The Cold Chisel front man grew up a witness to domestic violence and is using his pull to start a national conversation.

“Men are afraid and are trying to intimidate women, violence is like that last stand desperate act of these desperate men and I just think we have to stop it because it scars families for life,” he said.

“As a child my father and mother were fighting, particularly my dad hit my mum, that affected me and everything I did for a long, long time.

“You talk about me being wild and outrageous, a lot of that was me acting out because I was recovering from the domestic violence – I tried to kill myself, I tried to drink myself to death for fifty years.”

At 16-years-old Jimmy left home and joined a band with a few mates at an apple orchard in Kentucky – that band was Cold Chisel.

For eight months the band practiced relentlessly just forty minutes out of Armidale.

“I was living in Armidale, I’d left home and joined a rock band and we lived and breathed 24 hours a day music,” Jimmy said.

“Whenever we’d be awake we’d be in the room practicing, we’d be there learning songs, writing songs and that period in Armidale is why the band got really good.”

When asked about his favourite pub in town Jimmy struggles to pick just one.

“We drank at all of them I think,” he said.

After ten years the band split up and experimented with different ways of making music.

“We wanted to broaden our horizons as people, we lived together, we lived in the back of the bloody car driving around the country, we shared houses, we shared everything,” Jimmy said.

“It was just time to continue to grow and it was really sad, it was hard to leave the band but when we did we all blossomed into different careers.”

His most famous solo song Working Class Man has become something of a national anthem.

“It sort of touched a nerve with the Australian public, the song was written about my audience, it was written about people who go to see rock and roll gigs in Australia,” he said.

“They save their money and they go out on the weekend and have a good time to forget their troubles.”

Years later Jimmy will return to Armidale to headline A Day on the Green alongside Australian acts.

“I’m really thrilled to be on a bill with each of these band members,” he said.

“Day on the Green is a great bill, they always put great bills together.”