Playing to Win

by Jeff Apter

  LRB could turn it on live, but group hugs were rare backstage. Goble was a perfectionist; Pellicci a hypochondriac; Birtles had found religion; Shorrock was a party animal.

  ‘There was always a multiplicity of agendas,’ said guitarist David Briggs, who came on board prior to their first US tour. ‘The politics and social dynamics of a band on a personal level can be quite different to how a band performs. The Little River Band was a business.’

  The band crisscrossed America in two band buses – the rowdier named ‘Pete’s Disco’, the other ‘God’s Bus’. When they returned to Australia in November 1977 for – surprise, surprise – another run of dates and more recording, ‘Help Is on Its Way’ was fast-tracking its way into the upper reaches of the US charts. Their first big hit.

  It was a great payoff for Wheatley, especially, who was in yet another hotel room when he got the news. He poured himself a stiff Scotch, drank it slowly and savoured the moment. They’d arrived.

  John Farnham, meanwhile, was spinning his wheels, wondering when – or if – Bobby Dazzler would ever be screened. As LRB’s star was rising, his was crashing.

  By late 1977, LRB’s rise was complete: ‘Help Is on Its Way’ actually overtook Fleetwood Mac’s ‘You Make Lovin’ Fun’ as it climbed the Top 200. It was the beginning of LRB’s purple patch, the first in a stretch of 10 consecutive charting singles in the US and American sales of 25 million records.

  The band took just one day off every fortnight, every second Sunday. That continued for the best part of a decade.

  ‘Whatever it takes. That was our mindset at the time,’ said Birtles.

  It helped that Birtles, by his own admission, was an ‘easy-going guy’, a bridge between the more volatile members of the band. This came in particularly handy when tension started to build between Shorrock and Goble, which would eventually bring John Farnham into the mix.

  Sometimes, minutes before they were due on stage to perform in front of thousands, Shorrock would be curled up in a corner, catching up on his sleep. A belt of whiskey later and he was good to go. Goble was not so relaxed. He’d take notes to sharpen their performances, sometimes while a gig was in progress, which he’d later share with the band. This didn’t sit so well, especially with Shorrock.

  ‘My analytical nature drove him completely mental,’ Goble would later confess.

  LRB wasn’t just a touring band; they were also prolific composers and recording artists. With a variety of in-house songwriters – Goble, Birtles and Shorrock wrote together and alone, while Briggs also contributed songs, including 1979’s Grammy-nominated hit ‘Lonesome Loser’ – they had no shortage of quality material. All this creativity came to the fore on Diamantina Cocktail, their third album, which dropped in 1977. It was the band’s strongest LP, containing their best songs: Shorrock’s ‘Help Is on Its Way’; a Briggs–Birtles co-write, ‘Happy Anniversary’; Birtles’ ‘Witchery’, a bespoke song for a fashion store of the same name, commissioned by Wheatley; and a great Birtles–Shorrock co-write, ‘Home on Monday’.

  The success of each release from the band was reflected in incremental increases in audiences. ‘Help Is on Its Way’ peaked at number 14 on the Billboard chart in late 1977, ‘Happy Anniversary’ reached a similar mark a few months later, and the band’s crowds – and the venues they filled – grew in size. The Diamantina Cocktail LP was the first album from an Australian band to ‘go gold’ in America, selling over 500,000 copies.

  In 1978 they recorded ‘Reminiscing’, which hit a band high of number three in the US charts. It was a monster hit. LRB was now in the A league, headlining arena shows. ‘Reminiscing’ was the recipient of an elite Five Million AIR award for that landmark, recognising five million plays on American radio, the only Australian-made song to achieve that mark. (Paul McCartney’s ‘Yesterday’ was a fellow recipient.)

  When 1979’s First Under the Wire LP shipped a staggering one million copies on the day of its release, Wheatley swiftly renegotiated the band’s recording contract. Capitol re-signed LRB for an impressive $8 million, with a $1 million advance. Serious rock-and-roll money.

  In 1979, with a run of full-house shows all over America, it seemed the band’s star couldn’t rise any higher. Promoters laid on the limos and other favours: in Dallas, one promoter supplied a high-class escort with each vehicle. Another provided the band with a backstage hot tub, complete with naked women. Cocaine was rampant, even though much of the band weren’t interested in the high life. But those who were went at it, feverishly.

  ‘From late 1978 through ’79 and ’80,’ wrote Wheatley, who admitted to a dalliance with Bolivian marching powder, ‘we saw some dizzy heights and situations that most bands could only dream about.’

  Over time, sackings and voluntary resignations were pretty commonplace within the band’s ranks, the result of their heavy workload, internal friction and insular lifestyle. When drummer and co-founder Pellicci suffered extensive burns in 1978, they found a replacement and played on. Bass player George McArdle saw the light and left the band to become minister of a Pentecostal church.

  Capitol upped the recording budget significantly for LRB’s next long-player, Time Exposure, allowing the band to record during April 1981 in the Caribbean with the legendary George Martin, but it didn’t prove to be the career peak they’d anticipated.

  During the recording sessions, Shorrock returned from a media commitment to find out that McArdle’s replacement, American bassist Wayne Nelson, had cut the vocal for a new song (and future single) called ‘The Night Owls’. This came as quite a surprise.

  ‘He can do the singing on the rest of the album, as far as I’m concerned,’ an incensed Shorrock informed his bandmates. He was already unhappy that most of his songs had been rejected by producer Martin; now he felt he was being ousted as lead singer. Shorrock retired to his room and wrote a letter to his bandmates, stating that the rivalry among LRB’s songwriters had become a ‘cancer’, driven purely by money. ‘The beast is sick,’ Shorrock wrote, referring to the group, ‘and needs to be made well again.’ However, Shorrock didn’t want to leave the band.

  Goble and Shorrock had never been close – Goble considered him a ‘square peg’ within LRB, set apart from the rest of the band – and after the Time Exposure drama, Shorrock began lobbying to make a solo album. Meanwhile, in the wake of their collaboration on Uncovered, Graeham Goble had been doing some lobbying of his own, pushing for John Farnham to replace Shorrock.

  In late 1981 Goble invited Wheatley to his property in Glenburn in rural Victoria.

  ‘Shorrock has to go,’ Goble said firmly. ‘I want John Farnham to replace him.’

  Wheatley wasn’t comfortable with the idea. While he knew that his client and friend Farnham was up to the job, he also believed Shorrock was an integral part of LRB’s success. He was the band’s frontman, a singer who could project all the way from the front row to the punters way up in the nosebleeds. Shorrock had presence. Wheatley also worried that any change would give their label, Capitol, the impression that he didn’t have control of his group.

  But Goble dug in, pointing out that Wayne Nelson had sung their most recent Top 10 hit, ‘The Night Owls’, and their fans hadn’t raised a fuss. Why couldn’t a new singer do an equally good job? As far as Goble was concerned, Farnham was Australia’s best singer. His mind was made up.

  A few months later, in early February 1982, a band meeting was called in Wheatley’s Melbourne office. Goble spoke for everyone in the group.

  ‘We’ve discussed it and we want John Farnham to replace Shorrock. With him we could be the best band in the world.’

  Wheatley was told in the strongest possible way that if he didn’t accept this new move, then he, like Shorrock, might also be given his notice.

  Farnham got the call from Wheatley the next day.

  Wheatley was surprised by how quickly John accepted the offer, but, truth be told, it was a priceless opportunity. He’d be fronting one of the biggest bands on the pl
anet, and playing to new crowds – American crowds. A big step up from playing RSLs.

  While Farnham and his new band started work on ‘Down on the Border’, the first taste of the new LRB, Shorrock recorded a reply to his dumping. Its name? Villain of the Peace.

  10

  REINED IN

  Many years after John’s tenure with the Little River Band, TV comics Roy Slaven and HG Nelson playfully encouraged him to spill about the first track he cut with the band, ‘Down on the Border’.

  ‘Is it the worst song ever recorded?’ Nelson asked, adopting his default poker face. He had a point, at least lyrically: what, exactly, was the song about: drug smuggling? A clash of cultures? Long hair? It wasn’t clear.

  ‘Actually,’ John replied, suppressing a chuckle, ‘that was a very big hit, but it’s not one of my favourites. I wouldn’t choose to record it, but I was in there, I joined the band.’ Then he added, after a pause: ‘It was my fault.’

  Roy persevered.

  ‘When you were with LRB, did you have Graeham Goble and his other half-baked mate …’

  ‘Beeb?’ offered John.

  ‘Beeb! I can’t work those guys out at all, they’re cod ordinary, never got on with them. Are you of a similar mind, John?’

  ‘Do you hate their guts?’ enquired HG, getting straight to the point.

  ‘No, no, not their guts,’ John insisted. ‘We don’t talk much … I don’t have anything against them but I don’t talk much with them either. I found it difficult because I’d been a solo performer all my life, but I also love to be a team player – as long as I’m the captain!

  ‘I felt very restricted within the band, often because the material we were recording I wasn’t comfortable with. But because the other guys liked it I had to … it’s like being the managing director of a company whose product you don’t believe in.’

  Hindsight, of course, is a wonderful thing, but it’s fair to say that John began his LRB odyssey in 1982 with nothing but positivity. This was it, a successful band, an internationally renowned act. His big shot.

  On 8 August 1982, John appeared with the group – Birtles, Goble, Nelson, guitarist Stephen Housden and drummer Pellicci – on The Don Lane Show. It wasn’t merely an appearance; they effectively had the run of the entire program. What better way for John to make his LRB debut? Lane’s audience loved him. It was as good as a homecoming for John.

  They began with an unplugged, virtually a capella rendition of ‘Man on Your Mind’, Farnham standing and singing, absolutely belting it out, while the rest of the band remained seated. It elicited a standing ovation from the audience, many of whom knew Farnham well from his many solo spots on the show. Wheatley strode out to join ‘the boys’ on the set, his hair brightly blond, in jeans and suit jacket, looking every bit as good as his star client.

  Wheatley and Farnham, who was rocking a blousy, aqua-coloured shirt and black pants, chatted amiably with Lane.

  What changes were brought to the band with John’s recruitment, especially someone with John’s stature? asked Lane.

  ‘Well, I guess the nervous part of the whole thing, Don,’ Wheatley replied, brushing some invisible fluff from his tie, ‘is that we don’t know yet. Since John’s joined the band we’ve basically been in the studio. Time will tell. We’re all very confident, of course, we feel that it’s going to work.

  ‘No matter what the band does now, they’re going to be coming under the biggest microscope in the world. There’s a lot of attention being put on the thing. There’s a lot of pressure on the guys to go out and deliver.’

  Talk turned to testing the new line-up on the road; Wheatley revealed the band was about to head out on tour for five weeks. Briefly, the camera flashed to a beaming Gaynor Martin, Wheatley’s wife, in the studio audience. She and Wheatley had wed on 14 July, with both Farnham and Shorrock stepping up as groomsmen, showing there was no acrimony between LRB’s past and present singers. Shorrock’s issues were with the rest of the band.

  The first part of the roadtrip, Wheatley added, was a quick tour of Oz and then an equally short run in the States.

  ‘The shortest tour of America we’ve ever done,’ added Wheatley. ‘The problem is we’re running into the winter and we really don’t like touring America in the wintertime. It’s quite dangerous.’

  Their immediate plans were made clear: the new single ‘Down on the Border’ was about to drop, but the album wouldn’t appear until the new year. They needed to be in the US to back it up, Wheatley explained; they’d already sold out three shows at LA’s 7000-capacity Universal Amphitheater. Not bad numbers for a band working in a new lead singer.

  The conversation moved to Farnham, who looked a little starstruck, like a guy who had finally drawn all the aces.

  ‘Mate, I can’t believe it, I really can’t,’ John said, when asked about joining the band. ‘It’s inconceivable to me.’

  Lane added how he’d talked up John to some American friends, who said they were ‘hugely impressed’ with the singer. Farnham, typically, downplayed this.

  ‘I think a couple of them thought I was a bad comedian,’ he said.

  Glenn Shorrock, who Wheatley continued to manage as a solo act, was then mentioned by Wheatley. He explained that American audiences expected to hear the hits, the songs Shorrock was famous for singing, and this was perhaps Farnham’s biggest challenge. The band had been forced to change the keys of some of the songs, in order to work with John’s voice.

  ‘But it’s not John Farnham and the Little River Band, is it?’ asked Lane. ‘It’s the Little River Band, right?

  ‘And that’s the way it should be,’ Farnham replied. ‘The only reason [my recruitment] had any impact was because I’m an entity here in my own country. The rest of the world doesn’t know who I am; it’s not so important over there. The thing I do have to do is fill Glenn Shorrock’s boots, and they’re pretty big boots; he’s a hard act to follow.’

  Wheatley added that John was the only person they considered worthy of replacing Shorrock. John, typically, had the last laugh, just as the rest of the band joined them on the set.

  ‘Maybe I was the only person they knew,’ he said, his eyes sparkling with laughter.

  Jokes aside, it was clear that he was up for the challenge. America. The unknown. A brave new musical frontier.

  ‘Fitting in with the guys hasn’t been hard,’ John said in another early interview, with George Moore, for The Australian Women’s Weekly, ‘they have made it so easy for me. But recording and on stage things are quite different from what I’ve been used to,’ he added, subtly alluding to Goble’s notorious fastidiousness. ‘On stage you have to sing the same thing the same way each time, as there are four other voices expecting to join in. And in the studio there are six opinions about the way something should be done.’

  In his solo career, John explained, he was the one who often made those calls, usually alone, sometimes in consultation with Wheatley.

  ‘But it does mean that there’s great input,’ he added quickly. ‘We’re all mates – although we have to make allowances for Wayne.’

  It seemed that the sole American in the band, not the new kid, was the target of piss-taking.

  John concluded, ‘I’ve always been a fan of LRB, and it’s great being able to get up there and say, “This is a favourite LRB song of mine” – and getting to sing it!’

  Moore then raised a tricky subject: John’s new gig meant a lot of road time. How would this affect his life with Jill and their new baby?

  ‘I will never let strain come into my marriage,’ said John, turning serious. ‘I’m in love with my wife and I love my son and I’ll have them on the road with me as often as possible.’

  LRB were workaholics. After an opening run of 40 Australian appearances, from August to October 1982 – which also included two Countdown spots and five other Oz TV appearances – they launched their latest American sortie, John’s first, at the Denver University Arena on 28 October. The band raced thro
ugh the Midwest, then headed to the west coast, where their mini-tour (a mere 15 dates) ended with the three-night stand at the Universal City Amphitheater they’d talked up with Don Lane.

  What to do next? Keep touring, of course. They began another Australian tour, in Coolangatta, on 17 November – barely three days after the end of their run in LA – and rolled on until they reached the Myer Music Bowl, for a televised Carols by Candlelight special, on Christmas Eve. That wound up some 30 dates in five weeks. After a year-end break they were back on the road in late January, crossing the ditch for shows in New Zealand in February, then back to Oz for more shows through April. The momentum never let up.

  In February 1983, during that latest Australian run, the band convened at Beeb Birtles’ home in Malvern, Victoria, to prepare themselves for three shows at the Melbourne Concert Hall, which were to be filmed for an HBO US TV special. But this was not your regular pre-gig rehearsal; the band had recruited a string section for the event, from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra. The MSO – along with much of the group, Beeb’s wife, Donna, the HBO crew and assorted Little River babies – convened in the Birtles’ music room, as the camera rolled. It was a very full house. Framed gold and platinum LRB records dotted the walls.

  Goble stood throughout, walking from band member to band member, talking through the song they were preparing, ‘Sleepless Nights’, and occasionally stopping to whisper something in the ear of MSO conductor Graeme Lyall. There was no question that Goble was in charge.

  John seemed to be working straight from Glenn Shorrock’s how-to-be-a-mellow-frontman textbook: at first he sang as he casually walked the floor, as if he’d been taking a morning stroll, heard the music and decided to join in. Then he took a seat, one arm draped over a nearby chair, all the while belting out the song, even though he seemed to be one short breath away from a nap. Every now and then he’d take the time to drag on a cigarette or sip from a mug of coffee. Fully aware of the presence of the HBO crew, John occasionally shot a wink or a sly nod in their direction, playing to an invisible audience.