Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Collection

Part 1 · Aug 16, 2018

Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Boy

With nine #1 albums to his name, Jimmy Barnes is one of Australia’s greatest rock icons. But his success masked a life of hardship and abuse, where the music that once saved him from oblivion almost came back to destroy him. Before Jimmy Barnes was Jimmy Barnes, he was James Dixon Swan, a troubled kid from the mean streets of Glasgow – and the even meaner streets of North Adelaide – trying to survive against a backdrop of addiction, alcoholism, poverty and abuse. For Jimmy, escape was the only option and he found it with a band called Cold Chisel. But the rock’n’roll lifestyle has its own temptations and the scars of childhood are always waiting to take you home. Based on the bestselling memoir and directed by veteran Australian filmmaker Mark Joffe, Working Class Boy is both an inspiring story of rock and redemption told in Barnes’ own words and an unflinchingly honest reflection on fame, creativity and depression.

Part 2 · Aug 21, 2025

Jimmy Barnes: Working Class Man

After finding fame with pub rock legends Cold Chisel, Jimmy Barnes became an Australian icon through the success of his solo career. Having escaped his hard-knocks upbringing, married the love of his life and released a string of number-one albums, the man known across the country simply as 'Barnesy' had seemingly made it. But financial issues, heavy drug use, gruelling tours, a failure to crack the US and the spectre of childhood trauma all still weighed upon him, eventually finding their release in words – as this intimate new account reveals.