Cody Simpson - Welcome to Paradise - My Journey

Family holiday in the Whitsundays.

Visiting cousin Kai at school.

In the Bahamas meeting the extended family!

With my family at Santa Monica pier.

Early surfing days on the Gold Coast.

Big family gatherings.

Dad and I at the Jingle Ball.

Alli and I on the tour bus.

Dressed to impress at the G’Day LA gala ball.

‘Selfies’ with good mates.

SWIMMING DREAMS

I started taking swimming lessons when I was six years old at the Baildons’ Superfish Swim School. I was immediately very comfortable in the water. I took to it right away. Andrew Baildon, who was an Olympic swimmer himself, saw some potential in me and was a great mentor for me from an early age.

It was only natural for me to want to take it to the next level, and when I was eight years old I signed up under elite coach Denis Cotterell at the Miami Swim Club. Denis had coached my mum and Andrew and many other Olympians and world record holders, so it meant a lot to me to be able to train under him.

When I was young, the swimming team was a lot of fun and a good way to set goals and work towards something.

I think my love of goals and hard work comes from my parents. They always told me it was important to work hard and try your best. And they knew what they were talking about. My mum and dad swam competitively themselves, and they both made it pretty far in the national competitive circuit. It’s remarkable to me that my mum and dad competed at such an elite level! My mum swam in the Pan Pacific Games and was ranked seventh in the world, and my dad was an Australian champion. They both were number one overall for certain events in Australia – Mum in the 100 and 200 metres breaststroke, and Dad in the 200 metres breaststroke – but they both got injured and didn’t make it to the Olympics to represent Australia.

They don’t dwell on what might have been, but I think there was an extra gleam in their eye when I started to pursue the sport. They were clearly thrilled that I was passionate about swimming and reached a competitive level. Their sense of discipline must have sunk in at some point, because even at just nine years old I really put my heart into improving at swimming.

I practised three to four times a week. My races would be just 25 metres, but at the time it all felt very important – and, of course, fun. Two years later, I swam in my first race and won it. It was a big moment for me. I was so proud of myself, and my parents ran over to me after the race to celebrate! I felt the energy of the cheers during the race and the excitement of winning for days afterwards. I still have the ribbon from that first race. From then on, I was hooked!

We had swimming meets every other weekend in the summer, and almost as frequently in the winter as well. As I became more competitive, it became a year-round sport for me. I loved the thrill of racing from an early age. At the meets I also loved messing about with my friends and eating the good food they had at the pool café. My closest friends were always people I met through swimming. I still keep in touch with quite a few of them and they often come over to Los Angeles to stay and hang out with me.

I was a late bloomer and I felt fairly small standing beside some of the kids who had early growth spurts. I think it just made me that much more determined. I’ve always been very competitive, but I’m never a sore loser. I’m always gracious in defeat. I think how a person is when they lose shows a lot about their character.

Going for gold at the Gold Coast Swimming Championships.

Feeling like an Olympian with Grant Hackett’s Olympic medals.

MUSICAL BEGINNINGS

Just as the surf and swimming culture was a passion of mine from the very beginning, music has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember. Whenever we would get together with family and friends, it seems like we always ended up around a bonfire or a dinner table playing and singing along to our favourite songs. We hosted these barbecues and parties with close family friends, and they would bring their guitars and we’d all gather round and sing songs. Everyone would join in and I remember sitting next to my parents, in this big circle, and loving the sound of all of our voices mixing together.

We mostly played country music, classics by Johnny Cash and Hank Williams, and sometimes a little Elvis was thrown into the mix. When I was six, I really fell in love with country music. I loved the sound of the tinny guitars and how the songs were more like stories. There was really a journey unfolding in each one, full of emotion and layers. It set a high bar for me when I began to write my own songs.

My first concert memory is from when I was nine or ten years old and we went to the Brisbane Entertainment Centre to see Keith Urban. The whole family went, along with all four of my grandparents, and I brought a friend of mine, too. We had great seats, close to the stage, and I was jumping and screaming and singing along. I was in awe. I realised then the power of connecting to an audience through music. Playing together had always connected my family and close friends, but now I saw Keith Urban connect to thousands and thousands of fans at once. It was powerful.

Country music was pretty much all we listened to around the house and played as a family when I was young. My grandparents had passed their love of country music on to my dad, and at home he always had his guitar in hand and was always strumming away at some chords or breaking into a song. No wonder I’m always walking around singing!

Of course, I wanted to learn how to play guitar so I could join him. I asked for a guitar for my sixth birthday and my grandparents gave me a quarter-size one. I was thrilled! I signed up for lessons immediately. ‘Jackson’ by Johnny Cash was one of the first songs I learned to play on the guitar. It only had three chords, and those were the only chords I knew. But I played that song all the time. I couldn’t wait to join in on those impromptu jam sessions around the barbecue. And – just like my dad – the guitar rarely left my hands.