Rolling Stone #247: Little River Band

Up from down under

Los Angeles – “This is not a snow job,” insists David Briggs, one of three Little River Band singer/songwriter/guitarists, “but it’s been a dream come true for all of us… just working in America. It’s such a hard thing to do from an outside position.”

“It’s hit us hardest financially,” adds guitarist Beeb Birtles. “Every time we come here, we have to pay something like two grand just to get in the country. Every time. It’s not easy for a new band… but we’ll keep slogging at it till we make it.”

Don’t let the earnestness deceive – the members of the Little River Band are not the success-starved amateurs they seem. They are, more accurately, polite and happy veterans. Polite because the tiny music scene in their home country, Australia, has taught them to be grateful. Happy because, after years of trying in one form or another, these six musicians are achieving the precious impossible… an American following. Diamantina Cocktail, their recently released, second U.S. album, is a surprise, word-of-mouth hit.

“The scene in Australia,” explains rhythm guitarist Graham Goble, “is very teenybopper. The biggest bands, Skyhooks and Sherbet, are there because of their appeal to the kids. We chose not to take that angle. So we’ve shied away from making supercommercial songs… we want to play for people our own age. We figure that could never happen in our country….”

Back home, LRB’s image is, ironically, that of a Little Feat that finally exploded into long-deserved mass acceptance. With two melodic lead guitarists and four sophisticated singer/songwriters, LRB has mastered an effortless commerciality. Their legacy includes their country’s most important bands. Glenn Shorrock, the group’s lead singer, made his name fronting the Twilights, which some pop historians regard as the greatest Australian band of the Sixties. Beeb Birtles, before switching over to guitar, was bassist in the Zoot, a popular Aussie band that broke up when lead guitarist Rick Springfield left for a solo career.

After a short stint at a talent agency, Birtles joined Goble in a band called Mississippi, which had just released an LP here on Fantasy. “It was a good learning experience,” says Birtles, “but we made the classic mistake of going to England to tour. Britain has always been the place where Australian bands break up.”

True to form, Mississippi did just that. Broke and desperate in London, the band’s nucleus (Birtles, Goble and drummer Derek Pellicci) ran into Shorrock and his manager, Glenn Wheatley. Both were nearing the end of the line with Axiom, a similarly fated “Australian supergroup.” Everyone commiserated and made plans to meet up in Australia in six months to join forces.

Half a year later, they were together again under the old banner of Mississippi. “But,” says Pellicci, “since we were criticized for being an Australian band with an American name, we changed it.” Little River, a town 30 miles outside of Melbourne that holds five houses and a hotel, served their purpose, and the addition of bassist Rodger McLauchlan and guitarist Rick Formosa (later replaced by George McArdle and Briggs) completed the Little River Band.

Their first album, The Little River Band, included the single “It’s a Long Way There,” which entered the U.S. charts last year. On their first visit to America they found their unabashed emphasis on harmony and melodies wildly embraced. “The very first night we played here,” remembers Shorrock, “was at a college with the Average White Band. It was incredible to see the faces… digging us. I kept wondering who walked on behind me.”

Manager Glenn Wheatley met in Los Angeles with producer John Boylan (Boston, Linda Ronstadt, Commander Cody) and made arrangements for him to work on the second LRB album in Australia. What resulted was a situation unique to Boylan – the group worked too fast. “We’re real well schooled,” says Birtles. “Given the amount of records you sell in Australia, you’re given a budget and you’ve got to keep to that budget and time limit… or the record doesn’t come out.”

LRB titled the new album Diamantina Cocktail after an Australian drink made with rum, milk and a whipped emu’s egg “poured briskly over bald ice.” “We figured it was a classy title,” jokes David Briggs. “Better than LRB II or something.”

“It’s a strong album for us,” continues Shorrock. “Every other venture we’ve had in this business has fallen apart after a couple of albums or a couple of years. This is just going up and up. We’re almost carried along with it….”

Yet, on instinct, the Little River Band refuses to leave Australia for American shores. “We elected to do this thing from Australia and we’re gonna stick with it as far as we can,” Shorrock says. “I’m a bit frightened, personally, about living here, especially L.A. It’s a bit of a whirlpool. I think I’d just get caught up and go the way of a lot of other people.”

Courtesy of Rolling Stone #247 – Cameron Crowe – September 8, 1977