Little River Band Hopes Luck Will Help in Climb Back Up Charts

Bassist-singer Wayne Nelson swears it is merely a coincidence that the Little River Band’s latest attempt to regain its long-lost foothold on the pop charts is with a single called “If I Get Lucky” and an album, “Get Lucky.”

“Our record company picked the tunes for the album, and “If I Get Lucky” is one of three songs by outside writers,” said Nelson, a San Diegan and the Australian group’s only American member.

“They not only named the album after it, they put it out as the album’s first single,” Nelson said. “And it just kind of turned out that the song reflects our present state of mind: That regardless of what happens, all you’ve got to do is get lucky once and things can turn around again.”

And the band could use a little luck. When original lead singer Glenn Shorrock rejoined the fold in late 1987 after a six-year absence, expectations were high that the group’s Top 40 hit streak--which had ended shortly after Shorrock’s departure--would resume.

But more than two years, and two albums, later, things have yet to turn around again for the Little River Band, whose parade of late-1970s and early-’80s hits include “Reminiscing,” “The Night Owls” (on which Nelson sang lead), “Lonesome Loser,” and “Cool Change.”

Their recent records have sold poorly and gotten little air play. And on their first U.S. tour with Shorrock in nearly a decade--a month-long sojourn that includes an appearance tonight at the Bacchanal in Kearny Mesa--they’re playing mostly small nightclubs and theaters instead of the multi-thousand-seat arenas they once easily sold out.

“Between the downbeat and the last applause, things are great,” Nelson said. “But as far as radio and record sales and every other aspect of our career, things are really tough.

“It’s too bad, but that’s the game. This band has been around for a long time, and we can’t complain about the many good years we had when we were on top.

“Still, I just wish the pendulum would swing back a little quicker than it’s doing.”

Nelson attributes the band’s continued failure to recapture its past glories to a drastically altered Top 40 radio climate.

“In this day and age, it no longer matters how good you are, musically--it all comes down to image,” he said. “Milli Vanilli, for example, they don’t even sing on their own records; they’ve publicly stated, ‘Our look is our money.’

“We, on the other hand, still do it the old-fashioned way, by singing with our own voices and playing our own instruments. But because we don’t have ‘the look’ or a hypnotic drum-machine beat that never lets up, we can’t get on Top 40 radio.

“And if we can’t get on radio, our only alternative is to reach people through our live shows. But at the rate we’re going, it would take us 20 years to convert the whole country, because we’re just not playing in front of that many people.” Also to blame, Nelson said, is the wrong marketing strategy employed by the band’s label, MCA Records.

“We have different philosophies on

what it takes to break a record,” he said. “Their approach is to push push push to radio, whereas we’ve always been a touring live performing act, trying to turn people on that way.”

As a result, Nelson added, the Little River Band’s current U.S. tour isn’t being underwritten by MCA, but by the band itself.

“MCA told us, ‘If you want to come, then come, but we’re not going to bend over backward and put money into it,’ ” he said. “So we’re doing this tour under our own steam--we simply said, ‘We’re coming, and let’s make the best of it.’ ”

Nelson--who hooked up with the band in 1981 after being in an opening act when the band was in San Diego--said he and his fellow band members are determined to keep plugging away.

“There are nights when our new stuff goes over better than on other nights, but our old stuff always gets the biggest reaction,” Nelson said. “It’s disappointing, but hey--that’s the name of the game.

“ ‘If I Get Lucky’ has pretty much run its race and lost (on the Top 40 charts). Our next single is going to be ‘Every Time I Turn Around,’ which I think stands a better chance because of its mid tempo rhythm-and-blues-type beat.

“If it hits, great--we’re back on track, and MCA will probably let us make another album. If it doesn’t, I don’t know. I guess we could become an oldies band.”