David Page profile

In the end, it all comes back to family, reckons David Page. “And even if you don’t have family, you do sort-of have a family, in one way or another.”

A personal perspective on life as the eighth child in a family of 12 underpins Page 8, the latest work of the acclaimed Aboriginal composer and performer. An autobiographical tale, written in collaboration with Louis Nowra over the best part of half a year and directed by brother Stephen, David initially found it difficult to expose his ‘inner sanctum’ to public scrutiny. This despite having lived the majority of his life in the spotlight, with childhood appearances on Countdown and The Paul Hogan Show, and two Top Ten singles, all before puberty.

“I was really, really reluctant about the initial idea of doing this – exposing yourself, exposing your childhood, [because] you hold all of that dear to you,” he said. “To go out every night in a season of performing, and telling an audience of up to 400 people – it was really hard for me to decide whether or not to do that – and to think that my life was that exciting to share! But other people thought different, especially Stephen – it was initially his idea in the first place to do it.”

With no money, the sixties and seventies were a “crazy time”, Page said. Born in 1961, he was heavily influenced by his older sisters rocking out to the revolutionary performers of the era, including Elvis, Bob Dylan and Otis Ray Redding. “If you latch onto that, not just in terms of the music but the artists, the performers, the experiences of those songs and what they were about, it shows you there’s another world out there, you’re not just couped up in a suburban environment with a cravat!”

Page believes he was fortunate the pressure release occurred when it did, at the time his voice broke. “I would oblige to doing the things they wanted me to do, but I was blessed that my voice broke when it did, because I wasn’t really, really successful,” he said. “What I didn’t like was the expectations of people, because I remember as a child, everyone telling you how talented you are.

“As a child you don’t quite understand what that’s about, because you’re just a sponge and you take it all in. You have no fear – especially when you love something and you want it, there’s nothing stopping you. The only time I was happy was when I was on stage singing, because I loved singing and I loved performing – but everything else that went with it was just absolutely shit. A lot of people I knew were going, ‘Don’t think you’re that good, don’t try and think you’re any better than us’ – and I had a lot of that, people knocking me down a peg or two. But then there’s these other people who expect so much from you – they want more and more.”

Aboriginal culture plays a large role in the passing on of life experiences, the overarching theme of the show. “We’re just as normal as any culture in this country, which is so full of different varieties of culture,” Page said. “All we’re basically saying is that this country’s land is who we worship, and we should look after it, because it’s got to look after us.

They say you can’t go home again, but as Page reminds us, there’s always a degree of comfort to be found in the familiar.

Page 8 opens at Belvoir St Theatre on October 21.