Underrated Rockers: Sherbet / The Sherbs – The Band That Couldn’t Catch a Break

Some bands just get lost in the shuffle. Bad timing, bad marketing, bad luck—it doesn’t matter how good you are if the stars don’t align. Case in point: Sherbet, later rechristened The Sherbs, one of Australia’s finest power-pop and rock outfits of the ‘70s and early ‘80s. If the universe had been playing fair, these guys would have been breathing the same rarefied air as Cheap Trick or even Toto. Instead, they’re a footnote, unfairly buried beneath the avalanche of forgotten AM radio gold.  

Formed in Sydney in the late ‘60s, Sherbet had everything a band needed to succeed: killer hooks, tight musicianship, and a frontman in Daryl Braithwaite who could belt out an anthem with the best of them. They weren’t just another sunshine-and-innocence pop act; they were craftsmen, sculpting melody into something bigger than the sum of its parts. Listen to “Howzat” (their lone international hit in 1976), and you’ll hear a song that should have dominated jukeboxes worldwide—a sleek, funky, falsetto-laden groove that sits comfortably next to the Bee Gees’ disco detour or 10cc’s art-pop precision.  

In Australia, they were gods. Chart-toppers. Arena-fillers. But in America? Nada. The name didn’t help—Sherbet? A little too sweet for rock ‘n’ roll, maybe. So, by 1980, they rebranded as The Sherbs, toughened up their sound with more synthesizers, and released *The Skill*, an album that—if there were any justice—should be a lost classic of the AOR era. Tracks like “I Have the Skill” and “No Turning Back” had the muscle and melody to stand alongside anything Journey or Foreigner were cranking out at the time. And yet, no dice. The radio ignored them, the record labels fumbled the ball, and the audience that should have been theirs never showed up.  

Why? Who the hell knows? Maybe they were too slick for the new wave kids but too weird for the mainstream rock crowd. Maybe the industry just didn’t have room for another Aussie band once AC/DC conquered the world. Whatever the case, The Sherbs gave it one last shot with 1981’s *Defying Gravity*, which features “We Ride Tonight,” a song later resurrected in *Drive* (2011) and given a second life in the synthwave scene. But by then, the dream was over. They called it quits in 1984, leaving behind a discography that deserves far more than bargain-bin obscurity.  

Sherbet, The Sherbs—whatever name you know them by, they were better than they got credit for. Revisit *The Skill*. Crank up *Howzat*. And for God’s sake, someone start dropping their tracks into more movie soundtracks—because a band this good deserves another shot at immortality.