Who Is The Great Lost Aussie Pop Star Of The Seventies? Say Hello (again) to Billy Miller

Who Is The Great Lost Aussie Pop Star Of The Seventies? Say Hello (again) to Billy Miller

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WHO IS THE GREAT LOST AUSSIE POP STAR OF THE SEVENTIES? SAY HELLO (AGAIN) TO BILLY MILLER

Following the belated digital release of the two Ferrets albums - I Like Your Old Stuff caught up with Billy Miller of the Ferrets for the first of a lengthy three part interview & feature. 

"Don’t Fall In Love" by the Ferrets is one of those songs. If you’re of a certain age (say 50+) and from a certain place in the ‘70s (say most places in Australia with TV and radio reception), you’ll know it. It was a massive hit single, and an unforgettable and wonderful record; one that has remained in the Australian psyche since its release in 1977. The fact that Molly Meldrum produced it and Michael Gudinski released it and they both helped it to #2 nationally certainly didn’t hurt in that area. Nor did the vision of the band on ‘Countdown’, with the tussle-haired, angel-voiced lead singer and the bassplayer’s posh-voiced asides of ’no tie?!’ and the singer’s two sisters (as it turned out) staring you in the eye and piping in with the chorus.



The classic "Don't Fall In Love" video

That lead singer was Billy Miller, and, while "Don’t Fall In Love" was a rare Ferrets song that he didn’t write (thank the posh-voiced bassplayer Ken Firth and original drummer Ian Davies for that), the ubiquity of that record should have guaranteed Billy’s standing in the ‘biz’ for a good few decades at least. Careers have been built on much, much less. But one semi-hit and a failed second album later and it was all over for the Ferrets, and a couple of failed pub bands later and it was over for Billy too (or so it seemed to the world at large). That might have been okay if they’d been as vividly remembered as the song itself, but it was not to be. How the backstory behind the creators of such a song - and that of their memorable-looking and sounding front man - could now be so shrouded in fog and mystery is a mystery in itself.

In Billy’s case, that fog and mystery has remained despite a recording and performing career that continues to this day, and a massive amount of respect, love and support from contemporaries like Dave Graney and Paul Kelly. Maybe it was always too much of a "Melbourne thing", or maybe Billy blew it with too much partying back in the day. Or maybe he’s just too nice a guy and didn’t want to push anyone under to stay afloat. Who knows? Regardless, it’s time Billy’s story – and that of the Ferrets - was told.     

So, following the Billy & the Ferrets’ belated profile-enhancing appearances in the ‘Molly’ mini-series and the following Molly: The Real Thing documentary, and the belated digital release of the two Ferrets albums, I Like Your Old Stuff decided to catch up with Billy for a bit of a chat. The interview as such became more a matter of Billy pulling out relevant bits and pieces of a memoir he has written but yet to publish. Which saved us a lot of time transcribing stuff (win!), and more importantly, makes for a great read, with plenty of fascinating detail. So much detail in fact, that we’re going to run in this in 3 parts.

Before you get stuck in to Part One you might want to check out the Ferrets releases here, and Billy’s latest album – with a couple of co-writes and guest vocals by Paul Kelly – here

Now, on with our conversation with the Great Lost Aussie Pop Star of the Seventies, Mr William Harris Miller!

So are far as most people know, you got your start in Jesus Christ Superstar in Sydney in the early 70s. Can you explain the lead up to that – I know you were originally from Melbourne -  and what the experience was like?

I was in year 11 at Caulfield High School in 1968. Martin Falls came up from Geelong. We started playing guitar together after school at his family home in Downshire Rd Elsternwick. Martin was good-looking, a champion footballer and athletics star. He was also very creative in his drama class and excellent at lyrics. We loved the same bands (especially Beatles) and began writing songs together. One of the first was “Janie May” - written in 1969 about my little sister. On most songs it was music by me and words by Martin. By the end of 1970 we had over 100 songs, and played long acoustic nights at “The Green Man” in Armadale and Geoff Brook’s Steak Cave in the city. We got $5 each for 3 hours at both venues.

One of the 100 or so Billy Miller / Martin Falls compositions. Billy recorded a bunch of these on his ‘Elsternwick ‘69’ album in 1999.

In 1972 we all got in Marty’s $200 Kombi and headed for Sydney.  With us were Manny and Ted Paterakis, sister Pam and her best friend Joybelle. My girlfriend Lucy was visiting home in NZ and would meet us up there. The others soon filtered back to Melbourne, leaving me, Martin and Lucy. We were staying in caravan parks, and broke. For a couple of weeks we were saved by the Royal Oak Hotel in Military Rd North Sydney. Every Friday night they had a talent quest with a $30 prize, and I won it twice - once with ‘Green Green Grass of Home’  and again, with Elvis’s ‘I Can’t Help Falling In Love With You’. I also put my name down to go on Channel Nine’s New Faces.

Reading the paper one day, I saw an advertisement for auditions for the new musical Jesus Christ Superstar. I was soon sitting with all the other hopefuls, guitar in hand. We auditioned on the stage at the Capitol Theatre, where the show had opened a couple of months before. There was the Musical Director - Patrick Flynn, and the show’s pianist Jamie McKinley. Patrick was an ebullient Englishman, with long black hair. At the time he was also a conductor for Opera Australia.  The show featured songs in 5/4 timing (‘Everything’s Alright’) and 7/4 timing (The Temple scene) and so the first thing I had to do was, along with Jamie’s backing, clap along with those unusual timings. That hurdle overcome, it was time for me to sing. I said that I’d accompany myself on guitar, and I launched into my rugged version of Neil Young’s ‘Southern Man’. Less than a minute into the song, Patrick started waving his arms and calling out: “Okay, you’re in! Next!”

I was led by an assistant who said that we’d need to do some paperwork, but had to wait till the auditions were over. We sat in the stalls as the last hopeful hit the stage. Even if he hadn’t gotten into the show, (he did) I’d have gladly paid to see his audition. Phil Hobbins’ was, like me, a Melbourne boy, from Armadale. Even in his jeans and Miller shirt he looked like an apostle. He had long black hair down to his waist and a beard that ended at his chest. He flew through the 5/4 and 7/4 rhythm examinations, then it was time for him to sing. He had no guitar, so he needed accompaniment. Jamie sat calmly at the piano, expecting to be handed some sheet music for him to play. Phil walked over to the piano. Jamie was nonplussed for a minute, before asking: “What do you want me to play?” Phil: “Just play a blues in E.” Phil was soon singing an in-tune, raspy blues. After a couple of verses he let out a scream, then reached into his pocket and produced a blues harmonica, then he started wailing on it. A few seconds later Patrick Flynn is yelling: “Okay, stop! Stop! You’re in!”

And so Phil Hobbins and Bill Miller were led off to sign a contract for the first decently paid musical job they’d ever had. We watched the show that night and were blown away, along with just about everyone who saw it. The music was as loud as the loudest rock concert. We were to report for duty the next Monday.

Coincidence had it that this was the week that I’d be performing on New Faces. I sang ‘You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feeling’ and won the night with 74 points. (Actually, I drew with an eighty year old bloke who played the spoons on his knees.) Judge Toni Lamond told me: “You’re face is your fortune.” I had no idea what she was talking about.

 

Had you played in bands in Melbourne before Superstar? Your song ‘The First Thing You Do’ makes it sound like you had experience in forming bands when you were a kid?

Until 1970 I had only played acoustic guitar, but I somehow got hold of an electric, and after many jams on songs like Van’s ‘Moondance’ and King Crimson’s ‘Twenty First Century Schitzoid Man’, Manny Paterakis suggested we get together with a bass player and form a three piece. The bassman was Dave Flett (well-known later, with Manny, in the Captain Matchbox Whoopee Band and also as the builder and designer of the flash new recording studio Richmond Recorders.) Dave is a brilliant all-round muso, and he taught me more about music in Armadillo’s 12 months than anybody has. For example: “If you hit a bum note don’t let on and keep playing, just make sure the next one’s correct and everybody will think you’re a great improviser.”

We called the band Armadillo and we soon had a permanent Friday night residency at Hosies Hotel in Elizabeth St (over the road from Flinders Street Station). Fifty or so other gigs following during the next 12 months. My guitar playing lacked technique but I had fire and a good feel. Because of a congenital wrist malformation I have never been able to play bar chords, which means I have had to create my own style because bar chords are a major part of any rock guitarist’s arsenal. My strong point has always been my singing, and that probably carried me in the early days.

“The First Thing You Do”, from the second Ferrets album “Fame at Any Price”  is part autobiographical/part listening to friends in other bands who were struggling to get attention from the record companies.

 

       I know you’re a massive Beatles fan. What did music mean to you when you were a kid , who were your other faves and any experiences as a fan you’d like to share? Did you see much live music?

Music was a big part of our lives. There was always an upright piano in the house (except for Doveton). Dad influenced me with his singing, Mum with her piano playing, and especially when she played the organ in the church on Sundays. Those Wesleyan Methodist hymns feature classic chord progressions that I can hear often in my own tunes. Up until 1963 and the arrival of the Beatles the stuff we listened to was big musicals (“South Pacific” etc), Elvis on the radio, and my Uncle Cliff - a jazz nut - turned us on to Louis Armstong, Ella Fitzgerald and the rest.

We moved to Manly in 1961 (I was 10), and two years later, in 1963, at 4pm I listened to the top 10 on the radio every day after school, and in late 1963 the Beatles had at least half of the top ten, and I’d sing along. Soon I knew all the hits by heart. I specialised in Beatles songs, but soon I was loving most pop music - especially British acts like the Stones, The Hollies, The Who and the Small Faces.

In February 1968, Mum (god love her) bought me a ticket to the Who/Small Faces concert at Festival Hall. It was called “THE BIG SHOW” and I found out 43 years later that my current (2016) bandmates John Annas (13yrs old) and Bill McDonald (10 yrs old) were there too. I was 15.  Paul Jones (Manfred Mann lead singer) opened the show with the No 1 hit in the world at that moment – “Pretty Flamingo”. And he was the support act to the support act! This was the concert that confirmed me as a rock’n’roller for life. I knew every word to the songs, and the Small Faces were magical. Then the roadies came out and started nailing (with 10 inch house nails) Keith Moon’s drums to the floor. I was only two rows from the front, and Roger Daltrey’s fabulous Microphone lassoing exhibition, flinging it out across the audience and catching it a hundred times without a hitch, in between singing the lines to their classic songs, was truly amazing. Then at the end Pete Townshend smashed his guitar, and Keith managed to kick all his drums over – even though they were nailed to the floor! I was hooked.

After Jesus Christ Superstar I believe you released a solo single? What happened after that?

In 1974 my first single was recorded - thanks to Jon English. He was a top bloke. He was involved in the record label ‘Warm and Genuine’ with his mate G.Wayne Thomas, and, after hearing some of the songs I’d written with Martin Falls, paid for and released my first single: “I Know / Old Son Behold”. Our ‘band’ was called Passage and comprised me and Martin Falls on guitar/vocals, K.D. Firth from the Superstar orchestra on bass, and Richard Kaal (violin/vocals) and Barry Ferrier (flute/vocals) who, like me, played apostles in the show. Nobody else had backed us like that. The band on the record was the JC Superstar band, with me on acoustic guitar and vocals. I have no copy of ‘I Know’, but ‘Old Son Behold’ can be heard on Youtube by typing in: Old Son Behold/Passage.

Before ‘The Ferrets’ (‘75-‘79) there were ‘The Rocking Ferrets’. Formed in 1974 after we all left JC Superstar and lasted about a year. Ian Davies was the drummer (and thought of the name), and the line-up was: Bill Miller, K.D. Firth, Dave Springfield and Ian Davies - with a short stint by Barry Ferrier (guitar, vocals and flute). 

We got quite a few good gigs. The Manly Vale Hotel was a huge beer barn venue, and I’ll never forget our roadie Johnny Christmas running up those never-ending front steps with a W-bin on his back. The Royal Antler Hotel in Narrabeen was a great place to play. Another time we supported Sherbert at the Dee Why Lifesaving Club. They were riding high, and we played our set to not much appreciation. We were loading our gear into a station wagon, and when Sherbert’s heart throb keyboardist Garth Porter arrived with a beautiful blonde on each arm, my jealousy stiffened me and made my determination to make it even stronger.

The only ‘tour’ the Rocking Ferrets played was 4 nights in Northern New South Wales.

 

Then you came back to Melbourne and hooked up with Angry Anderson in Buster Brown?

After Superstar and The Rocking Ferrets (1975) and back in Melbourne, K.D. introduced me and Dave to Karen Sullivan, wife of the Big Goose (Barry Sullivan - bassist "Chain"), who was a tough chick who knew the ropes and wanted to be a band manager. She was looking for a band to back up Angry Anderson, whose band Buster Brown was imploding. We met Angry at his flat in Malvern and were surprised to find an astrology-fixated, quietly spoken chap rather than the angry man he portrays on stage. We got on pretty well and went to see the old Buster Brown lineup's last gig at the Hard Rock Cafe (formerly "Berties" on the corner of Spring and Flinders Streets. It was a lunchtime gig and a new hot band from NZ was also on the bill - Dragon). Dragon's set is a beauty and Buster Brown is pretty good as well. Dave, KD and I decide to join forces with Angry and soon we're gigging.

On a country trip Angry is sprung by me, ironing his denim jumpsuit like an old granny. I laughed at him, saying that a true punk would never be caught dead ironing his clothes, but it was in good humour and we got on well.

Soon Karen has teed up two weeks in Perth, staying at the famous Sandgroper Hotel. Just before we leave K.D. pulls out (he's got a better offer from Richard Clapton), and he helps us pick a replacement. At the auditions he recommends Johnny (not his real name), a bouncer/bass player from Frankston. We should have known something was amiss, but K.D. was adamant that he could do the job for us. At midnight, in a new Falcon hire car with only 14ks on the clock, the five of us (me, Dave Springfield, Dallas "Digger" Royal, Angry and Johnny) set off for a non-stop 36 hour drive across the Nullabor Plain to Perth. Angry was the only non-driver. He always needed picking up and dropping off, because he reckoned that if he caught public transport he might be recognised, which wouldn’t be a good look because the general public expected him to be riding around on a Harly and terrorising innocent citizens, as his stage persona decreed. (This aversion to public transport is a strange illness/delusion suffered by many frontmen.) 

Angry has flopped across the other two of us in the back seat. Then he informs us through a combination of slurred words and dribble that he's just dropped TWO mandies (Mandrax). We loved mandies because, when taken with beer and vodka, we never failed to get an orgy going. However Angry's decision to drop them and dribble and lounge all over us for the rest of the journey underlined that he wasn't a team player.

Somehow we finished the Perth gigs, but morale was low and the band broke up. The others scrounged their train fares home, but I decided to stay at K.D.'s wife Kerry's place in Cottesloe for a while. I loved Perth and Cottesloe Beach, and soon Lucy had lobbed from Melbourne and joined me. For three months I called myself "Billy McCartney" and played Beatles songs solo at lunchtime gigs around Perth.

The music business is such a predictable industry. Angry was needed to fill the space that demanded a tough, metal head, bikie-loving bad boy. The truth is that the Angry I knew was pretty harmless. Back then he was obsessed with astrology, certainly no tough guy. And he ironed his denim bibs.

How did Melbourne compare  to Sydney?

Melbourne has always been the capital of rock’n’roll in Australia. Ever since the 1960s there has always been more gigs, more coverage and more bands with huge followings. Sometimes I think that the way Sydney is divided by the Harbour Bridge is reflected in the music scene. It always seemed to be a divided market - the northern (mainly beach) venues certainly featured highlights, and the inner city had several great venues, but the south and west of Sydney was just too big to coordinate properly I reckon.

In 2006 I was on the first Countdown Spectacular Tour, and Mark - the lead singer from the Choirboys - had an interesting angle: “We’ve always jealous of you Melbourne musos, because you always help each other out and play on each others’ records, and you all seem really close. From my perspective, Sydney bands have never been like that.” I suggested maybe it’s because of the way that Sydney is geographically divided by the Harbour Bridge into the north and south.

Who were favourite local bands around this time?

I just love hit songs, so whichever band has the hits - I love ‘em. Back in the seventies it was Dragon and the Models, but most of the time we were on the road, and the only time you saw other bands was booking in or out of motels and airports. However in both Melbourne and Sydney (and to a lesser extent in the other capitals) there was a venue that catered for musos who were still raging after their gig - Bananas in Melbourne and the Manzill Room in the Cross in Sydney. At these places the bands played till 3am, and the bandrooms and toilets hold many secrets.

So the Ferrets came together in ’76? Was that back in Sydney? I know you recorded some stuff at the ABC studios up there. How did that come about? And when did you hook up with Rick Brewer from The Zoot, and Molly Meldrum?

So I’ve mentioned the pre-Ferrets years earlier – The Rocking Ferrets. In early 1975, just before K.D. Firth, David Springfield and I Ieft Sydney for Melbourne and Buster Brown, we got hold of a drummer and went into 2JJ. They had a radio show unearthing new talent called ‘Fresh Cream’. We won the prize, which was eight hours’ recording time at the ABC Sydney studios. We recorded eight songs, and the result was a 45 minute 2JJ radio special and a great demo tape for down the track. Those songs formed the basis for the ‘Dreams Of A Love’ LP. A few months later Lucy and I were back in Melbourne (after spending three months in Perth following the Buster Brown breakup) and it was time to grab K.D. and Dave, release the scored and typed out pages of the hundred or so Falls/Miller songs I’d been keeping in the piano stool, create The Ferrets and make an album from all the songs we’d written.

Don’t ask me how to describe how my mind was operating back then, but all roads were leading to Molly Meldrum. Three monumental reasons made it so:

  1. He produced Russell Morris’s incomparable “The Real Thing” 
  2. He was a Beatles fanatic
  3. He was a St.Kilda Football Club fanatic

Frank Howson (JCSuperstar cast) arranged for me to take the tape and meet Molly at the ABC offices. It was all a blur until ‘Just Like The Stars’ came on. Ian was transfixed and by the time it was finished he was crying. He told me it reminded him of a close friend who’d just passed away in a motor bike accident.  

Now he was maniacally searching for a phone, as if one should appear in the air around him. He got through to Michael Gudinski and said something like: “I’ve just heard the best thing since the Beatles. We’ve got to record this band!” I couldn’t believe that just an hour ago I was walking in on my tiptoes with a hopeful demo, and now the Mushroom Records supremo was on the line, being instructed by his music guru to sign us up.

“Just Like The Stars” - “I’ve just heard the best thing since the Beatles.” – Molly Meldrum

There was still one problem though. The drummer on the demo wasn’t available for the Ferrets, so Molly made another move that showed his power and influence. Rick Brewer was a good friend of Molly’s. Rick had been the drummer in the hugely popular band The Zoot. Molly said he’d be perfect for our band. I wasn’t convinced. The Zoot  were a teenybopper band, but Molly soon drew my attention to their brilliant, pre-heavy metal version of ‘Eleanor Rigby’. At this stage the lineup was me, K.D. on bass (Ken Firth), Dave Springfield on guitar and Rick.

Future Ferret – Rick Brewer (second from left) in The Zoot (second from the right is rick Sprngfield!)

We soon realised that we needed a piano player. Throughout a lot of 1974, K.D. had been playing in the band in the Rocky Horror Show.  It was a huge hit in Melbourne, and the piano player was a genius - Ian Mawson. He was best known as pianist in Company Caine  and he handled pop, rock, blues and jazz with ease.

Although we had all played hundreds (in some cases thousands) of gigs, the Ferrets were totally a studio band until Dreams of a Love was finished. 18 months later. Our first gig was at the Tiger Lounge in 1977.

 

The Ferret’s first single – ‘Robin Hood’ – to my mind, is genius. It’s rocking, catchy as hell, and representative of the sort of pop culture inspiration that no one else was doing until after punk made that kind of trash culture kind of cool, and we had people like the Hoodoo Gurus writing songs about the Groovy Guru on Get Smart. How did you come up with the idea?

Robin Hood – the original video not able to be found…

The album was nearly finished, and there had been so much hype and media interest that a single - no matter what it was -  had to be released. The hype had only intensified due to the fact that we hadn’t even played a gig as The Ferrets yet.

One day, during the many delays in getting the drum sound in Studio Two at Armstrongs, we set up in a smaller room down the hall and revisited a song we’d always played for fun (and sometimes at Rocking Ferrets gigs). The song was a rock’n’roll version of the theme from the much loved TV show Robin Hood.  Molly’s ears pricked up, he came into the room and asked us to play it again. Within minutes he had Michael Gudinski on the line, saying that he’d found the fill-in single they needed to hold us over till the album was finished.

We recorded it pronto, but like everything Molly gets in to, there were dramas. I wanted to use the opening French Horn line from the original BBC series, plus the fabulous arrow-in-transit-then-hitting-a-tree sound effect. ‘Shoooo-phwow-boingggg!’ We’d been trawling through the Armstrongs sound effects library, but they all sounded flimsy compared to the one I wanted and I got Molly on side. Michael wanted us to make do with what we found in the library and get a French Horn player in to play the opening line, but once Molly gets an idea in his head there’s nothing on this earth with the power to stop him. Poor Michael must have been going mad. His Mushroom label had a stable of local stars pumping out hits in good time, and causing him no hassles - then there was Molly and the Ferrets.

Eventually they came to an agreement with the British owners of the Robin Hood theme, and it was worth it, for Tony (Cohen, who was our engineer) and Molly had an innate brilliance as far as inserting sound effects into pop songs and enhancing the overall feel.  Molly also convinced us to get Pam and Jane to sing the Robin Hood chorus harmonies, and they did a great job. (When I listen to it now their harmonies are clearly the equal in quality to anything on the track.)  

Robin Hood was finished musically, but we had no inkling as to the visual production that Molly had in his brain. He had talked the Countdown bigwigs (notably Michael Shrimpton) into letting us do a costly film clip for the song. I was all for it, because I’d just finished reading Errol Flynn’s My Wicked Wicked Ways and Errol had become my idol. In deference to him I began drinking Smirnoff vodka and started drawing, above my upper lip, a pencil moustache - just like Flynn had in the 1938 Hollywood blockbuster The Adventures of Robin Hood. In my mind, Errol was Robin Hood.

Legendary Countdown director Paul Drane was handed the task, and we soon found ourselves out near Eltham on a film set, learning to ride horses and shoot arrows with the aid of a professional rider and archer. Naturally, I was Robin Hood. K.D. (Ken) Firth was to play Maid Marian. He was the oldest member of the band, and had proved to be an obstinate customer whenever we had photographers trying to get us to do shots in humorous settings - e.g. trying to fit us all into a phone booth for Juke magazine. KD, with his Village People moustache was voicing his opinion that maybe he shouldn’t be Maid Marian, but Paul Drane would have none of it. He thought the moustache added to the humour. “Come on Ace,” he said to KD, “it’ll be great!” (Paul referred to nearly everybody on set as “Ace”, and I knew KD well. He didn’t like being called “Ace”. He was the grown up and we were all kids . . . )

In the end, KD was convinced, and they fitted him out in a flowing pink dress, with a pointed pink hat and long pink veil.

“Okay Ace,” Paul commanded KD, “just jump up on the horse!”

KD took a step toward the horse, and it whinnied loudly and took a few steps back.

“I’m not gettin’ on that beast!” growled KD.

“Come on Ace”, cajoled Paul, “you can’t let the team down. The show must go on!”

KD did manage to ‘get on’, and he hung on for dear life. Credit to him!

The film clip had its debut on Countdown, but the punters didn’t get on board and buy the record. However I suppose the exercise had the desired effect. It kept us in the media, and the fact that one of the Channel Two cameramen fell out of a tree during the filming and broke his shoulder was grist for the gossip mill. Robin Hood was released in April 1977, sold a handful of copies and once again the race to finish the album was front and centre.

The B-side ‘The Lemming Song’ is a great song too.

It’s one of those over 100 songs I wrote with Martin Falls during 1969/70. We wrote them mostly at Martin’s house after school (Downshire Rd Elsternwick - hence my “Elsternwick ’69” album released in 1999). Coincidentally, Downshire Rd is only 2 streets from the Flying Saucer Club, and on 29th September we’ll be playing several of the songs written in Elsternwick back in 1969, including “Janie May” and “Just Like The Stars.”

 

STAY TUNED FOR PART TWO…

- Dave Laing

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