Jen Jewel Brown

As part of our commitment to capturing and sharing great Australian music stories, the Australian Music Vault asked some of the country’s most influential trailblazers and unsung heroes to open up about their lives in music.

Viewer warning: This interview contains references to sexual abuse and drug use.

Jen Jewel Brown has forged a career as one of the most accomplished music journalists and A&R managers in Australia. An award-winning poet, writer and editor, Brown revolutionised what it meant to be a journalist working within the Australian music scene. At 19-years-old, she fell into a journalistic career by replying to a job ad at Daily Planet, a counter-culture music magazine run by music industry pioneers Michael Gudinski and Michael Browning.

As part of the music magazine vanguard in Australia, Brown wrote for magazines such as Go-Set and RAM and became a trailblazer for female journalists, becoming one of the first Australian journalist to work for Rolling Stone magazine. Her journalistic methods included the “fly on the wall” technique which resulted in captivating insights into the backstage antics, sweaty band rooms and the intimate thoughts of iconic artists including The Rolling Stones, Jethro Tull and Frank Zappa. Brown is also the published author of two best-selling biographies – Skyhooks: Million Dollar Riff (1975) and Michael: My Brother, Lost Boy of INXS (2018, co-authored with Tina Hutchence).

In this interview, Jen Jewel Brown reminisces about her experiences at the Sunbury festivals, a surprise visit from The Rolling Stones at her 21st birthday party in suburban Melbourne, and her time as the first A&R manager at Mushroom Records and Publishing in the 1980s, where she worked with legendary artists including Paul Kelly, The Church and Yothu Yindi.

Interviewer: Jenny O’Meara

Location: Melbourne Room, Arts Centre Melbourne, 2017