Your current tour is the Tales from the Landsborough Highway tour. Where is the Landsborough Highway?

The Landsborough Highway runs, I think, from Bourke, North up through the spine of Western Queensland.

And that's where you came from?

No, I was born on the coast over in Ayre. In the late 80s and early 90s, if I could get away sometimes I'd go for drives up to Longreach and just kind of hang about and soak up the air up there.

So some of the songs from this tour have been written about that?

Ah, well, the songs that I'm doing on this tour are the songs that are from both solo albums that I've put out over the years and a number of other albums. I guess those songs are internal, but when I try and think of where these songs are set, that's the landscape.

I don't believe in tour titles, but in writing the press release I threw that in and the agency tagged that on as a tour name. When I came across that I thought, well, that's all right, let that go, I can live with that.

Are you only doing Melbourne & Sydney, that's all I've seen dates for so far?

That's right, yes. This year I've done a few things with the band and with members of the band. Sometime we do shows where it's not the whole band, it's just myself and Roy Payne. We did the Brisbane Folk Festival just with Roy and Garrett Costigan came up from Melbourne.

The only time that I could line up the whole band to do shows this year, because they all have other things on their schedule and I have a lot on my schedule this year was Canberra folk festival in April, this trip to Melbourne coming up and Sydney in September.

Who else is in the band apart from Roy & Garrett?

Glen Hanna is playing guitar, Garrett is playing pedal steel, Roy Payne, guitar, Michael Vidal playing bass, and Hamish Stewart playing drums.

And they've been playing with you for a while?

This lineup's been operating now for two or 3 years. It was the same lineup before that that Red Rivers moved to Melbourne and took out residence at Brunswick, where he's running a studio and coffee shop. It became impractical with Red down there so we had to find somebody else to play guitar. Our previous drummer got back into film production, apart from that it's the same lineup it's been for a long time now.

Are you going to have an album coming out with them at all? Or a solo one soon?

We've got most of the next album recorded I though I had it 18 months ago, but I still think it needed a couple more songs. I may do a day's recording when we're in Melbourne, which would finish it off, if I could finish off a little writing before then.

When you're writing songs for different people do you write songs for that person or does it come to you and then you give it to somebody?

Broadly I just write songs for the fun of writing songs. Songwriting I think is just for yourself and if it becomes useful for yourself or somebody else, well that's a sweet bonus, but the fun is just a selfish thing.

What instrument do you use to write on?

Pen and paper. Cheap pen.

Is it words that come first, or music?

In a lot of cases. But once again I've done it every way. I have written words to fit a compelling melody and sometimes I've written words to fit a compelling melody that was given to me.

You must have a lot of songs lying around that you haven't used yet?

Yes, I do. A lot of stuff lying around that's between 40 and 90% finished. And it can lie around moldering like that for a long long time.

The press release mentioned that you've got some news songs for Tex, Don and Charlie.

Well, yes, I've got some laying aside for them, but they haven't heard them yet because Tex & Charlie and I haven't got to the stage of swapping songs. That could happen any minute or it may not happed for five years.

It must be hard to get all of you guys together, you're all so busy.

We don't try, Tex Don & Charlie have never tried to get it together. On the rare two occasions that it has happened it's been a kind of an accidental falling together. In each case it was always fun, so it makes me think that , god willing, it will fall together again at some stage in the future.

That would be good cause it's always fun to listen to.

Well, it's fun to play, so I'm glad it's fun to listen to. It's not always the case. I mean you always try and have fun playing, but it doesn't always mean it's fun to listen to. it's just a matter of whether that worries you or not.

A lot of musicians don't really seem to mind whether the audience gets bored or not...

Hey, my hand's going up [laughs] No, that's not true.

I know you don't want to talk too much about Cold Chisel, do you mind if I ask you a couple of things?

Of course.

How does it feel to be on the cover of Rolling Stone again?

[Laughs] It's me so long ago it looks like somebody else. It makes you think, it's really a photo of a bunch of kids, isn't it?

The Chisel songs haven't really left the radio. Any station you turn on during the day you'll hear at least one Chisel song.

Yes, and when you look at that photo, which looks to me like a bunch of school kids. At that stage it actually quite a late photo. So we'd been on the road for years and years and years

How did it feel recording together again?

[Sighs] Well, some recording we did last year while Steve was still alive. And as always whenever Steve would count in a song it was amazing. Almost too easy. And then when we got together to do some recording with Charlie Drayton this year that wasn't so automatic, it took a little bit of work.

Charlie's a great drummer, but he's slightly different than Steve, so you have to think about things - you know, where is he actually sitting, are we leaning forward or leaning back and what bass drum patterns - stuff that we haven't actually thought about for 35 years.

Charlie's from the Divinyls originally?

Well, Charlie's from New York and he plays with a lot of people, but the Divinyls are his Australian connection.

Are you looking forward to going out on the road? It'll be quite a different tour to the solo one you're doing.

Yes, in every way. Cold Chisel is like a massive cruise ship that we built when we were young. Every decade or two you go and get on it, with your mates. And the rest of the time its all out sailing with the lights blazing and it all on the radio and in people's hearts and all that.

I'm doing what I do, and have always done, which is off there writing - a certain kind of writing about a certain kind of world that I see and know and love. Then occasionally you go and get on this cruise ship and it's completely different organisationally because it's all first class and there's staff and it's a massive operation.

That would be nice, but in short bursts rather than all the time.

Yes. Every time we actually get on the cruise ship it runs aground.

Since we got together to do the V8s in 2009 and started to actually wind this up happening now it's been a pleasant run. Initially in gearing it we were without management for a while which took it down to the five of us sitting over the kitchen table working things out, making the plans and doing the organisation. It took us back to how things were when we were young and it's gradually grown again from there.

These days in 2011 I'm not involved in any more than 5 or 10% of the work, it's all being done by experts.

You couldn't do a lot of that stuff these days, you'd never get to play any music.

Absolutely. And plus I don't have any expertise in booking a major tour. I can book a Suave Fucks tour to Melbourne, but that's almost a different planet to a Cold Chisel tour.

Can I ask you about your book? It got a lot of really good recommendations, people really enjoyed it. Are you planning to write another one?

Yes, I'd like to write another one. I'd like to try a novel. But, you need a good idea.

My experience [with writing] is that it can be a huge benefit to have no idea what you're doing. You can just have fun with words. Which is pretty much what's going on with songwriting. It's my experience that you can, as with songs, almost accidentally find that you've written something. If you're just having fun and making yourself laugh with words.

That's a good approach, I like that.

In all things work is to be avoided.

Is there anything else you'd like to tell me about the tour before you go?

No, only that the Suave Fucks band is enormous fun. We don't get to travel and play together as often as any of us would love to do, so everybody is hugely looking forward to these two shows in Melbourne.

I think there's a lot of people in Melbourne looking forward to them as well.

Well, I hope so. What they'll see is a bunch of guys on stage who are have looked forward to getting there with each other for a long time.