Cold Chisel are an Australian pub rock band, which formed in Adelaide in 1973 by mainstay members Ian Moss on guitar and vocals, Steve Prestwich on drums, Les Kaczmarek on bass and Don Walker on piano and keyboards.

Musicologist Ian McFarlane wrote that they became "one of Australia's best-loved groups" as well as "one of the best live bands", fusing "a combination of rockabilly, hard rock and rough-house soul'n'blues that was defiantly Australian in outlook."

Australian musicologist Ian McFarlane described how, "[it] failed to capture the band's renowned live firepower, despite the presence of such crowd favourites as 'Khe Sanh', 'Home and Broken Hearted' and 'One Long Day'.

[9] In May 1978, "Khe Sanh" was released as their debut single but it was declared too offensive for commercial radio due to the sexual implication of the lyrics, e.g. "Their legs were often open/But their minds were always closed.

"[5][12] However, it was played regularly on Sydney youth radio station Double J, which was not subject to the restrictions as it was part of the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC).

Australian writer Ed Nimmervoll described a typical performance by Cold Chisel: "Everybody was talking about them anyway, drawn by the songs, and Jim Barnes' presence on stage, crouched, sweating, as he roared his vocals into the microphone at the top of his lungs.

The members developed reputations for wild behaviour, particularly Barnes, who claimed to have had sex with over 1000 women and who consumed more than a bottle of vodka each night while performing.

"[5] The album varied from straight-ahead rock tracks "Standing on the Outside" and "My Turn to Cry" to rockabilly-flavoured work-outs ("Rising Sun", written about Barnes' relationship with his then-girlfriend Jane Mahoney) and pop-laced love songs ("My Baby" by Phil Small, featuring Joe Camilleri on saxophone) to a poignant piano ballad about prison life, "Four Walls".

The cover art showed Barnes reclined in a bathtub wearing a kamikaze bandanna in a room littered with junk and was inspired by Jacques-Louis David's 1793 painting The Death of Marat.

[5] The Ian Moss-penned "Never Before" was chosen as the first song to air on the ABC's youth radio station, Triple J, when it switched to the FM band that year.

[18][19][20] They attended the ceremony at the Sydney Entertainment Centre and were due to perform: however, as a protest against a TV magazine's involvement, they refused to accept any trophy and finished the night with "My Turn to Cry".

[6] According to Barnes' biographer, Toby Creswell, at one point they were ushered into an office to listen to the US master tape to find it had substantial hiss and other ambient noise,[6] which made it almost unable to be released.

[2][3] To launch the album, the band performed under a circus tent at Wentworth Park in Sydney and toured heavily once more, including a show in Darwin that attracted more than 10 percent of the city's population.

Like its predecessor, Circus Animals contained songs of contrasting styles, with harder-edged tracks like "Bow River" and "Hound Dog" beside more expansive ballads such as the next two singles, "Forever Now" (March 1982) and "When the War Is Over" (August), both written by Prestwich.

[21][28] The band's final performances were at the Sydney Entertainment Centre from 12 to 15 December 1983[28] – ten years since their first live appearance as Cold Chisel in Adelaide – and the group then disbanded.

Some were also used as B-sides for a three-CD singles package, Three Big XXX Hits, issued ahead of the release of their 1994 compilation album, Teenage Love.

Barnes launched his solo career in January 1984, which has provided nine Australian number-one studio albums and an array of hit singles, including "Too Much Ain't Enough Love", which peaked at No. 1.

[2][3][5] Walker formed Catfish in 1988, ostensibly a solo band with a variable membership, which included Moss, Charlie Owen and Dave Blight at times.

[29] Throughout the 1980s and most of the 1990s, Cold Chisel were courted to re-form but refused, at one point reportedly turning down a $5 million offer to play a sole show in each of the major Australian state capitals.

[33] The Australian's Stephen Fitzpatrick rated it as four-and-a-half out of five and found its lead track, "All for You", "speaks of redemption; of a man's ability to make something of himself through love.

"[40] Midway through 2012 they embarked on a short UK tour and played with Soundgarden and Mars Volta at Hard Rock Calling at London's Hyde Park.

[33][43] Martin Boulton of The Sydney Morning Herald rated it at four out of five stars and explained that the album does what Cold Chisel always does: "work incredibly hard, not take any shortcuts and play the hell out of the songs."

The album, Boulton writes, "delves further back to their rock'n'roll roots with chief songwriter [Walker] carving up the keys, guitarist [Moss] both gritty and sublime and the [Small/Drayton] engine room firing on every cylinder.

[49] McFarlane described Cold Chisel's early career in his Encyclopedia of Australian Rock and Pop (1999): "after ten years on the road, [they] called it a day.

By virtue of the profound effect the band's music had on the many thousands of fans who witnessed its awesome power, Cold Chisel remains one of Australia's best-loved groups.

The songs were not overtly political but rather observations of everyday life within Australian society and culture, in which the members with their various backgrounds (Moss was from Alice Springs, Walker grew up in rural New South Wales, Barnes and Prestwich were working-class immigrants from the UK) were quite well able to provide.

[citation needed] Cold Chisel's songs were about distinctly Australian experiences, a factor often cited as a major reason for the band's lack of international appeal.

"Saturday Night" and "Breakfast at Sweethearts" were observations of the urban experience of Sydney's Kings Cross district where Walker lived for many years.

Songs like "Shipping Steel" and "Standing on The Outside" were working-class anthems and many others featured characters trapped in mundane, everyday existences, yearning for the good times of the past ("Flame Trees") or for something better from life ("Bow River").

In 2007, Standing on the Outside: The Songs of Cold Chisel was released, featuring a collection of the band's songs as performed by artists including The Living End, Evermore, Something for Kate, Pete Murray, Katie Noonan, You Am I, Paul Kelly, Alex Lloyd, Thirsty Merc and Ben Lee,[53] many of whom were children when Cold Chisel first disbanded and some, like the members of Evermore, had not even been born.