Welch had studied the Montreal Homeless Men's Choir in late 1999 and established a choir of homeless people for a TV project – the Sydney Street Choir – in 2001. Stephens and his organisation, FremantleMedia Australia, created the ABC TV five-part documentary series, "Choir of Hard Knocks", after pitching the idea to chronicle the formation and progress of a choir in Melbourne. In 2005 Stephens had also learnt of the Montreal group and convinced Welch to participate in the documentary as music director and choirmaster.