A Conversation with Little River Band’s Wayne Nelson – HuffPost 9.6.13

Mike Ragogna: Wayne, hi. Let’s talk about the new one, Cuts Like A Diamond. This is coming several years after the last studio album of originals. What got you guys back in the game?

Wayne Nelson: Well, first of all, we were getting itchy, I’ll tell you that. I left the band for a few years because we weren’t going to any new music. When I came back in ’99, I immediately got ready for a new one in 2001. The most recent one we did with all-original music was in 2004, then we did a Christmas CD in 2007, and so on, but it was getting to be time. We’ve been making new music a lot. There are a couple of live CDs in there and touring and so on and so forth, but it was getting time for us to get back in the studio and make a new product. Ironically, the label from Italy, Frontiers Records, approached us virtually at the time we started to consider what we were going to do next and said, “Look, we want a new CD and we don’t want a re-hash of the hits, we don’t want any re-dos, we want all new stuff.” So the timing was right for us and apparently, it was right for them to expand their stable of artists, if you will, and include Little River Band and some other bands form the late seventies and early eighties that were doing melodic rock, so here we are. We stepped in and got it done.

MR: This album features many Nashville songwriters, et cetera. Can you tell me what the process was in recording this project, how you chose the songs, and who played on this other than the band?

WN: I’ll go back to the beginning on that. When the label suggested that we do the CD, they referenced the eighties and Album-Oriented Rock, which was basically the pocket that we were in at the time. I said, “That means so many different things to so many different people, number one, and number two, you’re Italian, so your taste and your vision of what you want to hear and what you’ll be committed to promoting could be totally different from mine. So here’s what I suggest: We’ll write and we will reach out to the great songwriters that we have that are a phone call away, because so many of the band live in Nashville, and I’ll be the first filter for songs that I believe in and I think we can make sound like what you want us to sound like. Then you be the second filter.” So the record label was the final choice for songs. I probably sent them sixty or seventy out of the two hundred that I listened to, that I felt would have integrity for Little River Band and that I felt I could do, because they wanted me to sing all the lead vocals. The band wrote twenty-three songs, we had another twenty or thirty that were from outsiders. The record label and I narrowed it down to a long list of twenty, we recorded fifteen, we mixed thirteen, and eleven came out satisfactory to everybody involved. So that was the nuts and bolts of the process. To be honest, it’s really unique now. There used to be a lot of producers and a lot of record labels who had great producers as their owners or vice presidents or whatever and they got very involved with song selection and artists and repertoires and that’s what they were about. That’s a rarity, now. I don’t know intimate details, all I know is that our experience leading up to this was that labels were like, “You put it out, we’ll throw it against the wall and see if it sticks, we’ll pay for some airplay, but you’re on your own.” I don’t know who else does a hands-on approach like they did. My friends said, “You’re crazy to do it this way,” and I said, “You’ve got to be committed to following this thing through.” I don’t need to make a record that they put on a shelf. That doesn’t do anybody any good. So that’s the way we set out to do it.

The record was physically recorded in Nashville, we were in two different studios for two different tracking sessions to record drums, we found great rooms that got those great drum sounds in them. We recorded basic tracks and then our guitar player, Rich Herring, owns his own studio, which is more small-scale, great for overdubbing; it has a great guitar room and he knows it well. So once we were done with the drum tracks and the basic tracks, we took it to his studio for all the vocals and all of the guitar overdubs. The keyboards were done in our keyboard player’s home studio and then we merged all of those files together. So once we had our basic tracks, we were working on things independently and put them all back in the room for the big mix, and cut and pasted and fine-tuned elements to make everything work together. That’s the art of a great mix. That was mixed at Rich’s studio as well by a great mix engineer named Garrett Parris. So once we had songs selected, it was a Nashville effort and we worked it in and around our tour schedule. That’s really the nuts and bolts from start to finish.

MR: Cuts Like A Diamond is getting great reviews. Were you surprised at how well this one came out given the gaps in time between recording studio albums?

WN: To be honest, the original records in 2000 and 2004 were done in very high quality studios with the same kind of attention paid to vocals and so on and so forth, and I am very proud of those as well, but am I surprised at the sound quality for this? No. Rich is a great producer and a great engineer in his own right. To put his sonic experience together with my experience from having done so many records and been involved in four or five great vocal blends over the years, it’s a process that together we fine-tuned a little bit to take the sound out of the seventies and eighties. To be honest, there was a lot that went on with Little River Band records that I didn’t really agree with when it came to the production style, but it was a band concensus, this was the way things were going. We went from a record in 1981 with George Martin; in 1984, we were recording in LA with Spencer Proffer, who recorded Quiet Riot. We have been from one end of the spectrum to the other in terms of how we produce, how we sing, how many tracks of vocals, how we layer them up, so on and so forth. It’s been an education. You finally hone in on the things that really work for you and really get the job done, and then the rest of it is icing on the cake or overkill, or however you want to say it. So Rich and I think alike and Rich and I have gone, “Here’s the point where it sounds like Little River Band, it sounds strong and powerful and we don’t need to go any further,” because more is less sometimes, and we really see eye to eye on when it’s time to stop. That’s, I think, the key to why this record sounds good to people’s ears now. People listen completely differently than they did then, recording techniques are different, quality’s different, digital has been corralled and made to sound far more natural than it did ten or fifteen years ago. So all of those things combined, it’s kind of a right place/right time scenario. Again, the co-production between Rich knowing his studio and his gear and between the two of us saying, “Going any further isn’t going to make it better, it’s only going to make it more.” We stopped there and then the mix engineer heard it and took it to the next spot. It was just a good combination of ears saying, “There it is. We nailed it.”

MR: So you’ve been with Little River Band now for about thirty-four years on and off, yes?

WN: Correct. I left the band for a couple of years for a family tragedy that the road just could not be part of, but again, in ’96 I said, “If we’re not going to do new music I’m really not interested,” because playing the same thirteen songs every night is not healthy for us and it’s not healthy for the band as a live-performing entity. Then suddenly, there was new blood in the band and they said, “Come back!” So I’ve been back as the lead singer since ’99. But I’ve been part of some really good vocal blends in those thirty-four years.

MR: As you mentioned, “new blood.” You once were new blood, you came into the Little River Band after being discovered by them while with Jim Messina one night.

WN: Correct. We were opening for two weeks while LRB was recording their live CD back in ’79. They had been through two touring bass players and four more studio bass players with a seventh playing that tour, but they were looking for a singing bass player that could help fill in the vocals. That was the story I was told. I found out later on there was a major songwriter who was not happy with the way the lead singer was interpreting his songs, so there was a further motive to looking for a bass player that could sing lead vocals. They were auditioning me for a couple of weeks without me knowing about it and then popped the question, if you will, at the end of that tour.

MR: Another thing that must come up over and over is that when people think of Little River Band, or at least the original mix, it’s Glenn Shorrock and Graeham Goble and Beeb Birtles and it’s an Australian band. Well, the band has morphed from that over the years, and you have been with the band longer than its original curators. I don’t want to put any words in your mouth or ask you any insulting questions, but what would your recap of all this be?

WN: I don’t want to be too long-winded, but there is a very long and complex answer to that. I will try to summarize it in one big picture. Yes, I was new blood, and yes, like I just said, there were motivations behind that beyond what I knew. What happened was as I came into the band, I found out that there were four distinct factions that wanted to take the band in four very different ways. It was kind of a natural progression for those people who were assembled. They didn’t grow up together, they didn’t all come out of one band, they were parts of other successful bands.

MR: That’s right, Little River Band did start as sort of a super group.

WN: Yes, before the word was being used in Australian terms, there were three successful bands that pulled those core members together and as a matter of fact, the manager that did it was a member of even another band, but knew he was not to be the bass player, he was management. So there was all of this super power swirl going on with the creation of Little River Band, and their business plan was American radio…a local band going after American radio. So they get to 1979, they’re looking for another guy, I come in, and I immediately learn that four different people are trying to take the band in four different ways. That was starting to take its toll–on the road, in the studio, in rehearsals–to a level where everybody was going in their own direction, they were all going to their own corners. The new blood was the guy that they were telling, “We need to do this,” and then the next day another guy would come up and say, “No, we need to do this and not go over there.” I was kind of going, “What have I gotten myself in for and how is this going to resolve?” Immediately, we started rehearsing new material and the lead singer was in another city and “Night Owls” comes into the room. I didn’t know it, but it was designed that way. The guys said, “Look, Glenn’s not going to be here, you just sing this thing and get used to it so we can rehearse it.” Suddenly, it’s in the new set. Then suddenly, this wave starts to go. Then George Martin is the producer and he picks it for the first single and Capitol goes with it and it goes Top Five. That’s the kind of wave that was going on and boom, out goes one of the four people. The guitar player is fired. He was the songwriter. ’81, he’s gone; ’82, the lead singer is asked to leave the band; ’83, the next major of the four guys, he leaves the band. ’84, the drummer leaves the band. Now what happened every time that happened, when Shorrock was basically ushered out of the band, it was a vote. I raised my hand and I said, “This is crazy.” We had just gotten to the point where we had six years in a row of a Top Ten single, and it’s like, “We’re going to dismantle this now? This is going to be torn apart now? This is crazy!” I said, “No, I don’t agree with this at all.” I was outvoted, Glenn walked out of the room, John Farnham walked into the room, incredible singer. There’s vocal blend number two. Incredible singer. You can’t ignore the power and the talent, and if that’s the way it’s going to be, then we make the best of it.

The next year, the drummer gets replaced. Then in comes the keyboard player. I look around and there’s only one guy left from that band that I joined in 1980. It’s me and him, and this band is incredible, and we’re making music that everybody believes in. So what a lot of people say is there was the first jumping off point, when Shorrock left the band… “No more, you’re done.” Then I look at the next four years that Farnham was in the band and we made incredible music. It didn’t chart as well, it didn’t hit as well, but it was incredible music and it was a growing pain to me that we were going to take those steps forward, and sooner or later, someone was going to recognize, “Holy cow, this band can sing and play like they couldn’t do before!” We all believed. Then the wheels came off. Glenn came back because Irving Azoff said, “Get Glenn back and we’ll do another record.” So now we’ve got another group of people that believe and we’re moving forward with these people. Then we get to 1990 and none of that worked and Graeham leaves. We’re at a point where, “Let’s try it with some more people,” but we still all believed and now we’re in this position where the Australians are all getting disappointed, they’re all starting to leave, and there’s only two of us now that believe that this is a very viable thing, this is our career, and we can still make good music. Finally, I find out that’s not going to happen. What I’m saying is we had people in the band that believed in the band and wanted to take it to the next step. We never, ever considered breaking up. It was one person at a time that was “giving up” and getting off the bus, if you will, until 1996, when I find out finally that some of those original members never wanted to bother with new music again. They just wanted to play the hits. I bowed out.

Then in ’99, people came back to me with new blood going, “We want to do new material! We believe!” I went and sang with them, I listened to the material, I played with them for years on the road, and here was another great vocal blend with great songwriters and we believed, so we took the next step. Then suddenly, I turned around and they were gone. “Well, do we train another lead singer?” “No, why don’t I just step up and sing lead? I still believe!” We’ve got a great record, and that’s really the motivation for me behind the scenes all along. There’s something there that kept us going and kept people in the band that believed. The people that left didn’t believe, and we were told now we’re frauds and we don’t deserve to be able to call ourselves “Little River Band” because those people aren’t there. They left it. They left it high and dry. My attitude is we believed in it, we put our hearts in it, so after thirty-four years worth, I have the right to say we are “Little River Band.” We’re in a very unique position.

MR: If you compare the same group or artist thirty-four years later to how it or they started out, people are always going to be complaining about something, from The Stones to Joni Mitchell, so in a way, you can’t win. And you were with the band longer than any other member, although Little River Band might be an anomaly of sorts.

WN: Bands weren’t supposed to last twenty years. Bands weren’t supposed to last five, six, seven years. We started re-writing the script with The Stones and Chicago. Look at The Beatles. One of the biggest entities in music only lasted for six years. The Stones started to take it further, The Who took it further, Fleetwood Mac took it further. Lots of people changed in and out of Fleetwood Mac. They were two completely different bands. But would you not have Fleetwood Mac to have continued on to do what they do? Absolutely not! There are different scenarios with all of these groups, but again, this wasn’t something that got done with a hand grenade. This was a gradual process where one by one, somebody went sideways and said they’d had enough. Again, especially to get to the latest CD, to me, it’s always been a progression moving forward, and agree or not agree with the quality of the music, like it or don’t like it, it’s always made with the best of intent that this is who we are at the moment. We were recording in 1989 and we were doing a song for Karate Kid 3. The movie bombed and nobody knows about it, but “Listen To Your Heart” is one of the most powerful things we’ve ever recorded. Nobody knows it exists! Should we fold up our tent because they don’t know it’s out there? I know it’s out there, I’m proud of it. You keep going until you physically can’t do it or you lose the heart to do it, and that’s just not been the case yet for me.

MR: I want to ask you about one of the songs on this record, “The Lost And The Lonely.” I’m interpreting those lyrics in a certain way, but who are the lost and the lonely from your perspective?

WN: Well, it’s an interesting question. This is a great story about the power of people who are good professional songwriters. It had that uplifting chorus, and as soon as I heard that chorus, I went, “That is a Little River Band piece of cake. We can sink our teeth into that and every night that’s going to get people’s attention. That is a great vehicle for us to express ourselves.” The chorus is very uplifting and I hit the verse, and the verses are very dark. They were about a whole other side of the topic, if you will, of conflict and war and humans being cruel to each other. I went back to the songwriters and I said, “Look, we’re blown away by this chorus, but to me, I couldn’t go and sing those words every night in front of a crowd. They’re not uplifting, they’re the complete opposite. What if the song was about the choice and the initial heartfelt desire to stand up and protect the lost and the lonely?” They came back to me immediately, the next day, I swear to God, the concept now that the person is saying, “Dad, mom, this is what I’m going to do, I don’t want you to worry, I don’t want you to cry, I have to do it, I know it’s dangerous, but this is what I’ve got to do and this is me giving back.” That’s what the song is about. You’re praying for the people that need them to come and help them get through the conflict. You look at what’s going on in Syria. The people that are on the ground that are being afflicted by this civil war are people that want to protect their kids and make a living and have a life and they’re being slaughtered by what’s going on around them. Sooner or later, something’s got to stop the madness. The lost and the lonely are the people that are caught in the madness to my vision of the song.

MR: Beautiful.

WN: As soon as the label heard it, they said, “Yes, that’s a powerful piece of music and a powerful message.” Then they shot that film clip. We didn’t know what they were going to do with it, all we did was the performance part and then they went away and put together the rest of the footage. I was speechless the first time I saw it. For it to be that powerful and for it to be a label that did that for and with us in our thirty-eighth year, the whole package literally stopped me cold. It’s just a great piece.

MR: Wayne, what is your advice for new artists?

WN: Part of it is advice that I wish I had been told or paid attention to a long, long time ago: Write music. Write your own music. Write your own lyrics. Write whatever you feel because the opportunity to put that to music and have that be part of your performance, it doesn’t have to be all of it. It might be bad, it might need work and it might not register with people right away, but start the process. Say what you feel and get it into your craft and into your show. That’s number one. I waited way too long. I’m not prolific, but there have been a couple of moments when the stars aligned and I was able to get out what I wanted to say in a way that I was happy with. So start that right away, because that’s your soul. You’re letting your feelings out. The other thing is you’ve got to practice your crafts so that when the door opens whenever it is and whatever it is, you’re able to go through the door and fill the job. So many people get it dropped in their lap and they’re not ready and the door closes again. It might not stay open, but practice and enjoy what you do so that when that door opens, you can go through it. I was in the right place at the right time to meet Jim Messina, I was at the right place at the right time to meet Little River Band and they both had different needs. There was an adaptation to do the right thing for those right situations, but had I not been able to adapt, I wouldn’t have gotten the job. I wouldn’t be in the thirty-fourth year and have a long career with a great band.

MR: What does the immediate future hold?

WN: Well the CD came out in America, it still comes out next week in the UK and Australia, New Zealand and so forth. It’s been out in Europe. I have a great thing to report. All of the CDs that shipped to Germany were sold out by the following Monday.

MR: That’s great, congratulations!

WN: Thank you. I had been speaking to media over there, and we haven’t had a presence in Europe for years, and they said, “We’d basically figured you’d broken up.” I said, “That’s never been the case. We’ve been around this whole time.” I’m proud of the record, I’ve been proud of other records, but you put them out there and they catch on, they don’t catch on, you never know, but it’s a blessing if they do. The first good report is that every single copy that shipped to Germany sold out in seventy-two hours. That’s amazing to me. It’s just crazy good. So we’ve got a long road ahead of us to let the world know that there’s a new product out there. There are a lot of promotions to do, there may be a lot of touring to do over the course of the next three, four, five, six months to get into Springtime for Europe and so on. But the label is very proud of this record and we are all hoping for some semblance of success and attention. If we get that, they want to do another one, so that would take us well into 2015 at which point, April will be the band’s fortieth anniversary. So there’s a whole lot on the plate coming up really soon and there is no question in my mind we will be celebrating forty years somewhere in April of 2015. I couldn’t tell you where it is, but based on what’s going on right now, there’s no question that we’ll get there.

MR: Nice, good luck with everything. I really appreciate your time and I’m glad we got together.

WN: Me too. Thanks for your perseveranse on this.

MR: You got it, all the best.

WN: Much appreciated, Mike, thank you.

Transcribed by Galen Hawthorne