From playing guitar with the likes of Joe Cocker, Celine Dion and Rod Stewart, to establishing a music school of disadvantaged youth and writing and recording his own music, Todd Bartholomew is living proof that rock and roll dreams can come true. Bartholomew’s career as a musician rests on the pillars of his talent and persistence.
I’ve never been in a cover band
Todd Bartholomew
“The first band I saw was The Birthday Party,” Bartholomew said, reflecting on where the urge to make music rose up in him. “Like so many kids, that was the show that changed my life. I became a goth for a while after that.”
Born in the Philippines on an American Air Force base, the child of a US Air Force father and Filipino mother, Bartholomew spent his early life travelling the world from base to base, country to country. “We lived in Hawaii, Guam, Germany, all over the world,” said Bartholomew. “It was a lonely existence for me as a kid, I never felt settled anywhere.”
Bartholomew always had an interest in music, but his childhood was so itinerant he never got a chance to learn in school and it wasn’t until his father retired and brought the family to Melbourne that he picked up a classical guitar.
“I was around 12 by the time we moved to Melbourne,” said Bartholomew. “I was so into learning the guitar that I would travel an hour and a half on a bus, tram and train to get to my lessons and then an hour and a half back. We were living in the sticks.
“By the time I was 15 or 16 I started playing electric guitar,” Bartholomew said, “and things kicked off for me when I left the family home in Kingsbury, moving to South Yarra and then onto St Kilda when I was in my early 20s.”
As well as getting to see The Birthday Party, Bartholomew became immersed in the Melbourne music scene of the late 80s and early 90s.
“It was all really happening,” said Bartholomew. I would spend my nights at clubs like The Mansion — I remember Boy George had a DJ residency there. I’d hang out with bands like Horse Head, Nursery Crimes and Killing Time, which turned into Mantissa. Also, the magnificent Nick Barker and the Reptiles, and I got to see Alice In Chains at the Cathouse and Nirvana at the Palace. Nirvana totally blew me away. No one knew how big they were going to be back then.
“I was really close with the members of Melbourne deathrock band Reptiles and Adam Pringle, the singer with Killing Time. I considered those people to be my mentors before I started out as a singer.”
Bartholomew’s earliest claim to musical fame came when he auditioned along with a guitarist named Celeste for a band that later became Something For Kate, before Paul Dempsey joined the lineup.
“I jammed with them for about three weeks,” said Bartholomew, “but it wasn’t really my thing. I was totally into new wave.”
Batholomew’s first band, Ritual, became part of Melbourne’s underground scene in the early 90s and stayed together for around four years, writing songs and playing residencies at venues in St Kilda, Prarhan and the Northern Suburbs.
“I was a poet at the time,” said Bartholomew, “I performed my pieces at venues like the Punters Club in Fitzroy and this girl saw me — she looked just like Marilyn Munro — and she introduced me to her boyfriend, Rodney Kuna. He was a total Jimmy Page clone and owner of the Melbourne School of Fashion. I ended up singing in his band and we made songs together.
“That’s when life really began for me,” said Bartholomew, “I was living the dream.”
The band were signed to Mushroom Records, but, as is so often the way, split on the cusp of success when Kuna decided to focus on his work in the fashion industry.
“We were just starting to take off,” said Bartholomew, “packing pubs and supporting bands like Anthrax, when the others decided to take a break.
“I sold my Datsun 240Z and went to Europe.”
Europe tested Bartholomew’s resilience for a while. He lived in a van for a time and then in backpackers. After he got a job in Amsterdam putting up posters he was able to find stable accommodation and started writing and demoing his own original songs.
“I’ve never been in a cover band,” said Bartholomew. “I just love going into a rehearsal studio and coming out with the stuff that was in my head.”
Bartholomew started dropping off his demos at record labels and agencies, “but not even one single door opened,” he said. By the time 2002-03 came along Bartholomew had shifted his focus to EDM and, in his own words, was “enjoying life, not taking things too seriously.”
Of course, the call most often comes when you’re least expecting it and so it was for Bartholomew. He was asked to record an audition video of his guitar work. Three weeks later, Bartholomew got the call to join Joe Cocker’s band.
Bartholomew toured with Cocker for four years and, during that period, also played with Celine Dion, No Mercy and Rod Stewart, and was signed to BMG to write and record his own original music.
“Rod Stewart was the first guy on my bedroom wall,” Bartholomew said, “and now here I was playing in his band. No Mercy invited me to go back to LA with him to be them to be their full-time guitarist, but I said no and stayed with Joe (Cocker) touring Europe and the UK. By this time, we’d become good friends.
“But the lifestyle was too much for me in the end. I remember we played the German equivalent of the Academy Awards one time. When I left, I thought I was floating on air, but I’d actually been picked up by two bouncers.”
While he’d been based in Amsterdam during the first half of the 2000s, Bartholomew had made regular trips to Palawan Island in the Philippines, where he created a music academy for disadvantaged youth.
“I had pain inside me,” Bartholomew said, “and setting up the academy and working with the kids there helped me to heal.”
In 2008, when he was ready to start over again, Bartholomew returned to Australia with his girlfriend and the family they had started on Palawan Island. He got himself a real job for the first time in his life and began to learn a trade.
“I didn’t even know how to read a payslip,” Bartholomew said, “I was working in a sheet metal factory, building kitchens and bars. Luckily, I learn things very quickly. After three years in the factory, I started an apprenticeship and got my trade certificate.”
While he worked on being part of a family and raising children, Bartholomew remained in touch with his musician colleagues in Europe, “but music was over for me,” Bartholomew said.
But, of course, music is a calling very few can refuse. His children grown and the call making itself ever louder, Bartholomew moved across the country to Perth. Finding himself homeless again he lived the van life for a couple of years.
“I decided I wanted my career back,” Bartholomew said. “I wanted to go home. I was very lonely and hit depression.”
Home is a difficult concept for Bartholomew, he’s been itinerant since the day he was born and found himself homeless on more than one occasion. To Bartholomew, home is where he’s writing music and, having tried to restart his career in Europe, he’s now back in Perth and writing songs again.
“I’m about to release an EP,” Bartholomew said and I’m looking to put a band together. I’ve been checking out the scene here in Perth and it’s really jumping. I love The Floors. I want to get out and meet people and start playing music again.
“I’ve got song after song I’ve been writing. Now I need to meet the right people to play them with.”
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Todd Bartholomew’s EP, Hawk Nest is out now and you can download it for free from Bandcamp until 11 June.
Bartholomew is also giving away four limited edition copies of Hawk Nest on vinyl. Just be one of the first four people to email your request to solutionscreative123@hotmail.com and your free copy will be mailed to you.
