James Freud - 1980 - Breaking Silence

Modern Girl/The Television's Hungry/The Saviours/Enemy Lines/Butane Babies/Star To Star/19 Again/Mean Modulator/Blue Moon


At the age of 16, Freud formed his first band, Sabre, with high school friend and guitarist Sean Kelly and drummer Ian McFarlane. Their first performance was at Freud's younger sister's slumber party after hearing the Sex Pistols in 1977, Freud formed The Spred with Kelly and three others. When the opportunity came to record a single ("I Wanna Be Your Baby"),later covered by Uncanny X-men , two members were fired and the band changed its name to The Teenage Radio Stars. They performed the single on Countdown. By 1980, Freud was recording as a solo performer with a backing band, with whom he recorded a minor hit single ("Modern Girl") and an album "Breaking Silence" along with a large cast of session musicians. In 1981, they renamed themselves James Freud and Berlin and recorded the singles "Enemy Lines" and "Automatic Crazy" before splitting up in 1982, Freud joined the Models as bassist after the departure of Mark Ferrie, (who now plays bass in the Rockwiz band on SBS) reuniting with old collaborator Sean Kelly. Freud shared lead vocalist duties on some songs, beginning with one of his compositions, "Facing The North Pole In August" off the "The pleasure of your company" album, recorded in 1983. In 1985, 2 Freud-penned hits, "Barbados" and "Out of Mind, Out of Sight",took the Models to numbers #2 and #1 on the Australian top-ten charts respectively.
He remained in the band until they split up in 1988.
After years of battling alchoholism James Freud took his own life on Thursday November 4th.