[ John Farnham - through the eyes of a fan ]

Little River Band (LRB) weren't doing very well by 1981, and their lead singer, Glenn Shorrock was losing interest. They needed another lead singer or it would be the end. Graham Goble and Derek Pellicci were keen on John Farnham, but could he harmonise well with the rest of the band.

John, Jillian and Robert were on holidays when Glenn Wheatley called with an offer to join the band. With a newborn baby and having a lot of financial difficulties, LRB was a chance to have some security in his life.

The first album, The Net, was already written and John had no say in the songs, he just had to harmonise and sing the lead vocals.

John joined LRB knowing that all that he would get out of it was experience and the chance to perform in the USA. The problem was that LRB were not selling any records. They had to get continuous advances from Capitol Records just to tour and make new albums hoping that this would bring them a hit. Capitol Records brought out a "Greatest Hits" album, which caused even more financial problems for the current band. The newer members of the band (Wayne Nelson and John Farnham) didn't receive anything from this album as they were not featured on it and the members of the band who were, already owed Capitol Records so much money that all the profits were being used to repay all the advances. The other problem was that the artists no longer in the band, had to be paid for their contributions to the album which ended up costing the current band members even more money.

It was during this time that John did vocal tracks for movies just to earn some extra money. He did tracks for the movies "Fletch", "The Slugger's Wife", "Savage Streets", "Voyage of the Rock Aliens", and "Hell Tracks".

What started out as an excited, happy band soon turned into nothing more than a chore. With the financial problems and still not producing a hit the band started to self-destruct. John was sick of recording the songs they were doing and wanted to try something new. John ended up leaving LRB in 1985.