The story
Terence John “John” Willsteed was born in 1957 in Geebung, Brisbane, and moved with his family to Kedron in 1963. He attended Catholic primary school and studied guitar under jazz guitarist Ricky Farbach. Although relatives remember him constantly playing guitar, Willsteed recalls himself as a shy child who preferred books and Iced VoVos. His shyness was so strong that during one school performance he played guitar from behind a curtain while a younger boy stood onstage and sang. This early tension between musical ability and public reticence would shape his creative life.
University and the Brisbane Punk Awakening (1978)
Everything changed in 1978 when Willsteed briefly attended university and moved into a Kelvin Grove share house filled with artists and outsiders. There he met Mal Skewis, the first punk he had ever encountered. An afternoon of Patti Smith records and vodka became a major turning point. Soon after, he moved into a New Farm house with visual artist Gary Warner, who cut off his long hair in a symbolic break from his old identity. Immersed in the sound of Brisbane punk pioneers The Saints, Willsteed became part of a cultural shift as the city’s underground pushed back against the repressive Bjelke‑Petersen era.
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