Stevie Wright: The Easybeats, Friday on My Mind and Evie | Ultimate Aussie Pub Rock Reunion

Why fans still care

STEVIE WRIGHT fronted The Easybeats, and their fans had a name for the frenzy, Easyfever, the National Film and Sound Archive says. Friday on My Mind went to number 1 in Australia, ABC News records, and in 2001 an APRA panel voted it the best Australian song.

Early life

Stevie Wright was born in Leeds, England, in 1947, and came to Australia with his family as a boy, as ABC News and Rolling Stone report. They lived in Melbourne first, then Sydney, in a house near the Villawood Migrant Hostel. That’s where The Easybeats came together, The Music and The Leader both say.

Career chapters

1. 1964The Easybeats form in Sydney
2. 1965 to 1966She’s So Fine, Wedding Ring and Sorry
3. 1966Friday on My Mind recorded in London; Top of the Pops on 24 November
4. 1967support the Rolling Stones on tour
5. 1969The Easybeats break up
6. 1972Simon Zealotes in Jesus Christ Superstar, Sydney
7. 1974Evie goes to number 1; Hard Road
8. 1975Black Eyed Bruiser
9. 1986Easybeats reunion tour
10. 2002Long Way to the Top tour
11. 2005ARIA Hall of Fame with The Easybeats

The Easybeats 1964 to 1969

He formed The Easybeats with Harry Vanda, George Young, Dick Diamonde and Snowy Fleet, the Bay Post records. He co-wrote early hits with George Young, including She’s So Fine, Wedding Ring and Sorry, as Ian McFarlane records. In September 1966 the band recorded Friday on My Mind, written by Vanda and Young, at IBC Studios in London, and their pre-recorded BBC Top of the Pops performance aired on 24 November, with Wright singing a live vocal, the NFSA says. They supported the Rolling Stones in 1967 and split in 1969.

Superstar and Evie 1972 to 1975

He played Simon Zealotes in the Australian production of Jesus Christ Superstar, which opened in Sydney in 1972. Then Vanda and Young wrote and produced Evie for him. All three parts run 11 minutes and 11 seconds, and it topped the Australian chart for six weeks in 1974, The Music says. Hard Road came out in 1974, followed by Black Eyed Bruiser in 1975.

Back on stage 1986 onward

The Easybeats reunited for a tour in 1986. He also took part in the Long Way to the Top tour in 2002, as Ian McFarlane records. His last festival show was Legends of Rock at Byron Bay in 2009, ABC News says.

Craft, sound and style

The frontman

“Little Stevie” was small, quick and never still. David Albert, whose family company Alberts released The Easybeats, called him “one of Australia’s greatest front men”, ABC News reported.

A singer who wrote

Before Vanda and Young took over the writing, Wright and George Young wrote the band’s early hits together. Johnny Young, who sang with him in the 1960s, called him “a great songwriter”.

Evie

Evie was written with him in mind, and he joked about the rhyme himself: Evie, Stevie, The Music says.

Stories people still tell

1. The lost Top of the Pops reel.

   The BBC footage of the band playing Friday on My Mind was thought to be gone. In 2021, the NFSA says, the painter Lucy Culliton found a copy among her late father’s belongings.

2. More like The Beatles.

   Tony Hicks of The Hollies said Friday on My Mind was “more like The Beatles than The Beatles”, the NFSA notes.

Legacy

Stevie Wright died in 2015. The Easybeats went into the ARIA Hall of Fame in 2005. Friday on My Mind was one of the inaugural ten recordings in the NFSA’s Sounds of Australia in 2007, and on 4 November 2026 it was among the first ten songs in The National Songbook, Mediaweek reported.