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Where I lived in Glasgow looked like Dresden after the war. It was a bomb site. I don't think I'd ever played football on grass until I moved to Australia.
Everything affects you, and it doesn't measure how tough you are by being a rock and sitting by yourself. People need to talk. It's not a sign of weakness.
There are new children arriving and trying to reach our lucky country every day, and I hope that we can all work together to help them find their dream, too.
I used to think that if someone asked for help, they were weak. But the toughest thing I ever did was reach out and ask for help. And that was when I started to heal.
I got to 25, and I thought, 'I'm never going to make 30.' But now I look at it like... if you can remain true to what you do, I don't see why you can't keep doing it.
Cold Chisel had their moments, but basically, they were all decent, quiet chaps. I was just a lunatic. Those guys didn't know what had hit them when I joined the band.
I used to think anyone with abandonment issues was a waste of space. But you do need to get help. Blokes don't talk about those things. It's a taboo in the bloke world.
My family were very poor. We never owned a house, in fact, we were lucky if we could afford the rent. So when I bought my first home, it was a very emotional time for me.
I have done a lot of great things. I have a beautiful family and wonderful friends. But there were many times, dark times, that I almost let it all slip through my fingers.
I know that life is full of lessons to be learned, and my children will have to learn their own, but I hope I have broken the cycle of shame and fear that plagued my childhood.
Iggy Pop is legendary - he is awesome - and I am a massive Bruce Springsteen fan. His song 'Cautious Man' is my favourite song. It's really poignant, dark, and moody, like myself.
You see politicians talking about negative gearing or tax on your second home - most people I knew growing up couldn't afford the rent, let alone buying a house, or a second house.
I've been writing books because it's been my way of dealing with the demons. The act of sitting down and writing the books down has started healing process that's been long overdue.
No matter what day we celebrate Australia Day, let's celebrate it together and give thanks to the original inhabitants of this vast country. We are lucky to be sharing it with them.
I always thought I could be brave and charge at things and smash 'em and walk away, but it takes courage to sit and look at things and say, 'This is what I am. How do I fix it? How do I live with it?'
I keep my Scottish connection. I know where I was born, and that's an important part of my history, and I think all immigrants are the same. But if I could live anywhere in the world, it would be Australia.
For a long time, it was all about chart position. 'If my record doesn't come in at No. 1, I'm a failure.' I cared too much about what people thought of me, and that was symptomatic of the trauma from my childhood.
The music industry is quite brutal and quite harsh and can be spirit shattering, but it's an honour to be a musician because your job is to make sure people enjoy themselves; to make people forget about their troubles.
'Working Class Man' is my second memoir and is a continuation of my story from where 'Working Class Boy' left off. The book is really an attempt at explaining the impact of my childhood on myself and the ones I loved as an adult.
Politicians have been spreading fear, saying if we're letting in refugees, we're letting in terrorists. It's not the truth. We've got to recognise the difference between terrorism and people who are refugees; people who are struggling.
Everything that happened to me as a child was the perfect breeding ground for a rock n' roll singer. It toughened me up. I was on edge; I was needy. I needed people to like me 'cause it made me feel safe... and that gave me confidence.
I used to think I was tough, but there's a difference between bravado and courage, and I only started to show courage when I began to get help. So now I make a point of telling people, 'Hey, it's a good thing to ask for help, not a bad thing.'
Most people I know think that I'm crazy - but anybody who actually knew Billy Thorpe didn't think that. When I was a young kid growing up in Adelaide, he was a big pop star - a well-dressed, nice young guy seen on television every week. Mums liked him.
I wouldn't give Peter Dutton any of my time. It's a waste of time speaking to someone like him because they just spread lies and propaganda. He doesn't represent me, he doesn't care about people, and I wouldn't give him the time of day, to tell you the truth.
I think tax is tough in this country. Every time I sign a cheque to pay tax, it drives me crazy. But at the same time, I'm happy to live here. I want to have a good medical system, good education, good roads, so it's a Catch 22. I hate it, but it's a necessary evil.
We still had all our problems growing up as a struggling immigrant family, but Australia was like a breath of fresh air, literally. Playing on grass, having good schools - trees. I didn't even know trees where I'd come from. So from the day I got here, I've loved Australia.
Success isn't about reaching your goals; it's about striving for things, like the joy of trying to raise a family, trying to be a successful singer, trying to write good songs, trying to be a better person. It's that old thing about life being about the journey, not the destination.
If there was one thing I tried to instil in my children as they were growing up, it was that you get nothing for nothing. You have to work hard to get any rewards. That applies in music or whatever you choose to do. The same goes in relationships; you will only get back what you put in.
I have very strong memories of my early years. In fact, I remember the house I was born in, and we moved from that house when I was less than ten months old. I have drawn pictures of it and shown my mother, and she was shocked because we have no photos of the place, and I was very accurate.
Around 2001, I went to rehab in Arizona, and I started to see what was going on and how the past affected me. I started to get a grip on it. But over the next decade, I reverted to the behaviour I used to protect myself when I was young - being mindless, being defeatist and full of bravado.
My dad was a prize fighter in his youth. My boxing skills are very limited. I did train for most of my youth but couldn't really see the point of getting punched in the head. I'm a lover, not a fighter, but I do enjoy the sport in its purest form. As a child, my heroes were my dad and Muhammad Ali.
I sat in on some songwriting classes, and it was really bloody hard, a lot of music theory. I'd be sitting there, and they'd be talking all this music theory, and the teacher would say, 'Let's ask our guest Jimmy what he thinks,' and I'd be sitting there thinking, 'Please don't ask me, please don't ask me.'
There's something about the energy and the expectations that an audience projects at you. I get up on stage and work and work, and there's chaos all around me, then I'll shut my eyes, and boom! I slot into the zone. It's like the eye of the hurricane. Everything is easy, and I'm capable of doing things I didn't know I was.
In the 1970s, we got a Labor government that put more emphasis on trade with Asia; the Vietnam war ended, and refugees were coming in. We were more part of Asia than America and the rest of the world. There was the proximity, for a start - all these countries and cultures just north of us. It just made sense that that's what we were part of.