TELEVISION PLAY EASYBEATS ROLE HITS HOME

songs have stood the test of time, and now the story behind the music of The Easybeats is coming to the small screen.

The two- part miniseries Friday On My Mind tells the story of five young newly arrived immigrants who met in a Sydney migrant hostel in the 1960s and formed the band that would take Australian rock ’ n’ roll to the world.

“Obviously it’s a story of camaraderie and mateship, but a lot of people forget it’s an immigrant story,” says Mackenzie Fearnley, who plays legendary guitarist and song writer Johannes Van Den Berg, aka Harry Vanda.

“I was back home on the ( Gold) Coast with Mum and Dad and told them about how they’re making a TV show about a band called The Easybeats and they both went, ‘ Wow that’s from back in our time’,” he says.

“They pulled out all the old DVDs and we went through the history of the band.

“From that point on I decided I was the only person in Australia who was going to get this role. I wasn’t going to let anyone else get it.”

Fearnley describes Harry as “the peacekeeper of the group”.

Harry and bandmate George Young would go on to have a much longer songwriting partnership after the breakup of The Easybeats as Vanda & Young, which supplied hits for AC/ DC, John Paul Young, Stevie Wright, Rose Tattoo and The Angels.