Little River Band Co-Founder Dies at Age 71

Original Little River Band bassist Roger McLachlan has died after a bout with pancreatic cancer at 71. His death was confirmed by Michael Oliphant, frontman of McLachlan’s subsequent band Late for Breakfast.

“Roger didn’t wish his struggle to be widely known and so chose to keep it just between family and a handful of friends,” Oliphant said. “Roger was a wonderful friend, collaborator, musical powerhouse, absolute monster bass player and all-round naughty boy. Life will never be the same.”

Born in 1954 in New Zealand, McLachlan was part of a musical family and played the ukulele at an early age. He originally moved to Australia to take part in a 1974 touring production of the musical Godspell. McLachlan connected with the lineup that would become the Little River Band by happenstance when an agent mentioned that they needed a bass player.

READ MORE: How Wayne Nelson Kept the Little River Band Together

“I arrived for auditions and [early vocalist and songwriter] Graeham Goble said we’ve got this song called ‘It’s a Long Way There,’ we will play it and why don’t you just come in and we will see if something gels,” McLachlan later told Riveting Riffs magazine. “They start playing and singing this and I am pinching myself, because I can’t believe how good these guys are. They played the groove and I start playing the groove. The rest is history. It just kind of clicked straightaway.”

The group started out traveling from show to show while crammed into a small van, still under the discarded original band name Mississippi. That had changed by the time they released the breakthrough Top 30 U.S. hit “It’s a Long Way There,” the third single from 1975’s Little River Band.

“It was a real band thing. There were a couple of guys in the back. I was driving and [co-founding singer/songwriter] Glenn [Shorrock] was up the front,” McLachlan told Stuff. “We were driving down to Geelong [Australia] and you go past this place called Little River. [Glenn] looked up and saw this sign, Little River turnoff, and he just said out of the blue, ‘Gee, wouldn’t it be funny to call the band Little River Band.’ Bit of a play on words, to go from Mississippi to the smallest river in the world.”

Watch Roger McLachlan Play With the Little River Band

Beyond the Little River Band

McLachlan originally left the group following 1976’s After Hours, a Top 5 smash in Australia. But he wasn’t done with the Little River Band.

He returned in the late ’90s with a Little River Band lineup led by guitarist Stephen Housden. McLachlan reunited onstage with the band’s original guitarist, Ric Formosa. He also played fretless bass on ‘former 80s-era Little River Band frontman John Farnham’s Whispering Jack, which topped the Australian charts. The LP featured his 1986 single “You’re the Voice,” a Top 10 hit in the U.K., Germany and Australia.

McLachlan later scored an Australian hit with the Melbourne band Stars, appeared with the fusion group Pyramid at the Montreux Jazz Festival, and collaborated with Merril Bainbridge on her Top 5 U.S. single “Mouth.” Still musically active late in life, McLachlan made his solo debut at age 57 with 2012’s Roger This Roger That. He was also part of 2009’s induction class at New Zealand’s Southland Musicians Club Rock ‘n’ Roll Hall of Fame.