I live — is that community of people that will talk about creativity.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Like, I mean, if you go to the pub in Marysville, more likely you are gonna talk about footy than you are about art.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Um, and that’s fine. Yeah. It’s living in a country town.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: But I do miss those conversations that would happen spontaneously —

Lyndon: Spontaneously.

Bill: That’s the one. Spontaneously. In Melbourne, you know? Yeah, yeah. Or in the inner north. You know, you’d have… you’d be sitting down for a coffee or a beer or whatever and chat about creativity. Like I enjoyed those conversations. So that was part of why I did it — and why I really enjoy this podcast —

Lyndon: Yeah, right.

Bill: Because it does talk about those sort of things, and it makes me feel like there is a community of people who take this sort of stuff seriously — and really think about it, and dive into it, I guess.

Lyndon: Yeah. So what do you think of this space?

Bill: It’s lovely. It’s, no, it’s, um… I love studios.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: You know, in a previous life I spent a fair bit of time in studio spaces. Um, I don’t have one anymore, I don’t work in one anymore, but I used to do a fair bit of work in both playing and — I rented a desk in a shared space that had a studio.

Lyndon: Yeah. Awesome.

Bill: So I love them. Like, I love these sort of spaces. They feel like home to me.

Breallyn: Um —

Bill: So yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah. That’s important. It’s, it’s funny walking into certain spaces, they immediately evoke things. Like for me it’s libraries or even bookstores. It’s just this feeling of settled-ness and homecoming, but also great excitement of the discoveries and the adventures, I suppose.

Bill: Yeah, absolutely.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah, we can talk about stationery and bookstores too. I’m quite happy to talk about that stuff because I’m 100% in that. That’s something that I don’t read as much as I used to. That’s mostly time-sensitive now. But yeah, it’s those sort of spaces I agree — there’s something special.

Breallyn: Mm-hmm.

Lyndon: Well, it’s, um, like in all seriousness, it’s nice to know that you enjoy the podcast because you’re probably, not that we ever thought about a target audience, you know, you do so many things — you’re probably the kind of, I don’t wanna alienate our audience now, but I just think that you’ve done so many things and you continue to sort of champion creative arts and live music. And like you say, you’re into stationery.

Bill: Pens and — yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah, we were talking about safe words. You missed the whole —

Lyndon: Talking about safe words, um, yeah, just to clarify.

Breallyn: Right.

Lyndon: Just in case. ‘Cause I haven’t settled on one yet. I’ll forget too. I’ll be editing and go, “Was it pizza? Jesus wept, Peavey?” Or was it, “Get that hot cup of tea off of my keyboard”? It’s when I’m editing. You know how we’ve been doing this sometimes — I’ll see that in the audio wave —

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And I’ll… yeah. It’s like, what would be better is if we actually have a word, or at least I have a word that I say so I know where that bit is we’re gonna cut out.

Breallyn: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Bill: ‘Cause you can search for the word.

Lyndon: You can search for the word.

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: I can just do a word search — but it needs to be something we wouldn’t normally say. So I said we couldn’t say “accountant” — because you talk about them all the time.

Breallyn: Do I? We hate them.

Lyndon: There was… we don’t hate them. Don’t say that. We had a good one, and she ruined it for everyone that came afterwards. Anyway, so yeah, that’s what we’ll talk about. But we can get back to what we were talking about, but I need a word. Campari. Campari. That’s all right, isn’t it?

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: I think so. That feels good to say. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: I did just see it up there on the shelf. Yeah. Can’t say gin, clearly, but we can say Campari.

Bill: No, I’ve heard you say gin multiple times. Yeah, yeah.

Lyndon: I know. Classic. Uh, so do you think, over time, potentially, with enough influx of art and artists in Marysville, that perhaps there will be a time where you’re at the pub and it’s not just football talk?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. So Marysville does definitely identify as a creative place. But I think just — I just don’t think they go to the pub.

There’s other places — that are there. So there’s definitely creative people there. Like, it’s one of the things that drew me there.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And yes, there is even more of an influx of creativity as time goes on. It’s just not one of those places like Castlemaine or — you know — maybe Bright or something like that, that has a real collection of artists — or Yackandandah or those sort of places that are really known for artists. But I’m pretty sure if you went there — like I’m just speaking of the grass is greener — pretty sure if you went there you’d get the same thing. You’re still walking to the front bar and people will be talking about the footy.

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: Well, I’m trying to remember now when we were in Yackandandah, we went to both the pubs at either end of the street. ‘Cause you were working in, was it in Brunswick or Northcote, or?

Bill: Yeah. So I lived in Brunswick for probably fifteen, almost twenty years maybe. And was working, yeah, worked all over the place there, but most of the studio work I was actually in Abbotsford Convent for a while. I had a space in Abbotsford Convent for a while. And I had a space at The Aviary in Collingwood. Which was that music studio we were talking about.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: So they were sort of my office spaces, for want of a better word.

Lyndon: Mm-hmm.

Bill: But then obviously, you’re surrounded by creativity living in Brunswick.

Lyndon: Yeah, it’s kinda like if you walked to have a lunch break or something, just walked over the road, you’d be passing so much sort of —

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: Creativity that would input into — yeah, maybe it just makes conversations, you know, go that way.

Bill: Yeah. And when people know you as a certain type of person, I guess, in that space — that’s just one of those things.

Breallyn: Definitely. Like, all the connections of the community as well. Exactly. The introductions and whatnot, the people that you tend to just be around. Yeah.

Bill: And I also spent a lot of time studying there and playing music, so the people who I was surrounded by were all creatives in one way or another. And there’s a broad spectrum of what we can define as a creative.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: I mean, I think there’s lots of people who are creatives without necessarily identifying as artists or, you know, whatever they wanna do. I probably wouldn’t identify as an artist.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: So — yeah, it’s just, uh, and it’s one of the things that I love listening to this podcast — is just that I feel like you’ve really got the opportunity to grow a network of people who are similar probably to me — and probably to you two in some way or another. That’s probably one of the reasons you started it, was because, you know, life gets in the way.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And you spend so much time in your own head or talking to yourselves — that talking to other people and being part of a larger community, I mean — we are human.

Breallyn: Mm. Mm.

Bill: And we do like to be part of a community of people.

Lyndon: Allegedly.

Bill: Yeah, you know?

Breallyn: I think that is — definitely one of the things that’s really important to us is knowing that there’s so many people, yeah, just kind of like us who have such a creative bent, and it’s such a personal and important part of their lives, and yet it is hard to build community or speak up about it, or you know, it just kind of gets a bit lost or pushed aside a little bit.

So yeah, that is the idea behind it — championing the ideas and the thoughts that we all have and just saying there is a place for us to all talk about it and explore those ideas and those feelings and all the, you know, the things that come with being someone who is creative and has that drive. Um, so yeah, we definitely want that network and community to thrive and to build and to start connecting with one another and, you know, feel like this is — our Pain In The Arts little hub here is something for creatives to enjoy and to own, I guess.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. And I think, I, it’s definitely a really, it’s a new and unique voice, I think, in that space, which is really nice.

Breallyn: Oh cool.

Lyndon: Mm, okay.

Breallyn: That’s really good feedback.

Bill: I think that sort of not taking yourself too seriously — that — you know —

Breallyn: We can’t do that.

Lyndon: I can’t, no. Uh.

Bill: Yeah, but I think it all really, in my mind, it all really works. I listen, I probably came in, you know, five or ten episodes in —

Breallyn: Yeah, okay.

Bill: Right at the start. Yeah. And I’ve listened since.

Breallyn: Oh, great. Yeah. Oh, that’s so awesome to hear and, yeah, to get that feedback, ’cause you’re, yeah, like Lyndon was saying, you’re the exact kind of person that we hope is gonna get something out of, you know, listening to us rabbit on each week.

Lyndon: Can we talk about why I hate the disability sector?

Breallyn: No. Can we — we’re not gonna do that. Why not? But can we actually pause a sec and do our intro? Um, because I want Bill to be able to talk about — you know, just introduce himself and —

Bill: Oh, God.

Breallyn: And then —

Lyndon: And then can I talk about my —

Breallyn: My —

Lyndon: Hatred — no.

Of the disability sector? No. Okay. I don’t know why there’s two embargoes now on this conversation.

Breallyn: Because we’ve got — Campari. Campari.

Lyndon: We’ve got so much to talk about. It’s not gonna be disability today.

Breallyn: We’ve got so much to talk about. It’s not gonna be disability today.

Lyndon: Oh my gosh.

Meet Bill and Creative Work

Lyndon: Welcome to Pain In The Arts, where the pursuit of meaningful art meets the unpredictable demands of real life, and where one of us knows the topic at the same time you do. That’s kind of it, isn’t it?

Breallyn: Yep. I’m Breallyn.

Lyndon: I’m Lyndon.

Breallyn: And today we are joined by a special guest, Bill. Yay. Please introduce yourself.

Bill: Yeah. Uh, I’m Bill Bate. I don’t know how to introduce myself. I’m not really good at doing the —

Breallyn: The whole — no, that’s okay, it’s hard. It is. It’s weird being put on the spot like that.

Lyndon: But it’s hard to introduce yourself when you’ve been here for, like, an hour.

Breallyn: I know. We had a nice coffee and a chat.

Lyndon: I needed the mic as soon as he walked in the door. “Hey, here’s Bill.” I think —

Breallyn: It’s also —

Lyndon: Also —

Breallyn: No, tell us what you do, Bill. You’ve got a business going on. You do all sorts of great event planning and so on.

Bill: I think that’s probably why I find it difficult to introduce myself because I don’t really know what I do.

Breallyn: You do a bunch of things.

Bill: I do a whole bunch of things. Yeah. So I run a business called Clear Air Creative, which does photo, video, and sound. So —

Lyndon: Triple threat.

Bill: Yeah. Um, and then I also do a lot of event work. I run the Marysville Music Weekend. I live in Marysville — in regional Victoria, and um, I do a bunch of band booking and all that sort of stuff as well on the outside. And yeah. So I work mostly in the music industry, I would think, in my own business. Although I would love to try to broaden that, to try to make a little bit more money, but you know.

Lyndon: Why? What’s the problem?

Breallyn: There’s not enough money going around?

Lyndon: Yeah. Isn’t it fantastic when you come up with your business idea and you work out how you’re gonna make money, and then you discover that your main target client has no money? Isn’t that like the worst?

Bill: Well, yeah, when I was doing the branding for the — so for a lot of years I just worked under my own name.

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: But when I was doing the branding for the business — um, I employed like a brand expert, and uh — Todd, Todd’s his name. He’s a musician who lived in Melbourne. He’s in New Zealand now, but lovely bloke. And he went, “You do realise that your clients have no money?”

Lyndon: No money. Someone said that to me once and I ignored them.

Bill: Yeah. But, you know, it is what it is. So, um, yeah. I guess I just — no matter what I do, I end up back in music. And yeah, right — and that’s because there’s a draw.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Mm. Yep. Like, I love it, it does drive me. There is something special about music. And although I work in all these other things around music — it’s music that is the underpinning bit that brings it all together. Mm.

Lyndon: Yeah. The power of music.

Breallyn: I was having a little scroll on your Instagram this morning and seeing even the photos that you’re doing. I know recently you’ve taken photos for Ricky Wood, who’s been a guest here on the podcast. Like, even when you’re doing photo and video, it’s about music — kind of thing, so it’s very connected. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah, exactly. And don’t hold my socials against me because I’m very bad at it even though it’s part of my business.

Breallyn: Not at all.

Lyndon: Can you employ a marketing genius?

Breallyn: I don’t do any socials.

Lyndon: Todd from New Zealand.

Bill: It’s a funny thing, this whole idea of content creation — um, which I hate that word, by the way.

Lyndon: Yeah, I just threw up in my mouth a bit.

Bill: Yeah. Uh, I mean, essentially that’s what I’m doing for businesses and for musicians. But I just hate the idea that you have to do that.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Um, but so it’s that balance of making meaningful and important work that is true and represents an artist without just throwing stuff at an algorithm.

Lyndon: Right. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Breallyn: Absolutely.

Bill: Um, and there’s a bit of — you do have to play the game a little bit, but I just, yeah, it doesn’t make me happy that we’re in that —

Breallyn: No, great.

Bill: Place.

Breallyn: Well, it’s interesting. I feel like it’s definitely a theme that comes through from so many of our guests and us as well, of going, “We get it.” You know, this is the marketing of today. It just has to happen. But there is something that just feels so disingenuous about it and something that just, yeah, makes us all just go, “Ugh, we don’t wanna do it.” You know? We wanna do the real thing. And then —

Lyndon: Well —

Breallyn: This other thing just feels so front-facing and not, not, yeah, not focused on the genuine.

Lyndon: And also, when you realise that the amount of people that are doing it and the amount of people that are actually getting any return on it. So like if you’re making some money from it, like you can do a gig you don’t particularly like, but you got paid and you’re like, “All right, that’s important ’cause it puts petrol in the car.” Not your new one, obviously, Bill. Would be nice. But you know, it puts food on the, whatever. You can kinda go, “Oh, money kinda solved that little equation.”

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: You know? Yeah. But like for the overwhelming majority of artists and people just in general that are making content and are sort of forced to do it — it’s almost the same thing as saying, “Hey, come and do your art,” or, “Can we use your art and you can just get some recognition for it?” And it’s like, it’s not even that.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Because it seems to me, and I don’t know whether it’s because of the way algorithms sort of send you more of what you’re into — yeah, so this is probably inaccurate, but in my sort of little online world, I go, “Oh, more and more people are opting out.”

Bill: No, I think that’s definitely a trend.

Lyndon: Do you think it’s happening?

Bill: Yeah. Okay. 100%.

Lyndon: All right.

Bill: I think that idea of posting for posting’s sake — and the whole, you know, you gotta post three times a week and gotta do the thing and gotta — like, that I think is slowly disappearing.

Lyndon: Like whose pockets are you lining when you’re doing that?

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah, we all know, and that’s I think the biggest thing that kinda kills it in us. It’s not like we’re doing it to reach our audience. It’s like we’re doing it, we’re all propping up this system of billionaires — why should we? We don’t want to anymore.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: So, yeah.

Bill: And that’s that old thing, you know, you only need a small group of really committed people — um, to follow you and to be in your corner.

Lyndon: Yeah, yeah.

Bill: So you don’t need hundreds of thousands of people. Yeah. Like, it would be nice to have 100,000 people, you know, love what you do and wanna support you. But realistically, to live the life that we live — you know, you need 100, 200, 500, 1,000 people. Like if you had 1,000 people that were willing to put money in your pocket every time you played live, or every time you wrote a book, or every time you wrote a blog piece or published a bit of content — then you’d be comfortable, you know?

Lyndon: Yeah, that’s right.

Bill: You don’t need these big, huge audiences.

Lyndon: No, not at all. ‘Cause yeah, as I’ve said before, if you… when you’re going into… like when you have a marketing person say you realise that you’re in the wrong business if you wanna make money, you know? You’re making a decision then to go, “Right, well, I have to live a particular way, and is that okay?”

Bill: Yeah. Look, I mean — and I’ve done the alternative — the way we chatted about it when I was up in Marysville.

Leaving a Corporate Career for a Creative Life

Bill: I don’t know how much you know about my backstory, but I spent —

Lyndon: I wanna get into your backstory.

Bill: Please. Oh, I really, really wanna get into it. Oh, wow. So it’s a — I spent 20 years in oil and gas.

Breallyn: Yes. Oh, really?

Bill: Um, in — I —

Breallyn: I did not know that.

Bill: Yeah. Doing fly-in, fly-out work in — oil and gas and power generation.

Breallyn: My gosh, that’s so different. Yeah. Wow, completely different world.

Bill: Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I don’t know that — I very quickly realised, ’cause I was in it for 20 years. I probably did very quickly realise that it wasn’t for me, but it just took me a long time to get out of it.

Yeah. So, um, and I think that idea that money can change the way you think — or make — like, I understand completely what you’re saying, whether you do certain things for money and you just, you know, you gotta keep the bills on and whatever.

And I still do those things. But there is a point where turning away from a path — and a passion, and something that really drives you — you just can’t do it anymore. Like, I got to that point where you can’t just keep —

Lyndon: Was it — did it affect you, like, when it was getting to that point where you’re like, “I’ve gotta make a change” —

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: Were you feeling something physically and mentally as well?

Bill: Yeah, absolutely. Like, I think going back to that time, I probably had a small breakdown.

Lyndon: Mm.

Bill: I was definitely not myself.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Mm. Um, and people who… so at the point — so I kinda fell into that trade. My dad was an engineer. Um —

Lyndon: You have to tell this story.

Breallyn: Oh, tell the story.

Bill: So my dad was an engineer. I was sort of bumbling around, you know, just doing what I did. I took a year off after high school and just sort of bumbled around doing whatever.

Lyndon: The gap year.

Bill: Yeah. Mm. And Dad went, “Come and work with us. We’re moving an office,” and I was employed to clean an office, and then I sort of started doing a bit of other work, and a bit of other work, and a bit of… And just sort of fell into it.

Lyndon: Mm. ‘Cause he was in the same industry.

Bill: Yeah. Mm. He was in the same industry. But I mean, I remember — my first job away, like a lot of the time was fly-in fly-out, and I, you know — hope Dad, I don’t know whether Dad will ever listen to this, but I remember my first job away from home in Brisbane — and Dad was running the shutdown. It was a shutdown on a power station. And Dad, after a few beers — and my dad doesn’t drink — but I remember him after a few beers going, “Don’t stay. Don’t do this.”

Breallyn: Oh, wow.

Bill: You know? And I was 18.

Breallyn: Wow.

Bill: You know, 19 years old. So, and I did for a lot of years.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Um, but I just, you know, it got to a point where I just couldn’t do it anymore. Even when it got to that point I did go back a few times and stumble in and out. And I always sort of — even early on it was always like, “I’m just doing this to get the money and then it gives me time to do this other thing.”

Lyndon: Yeah, yeah, that’s right.

Bill: Yeah. You know?

Lyndon: Is that a trap, or?

Bill: Yes.

Breallyn: It’s a trap.

Bill: Yes. It is.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And in lots of ways I regret it. I don’t regret it because it’s allowed me to see the world. It’s allowed me to travel a lot. I’ve travelled all over Australia with this job. I’ve travelled all the way through Southeast Asia.

Lyndon: And that can be intoxicating, can’t it?

Bill: Yeah. The sort of drama of it all and the, you know — like that sort of going out to adventure.

Lyndon: Yeah. That would be — ’cause we all need adventure.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. That was a cool part of it, especially when I was young.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: But it just got to the point where I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. And I wish if I was an eighteen-year-old self again — I would just say, “Go and do what you’re passionate about and find the work and live, do what you wanna do.” I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. Yeah. That was the problem.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: And I still don’t know what I wanna do. You know, like —

Breallyn: It’s a constant discovery. I think that’s one thing that I’ve noticed with talking to so many people now, is that it’s not like you go, “Right, I wanna be a musician,” and then that’s it, decision made, and you’re in the job, and then it’s kinda solved. It’s almost like it’s continually evolving and unfolding and unfurling before you, and you’re just stepping in each time, each sort of little season, into some new part of that discovery of what, where your creative journey will lead.

Bill: Absolutely.

Breallyn: Yeah. It’s such a different journey to going, “I work in oil and gas,” and then that’s the job, and then, you know —

Lyndon: You know what I think part of it might be, and this is only just occurring to me now, is that when you’re on that journey, you’re discovering who you are as well. So you’re discovering what the job is and what the people in that job are like and what you may or may not need to do, and then it starts to become like, well, what are you comfortable doing?

And what are your skills? It’s different to getting, I don’t know, a degree or something and then going into a job. Like, who you are can be put on hold, I guess, while you’re doing that job. I imagine, so I’m told.

‘Cause I knew from an early age I was gonna be in music. I just wanted to play guitar. But then, like, as I got closer to that time of leaving school and, you know, everyone’s like, “What are you gonna do for a living?” I’m like, “Oh, well, I’ll be a guitarist, and then I’ll be a… or maybe I’ll be an artist.” But I was always a dreamer, so it was just like this dream that I had.

Breallyn: Mm-hmm.

Lyndon: But now knowing and seeing the sort of things that I’ve done and seeing what other people do and how they’ve started, I’ve kind of realised that had I known more about what I was like — you know, like for instance, the tenacity that you need to be able to be an artist, as in a musician who is promoting their stuff. Just this self-belief, you know? It’s a certain kind of person that presents a particular way, and not always — there’s obviously exceptions to that rule.

But for me personally, it’s like I think what I’m doing now, I would’ve loved to have been doing that, you know? I just think I would’ve loved to have started that a lot earlier, you know, like in my 20s, and really been able to build that up rather than this sort of dreamer’s journey that I was on. ‘Cause I was, you know, and still am. Like, I just sort of follow the dream that — if you wanted me to articulate it and write it down on paper, I probably couldn’t.

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: You know? Um, so —

Breallyn: And maybe that’s something that we need to embrace a little bit more as a creative community — the uncertainty and the fact that like all three of us here in this room, we wouldn’t be here today had we not been on the journeys that we’ve been on, and like the discoveries that we have had. And there is something, I don’t know, essential about having done those things to get to this point.

Bill: Absolutely. I mean, you are a representation of all of those things that have happened in your past. So who would’ve known — like, you know, if at age 18 I went, “I just wanna play drums for the rest of my life” —

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: I probably would’ve just been a grumpy old drummer. You know? Like, who knows where you would’ve been?

Lyndon: I can see it, ’cause I’ve —

Bill: You’ve met them?

Breallyn: We’ve met them.

Lyndon: Not just drummers, but yeah, drummers. But seriously, like across the board — I’ve met those people.

Bill: Yeah. So like, you know, all of these life choices — regrets or whatever — they do lead you to where you are. And I’m, you know, I’m in a beautiful spot. I’m happy, comfortable. Got an amazing house, and all of those things happened because of oil and gas. You know? Like I got to where I am now because of that time and sacrifice that I made.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: But I think one of the important things for me — that didn’t work for me and is working now — is that ability to try to turn off what I wanted to be doing. So I, for a long time — I went, “I can turn this off when I’m away and working and turn it back on again.”

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: You know? And almost be two people.

Lyndon: Yeah. That’s healthy.

Bill: And separate those people. And I didn’t —

Breallyn: Yeah, and then it catches up. So you can do it for about 20 years, but then —

Bill: Well, no, I reckon it’s probably less than that. Yeah. Like, I reckon 2010 for me was… so I started that in — so it was about ten years of that really sort of —

Breallyn: All right.

Bill: Went, “Nah.”

Lyndon: Like ten years of you nearly having this dual sort of —

Bill: Yeah, and —

Lyndon: Role.

Bill: And, uh, you know, I’d been in and out of trying to — like so I didn’t know what I wanted to do. So I’d gone to uni and then gone back into the industry and then, you know, all of these sort of — ’cause I just didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life. Yeah.

And then I just got to the point where I was — sometime in 2007 I went, if I don’t know what I’m gonna do — and I was just getting all these opportunities in the relatively small field that I had, ’cause I was good at my job — and I just went, “If I don’t know what I’m gonna do, I’m just gonna go all out at oil and gas.

And I’m gonna be the best person in oil and gas. I’m gonna be known all over the world. I’m gonna fly all over the world. I’m gonna do all the things. I’m gonna make lots of bank,” you know?

Breallyn: Yep.

Bill: And that was a ridiculous decision, ’cause that’s what led to me — you know, the last year before it sort of all fell apart, I’d done 260 days away in a year.

Breallyn: Mm. Gosh.

Bill: You know? Like —

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Were you becoming that guy, though?

Bill: I don’t think so. Having said that, I remember when I did leave — like when I told people that I was pulling up stumps — a lot of my colleagues and friends were really surprised and were like, “What are you doing? Why would you give this up?” type thing.

Lyndon: Yeah. You’re on the path to becoming a magnate. Is that what it is? Or a baron?

Bill: No, I don’t think… I was always — thinking about owning the oil fields?

Breallyn: Yeah, exactly.

Bill: I wasn’t ever that. But it was just — at that point, yeah, there were lots of people who were really surprised.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Mm. So maybe they saw me differently than I saw myself. But I always saw myself as an outsider in that world. And then transitioning into — so I left, I was in Perth at the time working offshore in Perth and — and I left Perth. Um, I met my wife in Perth. She was one of the big reasons to make the change. Like, she was the right person that came along at the right time in my life, and has really helped me to sort of understand the value of friendships and creativity and — not money, you know? Or not that work, not that idea of a career.

Lyndon: Yeah. That’s great.

Bill: Um, yeah, so we met, and then when we moved back to Melbourne I left the industry and I went back and studied photography. And initially just thinking, “I’m gonna take six months off the trade.” And I went and did a six-month short course, which happened to be the start of an advanced diploma, which turned into a degree and turned into where I am now essentially. But at the time it was just something to keep me busy, because I love photography. And it could’ve been music, it could’ve been a lot of things. I think at that point it was just photography, ’cause —

Lyndon: Because you were a drummer.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Claiming Creative Identity

Bill: So I was playing music at that time. I was playing before I moved to Perth. And yeah, got pretty heavily involved in playing and doing session work and multiple bands and the whole deal, and, you know, like we all do.

Breallyn: Yep.

Bill: Um, and took that pretty seriously. But going back to that sort of transition, I remember that time during study that it really took me a long time to identify as a musician, and I distinctly remember the time where I sort of — I produced somebody a work that was a book, which I’ve still got lots of copies of here if anyone wants a copy of it. I produced a book —

Lyndon: What do you mean?

Breallyn: The garage files.

Bill: Yeah, yeah. One of those — I’ll swap you for one of my CDs. I produced a record, yeah. That I thought I’d sell 100. But I produced — like, it was just a zine, for want of a better word.

Lyndon: Yeah, yeah.

Bill: A book, but it was about me and about — at that point in time I was doing a lot of band photography, live band photography on film.

Lyndon: Yeah, yeah. Great.

Bill: And this was — so I did like a zine of that, and one of the big clicks in that was that was the first time that I sort of publicly said, “I’m a musician —”

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: “And I’m a photographer.”

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Like, that was me actually identifying myself as that. Yeah. Because it took me a long time to sort of — A, say that that was okay, and B, identify as that, even though I knew it in my head. And now, however many years later, fifteen years later — who gives a stuff about labels?

Breallyn: But it still is important to be able to say that out loud, and yeah, I completely — it, for me, I had a similar thing. Like, I’d say, “Oh, I’m studying writing,” or, “You know, I’m hoping to be a writer.” And then when you finally go, “I am a writer,” you know, it’s just this little hurdle, this little jump that you get across. It means nothing to anyone else, but it’s kind of important to get there.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: And yeah.

Barista Life Breaking Point

Lyndon: Speaking of grumpy old men, when I was a barista — so I was doing baristering in the mornings and then going to studio in the afternoon. Basically, people in my network and community all saw me as a barista. And as much as I love coffee, in my mind I’m like, “This is my part-time job.” What I actually am — you wouldn’t know it by the bank account, but what I actually am is I’m a musician, and I’m working in a studio, and I’m working on my next album. I’ve been saying that for 100 years.

Yeah. But that’s how I — ’cause that was, like, from a young age, that’s always what I was doing. So the barista was just a way to support the family that also allowed me a lifestyle that let me work as a musician. And it just got increasingly aggravating for me — to the point that I was becoming, like, grumpy. Which is dangerous when you’re already a barista and you’re inclined to be grumpy anyway. Like, that’s part of the job at 6:00 in the morning.

Bill: At 6:00 in the morning.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Breallyn: You’re having a flat white and that’s what you’re having.

Lyndon: I think maybe there’s some things that led to me having my, um, fallout. What was that movie with Michael Douglas? He broke —

Breallyn: Breaking Down or —

Lyndon: Yeah. Falling Down. Was it Falling Down? Something like that.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: Movie from the ’90s where he just… anyway.

Breallyn: He starts the day as a normal accountant or whatever, going to work.

Lyndon: Accountant. Account — see…

Breallyn: I don’t know if he’s an accountant.

Lyndon: I think he was a Wall Street guy.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: I’m not sure, but yeah.

Breallyn: And at the end of the movie he’s dirty and blood-soaked and I think he’s carrying an AK-47 or something.

Lyndon: I think what happens, he’s in a traffic jam on the freeway. The cars are not moving. It’s like a car park, and that was it. That was the final straw. And he loses it.

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: I go, “You know what?” I’m not into gun violence. I haven’t actually seen the movie. But yeah, I was on that trajectory, I think. Yeah. Except instead of a gun, it would’ve been boiling hot water. Caffeinated boiling hot water. Also, my business was called The Caffeinator. So — and my slogan was “Hasta Barista, Baby.”

Bill: Very good. Nice.

Lyndon: And regularly, stations like Fox FM and that would regularly have people ring in to say interesting business names that they’d seen, and mine regularly came up.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: They’d be like, “Oh, yeah, I just passed The Caffeinator on the Ring Road and it says ‘Hasta Barista, Baby.'” And so, yeah. People liked and identified me as The Caffeinator. You know, “Are you The Caffeinator, or is the car The Caffeinator, the van, the ca—” all this stuff. And so, yeah, the recognition was all positive, but I kinda hated it.

Bill: And the other thing is that I’m sure there would’ve been a selection of people who looked at you and went, “Creative person, coffee, making coffee in the morning — what an awesome job. Like, what a dream.”

Lyndon: Every day, and without a lie, every day there’d at least be one person go, “Mate, you’re living the dream.”

Bill: Mm.

Lyndon: “Look at you, doing coffee in the morning — and then doing whatever you want with the rest of the day.” Or if they knew that I did music stuff, which all my regulars did. Yeah. They’d be like, “And then you get to go to the studio in the afternoon.” And yeah, you’re right, they thought… and they’re all in like proper jobs — and some of them own the businesses and the companies and — and they’re making money, and they, you know, and they’re fine with everything, but they’re looking at my life going, “Mate, you’re living the dream. I would love to do what you do.”

But inside I — look, any given day I could go through the whole gamut. Like, on one drive from Thomastown to Epping I could flip in and out of going, “I’m living the dream,” to, “I hate this, I gotta get out of this.” Yeah. You know? So.

Bill: And I mean, a lot of people saw that for me too.

Lyndon: Mm.

Breallyn: Mm-hmm.

FIFO Burnout and Exit

Bill: ‘Cause I, like, you know, I was working two weeks on, two weeks off for a long time. Yeah. And people think that’s a dream. And then I moved towards the end — because, you know, there was a shortage of people and I was sort of checking out, but still had that reputation — I went to two on, four off. Then I went to two weeks on, six weeks off.

Lyndon: Oh, come on.

Bill: And then I went to two weeks on, eight weeks off, and people were like, “This is the dream.” And I was like, every time I’d go and pack that bag to go away again — I wanna — like, shoot myself. Yeah. Well, not, not really.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Like, I never got —

Breallyn: That bad. But it’s kind of killing you on the inside. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. It never got — so I don’t wanna joke about that.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. It never got to that point. And that’s not something to — so, um —

Breallyn: But it is a — like a certain, you know, you get to recognise, “Okay, my mental health is actually deteriorating doing this.” And you can get intrusive thoughts, and your mood generally can be really, really badly affected.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: And it’s really important to recognise those signs.

Bill: And it’s a very real problem in the industry. Um, and it is — in the FIFO industry.

Breallyn: Yes.

Bill: Right? Yes. And it is, you know, I know people who have taken their lives —

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: And it’s not something — like, every time I say that I don’t — like it’s very real and it is a very real problem.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: And so it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

Lyndon: And the thing too — like I’ve never been in that position. But the ruminating and the sort of stuff that can come before a breakdown, like that’s definitely what happened to me. It wasn’t the only thing, there were a lot of things happening in my world. But that ruminating of going, “I’ve gotta get out of this. I have a plan. I know my health is being affected, but I’ve got a plan to get out and I’ve got a plan that’s gonna make all of this right. I’ve just gotta keep working at it every day.”

And that was sort of the trap for me — because one day you wake up and yeah, you’re like — you physically can’t move, or you know. What were some of the symptoms I had? Like it was just —

Breallyn: Your fingers were tingling, you almost had no sensation in your hands.

Lyndon: I couldn’t play guitar — for at least three months. Not because I was told, “Don’t play guitar.” I physically couldn’t play, which is — you know, like just crazy stress to put on someone who that’s been their whole thing since they were seven. You know? Yeah. Six or seven or whatever.

So it’s like, I think for guys especially, like we’ve always got a plan, we’ve always got a quest. Like we can even recognise that we’re perhaps not mentally in a great place, but we’ve got a plan and so we’re gonna get ourselves out of it. But —

Bill: Yeah. And it took me, you know, 2010 I went to part-time work — and my last contract was in 2015.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: So it took me a long time. Yeah. And, like, there were times that I wasn’t working, and then I went back to work, and then I went back to work and whatever. And that’s the one that broke it in the end. I took a job in Darwin — ’cause I’d just finished uni. I’d studied.

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: And I wanna get off oil and gas eventually, but I mean, I think it’s important to talk about these sort of things. But I took a job in Darwin at the end of university because I’d been working part-time during uni and, you know, didn’t have much money in the bank and whatever. And just finished uni and then I kinda just called round some old contacts and said, “I’m back in the game,” and was thinking, you know, one last job, you know?

Lyndon: One last hurrah.

Bill: Yeah. Make some money and — like, and I went and did a — I supervised a construction job, which at the time was the biggest construction job in Australia, in Darwin.

Breallyn: Wow.

Bill: Uh, and I was working four weeks on, one week off on night shift.

Breallyn: Oh, my Lord. Yeah.

Bill: And this was — I did two swings before I got married to my now wife. Uh, flew home and got married, and then went back to work. So, Nikki did move to Darwin, like, after we got married, so she did move up there, and she had a great time because she was working part-time and enjoying Darwin. Yeah. And I was, uh, sleeping and working and — and that sort of really just broke me in the end.

I just — like, I remember sitting on the balcony of… ’cause I was working night shift, it was sort of, you know, sun coming up with a beer and listening to music. I still can tell you exactly what the music was. But, you know, listening to music on that balcony and just going — and we quit overnight, really. Overnight.

Breallyn: Wow, yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: One night I just went, “Nope. I’m done.”

Lyndon: That’s it, yeah.

Bill: And we were at the point of almost buying a new house, and, like, we owned a place in Brunswick, but we were buying another place near where I live now. And pulled the pin on that and travelled the world instead. Like, literally went and bought a round-the-world ticket, and just said to Nikki, “I’m done. Can we be done?”

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: And she was like, “Yep.” And I went, “Let’s go buy a ticket.”

Lyndon: “Let’s go buy a round-the-world ticket.”

Breallyn: Wow. Go —

Bill: Around the world and —

Lyndon: In 80 days. Bugger it. Is that a thing?

Breallyn: What a freeing decision. But yeah, it’s so hard that you kept at it until you nearly broke, but fortunately, yeah, you had something good to step into, and a supportive partner as well. Yeah. And actually, that was something I wanted to draw out of our conversation — two sort of little things that struck me. Like what your dad said to you, and gave you that warning, at that time. You could’ve forgotten that, or you know, it might not have meant something when he said it, but you’ve remembered that thing.

Bill: Mm.

Breallyn: And it’s almost like even though you stayed in the industry for a long time, having your dad say that to you — it’s kinda like a permission and a caring for you and your soul, essentially, at that time.

Bill: Yeah. I don’t even know whether Dad would remember that. Like, you know, I should bring it up. My dad — I’ve got no idea whether he would remember even having that conversation. But it definitely did mean something to me then.

Lyndon: And also — like, I remember you telling me that for a period of time too, and it was when you were contracting back in the business, that you couldn’t hang out with the colleagues. Like, you would just put headphones on and have lunch —

Bill: Towards the end — yeah. Like, and I say that was my last big contract. I did do a small stint when we bought our house, ’cause I needed to — I had no income.

Breallyn: The banks like to see a job, don’t they?

Bill: And the banks like to see a job. Yeah. So I went and did a — which was that two on, two off, and then two on, four off, two on, six off, two on, eight off. That was the end. So the end was probably 2017, 2018. Mm. But that wasn’t really — I don’t consider that really a job because I literally went back to another place that I’d been before and said — I knew the manager there, I knew the people there, and I went, “I don’t wanna be bothered. I don’t wanna do anything. Like —”

Lyndon: Just pay me.

Bill: When I was last there, I was a technical officer, so I was sort of managing the technical aspects of a lot of people at the time. And when I went back, I just went, “I wanna be a tech. I don’t wanna be bothered. Don’t annoy me. Don’t — just let me be.” And they were like, “Yep, cool. We need people, we need good people.” So, but yeah, I would literally be working 6:00 AM till 6:00 PM. I’d come home, I’d have a shower, I’d throw headphones on, I’d walk to the mess, I’d eat my dinner by myself.

Lyndon: Mm.

Bill: I’d go home. I’d be in bed at 7:30 at night. I’d sleep. I’d wake up at 5:00 in the morning, have a shower, put my work uniform on. Like, that was me.

Lyndon: Wow.

Bill: Like —

Breallyn: Existence.

Bill: And I worked by myself every day. Like, I didn’t work with anyone. So I was doing 12 hours in a car by myself, like in Cairns, listening to podcasts or audiobooks or whatever. Yeah. Wow. Um, and then like sleeping and that — that was like — so I went, “I’m going away to make money.” I didn’t drink, I gave up drinking away from home because it just wasn’t good for me. Yeah. Mm.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: So I didn’t drink when I was travelling. I had probably one or two beers the night before I flew out to come home. But yeah, that’s what it got to in the end.

Breallyn: To just exist, to do the job, to get the money, to pay the house. And not, yeah.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: It is very hard to compartmentalise yourself, and over the course of so many years as well, and it obviously took a toll and got to the point that you could no longer keep doing that.

Lyndon: Yeah. Did you — I’m not sure if you mentioned this before, but can you tell us what your dad’s father, like what industry he worked in?

Bill: Same. So, so like my first —

Lyndon: This is what I think is the — like, I just found this story at the time fascinating for so many reasons.

Bill: Yeah. And like, you know, I’m sure I don’t wanna imply this to — ’cause I’m sure if dad listens to this, which he may, he will go — he will feel terrible, at him introducing me to this and me saying… Like, so I do wanna say like it’s not like — and it did do a lot of good things. It also did a lot of bad things, so. Yeah. And it’s not his choice — was just the introduction. But yes, my first job in the industry was in the same office that my dad worked and my grandpa worked. And my dad, on one of the first days I ever worked there, went, “That was grandpa’s office.”

Lyndon: Isn’t that amazing? And —

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And then to be told, “Hey, don’t — don’t do this.”

Breallyn: Get out of this. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. And I think if dad was, you know — I just think I — I do think dad would’ve probably made that… I think dad probably said that because he would’ve done something different.

Lyndon: But I also imagine — like, that’s not, it’s an amazing story, but I also think it’s probably the story of so many men as well, but without that “Hey, get out.” Like, you know how when people know what they know, and then if their son goes into it, then now they know what that is that their son’s going into, and so it’s a known factor, good or bad. You know? And so what Bre’s saying is like, it was an action of love —

Bill: Absolutely.

Lyndon: You know? Yeah. Mm. To tell you that. And a lot of blokes probably wouldn’t have said that at all.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: And yeah, it’s —

Bill: And like I said — I’m sure if my parents — like I don’t know that I’ve ever actually had this conversation with mum and dad as far as this.

Lyndon: Yeah. Mm. Well, they’re here now.

Bill: But I’m sure if they listen to this, and they probably will because they know I’m recording today — um, they would, like I said, they would hate that I felt that way. Like, yeah, yeah. And I don’t think I’d sort of let anyone know as much as… And I don’t, you know, I’m not — there’s no blame. There’s no — like it’s not got anything to do with them. I made the decisions to stay where I stayed and did what I did. And like I said, I had fun in the first little while, but it just got to the point where I couldn’t do it anymore. But let’s —

Breallyn: No, I had one more question about that.

Bill: I’ve got one more thing too, but yeah, go ahead.

Lyndon: And I’ve still gotta talk about my hate of the disability sector. All right, I’m not gonna let that go.

Breallyn: Let’s just clarify — not disabled people, just the sector that surrounds it.

Lyndon: You’ll find out.

Breallyn: Okay, great. Um, my question — like, you’ve probably heard us mention we’ve got a young bloke who’s a drummer. Yeah. And he’s literally today about to go for a job interview in factory work, like pick packing, logistics type thing. He’s at that exact point of going, “I have to enter this adult world of work and paying for stuff and doing all those responsible kind of things, and I hate the idea.” Is it possible to have an identity for yourself where you are happy with going, “I am a drummer,” or, “I am a musician,” or, “I am a writer,” or whatever, and also still do this other work? Like, how do you reconcile it?

Bill: So I still do that. Yeah. Okay. So I still don’t have enough — I supplement an income. So I still have another job, and I have ever since I left oil and gas. But I now take those jobs based on my perceived — what’s the word — that I think I’m giving back in some way. So like, most of it’s contract work, but it’s all around that creativity.

Lyndon: Mm.

Bill: So I’ve worked in — I worked for the local tourism board as an arts and events coordinator.

Breallyn: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So there’s lots of creativity there. Yeah. Absolutely. Um, I worked at the local council in the economic development department doing community building — and that was mostly running events. And now I work in sort of event logistics and support at council. Event support officer. So those things aren’t 100% what I want to be doing — but they’re around that.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: And they’re uplifting the community — and they’re doing good.

Breallyn: Absolutely.

Bill: Yeah. One of the big things about oil and gas — it wasn’t just the work and the people that did me in in the end, it was also a lot about the environmentalism and — I didn’t connect with the industry on that side either.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: I really hated seeing a lot of the things that were done, and so there were moral issues there as well, so — yeah. I would say absolutely, there is — find work that drives you, that may not be 100% of what you’re doing. And I have gone back since and worked in factories and done those sort of things because I needed the money. But I think there is a point where that’s short-lived. But as a 19-year-old kid — like, that’s a bit of a different story ’cause you’re finding yourself and, yeah, who knows?

But I do think that idea — I don’t buy into the idea of going, “I’m just gonna go do something mind-numbingly boring so that then I can do the thing that I wanna do.” Yeah. Like, I don’t think that works.

Breallyn: I don’t buy into that either.

Bill: Yeah. I think there’s that misconception that doing something just for money, where you don’t have to think about it, you don’t have to take it home after, you don’t have to do all those things like factory work — I think there’s that misconception that that will somehow solve a problem, but I don’t think it does. No. Like, in my experience. Some people I’m sure have done it all their lives and that’s fine.

I remember working with a guy many years ago who was an amazing harmonica player and a welder, and he just spent his days welding and then would go and play harp at night. You know, whatever. Like —

Lyndon: Some people can. Yeah, yeah.

Bill: Certain people can. I found myself — I just can’t. I just got to the point where I physically can’t do it anymore. You just can’t. Yeah. And I didn’t get to that point of, you know, not being able to — like, I’m not — I’m definitely not a stressed person. Like, I’m the calmest, easiest-going person in the world. But —

Lyndon: Yeah, I was wondering whether that was an act or whether that was really you.

Bill: No. But it did get to the point where I wasn’t like that. I was yelling and screaming and getting grumpy and —

Lyndon: Now we’re talking. Yeah.

Bill: You know, there was definitely that point. Um —

Lyndon: Car — was it car rage?

Breallyn: Road rage.

Bill: It wasn’t just car rage.

Lyndon: Road rage.

Bill: It was rage — rage to colleagues and managers and all sorts. Oh. So it did get relatively bad for a while there. And my boss at the time, who was a long family friend — who, you know, I’d worked with as a colleague, and then he ended up owning his own company and I went back to work for him — he was the one who pulled me aside and said, “You gotta change, mate. You have changed.”

Lyndon: Yeah. Yeah, you’ve changed.

Breallyn: And the Bill we know — “And this is not good.” Yeah. Yeah. Wow.

Bill: So —

Breallyn: And he was the one who said — that’s good that he said that. Yeah, yeah, ’cause sometimes it does take that bit of outside perspective as well.

Fountain Pen Rituals

Bill: But let’s go to — I wanted to talk about this idea of — stealing — um, stealing’s not the right word, but those little bits of creativity that keep you alive, right?

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: So during that time, I — and this goes a bit away from the music and towards writing and stuff — this is going to the stationery talk, right? Yeah. So when I was at — and this goes to you as well, because I know you’ve talked a lot about writing and books and journaling and, you know, your long hustle of journals, and there’s a Midori notebook there, I can see. Yeah. Ooh.

Lyndon: This has given me two choices, which is two too many. So that’s why it’s not… And um, that’s so far my —

Breallyn: Wow.

Lyndon: I’m so —

Breallyn: One tiny little writing on your new notepad.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: It’s four questions, but… Oh, no. Hang on. I’m sorry. I’ve interrupted you.

Bill: Oh, there’s two pages.

Lyndon: Oh. Ba, ba — look at that, everybody. But it opens flat. Don’t you love that?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: I can tell you where to get them.

Bill: The fact that I know what it is just by looking at it —

Lyndon: Yeah. I know.

Bill: Is, is a thing. Yeah. So, but yeah, so when I was studying, we were encouraged to do visual diaries — studying photography. And I was that person who wouldn’t write and didn’t feel comfortable. Just didn’t —

Lyndon: Right.

Bill: Didn’t see any value in it. Wow. This was 2010.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And I was encouraged really early on, probably first year lecture, to say go and buy something that is nice, that is tactile — that creates an experience out of it. So I went and bought a notebook, a leather notebook. And um, a leather bound, you know, replaceable cover thing. And sort of started to get into this — bought a nice pen, and I always carried a nice pen at work, even fifteen years ago.

Lyndon: Wow.

Bill: And when I say a nice pen, just a $20 or $30 ballpoint. Because — and that was just because I forever didn’t have a pen, and I went, “If I buy one that’s 30 bucks, I’m gonna not just leave it on a table.”

Lyndon: And if someone —

Bill: I’m gonna —

Lyndon: Doesn’t give it back, they will be —

Bill: That’s how it started.

Breallyn: Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: And then the notebook went — buy a nice notebook, make it an experience instead of just a chore.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And I did that, and I sort of continued down that journey, and then I ended up the guy who was, you know, on an offshore platform writing with a fountain pen — his reports. Like, in the middle of a mine, pulling out a fountain pen and writing with a fountain pen — and still carry a fountain pen to this day.

Breallyn: That’s so gorgeous. I love that.

Lyndon: In the year of our Lord 2010… you know, I’m still — there’s a notebook that’s been with me since 2010. There’s a fountain pen. I still carry one every day. Oh my gosh.

Bill: And it’s as much about — like, I might not write with that today — is that refillable, is it?

Lyndon: Yeah. Fountain pen obviously is with ink, and this is just a refillable, like it’s a leather bound. ‘Cause I was gonna say, it’s very thin for something —

Bill: That’s sixteen years old. No, no. I’ve got probably twenty of them on the shelf.

Lyndon: Yeah. Wow. Yeah.

Bill: And I might not write with that today — but that’s been a part of… and it’s actually been a real sort of moment of safety and creativity — and that little bit of a break from —

Breallyn: Keeping your things, yeah.

Bill: A world —

Breallyn: That’s been — it’s almost like a little representation of that part of your —

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: Self.

Bill: It’s become more than a fountain pen.

Breallyn: Yes. Yeah.

Bill: You know?

Breallyn: I totally get that.

Lyndon: I wanna describe what you’re holding up, because from here the fountain pen looks like a cigarette lighter.

Bill: No, it’s just in a leather sleeve. So it’s a small —

Lyndon: It’s in a leather — it’s small —

Bill: It’s a small, brass fountain pen.

Breallyn: I need one. See —

Lyndon: I like that. But is it — does it… that is very, very cool. My — I’ve got concerns. When you hold that, does it protrude past —

Bill: Yes.

Lyndon: Okay.

Bill: So it’s — right.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: I do have other ones that if I’m writing along — so like — so this is just one I carry with me every day.

Lyndon: So when you took the lid off, that became — that extended — yeah — you put it on the other end — wow — and it extends.

Breallyn: We’re gonna have to have —

Lyndon: Oh, I’m getting to hold it.

Breallyn: Photos of this on our socials.

Lyndon: Ooh. No, seriously, this has got good weight. Oh, okay. I’m in.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: I’m in.

Breallyn: Okay. We’re gonna talk about where you procure your stationery from because I need to know.

Bill: So yes, I haven’t gone deep down into notebooks — although, like I said, I know what that is. These are just relatively affordable notebooks.

Lyndon: But this feels so good.

Bill: Yeah. And it’s become a thing that I will just hold.

Breallyn: You know?

Bill: Yep. And —

Lyndon: Bre, you need to try this.

Breallyn: I think you’ve opened a new world for me, Bill.

Lyndon: Here’s a short little story, promise you. It’ll be short. In WA, where I learnt to write — hand write — they taught cursive writing over there. When I moved to Melbourne and I was in grade five… where are you going, Bre?

Breallyn: Sorry, I’ve just gotta go get something.

Lyndon: Oh, right. You’ll miss my story. Campari. I’ll pretend she’s still here. She’s probably heard this story actually. Yeah. So in primary school, on like, I don’t know, day one, day two, whatever, I literally had the whole class gathering around me because they saw my writing, and it was so different. It was quite calligraphy sort of style. Mm-hmm. Yeah. They learnt it different here in Victoria, so like I think this pen — you’ll get it back, don’t worry. Yeah. I think this would very much suit me.

Bill: Yeah, look, I —

Lyndon: Do you have to dip it into ink or it’s self-inking?

Bill: No, no, no, it’s got a replaceable cartridge thing. Breallyn, you need to give that to Brea when she’s back in. But um — that’s amazing.

Bill: Yeah, it’s — my handwriting’s horrible. That’s not — you know — that’s not the point. Um —

Lyndon: But you can read it?

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: And it feels good when you’re writing it.

Bill: Yeah. That’s it. Yeah. And it becomes that bit that I like, you know, I enjoy writing because of this. And like I said, it’s become more than — it’s representative of more than a pen.

Lyndon: Um — I imagine it’s a — ’cause like you were saying before, it’s a comfort knowing it’s there. So it must be a place you go to, a mindset, like — even before you get it out.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: You know? Yeah.

Bill: And it’s that point of like — that practice has been with me through some times that I don’t want to — you know?

Lyndon: Right.

Bill: That I don’t wanna really be doing anymore. But it’s become — and I still write with a fountain pen every day. Like, people will see, like, when I’m working at council or, you know, whatever, I carry a fountain pen and I write with it in meetings and like that.

Lyndon: That one or another one?

Bill: Not, no, I’ve got others. Oh. But this is just sort of one that I —

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: It’s in my pocket all the time. All the time. It becomes a thing that’s, yeah, more… So, and yes, I’ve got — I don’t have a large collection. Yeah. I’m not a collector.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: I’m a user. Yeah. So, but I do have a couple of fountain pens that go with me when I’m doing work — mm, like office work that isn’t this — that isn’t this really small pen. Yeah. It’s a proper sized fountain pen, you know?

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: But I still, you know, I write with them at council and I write with them — I don’t write with a ballpoint pen. Yeah. I do have one.

Lyndon: Yeah. Yeah, they’re all right.

Bill: But I just — yeah. But I just like that it’s become almost a ritual. Yeah. And I just write junk. Like, I can look back at these going, over years.

Lyndon: Yeah, yeah. It — ’cause you said you’ve got like twenty of them or however many.

Bill: Yeah. And there’s multiple… I’ve got — here we go. Mm. Deep into the notebook talk here.

Breallyn: Deep into the stationery, I love it.

Bill: But this — so this is just one that I carry with me in my pocket. I’ve got another one that’s a council-based one. I’ve got another one that’s my Clear Air Creative one. I’ve got one that is just for —

Lyndon: Do you ever pull them out like a deck of cards and go, “Hang on, which one is the…” And they’re all — and all your fellow councillors are looking at this guy that’s just like — no, no, “No, that one with that patina, that’s my personal one.”

Bill: No, they’re different sizes.

Lyndon: “That’s my drumming one.”

Bill: They’re different sizes. No. So they’re a different physical thing.

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: What size would that be? A1? Is it — does it — no, A1’s like massive. Oh, sorry, I’ve gone the wrong way. Yeah. ‘Cause —

Bill: Um, I think technically that’s — it’s A5 — that’s even A7 or — A7. It’s smaller than an A7. It’s the size of a — it’s a pocket book — it’s like a business card holder size.

Lyndon: Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. It’s been with you — that and the fountain pen, whatever, through some times that you’d rather not revisit.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: I wanna know — the little notepads you’ve got from that time, are they on your shelf or did you burn them?

Bill: No, they’re all on my shelf.

Lyndon: Really? Uh —

Bill: And —

Lyndon: What if someone finds them and reads them?

Bill: No. Well, I —

Lyndon: What if I go there?

Bill: Yeah. I mean — don’t read people’s diaries, Lyndon.

Breallyn: Lyndon.

Lyndon: No, I’m just wondering, like.

Bill: And uh, ’cause there is no — like there’s no method to my madness.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: I don’t write a diary every day. Yeah. I don’t write a thing, although I’m just about to start trying to do a daily diary over three years, which is a whole other thing. Mm-hmm.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: But um, I don’t do it daily. It’s not a thing that I do all the time. But I can — the thing that I like looking back at those old diaries is, you know, a lot of where I am now is what I’ve written — what I wanted to be doing five or six years ago.

Breallyn: Yeah, that’s so cool.

Lyndon: Stop it. And they say — hang on, but in retrospect you can see that. It wasn’t like —

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: You manifesting something at the time.

Bill: No, no, it definitely wasn’t me going — “I want to do this.” It was just me going — no, no, no. It was just me going, you know, I just wanna play music, and I wanna do photography, and I wanna do these things, surround myself with creative people, do work that’s meaningful. Those sort of like… but it’s not as if I went, “Here’s my five things that I wanna be in five years.”

Like, there was never that. It was just me writing, and they’ve always just been freeform written things. Mm. Yeah. Or the next page will be milk, eggs, flour, water — you know, whatever I need, or a phone number or, you know, there’s no — they’re not special.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: No, this is — yeah, this is the BATE method. B-A-T-E. We’ve got the Grail Method, which I’m trying to get into.

Bill: It’s working, clearly.

Breallyn: You just need to develop your own method of things.

Lyndon: Oh, yeah.

Bill: I don’t have a method. Uh, like it’s — uh, uh, it’s definitely not that, but it’s just that sort of almost ritual of — mm. And I’ve recently — we’re going really deep into this, aren’t we?

Stationery Rituals

Bill: Which is why, like, what — when you said those places like, you know, bookstores or stationery stores or those sort of like — they are lovely.

Breallyn: Just step into them, and the, yeah, the evoking of something. Yeah.

Bill: They’re lovely places to be in. Yeah. So.

Lyndon: Yeah. I — don’t get your pen and your notebook from the $2 shop. It’s the complete opposite experience.

Bill: No. Oh, you know, whatever works. It’s not — okay — and I don’t have an — these aren’t, you know, these aren’t… People will, fountain pen people will say that these notebooks are horrible.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: I don’t, ’cause the paper’s — yeah — not good. That paper — mm — is really good. Yeah. People rate it really highly. I’ve never written in one of them. I’ve never bought one.

Lyndon: But you knew what it was.

Bill: I know exactly what it is. Mm.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Um —

Lyndon: That’s all that matters to me.

Blackwing Pencil Revival

Bill: And I’ve recently just got into — like I’ve just bought a bunch of pencils, gray lead pencils —

Lyndon: Oh, HB, 2B —

Bill: To go back into that, like, delve back into that world. Because I listened to a podcast that was — the company’s Blackwing, which I don’t know whether anyone knows what a Blackwing pencil is, but um, they were apparently a famous pencil that a whole bunch of — I should know the author, but a famous author wrote with a Blackwing.

Lyndon: Oh. Okay.

Bill: Uh, wrote some famous book I’m sure.

Lyndon: Bre, you’ve got some homework.

Breallyn: Hemingway. Let’s just — I don’t know. It sounds like — I don’t know. I have no idea. Yeah. They —

Lyndon: Hemingway wrote with a Blackwing.

Breallyn: No, I think —

Bill: Well, it definitely wasn’t Hemingway. No. Um, Steinbeck?

Breallyn: Oh, yeah. John Steinbeck, Grapes of Wrath.

Bill: Yeah, maybe that’s it.

Breallyn: Okay. Yeah.

Lyndon: Mm.

Bill: Um, so wrote with these pencils and they got discontinued in the ’90s, and a company has bought them back. Oh, right. So they’re not the original, but apparently they were so famous with artists and creatives that they went to $40 a pencil to buy one of these vintage pencils.

Breallyn: Oh my gosh.

Bill: Right? And they’re still not cheap, you know?

Lyndon: Whoa.

Bill: Mm. But I was listening to this podcast that was at South by Southwest where Blackwing were talking about the pencil being the anti-AI — the, oh, you know, going back to this analog culture —

Breallyn: Yep.

Bill: Being like a thing against — is the —

Lyndon: A rebellion against AI.

Bill: And I kind of just bought into the marketing guff. And they also — like Blackwing also run a record label that is supported by the sale of their pencils and —

Breallyn: Oh, wow.

Bill: Like it’s a whole thing. So yeah, um, I’ve just got into — so like, as in the last couple of months — buying some pencils and writing again with gray lead pencils, which I haven’t sharpened a gray lead pencil since I was in primary school probably.

Lyndon: Yeah. Are you using a sharpener or are you using a knife?

Bill: No, a sharpener.

Lyndon: Okay. Mm. Interesting.

Bill: But yeah, anyway. Stationery.

Breallyn: Yep, stationery. Uh, can we go shopping after this?

Bill: But yeah, it’s um, I just think that those rituals, those things become part of you that make you, you.

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: Like, and that’s become part of me. It’s become a signature thing that people sort of know.

Lyndon: Mm. Mm.

Breallyn: Even having things like your instruments and, you know, if you’re a painter who doesn’t get to paint very much, like still having your paint set, your, you know, your materials. Like these things, they’re so much more meaningful than the actual thing that they are. They call out to that part of you. Um —

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah. And —

Bill: You know, writing with a fountain pen in Darwin in the humidity and, on a site in the dust, in the — like lying under a pipe covered in grease, right? Is ridiculous.

Breallyn: Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah. It’s a great image.

Bill: You know?

Breallyn: I can imagine you’re the only one who’s ever done that.

Bill: It’s a stupid idea by all accounts, but it really did — were you on an oil rig?

Lyndon: ‘Cause I would not take that pen out on an oil rig.

Bill: I have taken that pen out on oil rigs.

Lyndon: Were you worried about it dropping into the ocean, or —

Bill: Um, I have lost a couple over the years. Not off a platform, but I lost two that I used to carry regularly, which is a real disappointment — ’cause I bought one of them in Germany on a trip and — aw. Yeah, anyway, it is what it is. These things happen.

Breallyn: At least you had them, you got to use them, you loved them, and you know — like it’s better to do that and maybe lose it one day than never, you know, allow yourself to have that pleasure of having a nice thing.

Bill: Yeah.

Living Creatively Daily

Bill: So yeah, I think — for me it’s not necessarily a thing. Like I’ve worked out that it’s not our thing.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Like I’m not “a” photographer, I’m not “a” musician. I don’t, definitely don’t call myself a musician anymore ’cause I don’t play enough. But I’m not a photographer, I’m not a musician, I’m not a, you know, audio engineer or whatever.

Lyndon: What are you, Bill? Why are you here?

Bill: I just — yeah. I just live my life creatively. Yeah. And I do, I think about creativity in everything that I do — no matter what it is.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: And it doesn’t really matter. Labels don’t really matter. Yeah. It’s just about an intention and a way of living that makes me value creativity — and value that as part of my workflow.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: And the, the like — yeah, the great Sam Neill, um, we mentioned this on the show, where he said, “Uh, I’m not an actor, I’m Sam Neill, and I do acting.”

Bill: Yeah. Mm.

Lyndon: Yeah. And it’s the same sort of thing.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: And he obviously had a lot of creative endeavors that he did, including some social media stuff he did during the pandemic. Like, creative, and his, um — he grew or owned a vineyard. He grew grapes, I think. Yeah. A whole bunch of things, and it’s exactly what you’re saying.

Breallyn: Yeah. Mm-hmm. It’s an approach, and it’s a… yeah. And I think if you are a creative person, to be able to just do it in all of your areas of life is — that is the gift that you’re bringing, and it is being true to who you are, essentially. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: It’s all about —

Bill: Yeah, and really valuing that.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Like — valuing that part of myself — that, that. And hopefully other people valuing that part of yourself too. Whether you’re running a corporate event or something — um, that isn’t creative at all. Yeah. But there’s still some bits that can be —

Breallyn: There’ll be creative things in it. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: The PowerPoint presentation or, you know, you can —

Breallyn: It usually takes a creative person to envisage, you know, all that’s needed and, you know, to bring it all together and actually, well, yeah, design all the things.

Lyndon: One of the best plane flights I was ever on was a Virgin Airlines, and the steward, he was basically a stand-up comedian on the flight. And that was making what was a very routine sort of corporate job — I mean, people-facing, but yeah, he just made that flight entertaining for everyone. But not only that, it brought everyone sort of together ’cause we were part of an experience that was more than just being, you know, sitting really close to a stranger. It was —

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: Yeah, really. I’ve never forgotten that. So yeah, if you’re that way inclined, I guess you can find opportunities. Mm. And I think also remembering, like, why you chose to turn your back on, like, money and a whole bunch of other things. Like, why — you know — the calling, or why you do it. ‘Cause you can — and for all the obvious reasons, you can lose that over time.

Bill: And don’t get me wrong, like I’d be more than happy to call myself a photographer or call myself an audio engineer or a recording engineer or a videographer or whatever it was, if that was all I did.

Lyndon: Right.

Bill: Like, I don’t have any problems with that. That is a large part of what I do. And but I just don’t need to call myself a thing. Yeah. Mm. Yeah. So I went for a lot of years branding myself as a creative professional.

Lyndon: Oh, yeah?

Breallyn: Yeah.

Lyndon: That’s good.

Breallyn: Yep, it’s a good one.

Bill: Who knows what that is? Yeah.

Lyndon: I might steal that.

Bill: But I had business cards — and stuff made up. Bill Bate, Creative Professional.

Breallyn: I use that phrase for other people when I’m writing, you know, a website for like a studio or a whatever. Yeah. These creative professionals, you know.

Bill: Yeah. I had business cards and stuff made up. Bill Bate, Creative Professional. Because you can’t be like — “I’m sort of like a photographer and I’ve got this and I’ve got that, and I do this, I do that.”

Breallyn: Like which business card will I give you today? Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. So I don’t use them anymore because, it’s… but definitely that’s what I branded myself as.

Breallyn: Mm. One, one other thing I just quickly wanted to —

Lyndon: Can we just talk about, can we talk about the vacuuming?

Breallyn: Yeah, you can. There’s a vacuum cleaner going off outside this room.

Lyndon: Sorry. Just in case you can hear the vacuuming in the background, that’s because there’s vacuuming happening in the background. Anyway, sorry Bre, you were saying?

Breallyn: Yeah. One other thing that struck me about your story through these years that you were working in oil and gas — you met your wife during that time. What I think is really interesting is that she obviously didn’t see you as just the oil and gas guy, or that that was who you were deep inside. And so when you came to say, “Hey, let’s just blow this off,” she was like, all for it.

Bill: Yeah. No, she really encouraged me to be who I was — rather than this other per — like, she, I think she recognised that I couldn’t — I, like —

Breallyn: That wasn’t —

Bill: That wasn’t me.

Breallyn: Wasn’t you. Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. That wasn’t me. And yeah, and I knew that too.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: I just, it was just hard to make those decisions, like, to sort of give up certainty or, you know, whatever that is. And you can look back and go, like, of course — I’d say it was 20 years in the job. I think I stopped counting at like seventeen different jobs through those twenty years. Yeah. ‘Cause I’d just go, “I’ve had enough of this one. Where could I go now? Oh, you gonna move me to Perth? Great, let’s go to Perth.” And, like, I did some amazing work.

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: Like, I did, you know, we built a power station at Ayers Rock. We built —

Lyndon: Inside the rock?

Bill: Yeah. Didn’t you know? No. No. But the power station was converted from — it used to be diesel, and then it ran on LPG, which ran the whole town. So I did that conversion. And I lived at Ayers Rock for a while. I —

Breallyn: Wow.

Lyndon: At the resort there?

Bill: Yeah. I, we did the other end of that at Alice Springs, and I worked in Darwin and I worked — I’ve worked all over. And I worked in Laos in a gold mine, and like, some amazing things.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Mm. Um, and I don’t regret those things. They were, you know, that travel and that adventure was really good. And that was part of the reason why it was hard to get out of, because that adventure becomes a thing, you know?

Breallyn: Yeah, it does. Mm. Yeah.

Bill: But yeah. I just can’t imagine going back now.

Lyndon: We need to have you back on again at some point, Bill, ’cause there’s just too many stories to be mined from you. Pun intended. Um —

Bill: Well, yeah, it’s um — yeah. I don’t know. I don’t know whether we’ve spoken at all about creativity and arts and whatever.

Breallyn: Oh, we definitely have. Like yeah, and I think, uh, yeah, as we were saying, like our audience essentially, or the, you know, the community that we’re building, everybody is having these struggles of like how you make a life when you have to pay for everything but, you know, all you wanna do is mess around with your art. Yeah, it’s tough.

Bill: Yeah, and it’s still daily a struggle.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Like, you know, it’s like trying to make enough money — it’s still a struggle all the time. Yep. And, you know —

Breallyn: That never ends.

Bill: So, and you’re living in that sort of gig economy and like — I say I’ve worked in all these jobs. They’ve all been contract jobs.

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: They’ve mostly been grant-funded jobs.

Breallyn: Yep.

Bill: So you know — there’s never certainty.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Um, so it’s not an easy choice to make, but uh, I wouldn’t change it for the world.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: You know?

Breallyn: Yeah, which is very interesting, though. Like, you’d rather live with the uncertainty and less pay and less of all the material things, but feel that you’re living a life that’s more true to who you are.

Bill: Yeah, definitely.

Breallyn: I think that’s, uh, a lot to be said for that.

Bill: Definitely. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah. Bringing it back to the community aspect you were talking about earlier. Trying to segue back. I’m trying to segue back so that I can — I’m —

Breallyn: Aware of how much editing you’ve got to do.

Lyndon: No, that’s all right. Maybe you can make this a two-parter. I feel like Sean Lock when he got asked if he could time travel what he would do, and he said he’d bring back the Nazi leaders, and then they cut him off —

Bill: Oh yeah.

Lyndon: And he never got a chance to finish. And they’re like, “No, no, we’ve —”

Bill: That’s hilarious.

Lyndon: You’ve seen that? I watch that semi-regularly ’cause it makes me laugh so hard. I think it was the biggest stitch-up in history. And I feel like I’ve cornered myself by saying earlier that my hate of the disability community — ’cause it literally was just like, I just had like a couple of points to make at the time ’cause I thought —

Breallyn: And they were gonna let you make them.

Lyndon: Yeah, you’ll never let me make them, but I have to. And what it was — I think we were talking about the arts community and, I don’t know, you were saying the importance of it and the place that this podcast has found for you anyway in that, playing a role in that. And the reason I said why I wanna talk about the hatred of my disability sector is because we got sort of thrust into that community not by choice, I guess.

Breallyn: And I don’t think anyone chooses.

Lyndon: No, but like, it becomes the dominant thing that you’re talking about. Oh, that’s right, you were talking about being in the pub.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: And it’s like, football talk or whatever. And so, like, when I was a kid, it was like, “I wanna get married and have a family, and I’m gonna be a musician.” It was like those were the two things. And so to have something then come along that is so — it just imposes itself on you and disrupts both of those things is why I was facetiously saying I hate, you know, why I hate the disability sector. Bre’s rolling her eyes because she is so —

Breallyn: I am. You can’t say that. Hey? It’s a horrible thing to say.

Lyndon: Yeah, well, it was a provocative thing to say in the moment, and then I would clarify what I’m actually saying. It’s all good. But you kept me — you shut me down immediately because of your empathy for the world, whatever.

Breallyn: What a horrible thing that is. But you know what I mean.

Building Creative Community

Breallyn: It’s so like — so you know, I think about this podcast and what we may or may not create, but I also, in the same vision, I have people coming around here talking about like you are today, or maybe we’ll hang out and we’ll play guitar around the fire tonight outside. Like, that’s kind of…

Lyndon: You know, like, I’m still a dreamer. I still have all these ideas of what this could be. It could be, um… I think Bre, you said like Pain In The Arts hub or something. It’s like —

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: And you just threw that out there. But I would love it to sort of be an environment where artistic or creative people could come, and yeah, we could record an episode, but it would be more than that. Like we could just hang out and have those conversations. And part of it is because I love that, part of it’s ’cause I miss it, and part of it is because our life has been put out of balance with so much, you know? I mean, the amount of conversations and work, Bre, that you have to do because of it. You know what I mean?

Breallyn: It’s very dominating, yeah —

Lyndon: It dominates because —

Breallyn: Our heads and our conversations —

Lyndon: Because —

Breallyn: And our, yeah, our hours that we spend and —

Lyndon: And, yeah. And when time is — we were talking before about this idea of creating content, you know, as an artist, it’s like, you know, who’s got the time for that? It’s like, yeah, who’s got the time for anything when you just want to — not just create, but you wanna have this life of fulfillment. And that’s why it is important to kinda look for those opportunities to be creative, why you got into it in the first place.

And why I have this sort of dream that we could have like a literal face-to-face community as part of it — and whether it’s here or whether we’ve gotta move to Marysville for that to happen or — you know. But it’s nice that we can find our people online, but gee, it’s great to do it in person, isn’t it? Which is why it’s great having you here.

Bill: And look, I think more time should be dedicated to this sort of — like, I think there’s real value in just sitting and talking about things that light you up, that make you happy, that. And there’s some real value there. Yeah. And if I’m completely honest, it’s why I run the festival. It’s why I brought the festival back. And when I say I brought it back, people don’t know that story. So the festival ran — I think since 2017 — and it stopped two years ago.

This is its first year back. It had, uh, it died after COVID. It lost a bunch of just volunteers and committees, whatever. So I’ve just brought it back this year with a very, very, very small committee. But it’s one of the reasons why I love it and why I do it — is because — and the same with the music in the park, you know, it’s not that I make a lot of money out of it — but it creates a community. You’ve been up there and played.

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Like it creates that space, and I bring people up that I wanna hang out with. Yeah. Mm. You know?

Lyndon: That’s right.

Bill: I wanna talk to, and I wanna chat to, and I wanna, you know, hear the music and do the thing. So yeah, it’s about a community. Yeah. And it’s about building that community and building the community in the town that I love. Like, I love living in Marysville.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Mm. I love the place. Mm. It’s a beautiful place, but the things that I miss is there’s not enough creativity, so I just try to build it.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: I love that.

Bill: It’s part of what I do — is trying to build that creative community in the town. That’s —

Lyndon: Great.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. I totally get that. Same. And it’s 100% a thing that I would love to do too. Like some sort of space where there’s some sort of creative space that people can come in and use and do stuff — I don’t know how, or I don’t know why. Yeah. But I could see that with something like this as a catalyst to start off with.

Breallyn: I reckon we just start doing — like I’ve, we’ve floated this idea, and we do it ourselves a little bit — analog nights. Like everyone just bring your thing, bring your fountain pens and your journals and bring your paints and your, you know, your instruments, and just hang out and make something, or don’t. Just hang out and do something. Yeah. Yeah. So we might just sort of start on a small scale here, but —

Lyndon: I do —

Breallyn: Yeah. Yeah. And I mean — I’d like to do that.

Lyndon: And part of me — ’cause of some things I’ve been involved with in the past, I do also understand that there’s — like for something I you know, like this that I might wanna create — I think if someone else did that, would I go along to it? And then I think maybe I, maybe I wouldn’t, you know? And maybe I don’t know.

Breallyn: I mean, there’s always the things you’ve gotta battle with, like how introverted you are, how social you wanna be, who might, you know, what things you might have to do or — there’s people you have to talk to or whatever. Yeah. But, um, yeah. So —

Bill: I think that’s about not creating — like not putting too much formality around it. Yeah. Just having some sort of drop-in or, you know, even if it’s at a pub or at a place or whatever it is, like just something — come along and have a chat about creativity. Come and do the thing, you know?

Lyndon: Was it Matt Alford that was telling me that he would say, “I’m gonna be at this cafe from 2:00 to 4:00, I’m doing my creative admin or whatever, and if you wanna do yours at the same time, come along.”

Bill: No, possibly. I’ve, yeah.

Lyndon: Have you heard him talk about that?

Bill: No.

Lyndon: I was like, that’s a really — because it, I’m sure it was him telling me that. It just gives, like, he’s gonna be there anyway. And then it just gives permission for other people to join him, do whatever they’re doing, but then it’s an opportunity to talk and go, “Oh, well, if you’re playing that festival, do you know so-and-so from it?”

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: You know, and here’s his number or — those little connections, yeah — or, yeah. Like it can just sort of happen organically rather than, oh, you’ve gotta go, and you’ve gotta network, and you’ve gotta do all this whatever.

Bill: Yeah. And it’s why — and I still have thoughts of doing it at some point — but it’s why I touched earlier on that I worked in a studio in The Convent. I worked in a studio at The Aviary. Those times were not because I needed to. I mean, the Convent had a photography space, so I did create work in there, but it was also a desk space with a creative community around it.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And definitely The Aviary was just a desk. Like I didn’t have to do that. I had an office at home. You know? But it’s just the idea of going into a creative space with creative people.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Um, and I’ve still thought about that. I looked a few years ago at — they were hiring desk space at the building that Music Victoria’s in, in Collingwood. And I was thinking like, it’d be cool to go down there one day a week and just work from there instead of working from home. Just because it’s all about networking.

Breallyn: Just to be people.

Bill: And also just this idea of thriving off other people’s creativity, which is part of what this does.

Lyndon: Mm.

Bill: Yeah. Um, but also part of what those sort of shared workspaces and community workspaces do, because, you know, you get pumped about people. Like, I used to love working in that studio with — I don’t know whether you’ve ever been in The Aviary, but —

Lyndon: I haven’t. I’ve just seen pictures and I go — that just looks like an amazing space.

Bill: It’s — what Fraser’s done there — and I haven’t been there in a long time, so it’s changed a fair bit since when I was there, but it’s amazing. And it — people don’t go into a studio unhappy generally. I’m sure there are grumpy people, but so you just thrive off that. Like, people would come in going, “I’m recording today.” Like —

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: “I’m doing it. This is cool. I’m doing the thing.”

Lyndon: Yeah, exactly.

Bill: You know, and whether you were actually in the session or not — which more often than not I wasn’t obviously, because I was just there with a desk. Yeah. Um, and he doesn’t do that. They’re all studio spaces now as far as I’m aware.

Lyndon: That was a great business model though, wasn’t it?

Bill: I think it was just, uh —

Lyndon: Was it accidental sort of?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, really? So, okay — it was, I think, I think he just had a spare room, and then he went — and then downstairs got offered, got vacated. Yeah, cool. And he just kind of went, “Oh, well, I’ll take it on — and I’ll put some production suites in there, but I’ve got this big room. What am I gonna do with this big room?” And started renting out desks, and now it’s a record shop.

Lyndon: Oh, is it really?

Breallyn: Oh, wow.

Lyndon: Like retail?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Lyndon: Does he cut vinyl there as well or not?

Bill: No, no, no. Uh, and it’s not his business. Yeah. Like, I think — oh, right — I don’t know whether he sold the shop or whether he just leases the shop out. But he just kinda went, “Oh, this is an opportunity and I’ll take it on.”

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Yeah. Um, but it was an amazing creative space, and there were people working in there, like, who I still have contact with and, you know, just doing little bits and pieces here and there. And I would — like, I would go back to something like that in a heartbeat if I had the money — and, like, it’s obviously more money to rent a space.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Breallyn: Mm.

Bill: Yeah. Um, as opposed to working from home. You’d know that, you know?

Breallyn: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah. So it’s a commitment that you make, but yeah, just for being part of the community.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: But I love that you have brought the festival back, coming back to that. Yeah, festivals, you know, galleries, all these things that, you know, artists put on and obviously people like you who have the skills as well to bring it together and do all the logistics and all that — it’s like something that is a gift to the greater community, showcasing art and bringing, like, the performances and the final pieces and all of that. But that other side of it — of it being a network for artists.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: That’s something that we don’t always talk about, or like, that is kinda the underside of it, that is the thriving heartbeat of an arts community — is that the people you know show up there and, you know, we’re playing at this thing now, and we’re doing this thing now —

Lyndon: Yeah. When you’re sitting on your own —

Breallyn: We’ve got another opening here.

Lyndon: When you’re sitting on your own at home and you’ve just finished tracking something or you’re writing a song and you’re thinking, and the idea of networking is like, ugh. Like, how much — you know? Like, when you’re thinking about just expanding your contacts and, uh, yeah, it’s just daunting.

But then when you’re actually in the right environment, or even just like — you’re doing a gig and the people that are organising it are chill and are really happy to see you, appreciate what you’re doing and that. Just that environment. You can get in your car and you drive home and you go, “Oh, that was all networking and I didn’t even realise it,” you know?

Breallyn: Mm.

Lyndon: And for people that are, I don’t know, rude or abrupt or whatever, it was still networking and they might not get another call, you know? But yeah, people don’t often realise that it’s happening, and if you put yourself in the right places, it’s happening. And it’s great because you have conversations like this. It’s not like, “What do you do?” You know, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and it’s not all like this — someone sizing you up and, yeah, the elevator pitch, which, you know, I never have on me. Um —

Bill: Yeah. And this is how we reconnected, so like, I knew you sort of — I didn’t know you well — but I knew you through a friend who was playing with you at the time. Yep. I was playing — now this is what? Early 2000s maybe.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And I was playing as well in Melbourne in and around. I wasn’t even living in Brunswick then, I was living in Mitcham, which is where I grew up.

Lyndon: Wow.

Breallyn: Eastern suburbs.

Bill: Yeah. Uh, and —

Lyndon: Dave O’Neill country.

Bill: And then, yeah, lost contact, whatever. Probably never ever had real contact in terms of — just through the scene at the time.

Lyndon: Mm-hmm. Yep.

Bill: And then I was photographing Ricky Wood —

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: And he went, “Oh, I’ve recorded this record with Lyndon.” Friend of the show. Yeah. Mm. And I was like, “Who?”

Lyndon: I didn’t know, yeah.

Bill: And we reconnected. So it’s those, like —

Lyndon: Well, you don’t have any selfies either on your pages, so, like, I didn’t necessarily know who you were.

Bill: It’s just those connections. And this is the thing — it’s like, you know, it wasn’t as if we hung out a lot back in those days. Yeah. It was just sort of friends of friends. Yeah, that’s right. You know, whatever.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: But yeah, it —

Breallyn: Nice how those connections come around.

Bill: It’s those little connections. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. And I think that’s one of the things about doing these sort of things that really help you to get in the scene — like this podcast — or for me, like the festival, or keep you active. Is like, in lots of ways I’m much more connected in the music scene in Melbourne now, even though I live two hours out, than I was when I was playing three nights a week in Melbourne.

Breallyn: Wow.

Bill: Yeah.

Breallyn: Yeah.

Bill: Because playing three nights a week in Melbourne, I was, you know, I was just playing with my crew. We were playing at the same venues, you know? Yeah, that’s yeah, yeah. We were just doing the same thing. You meet a few people here and there, but not — and then now that I’m out there, it’s that whole — big fish, little pond or whatever. Not to say that I’m a big fish, I’m not trying to be that guy. But I can go into a room and go, “Oh, I’ve met you. I’m from Marysville.” And people go, “Oh, yeah.”

Lyndon: The fountain pen guy.

Bill: Because they don’t know, like, anyone else from Marysville is doing music, you know?

Lyndon: Oh, right.

Bill: So I’ve kind of become the guy, like, who —

Lyndon: So you can say that.

Bill: Or the music connection. It’ll be like, “Oh yeah, we’ve met once, remember? I’m from Marysville.” “Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.” Like —

Lyndon: Yeah, yeah.

Bill: It’s kind of that thing now. Mm. And I’m, like I said, I’m not saying that I’m a big fish by any stretch of the imagination.

Lyndon: The kingpin.

Bill: But you know what I mean. Like, it’s those things that connect you to the industry that keep you doing the things that you wanna do, and it provides more benefit than just doing the thing. So this — mm — this will provide more benefit than you just — there’s benefit in actually physically doing it and having these conversations. Yeah. This is part of what drives you, I’m sure — because otherwise you still wouldn’t be doing it. Yeah, exactly. Like me, you would’ve quit seven episodes in.

Lyndon: Oh, yeah.

Bill: Um, but also there’s then that connection that it brings, and the network that it brings, and the, you know —

Breallyn: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Lyndon: Yeah, it is nice.

Breallyn: Yeah, it is nice. Definitely, yeah. Feeling like, yeah, we’re able to bring people into our world, which as Lyndon was saying, does get, um, small sometimes and sort of like, unbalanced in the weight of where we give our attention. But like, yeah, every time we get to, you know, open up the home and have somebody in the studio, it’s yeah, it’s literally bringing the wider creative world into our little world. And yeah, it’s great.

Lyndon: Now, you’re a longtime listener, first-time guest.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: Would you, asking for a friend, would you listen to an episode that was, like, two hours long?

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Breallyn: It’s gonna have to be a —

Bill: Well, the —

Breallyn: Two-parter.

Bill: There’s not two hours. ‘Cause there’s a lot of junk in there. Yeah. Talking of Campari.

Lyndon: Yeah. Um — this, what’s great too about this episode, obviously it’s great that you’re here, but also this will be the only time where the word Campari stays in it.

Bill: But yeah, uh, yeah, I would, because, uh, you know, a lot of the times I’m listening when I’m working or when I’m driving, I do a lot of driving, ’cause I live in the country.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Bill: Um, so yeah, I don’t have any — I don’t look at a podcast and go, “That’s gonna be too long.”

Lyndon: Too long. I’m not putting that on.

Bill: Yeah. Unless it’s Joe Rogan, but that’s probably just ’cause I don’t like Joe Rogan. It’s probably got nothing to do with the length of the podcast.

Lyndon: Poor guy. Oh. Oh, I hope he does okay, you know? All these people that don’t wanna listen to him. Poor bloke.

Bill: Yeah.

Lyndon: Poor bloke. Poor guy. Yeah. Yeah. Bre, do you wanna, um, do you wanna bring us home? As in, we’re home. Yeah. But do you wanna — wrap it up.

Breallyn: We are gonna finish up for today. So — I can’t think of anything else, but all right.

Lyndon: Campari.

Bill: People think we’ll be drinking at 10 o’clock in the morning. Campari.

Lyndon: I know, I know.

Breallyn: Well, thank you so much for joining us today, Bill. We really appreciate your time and that you’ve come all the way here. Thank goodness you’re in the EV today, not the —

Lyndon: Thank goodness you don’t have to then go all the way back and then all the way back to Melbourne Airport later tonight.

Bill: Yeah, no.

Lyndon: ‘Cause that would be —

Bill: Yeah, I know. It’d be horrible.

Lyndon: It’d be horrible. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Bill: I’d just have to put a two-hour podcast on. Yeah.

Lyndon: Can do!

Breallyn: We’re good for something.

Bill: No, thank you. And um, I do really wanna — I know you’re not here to spruik your own horns, but it is a really nice thing to sit down and listen to this every week, so, and it’s been great to be a part of it and hope we didn’t talk too much junk.

Breallyn: No. No.

Lyndon: No, no, no.

Breallyn: Well, uh, you’ll be sure to be back another time, ’cause yeah, we’ve really enjoyed hanging out and hearing your stories and there’s obviously plenty more to talk about.

Lyndon: Yeah.

Breallyn: So yeah. Can’t wait.

Bill: Thank you.

Lyndon: Thanks, mate.

Breallyn: Yeah. Thank you so much.

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