- 3 months ago
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00:00Hi, Wayne Nelson from Little River Band. How are you?
00:02I'm good, Jim O'Brien. How are you, sir?
00:04Wonderful. Can't wait to have you here at Andiamo.
00:06That is Friday, October 24th.
00:09Andiamoshowroom.com for tickets.
00:11And it's a great, just a great venue to perform in, too.
00:15It is great.
00:17What's so cool about those venues is a lot of times you play a larger crowd or an open crowd,
00:26and it's very anonymous.
00:27But you go to Andiamo or the Birchmere or Coach House up in California,
00:34those people are right up to the edge of the stage.
00:36They're looking up your nose, and you've got to bring it for them.
00:39It's really good fun. Good fun.
00:41You've never had a problem with that, Wayne.
00:43I mean, that's never been an issue.
00:45But the first thing I wanted to talk about was when you came to the band and did Night Owl with them.
00:51But I'm not saying that's a departure, but to inject yourself into a band that was so successful at the time as well,
00:59that's a big swing.
01:01You took a big swing at the plate when you joined them.
01:03Well, and vice versa, they took a big swing at the plate with me because they're an Australian band.
01:10They're touring in America.
01:12I'm in the opening band with Jim Messina, and they watch us for two weeks,
01:16and then they come up and make that offer.
01:18Basically, it was a two-week audition, and it was a very good band.
01:26But what happened was, and I said the same thing when they asked.
01:32I said, I need some time.
01:34We're going to record an album.
01:35But they said, we'll call you in April, and I kind of went away going, yeah, sure,
01:38you'll call me in April.
01:39But they did, and all that time I'm thinking, there's a lot of great bass players.
01:46There's got to be an Australia that can sing.
01:48Why are they doing this?
01:50And it was something that one of the songwriters heard.
01:55He heard me singing.
01:56He knew I was singing in that group, that I could do it,
01:59and that he had a vision for adding another lead singer to the band.
02:03So they were taking a big swing as well.
02:06Yes, I left home and went to Australia and lived there for, you know, six months,
02:10but it all worked out.
02:13It was meant to be.
02:14Well, yeah.
02:15And the lyrics and the music of Little River Band over the years still hold up.
02:19It's funny to me.
02:20I always give that.
02:21My son's in music.
02:22He wants to be a producer, and he's in marketing and stuff.
02:25He's going to college right now.
02:26And we talk about the 50-year rule.
02:28I'm like, you hear a great song 50 years from now.
02:30It's still going to be a great song.
02:32You start going through the catalog of the Little River Band,
02:34and I'm sure when you're playing it on stage, you're like, man,
02:37these songs are timeless.
02:39They're timeless.
02:40They are, and the reaction from the crowd is what drives that home.
02:45You know, we're doing 100 shows this year, and there's a ton of travel and so on and so forth.
02:50So the rigor of getting there and getting home is never easy,
02:54but when we see people's faces light up, as soon as we start playing those songs
03:00and they start flipping the pages of their scrapbook, it's all – that's what it's about.
03:06It's about their ears, not so much ours.
03:09But when we see their, you know, their reactions, we're going, yep, okay, another night,
03:15and these people got turned on, and on we go.
03:18So it's kind of a double-edged sword.
03:20It's an absolute honor to be, you know, with the Little River Band and doing what you do
03:23and being here at Andayama, but at the same time, there is – I don't know if that's the right word –
03:28responsibility to make sure you got it right when you're on stage?
03:31No question.
03:32Okay. All right.
03:33We can – and look, you know, you've seen the band even across other lineups.
03:38There's always great musicians and singers playing Little River Band music,
03:42and they always have something special to bring, a special style or a phrasing or something like that.
03:50But from the get-go, it is – we go back and listen to the original recording,
03:57and we start there as opposed to don't start with what you just heard last night when we played the song.
04:04We're going back to the history.
04:05We're going to honor the history.
04:06Then you can add in what you want as we're pulling this together and you get more comfortable.
04:12Feel free to be expressive on stage.
04:14But we've got to go back and start from the, you know, the foundation of the house.
04:21Like the roots of it.
04:21Yeah.
04:22You've got to go back there.
04:23Good work, yeah.
04:24It is an interesting thing, like the difference between musicians and comedians.
04:27If a comedian records an album when they do a live show, people don't want to hear that.
04:32They've already heard that.
04:33But when you have a body of work, there, again, I use the word expectation.
04:38When I come down to Yamo, I know I'm going to hear Reminiscing, Cool Change, Lady, Night Owls.
04:43I mean, those songs.
04:44And because of who you guys are, that's got to be cool, though, to just stop and go,
04:48I'm on stage as a member of Little River Band and your time and just to be here in Detroit.
04:54I can't imagine what it's like on stage.
04:58First of all, the responsibility is what takes control.
05:01So we're honed in on making sure we're focused, in shape, et cetera, et cetera.
05:09But as the momentum builds, all of that kind of settles into place and the crowd takes over the energy.
05:17And you're right.
05:18It is truly an honor to do that.
05:21It is funny.
05:23That's ironic that I said funny.
05:25But how many times can you hear the same joke and then it's like, no, I know what's coming.
05:30The song imprinted something in people's memories.
05:34It's a very unique thing that music can do.
05:36I don't think humor has the same power, but a great story delivered by good musicians wins every time.
05:45Andiamo Showroom, this will be Friday, October 24th.
05:48Doors open at 7, show at 8.
05:50Get your tickets started, $35.
05:52See Andiamo Box Officer.
05:53Get online, AndiamoShowroom.com.
05:55When was the first time you remember being on stage with the band?
05:59First time you went live with them?
06:01Well, the first time we went live was in an Australian pub.
06:04I went down there to rehearse, and that was their routine.
06:08They would go out into pubs for a couple of weeks.
06:12And Australian pubs are tough because it's a very, very rock and roll, ACDC, midnight oil.
06:22Those are the things that, so Little River Band's music is a little more tame than those things.
06:28But yet the history was there on stage.
06:30And if you can make it work for an Australian pub, you can take it to a big stage.
06:35And so that's the first thing I remember.
06:37But the first big show was in Olympic Stadium in Munich, 125,000 people.
06:45So that was, we went from the pubs to, we got off a plane and we did that show in Munich.
06:52As a matter of fact, on my 30th birthday.
06:54So it was quite a, quite a treat.
06:57Did you get a point at some point, you're on stage, did you get a point to just take in the crowd?
07:00Or you're like, I'm just going to focus on what I'm doing?
07:03No, you couldn't help but take in the crowd.
07:06I mean, 125,000 and you're in that iconic place.
07:10You know, the Munich Olympics had so much bad history to it.
07:14But yet we're still in that stadium with all those people.
07:16The greatest thing was it was a cold, nasty, rainy, windy German spring day.
07:22And we went on stage and I swear to you, the clouds parted, the sun came down, everybody got to dry out a little bit.
07:28And it lasted for an hour.
07:30We walked off stage and the rain started again.
07:32And so we had a, we had a golden spot there in that day.
07:35It was very cool.
07:36You don't get nervous when you're on stage now, do you?
07:39No, I didn't.
07:40I didn't then either.
07:42Excuse me.
07:43Their Little River Band's music was so ingrained.
07:46And, you know, I did a lot of time studying the songs that I hadn't heard on the radio.
07:51And I knew that I was hired to be me.
07:55And when I was playing the songs and playing the original bass parts,
07:58it was like I had learned all the other songs that I learned when we were doing Six Sets a Night in Chicago.
08:04You know what I mean?
08:05Playing pop music.
08:07It was there and it was straightforward stuff.
08:11You just had to make sure you remember the arrangements.
08:13But once we got done with rehearsals, you know, I was ready to go.
08:16It's, like I say, it's that, okay, showtime.
08:21Let's go.
08:21Let's do it.
08:22It's like playing a football game.
08:24You know, you get amped up and then you go out there and you do it.
08:26Yeah, if you don't know by then, you're probably in trouble walking out on stage, right?
08:30Exactly right.
08:31Yeah, yeah, yeah.
08:31If you're nervous, then you're in trouble.
08:33Yeah.
08:34So we're going to see you at Andiamo here on the 24th, AndiamoShowroom.com.
08:39Let me ask you something, Wayne Nelson.
08:40Let me ask this question.
08:42Someone comes up to you and they go, I've never heard your music.
08:45I've never heard Little River Band.
08:46I know the name.
08:46I've never heard a song.
08:48What's the first song that you play for them?
08:51You go, okay, this is us.
08:52This encapsulates the band.
08:56Wow.
09:02Oddly enough, it wouldn't be Reminiscing.
09:05Yeah.
09:05It wouldn't be Lonesome Loser.
09:10Those are kind of the extremes of styles for that time.
09:15That song, by the way, is like Australian Eagles to me.
09:18It really is.
09:19Yeah, yeah.
09:19That vibe, yeah.
09:20But the song I would play and be most proud of is Take It Easy On Me.
09:26It has all of the elements of a solid vocal rock pop band with a great story, big vocals,
09:32so on and so forth.
09:33But it's right in the center lane of here's your story.
09:38We're not trying to set the world on fire with some kind of wacky sound or spandex or whatever.
09:44This is straightforward.
09:46We're going to tell you this story.
09:47I think that's the one I would put up there first.
09:50I love it.
09:51I love it.
09:51I love it.
09:52Although you have to admit with Reminiscing, how many people had a mixtape in their car on a first date
09:56and you had that queued up when you were dropping them off, right?
09:59No question.
09:59If they came up and said, hey, I've got your greatest hits on three different formats,
10:03I'll play Reminiscing, or I'll play any of them.
10:05It doesn't matter.
10:06But if somebody doesn't know the music, I would go, this is solid.
10:11You can't help but go, okay, good song.
10:13Yeah.
10:14Play me some more.
10:15And the guitar playing on that song is beautiful, too.
10:17I mean, there's some really good DNA to rock and roll in it as well.
10:21Absolutely.
10:22The next one I'd do is Help Is On Its Way because it's also got a great feel and a great message.
10:27And then you start going fringes.
10:28You go to Happy Anniversary, which is half disco, half, you know, R&B kind of thing,
10:34and Man On Your Mind or Lady, you know what I mean?
10:39But I think Take It Easy On Me has got the elements that say, you know, that that's an 80s pop song.
10:45This is going to be so much fun.
10:47I really do appreciate the time, Wayne.
10:48It's an honor talking to you.
10:50And congratulations on continued success, Little River Band, AndiamoShowroom.com.
10:55Here on a Friday night in the Motor City, we'll all come out
10:57and just have a great time, and we'll reminisce with you.
11:00See what I did?
11:00I tied the song title to it.
11:01I heard that, Jim.
11:02I heard it.
11:05Never heard that one before.
11:06I know.
11:07First guy ever.
11:07You're like, what?
11:08Somebody finally did that.
11:10No.
11:10It's fantastic.
11:11Real quick story about that.
11:13The reason I brought up reminiscing is I was laughing when I was in the Navy,
11:17and my friend Greg Skipworth had a mixtape in his car.
11:20And we were in submarine school, and we would borrow his car if we were going to take a girl out on a date.
11:25He had a bottle of Polo in the glove box.
11:27It was a Chevy Cavalier.
11:28And on the mixtape, the first two songs, when you picked them up,
11:33was Gregory Abbott's Shake You Down and Reminiscing by Little River Band.
11:39Those were the evening songs.
11:41Oh, yeah.
11:42Yeah, yeah, yeah.
11:43Yeah.
11:43So if I smell Polo, I immediately start hearing Little River Band in my brain.
11:48It's like it's Pavlovian.
11:50Who knew?
11:51Pololovian?
11:52Is that a thing?
11:52I don't know.
11:53You got me, but I'll look it up.
11:57Thank you for the time, Wayne.
11:59We'll see you at Andiamo.
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