Prime Minister Anthony Albanese leads tributes as You Am I inducted into ARIA Hall of Fame
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese led tributes to Aussie rock icons You Am I when the Sydney four-piece became the newest entry into the ARIA Hall of Fame on Wednesday.
You Am I, who formed in 1989, joined the likes of INXS, AC/DC, Cold Chisel and recent inductees Jet and Missy Higgins.
The band became mainstays of festival and pub stages across the country during the mid-1990s and were the first Australian outfit to have three consecutive albums debut at No.1 on the ARIA charts.
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“Guys whether you’re in the studio, or on the stage, particularly the Enmore, you’ve been coming to us for decades with truth, with wit and vulnerability,” Albanese said via video, referencing the storied Enmore Theatre in his inner-west Sydney electorate of Grayndler.
“And along the way [you] added to who we are.”
Albanese was not the only luminary paying tribute, with international legends including Sonic Youth’s Lee Ranaldo and former Soundgarden and Pearl Jam drummer Matt Cameron joining in the plaudits.
“That band is just always pumping all cylinders,” Cameron, himself inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame for the second time earlier this month for his work with Soundgarden, said.
Visibly emotional frontman Tim Rogers called his bandmates — drummer Rusty Hopkinson, bassist Andy Kent and guitarist Davey Lane — his best friends and could not resist a typically self-deprecating quip.
“Thirty-six years ago I was extremely sick and had no prospect to do anything and my brother and my best friend asked me to join their band and it gave me a life,” he said.
He added that he had been sick in hospital again earlier this year when Kent suggested the band reunite for another tour.
Yet again, Rogers said, “it gave me the opportunity to have a life”.
“F***, I love rock’n’roll,” he continued.
“The part about it I love the most is writing. It gives me a purpose to live, to express to people how I feel about them through writing, rather than through more courageous ways.
“I want to thank my three best friends for taking these abject, miserable songs that I write and turning them into something that’s enjoyable for the public.”
Rogers’ daughter Ruby flew from Spain to be at the ceremony at Sydney’s Hordern Pavilion, where the band closed the show by performing 1998’s Heavy Heart and their signature tune, 1993’s Berlin Chair.
Lane, who joined the band at the tender age of 18 in 1999, said the ARIA stage represented some of his earliest memories of the group.
“I remember being up late night on a school night, watching the ARIA Awards,” he said. “And I saw You Am I play; ‘That’s the f***ing coolest band I’ve ever seen in my life!’
“So to stand alongside my mates here… it’s a real trip.
“If anyone ever offers you the opportunity to make art or do cool things with cool people, just f**king take it. Because it’s never not worthwhile and it could change your life, too.”
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