BSG - Birtles, Shorrock and Goble
Interview by Greg Phillips

Formed in 1974, Australia’s Little River Band achieved massive international success throughout the late seventies and early eighties with their beautifully crafted songs and acclaimed harmonies. They were one of the biggest bands of their time selling 25 million records worldwide. Their songs still gain plenty of airplay on American radio and there isn’t a day that goes by on local AOR radio that you won’t hear one of their hits. There were plenty of them too; 'Curiosity Killed the Cat', 'It’s A Long Way There', 'Help is on Its Way', 'Happy Anniversary', 'Home on Monday', and 'Reminiscing' to name some of the best.

By the nineties LRB’s main voices and songwriters, Glenn Shorrock, Graham Goble and Beeb Birtles had all left to pursue other goals. After all they had done everything and more than they had set out to do. The Little River Band in one form or another kept touring internationally. One version of the band featured John Farnham as lead singer and enjoyed further success. Somewhere along the line guitarist Steve Housden, who was not with the original lineup, managed to acquire ownership of the Little River Band name. Housden’s LRB has never stopped touring and as we speak is touring the states in support of a new album, cheekily entitled "Where We Started From". When Birtles, Shorrock and Goble got back together to sing at Melbourne’s Formula One Grand Prix a couple of years ago they found that they were unable to do so under the Little River Band name. A court case ensued in an attempt to retrieve the name but was defeated.

Now with the establishment of the so-called ‘Heritage" rock scene, bands like Crosby, Stills and Nash, The Doors, The Eagles, and Fleetwood Mac are the biggest earners on America’s touring circuit. Consequently, the door is wide open for the original LRB sound to cash in too. Universal Music was quick to see the potential and has signed original members Birtles, Shorrock and Goble to a new 6 product deal. On July 18 and 19 the trio, backed by some of Australia’s hottest musicians, will record many of LRB hits live for a DVD. Six new songs will also surface. An assault on the international market with the authentic voices of LRB will take place in 2004 after the guys have toured Australia in late 2003 perfecting their wares.

Graham Goble took time out from rehearsals to speak with Australian Musician’s Greg Phillips to reflect on the past, talk about those legal hassles and contemplate a future on the road again.

One of the first gigs the band played was at my school. What were the band’s expectations and hopes at that early stage?

I’d have to say pretty much what we achieved to be honest. We really got to a point in our individual careers where we thought, along with Glen Wheatley our manager, that we could crack America straight from Melbourne. So that was the whole point of putting LRB together… to put the arsenal of songs into this band and have a serious shot at America.

One of the first things that struck me about the debut album was the production quality. It was so much better than the other bands of the time. How much discussion took place about that aspect of the album?

Not so much discussion, we just went into the studio and had the freedom to do whatever we wanted. At that time Beeb had done a few albums with The Zoot and I had done Mississippi. Glen had done probably ten albums before LRB…Twilights, Axiom and Esperanto in England. So we had collectively a lot of experience. I guess we were all perfectionists and wanted to get it right. We just did the very best we could do. We had great technical help with Ern Rose who ended up engineering almost everything we ever did, and toured the world with us, and who is back mixing us again.

You were responsible for the band’s harmony arrangements, where did that skill come from?

Don’t know where it came from. It’s just a natural thing where I loved harmonies. I couldn’t read music but I could hear things in my head. So I just used to take charge of that part of things.

Were there other bands around at the time whose harmonies you were influenced by?

The bands I loved at the time were the big harmony bands. Particularly Bread with David Gates. I was always into harmonies, into song writing, and love top harmony singers. Graham Nash from Crosby, Stills and Nash was my inspiration. I still think he is the greatest top harmony singer of all time. When LRB first started I wasn’t singing top harmonies, I just sang my bottom parts up an octave. I found that I had a good head voice and that I could do that high harmony thing.

One of the most memorable gigs you did from a harmony perspective was the Brisbane Expo gig with The Eagles’ Glenn Frey. What are your memories of that night?

That was fantastic. From my perspective it was one of the most enjoyable gigs ever…to sing with an Eagle. When we got the opportunity to work with him, we just got the one rehearsal before the show. We prepared "Lyin’ Eyes", and "Desperado" and he was just a great singer and wonderful to sing with.

A lot of people today would be unaware of just how huge LRB was internationally. What were some of the big crowds you played to?

We played to 85,000 with The Eagles in New York. We’ve played more than once on multi-bills to 80-90,000 mark. We toured constantly and regularly to 5-10,000 people a night. We just missed getting to where Fleetwood Mac and The Eagles were. We had a top ten record five years in a row from 78 to 82. It was huge over there.

I might add that there’s a nostalgia DVD being released soon and that will show the whole history of the band. That has got fantastic stadium footage from around the world showing what we did.

Let’s talk about gear. What are the main electric and acoustic guitars you use?

With LRB we used Maton acoustics but in the studio I use a Gibson 1952 SJ200 that I recorded with which is just a beautiful guitar. Electrically I have a Stratocaster. Beeb has Strats and a Les Paul. But I’ve got a lovely old Strat that I use on just about everything.

What about amps you’ve used over the years, because you are after such a clean sound but still requiring the volume…

Yeh, I’ve used just about everything. Recently there are a lot of good new amps. We’ve recently been using a brand called Framus and now I’m very interested in BadCat , a class A amplifier and they’re pretty fabulous.

Did you use many effects?

Yes, I used to use two Roland J50s. Now I’ve got an effects rack which is being wired as we speak. I’ve gone to all new full tone BadCat effects… a thing called an Option 5 Destination Rotation, which is like a Leslie effect. I’ve got a BadCat two tone pedal, a full tone fat boost , an Octobass, and the full tone tremelo which has a beautiful sound. Although I can’t speak too much about them yet because I really haven’t used them in gig form, it’s all been put together for this new tour and the tour next year in America.

When was the last time you appeared in a form of LRB?

I left LRB in 1990.

And how long has it been since you have sung with Glen and Beeb?

Prior to us getting together it’s been virtually 20 years, but since coming back we’ve done the Grand Prix the year before last and a couple of seasons in Sydney, so we’ve done a few gigs and the band is sounding fantastic.

Who initiated BSG?

I would think the fanbase because there’s been a thing on the internet which is called "The Cool List", which are the real fans of LRB, and they’ve been talking for years bout seeing the originals back together. Some wanted the Farnham version etc. We saw a big turn in the market in America with Crosby, Stills and Nash being the biggest grossing band in the country, and there was all this interest in heritage rock. We had some people in the industry say that if we could get back together we could do some serious business. So now Universal Records have come along and we’ve now got what is essentially a 6 product deal, album or DVD. We will probably do a new studio album next year because The Eagles are currently doing a studio album. So there was suddenly a space in the market for a heritage rock band from Australia, and we were the only ones.

You are in the unfortunate situation of not being able to use the band’s name. Is that the only restriction?

I would think so. We think it might turn out to be a positive thing because it’s an outrageous situation and it’s a big talking point particularly for the media. When we can go on TV and in the press and say look, we can’t use our name or trade as Little River Band. The Americans for the most part don’t know what’s going on. They just see the band advertised and think they are going to get some original members but there aren’t any.

When we go back into the market place it’s going to put quite an interesting slant on things. There was a situation where the Housden band wanted to do a DVD. They can play our songs live and we can’t do anything about that but they can’t do visual or DVD work without what they call synchronisation rights. But we can do a DVD and play all the hits of LRB because we wrote them all. So because they are not the writers they required our permission to do a DVD of our songs, so that was one small control that we could have.

One of the rumours that I remember about LRB was that Sinatra was going to record "Reminiscing", was there any substance to that?

I’ve heard that too. He was quoted as saying, in his opinion, that it was the best song written in the seventies, but to my knowledge he never recorded it. Whether he ever secretly tried to and it didn’t work out, I don’t know, but we never received a formal request, but I know he admired the song greatly.

Today a lot of recording artists use technology to embellish their vocals, to get a sound that you guys get so naturally. What do you think of that sort of use of technology?

I think all is fair in love and war and making records. I have never stopped recording, I have my own studio and I figure that when you make a record, whatever it takes to make it works…I do extensive editing and effects in the studio but we refrain from playing to any sequencers or using any thing on tape at all in the live environment. We now have a sensational band with us. Everything is live. Back in the 80s we did tour with some sequences when that first came in but I found it very restricting because if you want play a bit faster or slower, there is no give and take. The sequencer just keeps rolling along. If you’ve got to play to a click track like a lot of these bands do, there’s not a lot of freedom. I mean a lot of bands I have seen, half of their stuff is on tape.

Who is in your new band?

We’ve got Dave Beck on drums, a wonderful jazz and rock player, Dorian West who plays everything. He’s sensational. He plays lap steel, keyboards, flugel horn, trumpet. SimonHosford on guitar, Jason Vorherr on bass. Jason is a great singer too, and gives us extra harmonies when we need it. Alejandro Vega on percussion. That’s the big thing having the great percussion rig and between Dave Beck and Alejandro it’s unbelievable.

Has it taken you long to get back into the groove vocally with the other guys?

That was extraordinary. When Beeb got off the plane I hadn’t seen him for so long. We got back to my place and after we talked for two days, we got the guitars out and immediately we strummed in synch, sung in synch. It’s always been like that. We phrase the same way and it’s effortless.

What have you and Beeb been doing since LRB?

Well Beeb did a solo album. I did two. One we released in Europe with not much success because there wasn’t any marketing behind it. I’ve continued to write a lot and record all the time. I’ve got 3 solo albums unreleased which I hope to get released with the profile with BSG. Beeb lives in Nashville and has been working there.

What’s the plan for BSG?

If it goes as well as we believe it will, we intend to do the DVD , then take the DVD and the band to LA in late January, early February to do a show case gig at the Universal Amphitheatre for Universal. At that gig we would hopefully have the right international manager and agents there, and show them our DVD to be recorded at Melbourne’s Forum on the 18^th and 19^th of July, and plan it all out of LA for where we need to go… Europe or America, we’re a band for hire with product, and we’re back.