‘That song almost didn’t happen’

July 7, 2015 11:23 am 0 comments Views: 19

Craig McLachlan during a record signing in Sydney in 1990
Source: News Corp Australia

DOCTOR Blake Mysteries star Craig McLachlan has reflected on his former life as a pop singer and the 25th anniversary of his mega-hit Mona.

“It’s lovely that, all these years down the track, there seems to be a renewed affection that song,” McLachlan told Confidential. “I’m proud of what we achieved with that song because it almost didn’t happen.”

McLachlan had finished a two-year stint on Neighbours as loveable larrikin Henry Ramsay when, in 1989, his band Check 1-2, found themselves in a studio recording with ex Sherbet songwriter turned producer Garth Porter.

“The boys and I were jamming on a song called New York Groove by Ace Frehley. We didn’t have the vocal mics up, and weren’t singing anything — just jamming, ” McLachlan said. “Garth heard it in the control room and goes: ‘Oh, great, the boys are playing Bo Diddley, how cool. Let’s roll tape on a bit of that.’

“Then he calls us into the control room and says: ‘Let’s whack some vocals down, and do a cover of (Bo Diddley’s 1952 hit) Mona.

“And I’m like: ‘What are you talking about? We were playing Ace Frehley.’”

McLachlan, now 49, and a star of the stage and screen, chuckles at the memory.

“From hysterical beginnings, we ended up winning the ARIA Award for biggest selling song of the year which almost didn’t happen.”

Mona, released in 1990, shot to No. 3 in Australia and No. 2 in Britain.

McLachlan, who is starring in the Rocky Horror Show at the Comedy Theatre, said: “There are folks at stage door and they’ve got both the vinyl and the cassingle. Seeing a cassette makes me feel old. I just think: ‘Where did the time go?’”

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