He provided the basslines to Little River Band's most famous songs — including Reminiscing and Help Is On Its Way — but George McArdle gave it all away after being awoken in the middle of the night 44 years ago.
McArdle was a self-described brawler from Melbourne before he played on two of LRB's best-selling 1970s albums, toured the world for stadium concert performances and was honoured by ARIA in 2004 — inducted into its hall of fame — as part of the band's so-called classic line-up.
But he quit LRB in early 1979 for an anonymous life, earning minimum wage as a painter's labourer on construction sites.
It was because he received what he described as an epiphany to pursue Christian studies at Bible college.
"I wasn't living a good lifestyle at the time and God offered me something bigger than LRB. So, I left to follow Him," McArdle told the ABC as he prepared to celebrate Christmas Day with his family in Brisbane.
"Then I started working for a painter and he had a newspaper clipping of me in the truck.
"There were blokes everywhere on this site and he goes out to the truck and grabs the clipping and he's saying to these guys 'Look who this is.' It was so humiliating."
Now 68 years old and semi-retired, McArdle says that while he remains proud of his work with LRB, he has no regrets about walking away from arguably Australia's most successful band of that era.
It has sold more than 30 million records worldwide, with 11 charting singles in the US, including six top-10 hits.
Commercial interest in LRB received a boost in October with the release of two new compilation albums, Ultimate Hits and Masterpieces, after the entire LRB catalogue from 1975 to 1986 was remastered.
But the group's founders, including Glenn Shorrock, Graeham Goble and Beeb Birtles, have been legally blocked from performing under the Little River Band name because they no longer control the trademark after it was sold off in the late 1990s.
A US-band, fronted by another LRB bassist, Wayne Nelson, continues to give concerts across North America, with no original members or Australian connection.
Although McArdle was with LRB for less than three years — from August 1976 to January 1979 — his innovative bass work on the Diamantina Cocktail and Sleeper Catcher albums stands the test of time.
From Melbourne brawler to pop star
In addition to Reminiscing and Help Is On Its Way, McArdle played on the hit singles, Home on Monday, Happy Anniversary, Witchery, Shut Down Turn Off and Lady: a stunning contribution from a little known bassist, plucked from a Melbourne club at the age of 21.
"I was playing with David Briggs (LRB lead guitarist, 1976-81) at a nightclub in Melbourne called Peter Poynton's Pink Pussycat in a scratch band where good musicians would come and go," he said.
"Soon after that, 'Briggsy' was discovered by the guys from LRB playing at the Countdown night club in Adelaide. He was asked to join the band and he recommended me as a possible bass player."
McArdle says it was "daunting" being in a group with household names like Shorrock, Birtles, Goble and British-born drummer Derek Pellicci, but he worked hard to fit in.
He was one of two left-handed players in the band, along with rhythm guitarist, Birtles, who was bassist in a previous band, Zoot.
When McArdle joined the band, along with Briggs, he was recovering from a reconstructed eye socket from fighting on the streets of Brunswick.
"After a brawl in a coffee shop, I had a serious eye injury that left me with no bottom in my eye socket," McArdle said.
"The doctor said, 'You can never get into another fight', so I took his advice seriously and stopped running with the crowd I was in.
"I spent a lot more time at home practising on my bass and turned my life around. I really had been on a pathway to destruction, so it was a good thing.
"I realised, of course, that I had a talent for it, even though some people commented that I was a bit rough around the edges and didn't seem like a good fit for the band."
Giving 'help' to LRB's biggest hit
McArdle contributed the distinctive introduction to Shorrock's Help Is On Its Way, which turned out to be the band's only Australian number one single, winning record of the year in 1977.
"We were in the green room backstage at Melbourne University and Glenn sat down and started playing on an upright piano there. I plugged my bass into the amp and just started playing along," he said.
"When Glenn played on the piano, I just played that exact riff. And he just looked up at me and said, 'That sounds pretty good'.
"In the chorus, I go into a Motown-y sort of octave thing that half the songs on the radio had at that time. There was nothing really original about it, but things came together at the right time."
'Very simple but it worked'
Reminiscing, written by Goble and reaching number 3 on the US charts, has been played on US radio more than 5 million times since its release in 1978, with the late Frank Sinatra and John Lennon among its admirers.
In an interview, Sinatra described it as "the best 1970s song in the world".
Again, it is the distinctive bass from McArdle that gives the song its smooth introduction, followed by Shorrock's conversational yet melodic vocals.
"It took me quite a while to come up with what worked best for it because everybody in LRB tried to put their best foot forward with every recording which is why the band was so good," McArdle said.
"But what worked best for that song was a very simple bassline, and that's what I ended up doing.
"According to Graeham, he put pen to paper and the whole song was finished in something like 20 minutes. That's often the way with great songs".
LRB's strength was its broad range of songwriters. In addition to Goble, Shorrock and Birtles, Briggs penned another US top-10 hit for LRB in Lonesome Loser, recording a demo in McArdle's home studio.
'Awoken in the middle of the night'
But by the time the song was recorded on LRB's First Under the Wire album, released in July 1979, the softly-spoken bass player had quit the band after he was "awoken in the middle of the night because my bed was shaking like an earthquake".
"It was something that I'd never experienced before but the presence of God filled my bedroom and he spoke to me. He actually opened up the ceiling and showed me a vision of heaven," he said.
"I knew I had to leave the band because I wasn't living a good lifestyle and knew I needed to get serious about Christianity."
McArdle's last concert with LRB was in January 1979 at the Nambassa Festival on New Zealand's North Island. The last song he played on was Help Is On Its Way.
"We had two drummers that night — I had Derek Pellicci on my right and John Hartman from The Doobie Brothers on my left — I was wondering at that moment if I was making the right decision because the band sounded so amazing," he said.
"I walked off the stage, said my goodbyes and two days later I was in the Bible college."
McArdle trained at Commonwealth Bible College in Katoomba, west of Sydney, paying the bills by working on construction sites and trying to avoid talking about his previous career.
"This guy said in front of everyone on the building site, "So, God took you out of the Little River Band and made you a [house] painter? It was embarrassing."
McArdle would earn a minister's credential and served as a pastor at Queensland's Airlie Beach.
Today, he plays in the worship team band at Riverside Church in the Brisbane suburb of Chelmer, and gives inspirational talks about his journey from musician to preacher around Australia, and occasionally overseas, and often with bass in hand.
His former band mate, Shorrock, now 78, is planning to perform later this week with fellow pop legend Brian Cadd — on December 30 and 31— at Twin Towns Services Club at Tweed Heads, on the NSW side of the border with Queensland in a show called the Two Amigos.
But McArdle will be a long way from the glare of the stage lights and the buzz of amps and microphones. He's planning a quiet festive period with his family, including a Christmas service at Riverside Church.
He insists he wouldn't change a thing about cutting his pop music career short.
"I'm happy with the choice I made," he said.
"But, at the same time, I'm thrilled to have played on so many great songs by the Little River Band. It was a great time in my life."
