When Graham “Buzz” Bidstrup was 12, he met Charlie Watts in Adelaide.

“I want to be a drummer in a band,” he told The Rolling Stones legend. “Just like you.”

“Keep practising,” Charlie told the kid, “and I’m sure you’ll get there.”

He did. Buzz became one of the greatest drummers in Australian rock, best known for his four-album stint in The Angels, including their seminal albums Face To Face and No Exit.

But there’s much more to the story, as Buzz reveals in his autobiography, which has just been published. 

No Secrets is a must-read for anyone interested in Australian music, with terrific tales of trying to break America, band politics and studio secrets.

Here are 10 takeaways from Buzz’s book.

Being a drummer is a tough gig

“There’s a certain kind of craziness that often happens in a live rock band,” Buzz writes. “If one player is tired, stoned, too drunk or all of the above, they might play just behind the beat all night. On the other hand, another musician might have had more cocaine and less alcohol. That one would most likely be well ahead of the beat.

“So imagine you’re a drummer. Stage left, one guy’s looking at you, frantically motioning for you to play faster. Simultaneously, stage right, another guy is demanding just as insistently that you slow it down. It can get very confusing and lead to heated discussions in the band room.”

What’s the Buzz?

When Buzz joined the Brewster brothers and Doc Neeson in The Angels, they thought that “John, Rick, Doc and … Graham” sounded a little lame. The new drummer said, “How about ‘John, Rick, Doc and Buzz?’”

While in Amsterdam, Graham’s travelling companion dubbed him “Troy McThrock” – “playboy millionaire from Hawaii”.

“No,” he replied, “I’m Buzz Throckman, American caterpillar tractor driver.”

The Angels had a new drummer, and he had a very cool stage name.

Rick Brewster is wonderfully wacky

Buzz calls Rick Brewster “the consummate lead guitarist … I feel that Rick is sometimes overlooked when people talk about great Australian guitarists.”

And Rick might be the only rock guitarist who collects butterflies.

“To say Rick was a bit eccentric would be an understatement,” Buzz writes. “He was distinctly odd in the nicest of ways. Having studied entomology and agricultural science at Adelaide University, he loved collecting butterflies and other insects.”

At outdoor gigs, “it was not unusual for Rick to run off stage with his butterfly net aloft, chasing down a specimen.”

Saying goodbye to Bon

What would Australian rock have been without Bon Scott? Buzz was trying to break into the UK scene when he caught AC/DC’s first gig in London in 1976. After the show, Bon gave Buzz some advice: “You ought to go home and start a decent rock band. Rock ’n’ roll is making a comeback there, I’m telling you.”

Buzz went home and joined The Angels, who landed a record deal with Alberts after being recommended by Bon and Malcolm Young.

Buzz co-wrote the classic No Secrets, which The Angels were recording in February 1980.

“Doc usually recorded his vocals at night when his body clock told him it was time to be on stage [and] he was about to sing No Secrets,” Buzz recalls. “I was in the control booth … then shattering news hit the studio. An ashen-faced studio assistant quietly entered the control room to tell us Bon Scott had just been found dead in London at the age of 33.

“Bon to us was a wonderful man. He’d been hugely influential in all our lives.”

The Kinks were not cool

The Angels’ first big break in America – where they were known as Angel City – was a tour with The Kinks.

When the shows kicked off in Chicago, Buzz was very excited. When he bumped into Dave Davies in the corridor, he held out his hand and smiled: “Hi Dave, I’m Buzz from Angel City. It’s a real honour to be on your tour. I’m a huge Kinks fan.”

The guitarist blanked him. Instead, he turned to a security guard and demanded, “How do you get to the stage?”

Things only got worse. After just eight shows, The Angels were kicked off the tour – for being too good. Ray Davies didn’t dig that they were getting a great reaction. He refused to be upstaged by an unknown Aussie act.

Missed opportunities

When Steve Prestwich left Cold Chisel, the band asked Buzz if he’d be their new drummer. Buzz declined the offer, knowing that Steve would one day return.

After seeing a young Melbourne band named Men At Work, Buzz put his hand up to produce their debut album. But the gig went to an American producer named Peter McIan, and the album sold more than 10 million copies.

They’re the ones that got away. But Buzz was busier than ever after leaving The Angels, making records with Mondo Rock (playing on their hit album Chemistry), Tiny Tim, Australian Crawl (their chart-topping Semantics EP) and Michael Hutchence’s girlfriend Flame Fortune. He worked on the music for the ABC TV series Sweet and Sour, produced the demos that got Flowers/Icehouse a record deal, and was a founding member of the Aussie supergroup The Party Boys. 

And Buzz mixed the Hoodoo Gurus’ debut single Leilani. “I’m very happy to have been a small part of the history of that great Australian band.”

Laugh and think, this is Australia

Not many Aussie musicians have streets named after them. Buzz Bidstrup has two. The Angels Lane was recently unveiled in Adelaide, and if you head to Bundaberg in Queensland, you’ll find a street named Ganggajang Way in Kalkie.

After quitting The Angels to focus on studio work, Buzz found himself itching to start a new band. He formed GANGgajang with his wife, Kayellen Bee; his bass-playing buddy from The Angels, Chris Bailey; and Mark “Cal” Callaghan from The Riptides.

Cal had written a song about his young years in Bundaberg. But he didn’t think it should be on the band’s debut album. Then, when the band convinced him otherwise, it was suggested they should drop the line “This is Australia” because it sounded a little too jingoistic.

But Buzz insisted it remain – “beginning the journey of Sounds Of Then into the Australian music psyche. Some people thought it should be called ‘Out On The Patio’ or ‘This Is Australia’, but whatever you call it, the track was added to the Australian National Film and Sound Archive’s Sounds of Australia register.”

Surf’s up tonight

After being featured in the surf movie Mad Wax, GANGgajang were twice voted the number one band in the world by the Pro Surfers Federation. And they became a massive attraction in Brazil, where they befriended a legendary local band named Mamonas Assassinas. 

The Aussies invited their new Brazilian buddies to tour Australia with them, but sadly, it never happened. In 1996, all five members of the band were killed when their plane crashed into a mountain range near São Paulo.

I Go Off

Buzz also had a successful career in music management, managing the pioneering Indigenous artist Jimmy Little for 13 years, as well as Nathan Cavaleri and Diana ah Naid.

Buzz was organising deals for Diana in the US. But her career was derailed by a vocal cord cyst.

If you were around in 1997, you heard Diana’s debut single, I Go Off. It was on high rotation on triple j, cracking ARIA’s Top 40.

One of the greatest love stories in Australian rock

Jimmy and Jane Barnes have been married for 44 years. How did they meet? Buzz introduced them.

“Jimmy first saw Jane when he walked into my room at the Motel 7, Canberra, in November 1979,” Buzz writes.

“As usual, I was sharing a room with Chris [Bailey]. Jane and her friend Victoria Pollock (who would become Mark Opitz’s wife) had come over to the hotel to say hello before going to the gig.

“When Jimmy first saw Jane, he was dumbstruck and had to momentarily leave the room to rally his senses. As we all got up to go outside and throw some frisbee, something Jimmy never did, I introduced the two.”

‘No Secrets’ by Graham ‘Buzz’ Bidstrup (Harper Collins Publishers $35.99) is out now. You can purchase a copy here.