Real Life Biography

The beginnings for Real Life occurred in Melbourne, Australia, early in the '80s with a series of adverts in papers. During late 1980 Richard Zatorski (born 20 August 1957) placed and ad for a co-writer, to which David Sterry (born 31 May 1954) answered. Together they formed a writing partnership and began work on writing what would become the first songs for Real Life.

In 1981, with a desire to perform the songs that they had written the pair decided that they should form a band. In answer to an advert for a bass player they found Allan Johnson (born 21 December 1957) originally from Adelaide, and Danny Simcic (born 6 October 1962) was selected from 60 hopefuls who auditioned for the position of drummer.

Under the name The Wires the band played their very first ever show in a hotel on High St, Prahran, a suburb of Melbourne. (The hotel has since become a gay club called the Three Faces.) It was at this hotel, just two weeks prior, that another new Melbourne band had played their first show too. The other band was the Uncanny X-men, fronted by Brian Mannix.

On the name of the band, David recalls "we were originally called The Wires, but there was an English band called Wire so we had to change that. Then we called ourselves A Private Life and we were really happy with that. But there was a band in Sydney called Private Lives who registered their name there. We had our name registered here and they said if we ever came to Sydney they'd sue us, and we said if you ever come to Melbourne we'll sue you. So we had to change our name and we'd built up quite a live following with A Private Life. So we thought something close with Life would have to be Real Life. I think it's a shit house name by the way!"

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