7 Oct 2020

Stan Walker on abuse, addiction, love and forgiveness

From Nine To Noon, 10:07 am on 7 October 2020

Singer-songwriter Stan Walker has opened up for the first time about the horrific abuse and neglect he suffered as a child and young man.

His music career was launched when in 2009, at 19 years old, he won Australian Idol. Since then he's released five albums and won numerous music awards.

His memoir Impossible tells the truth about his childhood in Tauranga and Australia.

He suffered as a child at the hands of his father, Walker says.

“We grew up with a man in the house that kind of sat on a throne, that would just kind of control every little move, every little thing that we did, from how we ate, how we sat down, when we could make noise, who could be at the house, when we had to go to bed – everything.

“And if we were even like stepped in the wrong way, sat in the wrong way, grunted in the wrong way, breathed in the wrong way there was always a consequence, and the consequence was a hiding from my father.”

Despite his father’s “unstoppable” rage, in other ways Walker says he had a good upbringing.

“To be brought up around all my nannies, my grandfather - my koro - he was our saviour, he was like our peace, he was our joy.

“I would always jump out my window and go running to his house and sneak off to his house.

“He took me to get my first bag for kohanga, I still remember that bag, it was a colourful bag.

“Every single memory I have of him was just love and he was the kind of dad to us that we never had as a little kid.”

Walker says it was a privilege to be brought up immersed in Māori culture.

“We were so entrenched in our culture, in our practices that for me is something that I carry even more now because I know how beautiful it is and it’s part of my super power.

“Being Māori and being brought up on the marae, being brought up in tikanga Māori and brought up around the music and the hymns that was my inspiration.”

It was a mix of some of the best times and worst times, Walker says.

“It was not like my life was just hell, at home it was just hell, my dad was hell, but everything else was beautiful, just to be brought up around that.”

His father was a “by-product of a by-product”, Walker says.

“My koro, my grandfather” who I didn’t know he died when I was a baby, he was way more ruthless than my dad and that’s hard to believe knowing how ruthless my dad was, knowing how savage my dad was, but he was his father’s son in every way and hurt people.

"You’re not born like that, you’re not born raging, you’re not born to abuse, you’re not born racist.”

Walker’s father has overcome his abusive behaviour and anger now.

“I have so much empathy and compassion for him, that I don’t even like condemn him at all, not one bit for what he’s done to me, my brothers, because this is a hurt little boy trapped in a man’s body, this is a hurt, revengeful boy because he’s trying to get back at anyone who hurt him.

“He’s such an incredible man and for him to break the cycle of intergenerational violence and aggressiveness and hate – he’s a champion.”

When Walker was eight the family moved to Australia and here he was the victim of further abuse, he was sexually abused by an older family member.

Walker says it wasn’t until he spoke to a good friend from a church group when he was in his teens that he felt able to discuss it.

“He told me he had been molested and raped as a kid and I was sitting there going ‘what the hell?’

“Him being free, sharing his testimony, allowed me and gave me permission to start that journey of being free.”

While Walker says he feels sorry for “little Stan”, he says he is a different man now. His faith has been a constant in his life.

“That has been the centre of everything … if I didn’t have that then I wouldn’t be who I am today.

“Man, I don’t know how people do life without God.”

Walker says he hasn’t always been comfortable in the music business and had on a few occasions considered giving it away.

“Everything I am to today I’ve had to fight for, to be unapologetically Māori in every single way without being told 'oh that’s a bit too much or it’s too cultural or that’s too Māori'.

“Many times I’ve lost my passion. I’ve been in some of the biggest moments of my career and I’ve had the highest highs of my career and been at the top of the mountain and I haven’t felt nothing, I’m sitting there smiling and singing and here I am trying to inspire the people and serve people out of like an empty cup. And I hate it, I’ve got no passion for it, I could actually give up singing any time.

“Because it’s become this thing where people try to tell me how to do it, where to do it, who to do it with and when to so and I’m like ‘nah, nah, nah this is mine, this is my gift, this is my dream, this is my voice’.”

Walker's memoir Impossible will be in shops next week and he's touring with Mike King next month.