How the New Edition of ‘Children of the Sun’ Happened<\/h3>\n
That situation has been remedied, thanks to Jeremy Holiday of Iconoclassic Records<\/a>. Like many people in the music business, Holiday remains a fan first and was shocked when he tried to acquire a copy of\u00a0the 1993\u00a0Children of the Sun\u00a0<\/em>CD.<\/p>\n “I wanted to add Children of the Sun<\/em> to my own CD collection. When I searched for it on Discogs, I saw it was only available briefly as a rare and now very expensive Australian pressing,” he tells UCR. “That meant the market where Children of the Sun<\/em> was most successful \u2014 the U.S. \u2014 had never seen a CD release of the album. Anyone unwilling to spend over $100 for a used copy of a bare-bones Australian pressing had no opportunity to purchase the album on CD today.”<\/p>\n As fans have come to expect from Iconoclassic’s releases, this new reboot of Children of the Sun<\/em> has been substantially overhauled, featuring a full remaster (with the support of Proffer and others from the era), expansive liner notes and new interviews by Ralph Chapman (who co-wrote the new Peter Frampton<\/a> documentary, Frampton<\/em><\/a>), plus a welcome overload of visual ephemera from the period.<\/p>\n Holiday himself learned a lot more about Children of the Sun<\/em> thanks to the immersive experience of developing the new reissue.<\/p>\n “Working with Spencer Proffer, and particularly through Ralph’s extensive interviews with the creators for the liner notes, taught me that Children of the Sun<\/em> was the very first album recorded at the Pasha Music House studio,” he shares. “I am a big fan of Spencer’s productions and the sounds he and his engineers got from that studio in the ’80s, so it was very cool to learn that Children of the Sun<\/em> was the genesis.<\/p>\n “I also learned just how much fun everyone had recording the album, and how dear it remains to Spencer, Larry Brown and drummer Alvin Taylor,” he adds. “It’s a great shame that Billy Thorpe [who died\u00a0in 2007] is not here to enjoy this moment. Another interesting fact is that the album was recorded over a long period but mixed very quickly. That amazes me considering how spatial the original mix is, and how well it uses the stereo spectrum. Children of the Sun<\/em> is definitely a headphones album.”<\/p>\n Many reissue projects\u00a0become an adventure, and the fresh edition of Children of the Sun<\/em> was no exception.<\/p>\n “It had an interesting release history. It first came out on the Capricorn label, which went bankrupt shortly after the album’s release,” Holiday explains. “Polydor then picked up the record. These were license deals, though. Universal’s business affairs lead confirmed that the rights had long ago reverted to Spencer’s company, which had funded the original recordings under an independent production deal and leased them out to Capricorn and Polydor.<\/p>\n “We also contacted Sony’s business affairs because the related Children of the Sun … Revisited<\/em> album was released on Spencer’s Pasha record label, and some of that catalog now falls under Sony \u2014 most notably, Quiet Riot,” he continues. “Sony affirmed that they have no present-day claim on the recordings either and that the rights had reverted. As often happens when rights pass between multiple companies across decades, certain master tapes did not return to Spencer.”<\/p>\n It took a village to bring the reissue to life. “Universal’s archivist was very helpful in locating original 1\/4″ album production masters that Masterdisk prepared and delivered to Polydor back in 1979. The tapes included original handwritten notes explaining the EQ settings,” Holiday says. “Working from transfers of these master tapes, Wouter Bessels was able to remaster the album. Spencer and Larry both provided Wouter with feedback, leading to the first authorized CD reissue of the original Children of the Sun<\/em>, as overseen by the gentlemen who were present from the first session to the last.”<\/p>\n More than 45 years after its release, Children of the Sun<\/em> remains a stunning listen and an interesting musical time capsule that began with Thorpe and Proffer meeting at a party and having a conversation.<\/p>\n “I was a big fanatic of outer space exploration, as was Billy at the time,”\u00a0Proffer\u00a0told UCR in 2022. “We talked about Close Encounters of the Third Kind<\/em> [and how] aliens made contact with Earth. Well, what happened afterwards? We don’t know.”<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> ‘Close Encounters’ Helps Cement Steven Spielberg’s Legacy<\/a><\/p>\n The pair got bored with the festivities but were intrigued by the direction of the talks they were having. They decamped\u00a0to Proffer’s house, where together with “a little bit of good smoke,” they’d hatch the beginnings of what became the idea for the Australian artist’s space rock opera concept, which began with “Children of the Sun.”<\/p>\n “We picked up a couple of guitars and we created a fictional story of a friendly race from another planet, watching the Earthlings self-destruct,”\u00a0Proffer continued. “It was kind of a cousin of the next scene of Close Encounters<\/em>, but not Close Encounters<\/em>. We gave them a name, the Children of the Sun<\/em>.”<\/p>\n The narrative was fantastical but topical. “They were this friendly race from another galaxy watching the self-destruction of Earthlings. Because we were fighting Afghanistan at the time,” he shared. “And it’s like America and the Afghanistan [citizens] teamed up to fight the Russians. So there’s a little social, political thing on that. At five o’clock in the morning, we finished the seven-minute song.”<\/p>\n READ MORE:<\/strong> Rock’s 20 Wildest Concept Albums<\/a><\/p>\n Proffer put up his own money\u00a0to finance the project, spending close to a year working on the eventual Children of the Sun<\/em> album with Thorpe. Though the commercial results were solid initially, the producer chalks up the subsequent events as bad timing and\u00a0the consequence of\u00a0a record label (Capricorn in this case)\u00a0falling apart while a\u00a0song is receiving positive reception at radio.<\/p>\n “Billy was a brilliant talent. The fact that he didn’t become the superstar that he used to be in Australia didn’t mean he was any less of a talent,”\u00a0Proffer said. “It just means timing, support, Capricorn Records filing Chapter 11 when the song was number one at rock radio. We couldn’t help that. It didn’t mean the song wasn’t good and it didn’t mean the record wasn’t good. It just meant we lost the moment.<\/p>\n “But it didn’t mean I lost any belief in working with Billy, I thought he was great,” he emphasized. “I didn’t make one-tenth of the money I could have made working with bigger artists after Quiet Riot and after Billy. But I didn’t ever do it for the money. I did it to make great records.”<\/p>\n The new 2026 remastered version of <\/em>Children of the Sun is available now<\/a>\u00a0on Iconoclassic Records.<\/em><\/p>\n It’s more than just the Who’s Tommy<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Gallery Credit: Matt Wardlaw<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n![\"Billy](\"https:\/\/townsquare.media\/site\/295\/files\/2026\/06\/attachment-billy-thorpe-others-studio.jpg?w=980&q=75\")
<\/div>Locating the Tapes For ‘Children of the Sun’<\/h3>\n
Hear the Original Version of Billy Thorpe’s ‘Children of the Sun’<\/h3>\n
Proffer Remains Proud of ‘Children of the Sun’<\/h3>\n
‘Billy Was a Brilliant Talent’<\/h3>\n
40 of Rock\u2019s Most Important Rock Opera Albums<\/h2>\n