Lost songs of Australian rock legend found buried in a garage

Chrissy Amphlett is Australia's most iconic female rock star — a prowling, pouty lead singer in a school pinny and suspenders with a fierce on-stage presence and a voice both husky and strong.

But since her death in 2013, Chrissy's story has not been told on screen.

In a two-part series, Australian Story discovers the private woman behind the rock star, interviewing original Divinyls members and unearthing behind-the-scenes footage and photos of Chrissy and the band that brought us hits such as I Touch Myself and Pleasure and Pain.

It also exclusively reveals the story behind three new songs set to be released later this week — songs Chrissy wrote and recorded with singer/songwriter Tim Finn in the years before she died.

Before Chrissy, no Australian female singer had brought her brand of edginess to the stage — picking fights with band members, heckling the audience and channelling a serious "don't mess with me" vibe.

Wild male singers were as common as soggy beer coasters in the 1980s pub rock scene; picture the vodka-chugging Jimmy Barnes out front of Cold Chisel or The Angels' Doc Neeson hanging from stage rigging.

But it was Chrissy, says record producer Mark Opitz, who "carved a path" and "created an icon ... for Australian music and particularly women in Australian music".

"She set out just to be good at what she did and just follow her dream," Opitz tells Australian Story.

"But in doing so, [she] created this fiercely independent woman that other women in this country — and men — looked up to."

The voice, the drive was all Chrissy, but without what Opitz calls her on-stage "charisma coat", the girl from Victoria's Geelong was shy and vulnerable.

Her cousin, Patricia Amphlett, better known as the girl-next-door 1960s pop singer Little Pattie, says Chrissy's wild persona began as an act, a character she created to overcome her shyness.

"I'm really sad that not many people knew the real Chrissy because I was lucky enough to know how caring, how soft, how sweet she was," she says.

But it is a fine line between role-play and reality, and as Chrissy's fame grew, alcohol became a crutch and she started to morph into her on-stage persona.

"It just became part of her," Patricia says, "because of the alcohol."

And the drinking continued after the show.

"She would come off stage dripping with sweat in a elevated state of euphoria, and she would want the party to keep going," says her biographer, Larry Writer. "So she drank more and more."

In an interview in 2006, Chrissy admitted that, for a while, "alcohol was my everything".

"It was my quick fix," she said. "And it was how I coped in the beginning. And then it was the only way I knew how to cope."

Her addiction came to a head at a tumultuous family Christmas in 1996, and with the support of the man who would become her husband, American drummer Charley Drayton, Chrissy kicked the booze in the late 90s.

But alcohol was not her only battle. In the early 2000s, Chrissy was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). Then, in 2010, she was diagnosed with breast cancer.

She was 53 when she died.

"She wanted to be here, but her body gave up on her," Drayton says. "That was more disappointing for her than anything … she had a lot more to do, a lot more to say."

He is thrilled, however, that the songs Chrissy recorded with Finn — in what Finn calls a "special, definitely magical … and real" collaboration — have been unearthed and will soon hit the airwaves.

Says Finn: "People are going to hear Chrissy Amphlett's voice again.

"Stand back, people. Get ready."

Lost band footage found in storage

The whirr of a film projector fills the darkened room, and suddenly there they are: the fresh-faced Divinyls band members on the rooftop of a building in Sydney, circa 1982.

Chrissy walks past the camera and pokes her tongue out, goofing off between takes for the video clip for Only Lonely, Divinyls' second single after their debut hit, Boys in Town.

Now, as Bjarne Ohlin, the band's original keyboardist/guitarist, watches the film for the first time in decades, he is transfixed.

"It's fabulous," he says of the Super 8 footage he filmed and only recently discovered in storage. "This is at that early stage where we were excited as hell. We had a record contract, and music was being released overseas. We were about to tour."

The genesis of a rock legend

It all began as the brainchild of Jeremy Paul, a former bass player with the soft rock sensation Air Supply, who brought together two musos he respected — Chrissy and guitarist Mark McEntee.

As Chrissy delved into her "adventurous" teenage years, the duo began songwriting, and Boys in Town emerged. Soon after, it arrived on the desk of record producer Mark Opitz.

"The sound really caught my ear through its intensity, its energy," he says.

And the lyrics? "Priceless."

"[She's] expressing frustration," Opitz says. "She'd had enough; she actually says, 'Get me out of here. Get me out of here.' I've had enough of this. I don't wanna be there with these boys in town. I want something better. I'm looking for more. I want more."

It soon arrived. As Opitz was searching for a vehicle to launch the song, the makers of the film Monkey Grip approached him to do the music.

On top of that, the film's producers asked if he knew of a band with a female singer who could be in the film.

Opitz did a deal. He would do the music, provide the band and the singer if they would film a video clip for the song on set. They agreed, and, says Opitz, "The video turned out brilliant."

In the video, Chrissy is brandishing a neon microphone stand and wearing her armour — the school uniform inspired by, and unashamedly taken from, AC/DC's Angus Young.

"When I'd wear my own clothes on stage," Chrissy said in a 2006 interview, "I was kind of too vulnerable … I felt shy, and I wasn't playing a character or anything. It was just me. And I needed to get good fast."

Things moved quickly after the release of Boys in Town in 1981. By 1983, the band was touring the US, playing songs such as Science Fiction and Only Lonely from their debut album, Desperate.

Divinyls were on their way.

"The way Chrissy was with the band, that was her life," Opitz says. "There was nothing outside that. Once she'd locked into that persona of being the Divinyls, of being Chrissy Amphlett and putting the Chrissy Amphlett charisma coat on, she was locked in. There was no going back."

At the epicentre of Divinyls was Chrissy and McEntee (who declined to be interviewed). They became a couple, and the chemistry was obvious, says Opitz — but so was the fire.

It was a volatile, tempestuous connection, but when it came to music, they made magic.

"They made one and one equal three," Opitz says. "What they did was greater than the sum of the parts. It went to a whole new thing.

"The magic that we're all looking for came from that."

Two animals locking eyes

Tim Finn knows a thing or two about the magic of writing a hit song, and the joys of collaborating with fellow musicians.

From the moment he met Chrissy, he felt an artistic connection.

"It was like that thing when you see two animals kind of look at each other," says the solo artist, songwriter and former lead singer of the 1970s/80s band, Split Enz.

"It's almost like a mirror … when you're a performer, and you're a lead singer of a band … there's a recognition factor."

Incredibly, the two high-profile artists in the Australian music industry had never crossed paths before Finn saw Chrissy perform in 1998 — not as the wild one from Divinyls but as the legendary songstress, Judy Garland, in the musical The Boy from Oz. He asked for a meeting.

Divinyls, by then, were all but over. The band had flown high, fast, and its end came more as a fizzle than a blinding flash.

They had played before a massive crowd at the US Festival with bands such as The Pretenders and The Clash. They had released the hit Pleasure and Pain in 1985, followed five years later by the worldwide smash I Touch Myself. They had built a reputation for high-energy shows and captivating onstage antics.

But tensions and drinking caused rifts that kept growing wider. 

"You would think after that sort of success that it's never going to stop. It's always going to go forward. But certain things get in the way. Alcohol, drugs; fame itself is a bizarre master,"  Opitz says.

Into this atmosphere came Charley Drayton, who played drums on I Touch Myself and its album, diVINYLS, before officially joining the band in 1993.

The magic connection between Chrissy and McEntee was breaking down — and Chrissy and Drayton grew close.

By the time Chrissy and Finn met in 1998 and gathered around his old Beckstein piano, riffing over song ideas, Chrissy and Drayton were a couple and would soon marry and live in New York.

"It was a good time for us to meet," Finn says, "because she was looking for something new, something different in her life musically."

In the space of a few days, the duo created three songs and went straight into a studio to record them, with Drayton on drums.

"She was so focused," recalls Finn. "She just wanted to get it right … I was in the presence of great talent, great charisma."

Then, Finn packed up the two-inch reel and took it home with plans to work on the demo. It did not happen.

"After that, we just moved on, and we never saw each other again," Finn says.

In 2010, Chrissy was diagnosed with breast cancer, which spread to her bones. It was a devastating blow on top of the multiple sclerosis she had battled secretly for years. She had kept her MS diagnosis out of the news until 2007 — after she reprised her role as Judy Garland, alongside Hugh Jackman.

"The pain of both MS and cancer now eating away at your system … it got more difficult, got more challenging on her spirit and her confidence," Drayton says,

Chrissy decided to end the limited treatment she could undergo because of her MS and died in New York. But, says Drayton, she is still with him.

"The one thing you learn about someone who was special and so full of life as Chrissy is that they're by your side," says Drayton, who has since re-partnered.

"Her spirit was something special."

To honour Chrissy's memory and promote early detection of breast cancer Drayton set up the 'I Touch Myself Project'.

New songs a hidden 'treasure'

In the years after her death, Drayton thought often about those three songs from that short but poignant recording session Chrissy shared with Finn. He wrote to Finn to ask if he still had the master tape.

Finn did not know where it was. He had moved three times since 1998. He thought it might be lost.

But in 2023, Finn went into his garage to do a "deep rummage". There, in a cupboard, was the tape marked "Chrissy Amphlett and Tim Finn, 30/11/1998."

"It contains magic," Finn says. "It's a treasure."

Now, Finn is standing in his office, listening as Chrissy's voice — gentle and husky with a hint of jazz phrasing — fills the room.

"To hear her voice, clear and just on its own … to hear it in its raw essence on a single file is really something," says Finn. "Knowing that she's passed and not with us anymore."

This week, those songs, mixed and remastered, will be released on an EP titled Some Times.

The chance to share Chrissy's voice with the world again fills Drayton with joy.

"I think it's something we all need," he says. "We never, in a certain sense, had closure with how Chrissy left us."

But as we play I Touch Myself, or Boys in Town, or now, He's in Love, one of the songs from the new EP, we know Chrissy Amphlett left us with songs that helped define a generation and set the stage for all those brave enough to follow her.

The first episode of Australian Story's two-par special 'Wild: Chrissy Amphlett' airs 8pm Monday on ABCTV or on ABC iview.