Jane Gazzo has always chosen the records she wants to play.
A radio speaker, TV presenter, writer and journalist, Gazzo’s career has crossed paths with many musical personalities. After starting in local community radio, she has come to transform her dream into reality, landing on the BBC in London.
“If they shut the door, you open the window,” she says.
We meet at a popular motorcycle shop on Lygon Street, which has since turned into one of the first bars in the thriving Melbourne suburb of Brunswick East.
Her penchant for rock’n’roll fashion is clearly still alive and no less electrifying: winged black eyeliner, bold prints and patterns, slightly backcombed hair.
It is somewhat reminiscent of an unforgettable and inimitable British singer.
“I met Amy Winehouse in London when she had just signed her record deal in the early 2000s,” she recounts with nostalgia.
“At that time she was voluptuous and just a beautiful, healthy girl. She hadn’t developed into the artist that she would become.
“I met her again towards the end of her career and we became friends. She used to come to a club I used to play as DJ. One night she said, ‘I love your look and I love what you’re wearing’.
“Before her, I had never experienced the destruction of paparazzi in my life.
“The first night I went out with Amy, it was harrowing. I had light bulb flashes in my eyes for an hour later because there were just so many. I just don’t know how she did it.”
Jane Gazzo with Amy Winehouse
In the 1990s, careers were cut short by industry bullying and misogyny, and women at more distinguished professional levels lacked support networks. To survive, they had to find their own voice without any help whatsoever.
“I just think there’s a sense of optimism that comes from my family – my Italian side of the family,” she says.
“That positivity of coming out here and making a new life. I’m very proud of it.”
Her nonno arrived in Australia in the late 1940s and started working for the Victorian and New South Wales governments in construction projects.
Immediately fascinated by Melbourne “as a perfect place to raise a family”, he bought a house in Coburg.
He then bought ship tickets for his wife and their five children. The family could finally be reunited, leaving behind the ancient mountains of Agira, a small town in Sicily where they all grew up.
“My father had his seventh birthday on the boat coming to Australia. He still remembers his seasickness very clearly,” she recalls.
“The day they left Agira, apparently everyone mourned because those beautiful Gazzo girls had left the town. They were in their early to mid-teens and were beautiful young women.
“The story has since been confirmed by a local man who, quite extraordinarily, recognised my dad during a family trip to Sicily.”
Despite having grown up in a family with different cultural backgrounds, Jane Gazzo describes her childhood home as “very much Italian”.
Her mother, of English descent, had in fact embraced the culture of the Bel Paese, attending evening classes to learn the language.
There was also a lot of Italian music growing up: the old Neapolitan song Santa Lucia (to which she still remembers the lyrics), Umberto Tozzi, and the children’s tune Mi scappa la pipì (which she still finds hilarious).
“I learnt ‘pulisce la casa’ because my nonna would ask me, ‘Where’s your mother?’, so I had to answer somehow,” she says laughing.
“I had a deep love for my nonni. I was always aware of the sacrifices they made to come to Australia and give a better life to their children.
“I was nine when my nonno passed away. It was a very sad moment – he was the glue that held the family together.”
Not only Italian music was played in her childhood home. Jane Gazzo also remembers a lot of Greek singers like Nana Mouskouri, Demis Roussos, Jon & Vangelis - and ABBA, of course.
“It’s quite funny that I ended up in the mainstream music industry,” she says.
At the young age of six, she became fascinated by the Sunday music program Countdown on ABC, hosted by Molly Meldrum.
“My uncle gave me a tiny black-and-white TV. I used to go to my bedroom and just watch,” she recalls.
“That show had such an influence on me. That was exactly what I wanted to do.”
During her high school years, the young Gazzo discovered “a new world of incredible and alternative music” and a local radio station, 3RRR-FM, which gave her the opportunity to start with an intern role.
“I used to just sit there and listen to the music,” she recounts.
After a production course in Year 12 and a Bachelor in Media and Film, she finally started doing ‘graveyard shifts’ from 2am to 6am.
“My dad used to drop me off and pick me up – bless him,” she says.
“It was so draining because it was early in the morning. Only taxi drivers, bakers and party animals would listen, but I used to get all these phone calls. And I learnt my craft. There was no playlist or anything, so I used to bring in records and play whatever. I was quite surprised.”
3RRR-FM soon offered her a new afternoon program, Calamity with Jane, before landing on Triple J in her early twenties.
“I got paid to do radio – I couldn’t believe it! I loved it,” she says.
“From there came TV opportunities with the ABC. I started on Recovery, where I interviewed great musicians and artists.
“But my dream was to work at the BBC. I thought it was the mecca of broadcasting.”
Jane Gazzo with Australian music promoter Michael Gudinski
In June 1999, with only one suitcase and a box of records – “similar to her father” – she moved to the United Kingdom, persuaded by the idea that was the only way “to become a better journalist and work with the greatest”.
London became her home for the next eight years.
“It was a difficult time because I was not only Australian in Britain, but Australian and female,” Gazzo says.
“So, there weren’t a lot of opportunities. But I just kept at it and some wonderful things happened.”
Opportunities slowly knocked at her door. Working at the BBC with her show Jane Gazzo’s Dream Ticket, on a commercial campaign with the Spice Girls, Emma Bunton and Geri Halliwell, and collaborating with the famous label Virgin Records and the band Culture Club (led by “her idol” Boy George).
She also took part in a music festival organised by Yōko Ono, had a professional experience with Courtney Love, and enjoyed radio opportunities with Russel Brand and Ricky Gervais, whilst sharing her home with Sharky, a member of The Prodigy.
When her contract with the BBC had come to an end, Jane Gazzo found her way back home and returned to Melbourne in 2007 with a proposal from Foxtel and Channel V in Sydney.
“It was time to go home anyway,” she says.
“My family was still in Melbourne, and I was getting to the age where I wanted to settle down and think about having children. That wasn’t the priority but I had to think about it. And I never felt pressure from my family, I just wanted to get on with my career.
“I’m sure that if I had stayed in Australia, I would have had a much easier time. I was very established and well-known, and I could have continued being very successful.
“But I wanted to challenge myself and I wanted new possibilities. When you’re a big fish in a small pond, it’s a very tough decision to decide to go. I became a nobody.
“But having said that, it makes you work harder and it makes you more resilient. It makes you fight for what you really want. And I really wanted to be a broadcaster.
“I have a memory of the Sydney Olympic Games coming on the TV. I remember thinking how bright and sunny it looked in Australia. And here I was in gloomy London doing the graveyard shift.
“There are challenges in every workplace. You just get on with it.”
Jane Gazzo with Hugh Jackman during his Australian 'Greatest Showman' tour
More recently, Jane Gazzo published her two acclaimed books John Farnham: The Untold Story and Sound as Ever – A Celebration of the Greatest Decade in Australian Music 1990-1999.
She is also a board member of the organisation The Push and chairperson of the advisory committee for the Australian Music Vault at the Arts Centre Melbourne.
The young ‘Calamity Jane’ – who used to fill her playlists with bands like Simple Minds, The Church, Bananarama, and pop stars such as Bronski Beat, Dead or Alive, Frankie Goes to Hollywood – tries to give “a musical balance” even to her two young children.
She is ready to work on her third book, while mentoring young girls by sharing the never-forgotten words of Annie Nightingale, the first female presenter on BBC Radio 1, who once told her “to never give up, just keep going”, and the example of John Peel, a British broadcaster “with an immense respect for artists”.
“The 1990s were about getting ahead and women were very competitive – they did not look out for each other,” Gazzo says.
“Now we’re all about bringing young girls through because we’ve also realised that there aren’t many women in a lot of industries, such as media and music.
“I’m still not taking no for an answer – that’s what I teach now. When I hear the word no, I tell my young students to turn it into not now.
“In London an agent told me that I would have never worked on television in the UK looking the way I do. I got really destroyed by that.
“But six months later, the BBC was starting a new music show and they wanted me to present it.
“So, you can let them destroy you or you can just keep going.”
