'It came on the tail of that post-punk, pop-funk sort of period. 'The two brothers up, Greg, we formed my first band, Smash Mac Mac. When you're a teenager obsessed with music, there's only one thing to do. Either that or be a train driver, but I'll go for music first.' 'At that point, I was like, 'Hang on, I'm good at this and I really enjoy it and I want to make this my life. 'I'd play all my favourite records on the piano and do the classical stuff as well. 'When I was about 14 or something, I was playing by ear,' he recalls. He didn't know it at the time, but his approach to piano once he got into his teens would end up as a kind of blueprint for the way he thought about and worked with music for his entire career. It was kind of horrific and I just hated it, it'd totally be child abuse now.' Going to nuns who'd bash you over the knuckles if you made a mistake. And we were all expected to learn the piano. 'But there in our four bedroom house, there was one for the boys, one for the girls, one for mum and dad, and then there was a piano room. 'Mum and dad weren't particularly musical,' Mac remembers. The piano was a big part of Paul Mac's life from very early on, thanks to 'pretty Catholic' parents who compelled each of their seven children to take a disciplined approach to the instrument.

As we celebrate Paul Mac's career on The J Files, the man himself joined Double J's Caz Tran for a long discussion about just some of the many highlights of his fascinating career.

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