Gary James' Interview With Graeham Goble Of
Little River Band



They've sold more than twenty-five million records. They've had thirteen American Top 40 hits, six of them in the Top 10, and five consecutive Top 50 American albums. Glenn Frey (Eagles) once described them as "The best singing band in the world." Songs like "Lonesome Loser", "Happy Anniversary", "Lady", "Cool Change" and of course "Reminiscing" helped cement their reputation as one of the most popular bands of the 1970s. In fact, Frank Sinatra called "Reminiscing" the best 1970s song in the world. "Reminiscing" has been played on American radio more than five million times. "Lady" has been played on American radio more than four million times. The man who wrote those two songs is Graeham Goble. The band he wrote them for is Little River Band. Graeham Goble spoke with us about his songwriting, the history of Little River Band, and what he's doing now.

Q - Graeham, I have to tell you, I saw Little River Band in concert at the Landmark Theatre in Syracuse, New York on August 11^th, 1978.

A - It's a long time ago. Wow!

Q - And then after the concert I interviewed Beeb Birtles at the Holiday Inn in downtown Syracuse. You guys were all sitting around the table at the hotel's restaurant.

A - Do you have memories of the '78 concert?

Q - I remember the band sounded great!

A - Yeah. That's what I wanted to know. That's good.

Q - Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Little River Band perform at the New York State Fair in 1996 and you were in the band then?

A - No.

Q - You probably left the band before that.

A - Well, yeah. The band finished. What's been going on since then is not really Little River Band as far as I'm concerned. It's something else. So, if you go to www.GraehamGoble.com and look under History and then look under Live Shows and then click on Little River Band, you'll see my last gig with LRB was on the 21^st of April, 1989. I didn't think it would go on, but it went on without me and then it deteriorated into what it is today, which I'm not even going to comment on.

Q - Going back to the original lineup of Little River Band, we know the songs, but we don't know much, if anything at all, about the background of each of the members. We never got to know the personalities of the guys.

A - And that's the problem. That's the reason why we've got this issue today, how our identity and our history has been hijacked if you like.

Q - The band was certainly getting a lot of air play on the radio and you were touring. Yet, you never read much in magazines or the newspapers about Little River Band's singer, guitarist, drummer. You know what I'm talking about. There was nothing.

A - I thought that did exist a little bit within bands like The Doobie Brothers. There were a lot of other bands. I must say, even myself I didn't know the names of the people in the Eagles back in those days. It was just more that we were a hardworking band and we weren't hitting the headlines with doing outrageous things, getting arrested, or doing anything like that. I think there were many bands like that, Little Feat. Bands that the public wouldn't necessarily know. That's just the way it was back then. I do agree with you. Today everyone knows (Glenn) Frey and Don Henley and of course everybody knows all the members of The Beatles. We were just a faceless band and that was the way it was.

Q - Rolling Stone caught some heat when they referred to groups like Styx and Journey as being faceless.

A - Well, exactly. I would agree that they are all faceless bands. I couldn't name you one member of any of those bands. But that's not the point. The point is there are original members of the bands that created that music and they should own that name forever. The farce that we've got today where you've got no original members of bands, and it's happening a lot, going around, calling them the original name, it's an affront to the public. It's not right. If you are paying money to go see a band, you want to see what you expect to see. It's not happening now. In the case of Little River Band, it has been happening since 1990.

Q - I thought a law was passed in New York State where a band had to have two original members to perform. But I even have trouble with The Rolling Stones. You have three original members in that group today. Brian Jones died in 1969 and Bill Wyman left the band decades ago. It's not the same band the public saw in 1965.

A - It's the same with AC/DC. What they're doing is the same. In my opinion, Fleetwood Mac without Lindsey Buckingham is not Fleetwood Mac. INXS without Michael Hutchence is not INXS. This law, I think it's called Truth In Advertising. Little River Band has got a unique situation. We've got all of the original members that want to play and can't. And there are no original members in the touring band that's been touring for many years in America, in contradiction to the law. It's supposed to be illegal, but the law doesn't seem to have any teeth. Not only that, but in our case they use our images and our original recordings to advertise their shows. So, when they advertise tickets you see clips of us performing and the public thinks it's the same band and of course there are none of the original members in the current touring Little River Band. On their website they display all of our album covers and all of our achievements. When you look at their biography, they claim all of the awards that we have achieved as their own.

Q - Somebody like me would know it's not the original Little River Band.

A - Yeah.

Q - But, I almost hate to say it, but the general public doesn't know, and worse yet, they might not ever care.

A - Well, you're right. In both of those cases you are right. They probably don't know and they certainly don't care. But it's still not right. Not morally right on any point of view, particularly when there are court injunctions to prevent the originals from performing. That's the problem.

Q - You understand in the current climate, Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr could recruit two guys to play the parts of John Lennon and George Harrison and call themselves The Beatles and people would say, "The Beatles are coming to town."

A - Yes, they could do that. But they wouldn't even need to because McCartney and Ringo together would draw just as many people as if they called themselves The Beatles. They are individually world famous. But in our case, we're not individually world famous. So, Little River Band trademark or marquee name is what makes people buy tickets. That's the situation. That's what we've got and that's the way it is.

Q - You were regarded as the main songwriter in the group, but Beeb and Glenn were also writing songs, weren't they?

A - Yes, and David Briggs. David Briggs wrote "Lonesome Loser", which was a very big hit for us in America, and Glenn's hits included "Cool Change", which was a big hit, and "Help Is On Its Way". Beeb co-wrote "Happy Anniversary", which was a big hit in America and wrote a lot of other songs that didn't necessarily become hits that were wonderful tracks on our albums and was contributing a lot as a songwriter through all of those early albums. We had four songwriters.

Q - How long did it take you to write "Reminiscing"?

A - Oh, about a half an hour. The way I write songs is I usually hear it in my head and then I just have to bring it into this world, if you like, particularly when I was younger. I would hear a melody and lyric at the same time. With "Reminiscing" I could just hear that melody and the lyric and it just took half an hour to write it.

Q - And you wrote it on guitar or piano?

A - In my head, and then I just found the chords on guitar later. I don't need an instrument to write a song.

Q - And that means you don't read music.

A - No.

Q - Over the past few weeks it seems every time I go into a store I hear "Reminiscing" being played. I thought, "Is somebody trying to tell me something?"

A - (laughs) Well, it's become a hell of a song. It's just so famous now all around the world. It's been extraordinary the success of that song.

Q - When I hear "Reminiscing" it sounds sad to me. Have other people told you that?

A - You're the first person to say that, but I'd be interested to know why you say that.

Q - Maybe it's the melody. Maybe it's the words. It just seems sad to me.

A - Well, there's nothing wrong with sadness. That's an important emotion. You can't live a life where you're happy all the time. The reality is most of the time we're disappointed and we have fond memories of possibly times in our past or a first love or someone that we miss or a parent maybe that isn't here anymore. I could say I wish The Beatles were all alive and still together. I wish Pavarotti was still living. I wish Sinatra was still doing concerts. All of the wonderful things I experienced when I was growing up, I would love if it still existed. But it can't and that's the life that we've got. Life moves on and the majority of the time it is a struggle and it is disappointing and it's about just having a good feeling about the past. I think as you get older you do come to a point where all of your aspirations of say in "Reminiscing", the aspirations of the life that possibly you might feel that you could have had when you were in your late teens, early twenties, that didn't happen for you and it's not ever going to happen for you and so that can be a disappointment. But, that's life.

Q - When you wrote "Reminiscing" you were a young man, weren't you?

A - It was written in 1977, so I would be 30. So, I know where you're going I think. But you see, I always loved that era of Fred Astaire, Cole Porter, Rodgers and Hammerstein, the black and white movies of the late 1940s, 1950s. That was the fantasy world that I loved and still do; Jeanette MacDonald, Nelson Eddy. The fantasy romances of that time if you like and those innocent times. Not so innocent in reality, but in movies where innocence was represented,, Leave It To Beaver, My Three Sons, all that sort of stuff. That's what I grew up on, The Andy Griffith Show. The innocence of that world is the world I wanted and that's what I'm writing about in "Reminiscing". I know it's not ever possible to achieve that, but that's the best of what human life could be if you had good health and could be with the love of your life and have everything going on. That's the best it can be, but of course it never is like that.

Q - What I was trying to get across is, at 30 you're really looking forward, aren't you? You're not really reminiscing, are you? Maybe at 40. I still contend it's a rather sad song to have written when you're 30.

A - What about two of the greatest songs ever written? Paul McCartney wrote "Yesterday" when he was 20 and at the same age Joni Mitchell wrote "Both Sides Now". They are monster songs that are very sad, but unbelievable songs, and the insight of "Both Sides Now", good God!. From a woman of 20 or 21 or early 20s, that is extraordinary. And also for McCartney to write "Yesterday" all the other things, but certainly "Yesterday" at that age is very insightful, isn't it?

Q - I can't say that I know much about Joni Mitchell's past, but with Paul McCartney, his mother died when he was 14.

A - Yeah.

Q - That probably inspired that song.

A - You can say that, yeah.

Q - I don't know. He would know.

A - He might not know.

Q - That's right. He appeared on Stephen Colbert and said, "Let It Be" might have been inspired by his mother. "Mother Mary Comes To Me."

A - Yeah, I saw that.

Q - When the group was starting, did you guys all get along?

A - We got along professionally, like anybody would at the office, if you know what I mean. You go to work and whoever you're working with, there are people you get along with and others you don't. You may find a good friend there or you may not, but they're colleagues. The difference with a band is that when you're touring you don't get to go home to your own environment at 5 o'clock. You're together for months on end and of course that always brings tension. You don't get any relief from that. But the thing that keeps it going of course is the success you're having. Glenn Shorrock and I didn't hang out as such. We had different views on many things. I had a close relationship with Beeb Birtles and I got on reasonably well with everybody else. But today I'm much better with everybody because as we're older there are some real deep friendships even though it wasn't necessarily the case in the early days.

Q - Was success maybe one of the contributing factors to friction in the group?

A - No. I think quite the opposite. The natural friction of personalities that was always there, success made that easier to bear because you couldn't just walk away from it. To be perfectly honest, we were so busy we'd be really tired 'cause we were traveling constantly and getting little sleep. You're basically trying to survive your own physiology. I was different than the rest of the band. I was not a partier. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I was married. I didn't go to the bar after the gig. I used to go to my room and write songs. I enjoyed my own company. I would often dine on my own, have my meals in my room, whereas other personalities in the band always wished to maybe go and have dinner together or go out to a club or something like that. I was never interested in that. I was quite happy being contained in my own little world and I used to use that time to read and to write songs. I was very happy with that. So, that was my life on the road. It was always about business, writing songs and working on the vocal arrangements for the band. That's what I used to do.

Q - I guess then I didn't see you sitting at the table at the Holiday Inn in Syracuse.

A - Many times I'd just come offstage and go back to the hotel. If there were people to meet I'd sometimes stay, but most of the time I just did the gig and go back to the hotel room.

Q - You're still writing and recording as we speak, correct?

A - Well, no. I've sort of slowed down a bit. I've got many, many unrecorded songs, a lot of wonderful songs. I have put out a number of solo albums. I may put out one more. I've been working on a musical. For many years I've been co-writing this with my son Joshua and that's really where my energies are going these days, in developing this music which will have all of the LRB hits and new songs as well. So, I'm not sitting down writing anymore the way I used to do. I'm more developing the show and working on all the other aspects. There's a lot going on with the band. I do the business side of the band. We've got a lot of new releases coming out, re-mastering all the catalogue. There will be new releases coming out in a few years. So, that's what I spend my time on.

Q - Speaking of writing, both Glenn and Beeb have put out their memoirs. But you have not.

A - I don't think I will. It's a lot of work and I would write a very different biography than they have written. These days you're so restrained from really being able to tell the truth because of potential lawsuits and all sorts of stuff. I mean, there's lot that's happened to us on a business level, many betrayals and terrible situations. It's very hard to tell the truth in these things and not get sued for it even though it's the truth. It's very hard and I don't necessarily want to go do that. Even Glenn's book, he stepped around it. I know in Beeb's case the publishers made him take out twenty or thirty pages because they were scared of getting sued. So, what's the point? If you cannot tell it like it is, there's just little point in telling it. I mean, I might change my mind in the future, but as of now I haven't got the desire to write a book.

Q - Before this pandemic, when you'd go out to perform, how would you bill yourself, Graeham Goble, ex-Little River Band?

A - No. I've never performed outside of Little River Band. We put out the "Birtles Shorrock Goble" DVD and it's sensational. We wanted to come back as the original Little River Band and then the people touring at the moment took us to court and stopped us from doing that. So, we called ourselves Birtles Shorrock Goble. That was about ten or more years ago. But we toured in Australia. But I've never performed as a solo act and I don't really want to.

Official Website: www.GraehamGoble.com

© Gary James. All rights reserved.

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