Transcript: Transcript Little River Band’s Graeham Goble reminisces on the cost of success

  • Hello and thank you so much for your company today. If you listen regularly, you’ll be well aware that I do a call out most weeks asking if you’d like to request a guest. Well, sometimes I don’t hear from any of you. Other weeks, my inbox is just inundated with messages and I thank you for that.
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  • Please keep your emails coming. I love to chase up the artists that you ask for. And my next guest is someone who’s been asked for several times over. He was a founding member of Australia’s infamous group, the Little River Band. Together with vocalist Glenn Shorrock, guitarists Beeb Birtles, Rick Formosa, Roger McLaughlan and Derek Pelucci on drums.
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  • Grahaem Goble was the band’s primary songwriter. So many of his tunes reached the top ten.
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  • But as it turned out, it wasn’t such a long way there for the band to find fame and fortune the world over. Grahaem fills us in on how it all happened. Grahaem Goble, great to chat with you. Everyone in the far flung corners of the earth all know that Little River Band was one of the first aussie bands to find widespread commercial success in the US.
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  • But there was no coincidence, was it? Because when you guys set out, that was always the plan. Yeah, well, it was always my plan, even a long time before that. I mean, from about the age of 16, it was I pretty much set my course for that, even though I was just a virgining songwriter in Adelaide at 16. I started when I was 13 writing songs.
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  • But to me, it was just a natural progression. I just thought that at some point I could write and be part of some international world class thing, because the people that I always listened to or that I aspired to become were the best that were the best in terms of songwriting and with musicians and singers and things like that. So I just kept working until I felt I got to a level that I could compete with the best that there has ever been. So that was what the vision was. And so when it took a long time and we had a lot of setbacks and a lot of problems.
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  • But when we eventually got to the states and started to really compete with people out there who were big at the time and getting great receptions. To me, it just felt like, well, that’s what I always thought it would be anyway. So it didn’t really surprise me that much. I just going to say, I saw on your website you had something there on Average White Band. Yes, I know you supported them.
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  • That was our first gig. I want to talk to you about that. But before we get to America, Grahaem Goble, you say that you started writing songs as a 13 year old. So where did you get the idea that you were good at this? How did that all begin for you?
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  • Well, I never thought in those terms of it being good for me. I mean, I lived a very isolated life when I was a teenager, spent most of my time in my bedroom and it was just an expression of the pain of youth, I guess I wasn’t socially any good, really. Well, it wasn’t in any sort of social environment. I never went to parties, I never went out, I never did anything. And to me, it sort of all started with me seeing a guy playing banjo on TV, because we got TV when I was twelve, and I saw a guy playing banjo on TV, and my mum bought me a banjo and I went and had some lessons.
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  • And I was learning the musical repertoire, but I didn’t like it. I couldn’t read music, I didn’t want to learn music. But in that first week when I had a stringed instrument in my hand, I was able to write about seven songs. And that was the start. And so that was just my interest, was just in that I was just obsessed with writing songs and original songs, and so that’s what it was.
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  • So your dream was to get better at songwriting, and you already had the vision in your head as a teenager that you wanted to join the best of the best and head to America, is that right? I knew that I would. I didn’t want to I just knew that this is what I’m going to do. And it’s sort of like you might say, okay, well, some people I know, they know at eight years of age they want to be a vet or they want to do medicine or they want to be a dancer or something. Well, I knew inside me that this was where my life was going to take me and it wasn’t a burden for me to do the work because that’s all I wanted to do.
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  • It’s sort of like Tommy Emmanuel, like he played guitar every day of his life and from about two years of age or something, I was the same in that I didn’t want to do anything else like if a normal teenager maybe want to go out with friends or those sorts of things. Well, apart from my social anxiety, I didn’t want to do that, I had no interest in that, I only wanted to work on my songwriting and write songs, that’s all I wanted to do. Well, you’ve certainly made a big success of it, haven’t you? I guess just shows that hard work really pays off. How did you come to join Little River Band?
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  • How did that come about? Well, it’s very well documented online, but I know that you want to go through it. Well, I formed Adelaide bands from about the age of 16. Firstly a band called The Silence in Adelaide with some school friends. And then I formed a couple of Adelaide bands.
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  • One was called Travis Wellington Hedge and then there was another one called after that, some members of that and myself went on to do to form Alison Gross, which changed its name to Mississippi. Even though I haven’t seen you for. Some time and don’t you know, don’t you know don’t you notice me at all?
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  • You just don’t understand how I feel at all.
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  • Birtles and Derek Pelucci joined Mississippi in 1972 and then we toured around Australia for a few years and headed off to England in back half of 74. And that’s where we ran out of money and sort of broke up and regrouped. But that’s where we met Goble Wheatley and Goble Shock and laid plans to come back to Australia to really work to get from Australia to the American market. The first rehearsals and meetings for the River Band with Glenn Shorrock, which was still called Mississippi in those days, was in February 75. Yeah, that was the plan that we had this for Australia supergroup.
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  • We had Bieber, Goble and myself were reasonably well known, Goble particularly well known with Axiom and Twilights and Beeb in Zoot. So we were easy able to get a record deal and so we just started work. And then after about our third or fourth show, we changed our name to Little River Band and that’s how it worked. And you had to relocate to Melbourne, didn’t you? No, I was living in Melbourne.
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  • You’d already come to Melbourne? Yeah, I came to Melbourne in 72 when my band, Mississippi, we had a song called Kings Of The World, which was a record. We had Record of the Year album and single in 1972. And it was on the back of that that I left my very secure day job at the Public Billions Department in Adelaide and went to Melbourne to live in 1972 and then looked for and found Bieb and Derek to start to join Mississippi and start touring on the strength of the quite successful Song Of Kings for the world. Women in the court yard children of their knee everybody knows them no one.
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  • Is looking for me robin on the. Highway Vegas in the street everyone is. Only no one is trying to make way for the world make way for me yes, it’s only we’ll come back again to this time and be the world.
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  • And then, of course, Goble Wheatley came into the picture as your manager, too. And he had his own rock pedigree, didn’t? He was the former bass player for the band called The Masters Apprentices. Yeah. Master’s apprentices.
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  • So that’s why it was called Australia’s First Supergroup, because there was four of us that had quite strong histories.
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  • And it was back in a time where there was just endless work. I mean, we were doing a gig every day, including Mondays and Sundays and up to ten gigs a week. We’d often play even university’s lunchtime. When the kids would come out for their lunch break, we’d be set up in the court and play 20 minutes set for them. So we played everywhere.
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  • Saturdays, three gigs on a Saturday. And that’s how we became so good. So when we went to America, we were so tight and people just couldn’t believe how good the band was live. We were. We were good live.
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  • Sometimes I think I’m just a crazy cat running around, don’t know where it’s. At, getting confused with my way of life. That’s when you say now you cut. That jab right now.
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  • Right now.
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  • You keep this lame I have a light in me and with this cat. It’S curiosity that keeps me hanging all night and day. Surprisingly again, I hear you say this one outside.
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  • Wow. Curiosity I’m telling you I know where it’s at love is everywhere to be found open your eyes and look around.
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  • Um curiosity Killed The Cat was released in 75 as L R B’s debut single. The song was written by B Bertels. The lyrics, he says, pertain more to him being the crazy cat. Can you share with us, please, Grahaem, how you got the name Little RiverBack? We were looking for another name and it was on about a fourth gig on the way down to Geelong, where the car that Goble was in passed the ex sign to Little River and he thought that would be a good name for the band.
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  • And so that night, he announced when we went on, he just said, we are Little River band. And that was just how it happened. Everyone was happy with that? Well, yeah, we didn’t even discuss it, really. Like, as usual in our band, I mean, Goble just does what he wants to do and he just basically renamed the band and that was what happened.
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  • So you play around Australia, you gain a huge following here, and then you make plans to head to the US. But you first went to Europe, didn’t you, in 76? At that time, we were signed, obviously, to EMI London, because Wheatley signed us individually to Japan and Europe and London and New Zealand, different things. Our first tour was supposed to be on the bill at the Queen Free Hyde Park concert, which was a massive thing because we were going to play there and then the next day go to actually, Germany for three weeks with the Hollies because that was our first overseas trip with the hollies that was basically West Germany. So when we got to London, our gear and everything had not arrived, and so we were unable to perform at the Live in Hyde Park queen headed gig.
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  • And so we simply went straight over to West Germany and did, I don’t know, around about ten or so dates in West Germany with The Hollies.
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  • I think. I can think of anything I need no cigarettes, no sleep, no light. No. Sound nothing to peace no but to make in love with you has let. Me be inside.
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  • What more could I there’s nothing left to be.
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  • Came up on me and be.
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  • So sleep silent go to sleep.
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  • That was sort of halls, you know, just different halls in Europe. And so in Europe at that point, even in 76, the Hollies were quite a big draw. So that was our first time there. And then after that, in October of 76, we came back and did a few sort of club dates and a few places around London. We played Manchester and then off to America in October of 76 to first show in the US, where we support an average white pen.
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  • Little Riverband was on its way to finding the kind of success that even Grahaem Goebbel could never have imagined. Stay tuned, we’ll be back in a SEC. This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye It’s a beautiful day. Glad you’re still here.
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  • This really wouldn’t be any fun without you. The Little River Band’s founder and primary songwriter Grahaem Goebbel has been sharing what he thinks are the secrets to the band’s success, namely hard work and being focused on the job at hand. As you’re about to hear. Despite all their successes, Grahaem had no trouble at all keeping his feet firmly on the ground. Must have been beside yourselves with excitement.
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  • Both heading overseas to play, but being on the bill with The Hollies and then supporting average white Band.
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  • We toured on It’s a long way there, which got to 28 in America, and we were just getting supports everywhere. And in 77, when Help Sonic’s Way came out in America, that’s when we started to really be noticed and started to have some shows where we headlined.
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  • Why are you in so much hurry? Is it really worth the worry?
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  • Then sold out what’s it like inside the bubble? Does your head ever give you trouble? It’s no sin trade it in hang. On help us out I’ll be there. As fast as I can.
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  • Hang on. I give up somewhere deep inside the other man are you always in confusion surrounded by illusion? Sort it out you make out seem to make a good beginning someone else ends up winning don’t sing there don’t you care?
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  • I’ll be there as I can you hey.
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  • Somebody in the man.
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  • Shark wrote helps on its way. And then the next one was Happy Anniversary, which Biebe wrote with David Briggs. But I wrote it’s a long way there. Of course, so you wrote It’s a long Way there. What were you talking about?
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  • What’s a long way? Well, the song. It’s a long way there. We were playing in Mississippi in 1973. So when I came to Melbourne, I was chronically homesick and I used to drive back to Adelaide every three weeks to see my family and buy Adelaide food and have home cooked meals and all that sort of stuff.
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  • And so I had many, many hours on the road and I started to get the seeds to It’s a Long Way There in my head on those journeys. It’s been an iconic song for us because it pretty much was the song that we always opened with our whole career, even in Mississippi days. And it was probably initially about my understanding of that. This is just the beginning of a very long journey in life which encompasses the career, but it also talks about my spiritual beliefs in reincarnation and my understanding or my belief that even just this one life is just one in a continuing very long journey that we’re all on. Long Way There is the journey of either birth to death or from the beginning to the end.
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  • Wherever both of those things are, people. On the road are getting nowhere.
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  • I’m on the road to see.
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  • If anything is anywhere waiting for me every night I walk around the sea alone.
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  • I go and it’s a long. Way there it’s a long way to where I’m going.
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  • And it’s a long way there long way to where I’m going everybody don’t you feel that there’s something that you know?
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  • I live for the day when I can hear people say that they know I make it for everyone.
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  • I feel like I’ve been here for the whole of my life never knowing. Oh.
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  • You mentioned Adelaide food that you were craving. What’s Adelaide food? Well, apart from my mother’s cooking, there’s a lot of things in Adelaide that doesn’t exist anywhere else. I mean, there were yoyo biscuits. They only make them in Adelaide big SARS, which they’re not made anymore.
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  • That was an Adelaide drink. Golden north ice cream, best ice cream in the world only exists in Adelaide. So there were just a number of things and this was back in the day before supermarkets were so nationalized. Adelaide is probably the same as Melbourne and Sydney and everywhere now. But back in those times it had.
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  • Its unique bits and pieces. Amazing. It did. Everything was just better. When I came over here.
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  • I had no cooking skills, I had no domestic skills at all. And so I was really like a fish out of water. It took me about twelve months to get over that move. It was very difficult. I would never have left had it not been the career pushing me to do that because I knew that I had to leave Adelaide to pursue a music career.
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  • All right, so by the time we get to 1978, you were becoming a major success in the US. With the single Reminiscing that hit number three. What was that like for you? I can only imagine how these local Aussie boys would feel to be lauded in America. Well, because it was a you see, Sandy, you’ve got to realize that by the time many, many years, all I did every day was music.
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  • Like, it wasn’t like today where you were like a part time job when we were gigging every day or rehearsing or writing songs, that was it. And so very little sleep, tired all the time. And so by the time we got to America, we’re traveling five hundred k a day. We’re doing a show every night. We’ve got little or no sleep.
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  • It’s a job of work and so you don’t have time to sit and think. Like, this is incredible. And also, I was probably different than the other guys in the band is that I didn’t buy into the adoration and just standing there on stage and the floors, that was very much something that Goble obviously loved and Bieb enjoyed a lot. But touring and performing was something that I did at that time, but I don’t miss it and couldn’t have cared less, really. It was wonderful that we got the reception that we did and that people loved the band.
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  • And I did very much enjoy the shows, particularly the singing and the performing. And I did enjoy being the recipient of the applause that people gave us. But really, it’s like going to Disneyland. It’s a bit fantasy land. It’s not real.
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  • It’s just what we did. Friday night it was late I was walking you home we got down to the gate and I was dreaming of. The night.
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  • Would it turn out right?
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  • How to tell you girl I want. To build my world around you.
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  • You that it’s true.
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  • I want to make you understand I’m talking about a lifetime plan that’s the way it began we were hand in hand van Miller man was better than before we yelled and scream.
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  • And I bought a Jew.
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  • Made us dance across the room.
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  • Ended all too soon on the way back home I promise you’d never be alone.
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  • Hurry up. Late I cannot delete I said myself when we’re all we’ll go dancing in. The dark walking.
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  • A lot of performers tell me that because Life on the road is so busy that they almost misplace the entire period that they’re out there doing it. And of course it is, as you said, you’re in a permanent state of tiredness. And that has to take its toll on band members, doesn’t it? Well, it does on some. But with me, where I was just all about work, I didn’t even smoke, I didn’t drink, I never went back to a bar in my life, never did any parties ever.
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  • So I’ve looked after myself really well. And so at my age now, at 75, I’m in great health and I’m fine. Other members not so much, because and you can see how the lifestyle has affected a lot of people back in those era. They’re not trading too well these days. And from my perspective, I just was not interested in the rock and roll party life.
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  • I wasn’t interested. I just was only interested in the music, whereas everybody else in the band was interested in the party life. I’m surprised to hear you say that. So that even as a reclusive teenager, that whole rock and roll life didn’t bring you out and you didn’t start enjoying socializing, really. Never did.
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  • Never did. So I believe that what started happening to you guys, though, at that time, was that and tell me if this is a true statement from the first album on you, Goble and Bieb always recorded separately. That’s not true. No, that’s rubbish.
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  • It’s all rubbish. We always traveled together on the same bus. We had a band bus and we had a crew bus and we were always together like that. When we recorded the first two albums, like, we sort of self produced our first two albums and the conflict was mainly between Goble Sharak and probably me being the leader of the band in that we were so focused on getting things as good as they could be. Goble didn’t have the patience for that.
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  • And so we would often spend a lot of time working on band tracks and things like that before it got to the vocals. And then sometimes Goble would be there, sometimes it wouldn’t be there because his main role is frontman, entertainer and lead vocalist. Whereas myself, and particularly Bieb and other members, we were all about working out the instrumentation and it takes a very long time to make the records that we were making and Goble just did not have the patience for that. We certainly sang all of our vocals together around three microphones. Always some songs, we would stack them and we always traveled on the same planes together, same buses together.
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  • But the difference was that I wouldn’t socialize. There just was no time. Anyway, at the end of the show, I got a choice of either going back to my room and trying to write a song or getting a bit more sleep or going to the bar. Well, for me, there’s no contest. I want sleep.
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  • Have you heard about the lonesome loser beaten by the queen of hearts every time have you heard about the lonesome loser? He’s a loser but he still keeps on trying.
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  • You loud yourself don’t you. All believe somebody’s gonna see inside the face up you can’t run and high.
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  • Have you heard about the Lord be on my bed every time have you heard about the dog loser? Jesus.
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  • How much were you writing in those days? I would often come back on off tour with 30 or 40 new songs, and the other guys would come back with virtually none because they didn’t spend the time. Of all the songs that you’ve written, Grahaem Goble, which would you say is your favorite? I’ve got many favorites, but probably please don’t ask me. Why is that?
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  • Well, because I think it’s one of the great songs that’s ever come onto the Earth. A lot of people think it’s like an American standard. Do the songs just drop for you or do you have to work on them to produce them? No, they just drop. They do just drop.
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  • It’s a gift. Well, I believe that was like a channel for the gods to bring music through me into the planet. And so I think that back in the day, I would be receiving wonderful ideas and melodies and lyrics, and then I have to bring my songwriting skills to formulate that into songs.
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  • Please don’t ask me what am I thinking? It’s about you please don’t ask me I never can see you what can I do?
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  • My first impulse is to run to your side. My heart’s not free and so I must fight. Please don’t ask me what I’m gonna say to you.
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  • I toss and turn. Can’t sleep at night. It’s worrying me.
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  • I go to bed turn out the light but your face I see. I became aware that a song would enter my being and then I would be able to hear the lyric and melody coming through like you’re hearing it on the radio. I often said that I felt like I had a radio playing songs in my head, songs that I’d never heard before. And so that was a constant thing in my life for about 30 years, I guess, or 40 years. It is amazing for people that don’t experience it.
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  • But I don’t think it’s any different for a painter. Or if you think even in your own life that you might say you’ve got an idea, that ideas come to us and it’s up to us out of freedom to pick them up and go with them or not. Listen to your inner self and live your life that way. And that’s what I’ve been doing and still doing my whole life. Sounds like good advice.
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  • Hang in there. Grahaem’s. Got a whole lot more to say. This is a breath of fresh air with Sandy Kaye It’s a beautiful day.
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  • Grahaem Goebel’s philosophy on life certainly worked for the Little River Band, didn’t it? The band scored more than a dozen top ten hits and were rewarded with countless gold and platinum albums. The end of the 70s happened. We turned into the by 1981, Goble Sharik is replaced by John Grahaem. How did the choice of replacing Goble with John Grahaem come about?
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  • Well, in a year before, and I think it was in 89 sorry, in 80, because at that point, prior to joining the river Band. John was pretty much he had no career. He was playing to about five people a night in the clubs in Sydney. And I approached his then manager, Danny Finlay, my dear, just to produce a rock sort of album for him because he was really in a brown suit and a bow tie or something and doing Sandy the Cleaning Lady. At colleagues club.
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  • Sandy the cleaning lady with trusty scrubbing brush and water who are top fingers to the bone for the life she had at home, providing at the same time for her daughter house. Lady lady aching needs. Not getting any younger. Well, her red disclusant hands have four years not older man. And time would find her heart.
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  • I always loved John’s voice. Like ten years earlier. And so I approached him and then organized a meeting whereby John came out to my house with all these cassettes of songs that people had given him. Then I started playing some of my songs to him and he picked about eight or nine of the ten songs that we ended up recording for his album called Uncovered. And that was the first time that John sang in a rock style.
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  • And we had wonderful musicians, including Tommy Emmanuel, on the sessions. And then I suggested to John that he approached Goble Wheatley for management. That experience was so wonderful with working with John because he enabled me to write songs like Please Don’t Ask Me, because he had the voice. A voice like Goble Shurk would not have been able to have sung those sorts of things. So I started to write for John in Little River Band.
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  • Goble was withdrawing more and more because he was never a big communicator within the band. At that point, Wayne Nelson joined the band and I wrote the Night Owls for Wayne nelson’s voice there’s a bar. Right across the street he’s got a need he just can’t be out on the floor he shuffles his feet away he’ll get the girl because he looks so fine he’s going to win her every time he knows he will. He’s just until he’s night out.
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  • Move on. There’s a heart of a night I’m calling to be love she’s crying in the night it’s gone by the heart of the night I fall in stay. Up to dark until I die.
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  • When Grahaem came along, he could sing anything that I could write. And so it got to the point where both Bieber and I were disenchanted with Goble’s moodiness and crankiness and just being difficult to be with. And so he was basically asked to leave because at that point, I already knew that if Goble was not there, we were recording the Net album at that point. If Goble was not there, then Grahaem would be the first and really only choice. Anyway, Goble accepted.
  • 00:40:17
  • He left. And then on the first audition, we brought Grahaem in and I could not believe what an incredible. Harmony singer. He was. He’s the best harmony singer I’ve ever heard, let alone his lead voice.
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  • He’s just super musician. He is just incredible. If you want me, come and get me. Don’t have a chance if you don’t move now. I’m not waiting any longer.
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  • Know that I’m waiting to in this time.
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  • When you make your move, I will have this place. If you take too long should it be too late? It’s time I.
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  • We had this dream band because he had a great attitude, because he was on his knees as an artist. Like, he he needed a break. It was just a whole energy lifted and this fresh energy came in. And John was in the band for five years. It was my favorite years in the band.
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  • It was just like dying and going to heaven musically for me, yet America. Didn’T ever take to him. Well, they didn’t get a chance. You’ve got to realize, the first single that we released went Top Ten. The other guy with John, that was top ten.
  • 00:41:57
  • We played five nights at the Universal Amphitheater, all sold out. Fantastic reception everywhere we played. But what happened was the second single song called We Two, with Grahaem Out Front, was the fastest moving single we had in America. It was 22 with a bullet in five weeks. In two more weeks, it would have been Top Ten, and that would have just cemented Grahaem for sure.
  • 00:42:20
  • But then there was a major change at the record company and the promotional guy left and a new promotional guy came in and he closed the checkbook on Little River Band. And in two weeks, we too, was off the charts. And that’s what happened. All alone on my own since I walked out on you I walked out on me now it’s gone and you.
  • 00:42:57
  • What to do now there’s so much. Time and so many nights to get through so why do we play.
  • 00:43:12
  • Why do we lose?
  • 00:43:16
  • It’s a crazy life we live we. Too.
  • 00:43:25
  • We felt that Grahaem could take us to where Flip Mack and the Eagles were. That’s what we really felt. And I think he could have, but it just wasn’t meant to be. So you must have been disappointed. No, I don’t get disappointed.
  • 00:43:36
  • I just think, well, that’s that and go on to the next thing. Wow. You’re an amazing attitude, Grahaem global. Well, you’ve got to have in this business, mate. Yeah, and tough skin, I guess.
  • 00:43:48
  • No, not tough skin. I get very emotional things, but I put it into my songwriting. If something goes wrong, I try and work out a way that, where can we go from here? And so when LRB finished that was in 86, we just closed the band down, and then I thought, maybe I’ll do some solo work. But then two years later, there was an offer to put Goble Shorek back in the band, and we recorded two albums, monsoon and get Lucky, and we brought everybody back in, except we didn’t have Bieb, which was the major ingredient for our success.
  • 00:44:22
  • So we didn’t have David Briggs either. So we just had, by that time, Steve Hausden and Wayne Nelson, myself, Goble Shorik and Derek. So we did two albums and they weren’t successful either, because, see, everybody thought, well, the reason it didn’t happen in America was because Sharak wasn’t there. Well, we put Sharak back there two years later and it still didn’t happen. So that was not the reason at all.
  • 00:44:42
  • Because, you see, we’ve had a top ten in America with Goble Sharak, of course, singing things like Reminiscing A Lady. We had Grahaem singing The Other Guy. And we had Wayne Nelson singing The Night Owls. So, of all the top tens for Pan in America has had three different lead singers. So it’s clearly not just Sheriff’s Voice that makes a hit record for us.
  • 00:45:04
  • So what is it? It’s the harmonies, it’s the songs. Look around you look up here.
  • 00:45:16
  • Take time to make time. Make time to be there.
  • 00:45:24
  • Look around.
  • 00:45:29
  • Be a part feel for the winter but don’t have a cold heart.
  • 00:45:41
  • And I love you best.
  • 00:45:45
  • You’Re not like the rest.
  • 00:45:49
  • You’re there when I need you you’re there when I need I’m gonna need.
  • 00:46:02
  • You a long time ago, I had a lady to love.
  • 00:46:13
  • She made me think of things I never thought of.
  • 00:46:21
  • Now she’s gone and I’m on my. Own.
  • 00:46:28
  • The love song was there all the time.
  • 00:46:36
  • As time went on, though, there were further band splits, which eventually led to one Little River Band here in Australia and another Little River Band, led by Wayne Nelson, continuing on in the US. And never the two shall meet well. In my heart and soul they’re not Little River Band, they’re just a bunch of possession musicians that have lucked on to owning the trademark. And it’s been very difficult because they have legally prevented us from performing at all over the last 25 years. So they’ve taken our name and our history, deleted all of our BIOS, they put their photos on the spotify page, done everything to conceal the fact that there are no original members there.
  • 00:47:18
  • They use our music to advertise their shows, they use our images, they sign our greatest hits. And the unsuspecting public in America think they’re seeing at least one or two members of the original band, which they’re not. There’s nothing we can do about it now. It’s now too late. But they were very jealous and vindictive towards the original band.
  • 00:47:38
  • And they play fourth rate gigs and make quite a decent living out of it, I believe. How were they able to get away with that? Because they legally owned the trademark. How were they able to get the trademark in the first place? Well, essentially, Goble Wheatley was involved in transferring the trademark.
  • 00:47:54
  • Wheatley signed away the name to another company for consideration to himself. The original members did not know that the name was lost until around about ten or twelve years later. And so Hausden lucked into owning this company and therefore finding out by default that he owned the name. And then he set about spending as much money as he could to prevent the originals from ever getting back together. Yeah.
  • 00:48:20
  • Is that going to hold or is there a period where that runs out and you will be able to get together again? No, that’s forever. Forever? Yeah. Housing will probably have children owning the trademark and putting it be like the Platters.
  • 00:48:31
  • There’s nothing that we did. It just happened. That’s just the way it was. What it resulted in was cutting off an avenue of income that said if we wanted to, we could have possibly put together a farewell tour, for instance, and done very well out of it.
  • 00:48:47
  • They’re the sort of things that have made life difficult. But I’ve got on with my life and spent the last eleven years writing a musical. This is the thing that’s going to blow all that out of the water in that it’s going to be a lot more lucrative than touring. And we’re too old now to be touring. We just couldn’t do that anymore.
  • 00:49:04
  • But we can make a wonderful film or a stage musical with all of the songs that I’ve got and tell this incredible story, unique in rock history, of how we’ve had our name and identity taken from us and been prevented from being able to perform as Little Riverband. All of this is in this new show that I’ve written. When can we expect that? Well, as soon as I can get investors. It’s the eternal problem in that investors line up to invest in American culture, but they don’t want to support Australian culture.
  • 00:49:40
  • So I’ve not been able to attract an investor. Sandy, that’s been the problem. But we’ve got a show that will absolutely kick everybody in the butt. Grahaem, you’ve also been extremely busy lately with the release of two hits collections, one called Ultimate Hits and the other called Masterpieces. How were you able to do those?
  • 00:49:59
  • Well, the record company have the in perpetuity right to release all the historical work. It’s just that new work. We can’t put out as Little River Band, but we can certainly remaster the back catalog, which we’ve done. Masterpieces is my favorite Middle River Band album ever. The deep cuts, the song or love letters?
  • 00:50:15
  • The original was recorded by Keddie Lester in 1962. Love, let us read from your heart.
  • 00:50:30
  • If I don’t need what a father I’m not alone in the night when I can’t have all the love that you.
  • 00:50:57
  • Goble, it’s been such a joy to chat with you, wishing you continued success despite all the hiccups, but I love your attitude to life. I think we can all take something out of the way. You think? Thank you.
  • 00:51:09
  • Sandy enjoyed talking to you. Thank you. Grahaem goebbel there from the Little River Band. If you’re a fan, you may want to pick yourself up a copy of one or both of the latest albums. Ultimate Hits is just that, 20 of the biggest LRB hits, while the other album is a collection of deep cuts that you probably haven’t heard before.
  • 00:51:29
  • Thanks so much for joining me today. It’s been fabulous having your company. I look forward to being back with you again same time next week.