The Last Post: Welcome to The Last Post Jeff. We’ve spoken before, your books on Daniel Johns and George Young from The Easybeats, and now you’ve got this amazing book out, Behind Dark Eyes, the story of the real Jon English. What was that like to put together? Jeff Apter: It was a challenge. I mean all books are a challenge and they have their highs and lows. This one in particular, it was tricky in a lot of ways. I got great access. His family had approached me about writing the book so we’ve just decided we can call it an authorized book. And then they were great. They said basically, “We want you to tell Jon’s story, warts and all.” This was a flawed person. He had his
own failings and he had some great, great career highs. I was really quite surprised in some ways that I never had any intrusion from the family as I went about talking to different people and putting the story together. There are some passages in the book, as you would know from reading it, that don’t reflect too greatly on Jonny. Like I said, he had some shortcomings. He had a problem with depression. He drank too much. Fidelity wasn’t his strongest suit. But he led this fascinating and really, I think in some ways, slightly underappreciated career. We tend to forget about Jon, particularly when we’re talking about great rock and roll frontmen from Australia. It’s always Farnsy, Barnsey and Peter
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Garrett, and so on. Jon doesn’t really get the recognition he deserved in that field, let alone the other fields in which he excelled. So it was good in that respect to get the book out and to remind a lot of people what this guy achieved and just how great he was, particularly when he was at his peak. I don’t think there was anybody could hold a candle to him as a rock star/TV star/Gilbert & Sullivan star. TLP: Yes, he did so much. He did so much, Jeff and I think in the opening of the book, you take us back to Cabramatta in 1961 so beautifully, we’re there with you and with Jon, too. That’s where the family first settled when they came in ‘61.
