Speaker 1: Questloft Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: So y'all, June is Black Music Month, and every year
Speaker 2: we use this time to acknowledge something that really can't
Speaker 2: be overstated.
Speaker 3: Black music is one.
Speaker 2: Of the foundational forces behind modern culture. Now, back when
Speaker 2: Teams Supreme and I were doing the Questlove Supreme and
Speaker 2: now on the Quest Loft Show, we've always tried to
Speaker 2: create a space for those stories. So for the entire
Speaker 2: month of June, we're bringing you an episode every day
Speaker 2: focus on the history, influence, and ongoing evolution of black music.
Speaker 2: A team and I dug through the catalog and selected
Speaker 2: episodes that feel especially meaningful for now, conversations that inform,
Speaker 2: entertain and connect the dots between where this music comes
Speaker 2: from where it's headed. Now, alongside those, we'll be releasing
Speaker 2: four new episodes of Quest Left Show feature trailblazers and
Speaker 2: innovators and cultural connectors and visionaries who represent the past, present,
Speaker 2: and future of black music.
Speaker 1: I want you to enjoy this.
Speaker 3: Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. What's up? This is Quest
Speaker 3: Love and this is.
Speaker 2: Another episode of Quest Love Supreme. We got the Team
Speaker 2: Supreme with us right now. The one and only Suka
Speaker 2: Steve yo Yo. How goes it to Oh wow.
Speaker 3: Oh you're your shock that I actually care about your
Speaker 3: well being? Yes, but no, I'm feeling good. Everything's good.
Speaker 2: So glad to be here with Team Supreme and burn
Speaker 2: gonna be great.
Speaker 3: Fan Ticolo North Carolina.
Speaker 4: Yeah, man, I'm good brother, oh bit chilly.
Speaker 2: Fighting for his uh, his his rights and his masters.
Speaker 3: And listen, or as we call.
Speaker 4: It in the music business, Wednesday, whatever.
Speaker 2: I feel you, I feel you, uh and and our
Speaker 2: our diva that needs left to uh.
Speaker 5: That was.
Speaker 6: Instead I'm mad we ain't doing no roll call because
Speaker 6: I'm just we were doing right now. I would really
Speaker 6: quill this.
Speaker 2: I'm just I know, man, we're gonna but by the time,
Speaker 2: hopefully someone will invent a system that will, you know,
Speaker 2: fix all the latency problems you know for roll call, uh.
Speaker 3: Ladies and gentlemen.
Speaker 2: I will say that, speaking of diva, our guest today
Speaker 2: is probably I mean, she's beyond diva, she is beyond queen,
Speaker 2: she is beyond legend.
Speaker 3: She just is.
Speaker 2: And I'll say that I know it's hard to imagine.
Speaker 2: I'm not trying to sound like Grandpa. I noticed that,
Speaker 2: like all my tales of music starts with the like
Speaker 2: well back in my day. But you know it's really
Speaker 2: it's really hard to imagine like a like a time
Speaker 2: period in which being in a band like wasn't like
Speaker 2: a novel idea. And you know, a lot can happen
Speaker 2: in thirty five years. Yes, we're now living in the
Speaker 2: age of the solo act, and you know a lot
Speaker 2: of these acts are chasing perfection.
Speaker 3: We're pre recorded tracks.
Speaker 2: But I mean, there was there was a time in
Speaker 2: history where you know, where collaboration was key.
Speaker 3: Magic came and and and.
Speaker 2: In numbers, and it was it was a thing to see,
Speaker 2: you know, to watch people as a unit kick gas.
Speaker 2: And I will say that our guest really personifies that.
Speaker 2: You know, the band that she established in the late
Speaker 2: seventies known as Climax was pretty much you know, I'll
Speaker 2: say that kind of sort of a nominally consisting of
Speaker 2: badass women playing instruments, which, you know, sad to say
Speaker 2: that again, like the fact that that's a novelty shows
Speaker 2: you like the sad state of where we are right
Speaker 2: now and music. But you know, this particular band, you know,
Speaker 2: the hits were a plenty one of the best puns
Speaker 2: in music. You know ment all pause, the anthemic don't
Speaker 2: mess with me anthem meeting in the ladies room.
Speaker 6: Not to mention because I'm not in the mood.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and the forever prom anthem from my era on
Speaker 2: this you so many hits, so many hits, the name
Speaker 2: sexy he was need love to and everything. Not to
Speaker 2: mention her work as a producer with Sheeryl Lin, Paul
Speaker 2: Abdul Medler, Shallamar and I can't wait till we start
Speaker 2: talking about Madam X. Madame X is probably the most
Speaker 2: expensive record I ever purchased on eBay. This before I
Speaker 2: knew that you can rip songs off of YouTube. Anyway,
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome to our show the one
Speaker 2: and only the legendary Diva of all divas, Burnetette Cooper,
Speaker 2: The Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 5: Hello, Hello there, Hi christ Yo.
Speaker 3: I noticed something.
Speaker 2: When a microphone is present, I cannot whistle my whistles.
Speaker 2: I was trying to whistle when it was just like.
Speaker 3: Look like I was like blowing kisses at us.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Anyway, So the Cooper, how are you today? How's
Speaker 2: it going?
Speaker 5: I'm doing Wilson honor, honor to be here with all
Speaker 5: of you.
Speaker 3: Thank you, what what part of the world are you
Speaker 3: in right now?
Speaker 5: Right now? I'm in Westchester right now. My studio is here, not.
Speaker 6: That, not your west Chester, my west justin Yea, there's
Speaker 6: a west Chester, California.
Speaker 5: Yes.
Speaker 1: I was like, yo, you're down the block.
Speaker 5: Okay, I thought I got my studio out here. I'm working.
Speaker 5: Told me to say hello the.
Speaker 3: Legendary Jerry Brown engineer Jerry Brown.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, is it Christmas in.
Speaker 3: His studio right now? That guy's name, he's coming up.
Speaker 5: Yeah, he told me you hello. He just actually he
Speaker 5: was here working in my studio. I have a mixing
Speaker 5: room and he just did. He worked on John Legend.
Speaker 3: Yeah, his Christmas. Yeah. Jerry's world famous for his his
Speaker 3: Christmas decorations in the.
Speaker 5: Studio, mood lamps and his lights and his candles. And yes,
Speaker 5: he brings the sexy he does.
Speaker 2: Okay, I've never heard his designs just described as sexy.
Speaker 2: Like he always look at the cheerful and like when
Speaker 2: we're there, it's like it's Christmas. I feel like I
Speaker 2: should be, you know, bringing a gift or whatever.
Speaker 3: But exactly yeah, you know.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Of course, being on the show puts us in the
Speaker 2: the position of always having access to a lot of
Speaker 2: the that we grew up, one that we feel that
Speaker 2: haven't been praised enough for, haven't gotten that much attention.
Speaker 2: And what was weird is that I work at thirty
Speaker 2: Rockefeller Plaza, which I consider is sort of like a
Speaker 2: university for comedy. That's where like Seth Meyers and The
Speaker 2: Tonight Show with Jimmy fallon Saturday Night Live and all
Speaker 2: these these legendary New York shows are shot, and whenever
Speaker 2: Saturday Night Live is in season, I'm usually there to
Speaker 2: watch tapings of the show. And this year was like
Speaker 2: really something special in which just out of nowhere, they
Speaker 2: did this really awesome sketch.
Speaker 3: Yes, based on the Ladies Room.
Speaker 6: I was hoping you were going to where I could follow.
Speaker 5: Yes, you know what, it's actually the second one, the
Speaker 5: first one.
Speaker 3: Halle Berry halle Berry right right, Yeah, I totally.
Speaker 2: I remember I was laughing because it was so authentic
Speaker 2: and so on point. I was, you know, the audience
Speaker 2: was laughing, but I was laughing like it was funny
Speaker 2: and I knew the reference point, you know, Whereas I
Speaker 2: think half the audience, who was like millennials and gen
Speaker 2: z would just thought like, oh, they're doing some crazy
Speaker 2: eighties thing that we don't get the reference. And I
Speaker 2: remember grilling Steve Higgins, who's sort of like Jimmy's sidekick
Speaker 2: on the Tonight Show. He runs Saturday Night Live, and
Speaker 2: I just grilled him like, yo, like, you guys did
Speaker 2: such a deep cut inside joke that like who who
Speaker 2: in your audience do you think we really remember? Like
Speaker 2: climax and the very specifics of like you know, Cecily
Speaker 2: Strong playing the Bernadette Cooper role and Leslie played like
Speaker 2: it was.
Speaker 3: It was so on point.
Speaker 2: I was really impressed, and I wanted to meet the
Speaker 2: writers and they were just like, you know, we we
Speaker 2: like music too, and we go outside the box. Even
Speaker 2: though they were young riders.
Speaker 3: I was really.
Speaker 2: Impressed that that they gave you guys, like really a
Speaker 2: really good shout out for your legacy, Like that sketch
Speaker 2: is gonna go you know down. I feel like that
Speaker 2: will be on their sizzle real way down the line.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it was great when I saw it. It was
Speaker 5: you know, you know I watched Saturday Night Live every night,
Speaker 5: every Saturday night. Yeah, and to sit there and bed,
Speaker 5: you know, you got your popcorn and all of a sudden, bam,
Speaker 5: it's like, oh wow, it was great. It was a
Speaker 5: great honor and you didn't.
Speaker 3: Know it was coming. That's awesome, isn't it?
Speaker 6: Isn't that good from a license and perspective too, right,
Speaker 6: Like when they do something like that burned that it
Speaker 6: is a good tho you for real?
Speaker 5: You know sometimes you know, when royalty time comes, you know,
Speaker 5: then I would really know sometimes sometimes it is, and
Speaker 5: sometimes you know, sometimes it just sparks and I don't
Speaker 5: call them up and go, hey, where's my check? I
Speaker 5: don't do that. I just I just kind of enjoyed
Speaker 5: the moment and and you know, I'm honored.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think like when when it's done in parody,
Speaker 2: it's not the same as like clearing a sample. Wow,
Speaker 2: kind of they're kind of parody laws that, but I
Speaker 2: think they actually did meeting in the ladies. Yeah, So
Speaker 2: it's just it's like a standard payment thing. But hopefully
Speaker 2: that will plant seeds with you know, with an audience,
Speaker 2: and they'll do the research.
Speaker 6: And they'll find the record and.
Speaker 3: That's how that's how legends are made.
Speaker 5: And promoters will will remember that we're here.
Speaker 6: Yes, oh wow, I didn't think that.
Speaker 2: So many questions about that so I would like to
Speaker 2: know because I really don't you know, besides like the
Speaker 2: occasional coverage and like ride On magazine shout out to
Speaker 2: Cynthia Horner, I really don't know. I mean there's not
Speaker 2: there haven't been that much in depth interviews with you guys,
Speaker 2: even though you guys were doing the numbers. You guys
Speaker 2: were like doing massive pop hits. So I'm glad that
Speaker 2: we finally have this chance to talk to you. Uh
Speaker 2: you were Were you born in Los Angeles?
Speaker 5: Yes? I was born in Los Angeles, lived in Compton, Inglewood, Hollywood,
Speaker 5: grew up in mainly you know, after after high school,
Speaker 5: I moved to the Hollywood area and I lived there
Speaker 5: in Beechwood Canyon, did all of that, So, yes, Los Angeles.
Speaker 5: Then I moved to New York for ten years. Now back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, can you tell us? Can you tell me what
Speaker 2: your first musical memory was?
Speaker 5: Wow? When you say musical memory like.
Speaker 3: Band that I know just from as a baby, Like
Speaker 3: what like their very first musical memory as a child?
Speaker 5: Of course, you know, Rita Franklin was my was my
Speaker 5: played in my household when there was happy times, when
Speaker 5: they were sad times. So Rita was a person that
Speaker 5: I used to listen to and follow her lyrics and
Speaker 5: her and her vocal movements and her hooks, and and
Speaker 5: it made me a better writer by the Rita Franklin songs.
Speaker 5: And then of course was moving on Doo Daddo. Remember
Speaker 5: Dio Daddo. Yeah, yeah, it was a little bit of
Speaker 5: all those guys. Jeff Beck, You know, I really got
Speaker 5: into that scene and kind of in the high school,
Speaker 5: junior high school era.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I would say, what was your what was
Speaker 2: the family record collection, like in your household as part
Speaker 2: of what was the what was what was the established
Speaker 2: records that were in your house? But then I want
Speaker 2: to know what was the album that you purchased with
Speaker 2: your own money, Like this is something I want out
Speaker 2: of out of your parents.
Speaker 5: Range, Areta Gladys, you know Ray Charles. That was the
Speaker 5: songs that were be being played in my host So
Speaker 5: what I when I went out in about were songs like,
Speaker 5: as I said, the Dio Daddo's, the the I got
Speaker 5: really into the I can Tina Turner. I really love them.
Speaker 5: You know, it's not really much when I look back,
Speaker 5: it kind of I had a range of people that
Speaker 5: I really really loved Michael Henderson. All those kind of
Speaker 5: people are the people I used to come home from
Speaker 5: to high school and listen to.
Speaker 2: In your household, were you like, did you have other siblings?
Speaker 2: Like how was this music passed down? Was like older
Speaker 2: cousins or older siblings that put you onto it?
Speaker 5: Or No? I didn't really have a musical household, you know,
Speaker 5: other than the songs I just mentioned that were played,
Speaker 5: you know, which was ata. I got more into it
Speaker 5: when I was in went the church and then my yeah,
Speaker 5: and then as far as playing the drums is concerned,
Speaker 5: my mom married the preacher and he had a drum set,
Speaker 5: and I started practicing every day. Yeah, drama and I
Speaker 5: started practicing every day, and I taught myself how to
Speaker 5: play drums.
Speaker 6: Why did drums.
Speaker 5: Because they were there? I mean, really, it wasn't. It wasn't.
Speaker 5: It wasn't like a passion or love or I want
Speaker 5: to play the drum. They happened to be there, and
Speaker 5: I kind of geared towards it. And my brother started
Speaker 5: playing the bass. That we were together in the garage
Speaker 5: practicing every day, and he probably made me a more
Speaker 5: powerful drummer because he really pushed me, you know, and
Speaker 5: then we played in the church band, and that's my
Speaker 5: early beginning musical life. Then, of course, created a group
Speaker 5: called Blue Ice, which was in junior high school with
Speaker 5: Michael Northfleet. You know Michael Northfield, right, I know this
Speaker 5: name for our listeners.
Speaker 3: Can you tell Michael Northlee he's a keyboard player.
Speaker 5: Chucky Booker, you know Chuckie Booker, Michael Northfleet. All those
Speaker 5: guys are kind of like that same vibe. So I
Speaker 5: started a band in junior high school called Blue Ice.
Speaker 5: Horn section had a guy like like my h, James Brown.
Speaker 5: We won all the contests because he was James Brown.
Speaker 5: And then we had a girl drummer. Oh no, we
Speaker 5: want everything.
Speaker 3: So so you were always in those battle bands in.
Speaker 6: High school and Jui, yes, yes, and you were always
Speaker 6: diverse bands too, like yes, one of diverse bands.
Speaker 5: And then then I took a love in high school,
Speaker 5: I started learning how to write because I'm really kind
Speaker 5: of a musician who plays by ear and I create
Speaker 5: by ear and I kind of hear it in my
Speaker 5: head and I play it. And I learned how to
Speaker 5: play read music in high school and that's where the
Speaker 5: early beginnings started.
Speaker 2: Even back then, did you have a yearning or did
Speaker 2: you feel that there was a need for a band
Speaker 2: of all women, because I think by that point, when
Speaker 2: I was a kid, the only band that I saw
Speaker 2: that had like women playing an equal role in the
Speaker 2: instrumentation I'm in, besides lining the family Stone, which you know,
Speaker 2: it is kind of mind blowing for people to see
Speaker 2: like a trumpet player and a keyboard player. But I
Speaker 2: remember growing up watching there was a Philly group called Ecstasy,
Speaker 2: Passion and Pain. Yeah, they had they had a drummer
Speaker 2: named Cookie, and I was really impressed, like asking my mom, like, yo,
Speaker 2: girls can play drums too, Like did they act like
Speaker 2: there was a novelty or was it just normal? Because
Speaker 2: normally when you think of a drummer, it's always a man.
Speaker 3: Behind the skins or whatever.
Speaker 2: It's like very unusual for certain instruments to be played
Speaker 2: by women, be it like a trombone or like it's.
Speaker 3: Like, yeah, you don't see. But were people making a
Speaker 3: big deal of that?
Speaker 2: And did you take advantage of the fact that, And
Speaker 2: did you play any other instruments as well?
Speaker 5: No, And what you just said is the reason why
Speaker 5: it came to mind. But there was a void, you know,
Speaker 5: one day you know, just in my young mind, I said, wow,
Speaker 5: there's not a lot of female musicians. I said, it
Speaker 5: would be great to create an all girl band. And
Speaker 5: then watching LaBelle really really I love LaBelle, okay, And
Speaker 5: I watched them and I saw the excitement that everybody
Speaker 5: had when these girls got on stage. You know, I
Speaker 5: one of those kind of people who cry when I
Speaker 5: see things that you're so unusual that, you know, and
Speaker 5: they would they would just move me. And I said,
Speaker 5: one day, it would be great to put together an
Speaker 5: our girl band. And I mean people ask me this
Speaker 5: question all the time. I don't really have an incredible
Speaker 5: answer other than that I think it was meant to be.
Speaker 5: And they just kind of came to me. And this
Speaker 5: low young girl who had this idea started checking the
Speaker 5: yellow Pages, remember the Yellow Pages, Yes, and trying to
Speaker 5: look for other musicians, calling radio record labels and asking them, Hey,
Speaker 5: would you guys be interested in an all girl band?
Speaker 5: You know? And finally one record company said, yes, we
Speaker 5: would be. I have an idea. That's how it started.
Speaker 2: Wait a minute, that's how you got into the because
Speaker 2: we have a billion questions about Dick Griffy.
Speaker 1: Okay, That's how that started.
Speaker 5: No, no, not Dick Griffy yet it's another label. This
Speaker 5: is another label and another lady. It was a lady
Speaker 5: by the name of who was the an R person
Speaker 5: at this particular so it wasn't I forgot the name
Speaker 5: of the record was a sales cell watched radio record label. Anyway,
Speaker 5: she was the an R person. She says, come, I
Speaker 5: want to meet with you about this concept that you have.
Speaker 5: So we met and she says I'm interested. Her and
Speaker 5: I together, she kind of She and the record label
Speaker 5: funded my idea for a while, and I started looking
Speaker 5: for girls through the recycler paper. I started rehearsing these girls,
Speaker 5: and I turned the studio in Inglewood, which I have
Speaker 5: great stories about it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because I was like them, you was a fan
Speaker 6: and then a circle back.
Speaker 5: I love it, okay, yeah, yeah, And I turned a
Speaker 5: studio and I started like she she really kind of
Speaker 5: funded this and she, I don't know, she was coming
Speaker 5: up with the money to help me with this idea.
Speaker 5: And I said, I have a great name for the band.
Speaker 5: She said, let me know what the band is. I said, Climax.
Speaker 5: She says, I love it spelled with the k L
Speaker 5: y m A. Actually says I love the whole concept
Speaker 5: of it. And that's how you know, that's how the
Speaker 5: seed was planted. And then from there we went on.
Speaker 2: You got back up a little bit because also a
Speaker 2: recurring theme on the show our tales from the I
Speaker 2: Turner Studio.
Speaker 3: From Charlie about.
Speaker 5: Bolic studios.
Speaker 2: If yes, if you could talk, yeah, what was happening
Speaker 2: at that studio?
Speaker 5: You know, I would pipe, he would. He would peek
Speaker 5: in every once in a while after rehearsals. You know,
Speaker 5: we weren't that good. You know, we didn't really get
Speaker 5: good too later on in life. But we were playing
Speaker 5: and we were trying, and we were dedicated. So he
Speaker 5: would peep in. And he had a bodyguard at that time.
Speaker 5: I forgot the gentleman's name, but he took a liking
Speaker 5: to me the bodyguard, and we became friends. We would
Speaker 5: talk all the time. This is important. I'm going to
Speaker 5: get back to that.
Speaker 3: We love these stories.
Speaker 5: Yeah. The one time that that I finally said, he
Speaker 5: came into the studio and he looked around and he
Speaker 5: looked at me, and then the guy, let's call him Steve. Okay, OK,
Speaker 5: not sugar Steve, but she said, let's stee. So he says.
Speaker 5: He says, I want you to talk to you. Come in,
Speaker 5: and he wants you to into the front studio, because
Speaker 5: you know, the rehearsal studios were on the side of
Speaker 5: the building. So I said okay, and the girls were
Speaker 5: kind of looking at me, and I go, I'll be back,
Speaker 5: and I went in and I'm going to tell this story.
Speaker 5: We're not gonna We're not gonna mess around here. So
Speaker 5: I went in there and I came and I was
Speaker 5: holding his pipe. He was getting high, and he goes, here,
Speaker 5: I want you to hit this right. And I go, well,
Speaker 5: I don't do drugs and I don't drink. I don't
Speaker 5: do any of that. He goes, I said, hit it.
Speaker 5: Hit this pipe right. Look at that.
Speaker 6: Mary and Barry. That's how it happened.
Speaker 5: Go ahead, and he said hit the pipe. And I
Speaker 5: was like, no, I don't do and he said I said.
Speaker 5: He got really aggressive with me.
Speaker 6: He said no.
Speaker 5: He says, you're good. He said you're really good on
Speaker 5: the drums. You're gonna go somewhere and he goes hit
Speaker 5: the pipe, and there's Steve said, man, leave her alone.
Speaker 5: She's a good girl. Man leave her alone. And I
Speaker 5: listened to him and he just and Steves took me
Speaker 5: out of there, then me back to the rehearsal studio.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 4: Individuals on that wonder if it was the guy was it?
Speaker 4: Was it fraut in the West love got to do
Speaker 4: with the movie. McBride's character Frosts like his guy. I
Speaker 4: wonder if it was him.
Speaker 5: He was kind of a big guy. Yeah, yeah, yes, yeah,
Speaker 5: and he saved me that day because I would have
Speaker 5: been a different girl today, you know. But yeah, but
Speaker 5: I had to tell the story the way it happened.
Speaker 5: There's no way of sugar coat in that, no.
Speaker 3: Niceties like hey, what's your name? And no, no, no no.
Speaker 3: It was just like here hit this hit them.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Well, he gave me a compliment first, he told
Speaker 5: me good, I'm going to be good and all of
Speaker 5: this kind of stuff. You know. I guess that was
Speaker 5: the soften me up a little bit. And I was like, no, sir,
Speaker 5: you know, I was very respectful and I said, I said, no, sir,
Speaker 5: I don't, I don't. I don't do drugs. I don't,
Speaker 5: I don't. I don't want to do that.
Speaker 6: I think I'm because in a twenty twenty one America,
Speaker 6: like I Turner would not have existed with his studio
Speaker 6: it being successful, people going to him being able to
Speaker 6: say that to you, like, oh no, what exists.
Speaker 5: It's still it's still going on.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, like I'm sad to say that, probably, yes,
Speaker 2: it's still going.
Speaker 5: It's still going on. I mean, look at them. I'm
Speaker 5: just look at all the entertainers who are dying. You know,
Speaker 5: that's true. There's still a culture. There's a drug thing.
Speaker 6: It's a drug call.
Speaker 5: We just don't we just don't know it because we
Speaker 5: don't we're not in it.
Speaker 6: I'm at the misogynistic part of that, that the way
Speaker 6: he approached you and everything that still happens, it still happens.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, how how hard is it
Speaker 2: to be taken seriously in a time in which the
Speaker 2: even the idea of being a musician, a female musician
Speaker 2: is such a rarity, Like how are you able to
Speaker 2: be taken seriously where it's just like, nah, I'm not
Speaker 2: messing with.
Speaker 3: Bernard at Cooper.
Speaker 5: You know, well, did you have to.
Speaker 2: Invent that character that we know because you have this
Speaker 2: don't mess with me sort of stance with you?
Speaker 5: Well, I do have an alter ego you know, and
Speaker 5: that would be my alter ego that the other the
Speaker 5: real Bernie the Cooper is very shy and very I'm
Speaker 5: a very close and I'm really kind of like in
Speaker 5: this character. I created this, this other character to get
Speaker 5: me through I guess, you know, as I said, a
Speaker 5: lot of this stuff was meant to be. I can't
Speaker 5: really go oh. I created this character because of this,
Speaker 5: you know. And it was also a shield that I
Speaker 5: used to deal with a lot of family mental abuse
Speaker 5: and not really sharing in my dream. So I said, Okay,
Speaker 5: I'm going to create this character strong Superwoman because I
Speaker 5: got to get make I got to make it to
Speaker 5: the next day, you know. So I created this character,
Speaker 5: and this character went on to work. She became the
Speaker 5: Slatin girl, you know, and I and I look good
Speaker 5: all that stuff. It's really about loving yourself. It has
Speaker 5: nothing to do with physical appearance. But you have to
Speaker 5: be a diva to understand that, you know.
Speaker 6: I'm just curious if you believed it at the time
Speaker 6: or were you just saying.
Speaker 5: It no, no, no, no. I was saying it from
Speaker 5: another from an inner perspective. I wasn't saying I know
Speaker 5: I'm the cute. I was saying it because I had
Speaker 5: to find strength and going forward in this world by
Speaker 5: myself with my dream. So I created this character and
Speaker 5: to achieve that, you know, and that character is still here.
Speaker 5: I'm still very cluse. I'm still a very cluse.
Speaker 6: But they're still working together. The character We.
Speaker 3: Get right tells how the Sasages made, like we.
Speaker 5: Exactly.
Speaker 2: So, Yeah, I was going to ask, you know, oftentimes,
Speaker 2: especially in black households, you know, survival, you know, hooker
Speaker 2: crook his job one, that's what parents think, like get
Speaker 2: something to fall back on.
Speaker 3: Yeah, get a good paying job, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2: Like, we're well, you kind of answered it, But what
Speaker 2: was your family's feelings on you pursuing this dream or
Speaker 2: was it like like you got to the age of
Speaker 2: nineteen to make it or else, you know, you got
Speaker 2: to work at the post office? Like did they give
Speaker 2: you ultimatums or were they quasi nurturing.
Speaker 3: You know, or were they church people?
Speaker 5: They it was a little bit of all of the
Speaker 5: bottom line is that they weren't feeling it. Nobody and
Speaker 5: you know, I was. My plan was to go to
Speaker 5: law school and become an attorney and to do that,
Speaker 5: and they were kind of like all behind me a
Speaker 5: car and took care of me and all that stuff.
Speaker 5: But one day, sitting in my accounting class, which was
Speaker 5: an elective that I had to take, which I was
Speaker 5: sitting there looking at my teacher like, I don't want
Speaker 5: to be here anymore. I want to play the drums.
Speaker 5: I want to be in a band. I'm never coming
Speaker 5: back again. So I got up and I left in
Speaker 5: my class, and I said, that's when I began my
Speaker 5: search for the all girl band.
Speaker 6: My family was not.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there was called well you know what it was.
Speaker 5: You have to understand that I was an honest student.
Speaker 5: So I got out of high school fast. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I was kind of which high school did
Speaker 3: you go to?
Speaker 5: I went to Compton and Inglewood High School. I graduated
Speaker 5: from Inglewood High School. I went to Compton my what
Speaker 5: ninth and tenth my tenth and eleventh grade, and then
Speaker 5: I graduated. My mother moved to Inglewood, and I graduated
Speaker 5: from Inglewood.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I gotta know what you know when most
Speaker 2: of us here, especially that's not on California natives here
Speaker 2: about Compton, of course, we start just thinking the legend
Speaker 2: of whatever n w A was painting about what Compton
Speaker 2: represented until them.
Speaker 5: Patris Patrius Russian patrist Russian Glass. Yeah, yeah, she was,
Speaker 5: she was. She actually was a lot, but she was
Speaker 5: and then tasted funny. They were out during that time.
Speaker 5: They were out during that time, So that probably influenced
Speaker 5: me a little bit too as far as the girl
Speaker 5: concept as well.
Speaker 3: Okay, but what what was your high school like in like?
Speaker 2: Was it nurturing environment? Was it more Jill Clark lean
Speaker 2: on me dangerous?
Speaker 5: You know, I have to say this, and you know
Speaker 5: I was a tar baby, a tar baby, right, that
Speaker 5: was the the the logo was the tar baby. But
Speaker 5: those are the most wonderful years of my life in
Speaker 5: Compton High School with the most wonderful Yeah. And that's
Speaker 5: when the gang started shooting finally, that started when I
Speaker 5: was in school. That started happening, the shooting and then
Speaker 5: and and what was in the shooting and what kind
Speaker 5: of drugs was in then? Uh? Good, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 5: the one before that people, no, no, no no, it
Speaker 5: was angel du started. Everybody was. That's how I got
Speaker 5: into the That's when I got into the music class.
Speaker 5: That's where I started meeting new friends. That's where I
Speaker 5: felt love. Nobody had nothing, So nobody wasn't trying to
Speaker 5: act like they had nothing, you know. So that was
Speaker 5: a wonderful place to me for me, and then my
Speaker 5: mother moved to Inglewood and I was kind of all alone,
Speaker 5: you know, all alone. I didn't really you know, so
Speaker 5: I graduated from high school early and I was able to,
Speaker 5: you know, go to college.
Speaker 6: You're not being from California, you realize how far those
Speaker 6: two places are. You don't realize how far those two
Speaker 6: places are from each other. What Inglewood and Compton just
Speaker 6: as culturally, it just seemed like yes culture, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: I think to an outsider though, like I would think
Speaker 2: that those schools were more closer to Jill Clark's Lean
Speaker 2: on Me where you might not live the end of
Speaker 2: the school day.
Speaker 3: But was it that dire or.
Speaker 5: Is that no that during that time, it wasn't that dire.
Speaker 6: It was pre she pre that. I mean remember, and
Speaker 6: it's funny if you watch I don't know if y'all want,
Speaker 6: when you watch them, that was them, right. They came
Speaker 6: out over the COVID where they showed Compton before Burnard
Speaker 6: death generation when it was like white folks, yeah, just
Speaker 6: straight suburbs.
Speaker 5: Know, it was. It was cool. You know, I think
Speaker 5: I think there was one gunshot next freaked everybody out.
Speaker 5: That's why my mother moved to Inglewood. And yeah, it
Speaker 5: just drugs angeled us. That's pretty much it. And the
Speaker 5: rest of it was like a great experience for me.
Speaker 5: I had friends. You know, you're talking about a loaner
Speaker 5: who made friends.
Speaker 2: You know, I lived in Compton for one year as
Speaker 2: a baby, but you know, I don't have any memories
Speaker 2: as a two year older. But I do have a
Speaker 2: photo of me at a CRYPT meeting because all my cousins,
Speaker 2: so I had a bandana and a Derby on.
Speaker 5: You could have been I could have been you know,
Speaker 5: no I was.
Speaker 2: I was you know, they were trying to crip me up. Yeah,
Speaker 2: brought me to the meetings. Can you tell me what
Speaker 2: the audition process or at least what were you looking
Speaker 2: for in the audition process that basically brought like Joyce
Speaker 2: and Lynn, Lorena and Sheryl and uh well, Robin Robin.
Speaker 5: There were a lot of different versions of climax. Before
Speaker 5: I got to thank you for saying.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, I was going to say, I think there
Speaker 2: were seven women on the down with the hot air
Speaker 2: Balloon the first one.
Speaker 5: Even before that, and I was I was still in
Speaker 5: the narrowing down process. Yeah, yeah, I mean even when
Speaker 5: we you know, before climax, all the climax. It was
Speaker 5: I was smart enough to know, and I don't know
Speaker 5: how I got this knowledge that the girls had to
Speaker 5: be certain kind of girls in order for Radio Disjot
Speaker 5: with the DJs to play our music. Right, So I
Speaker 5: was looking for sexy, I was looking for femininity. I
Speaker 5: was looking for girls who can play now, you know.
Speaker 5: And we had a camaraderie, so you know. First it
Speaker 5: was Cooley, who I found from another band and she
Speaker 5: was playing with a band with her boyfriend, and I
Speaker 5: talked to her and to joining us. And then it
Speaker 5: was Lynn Marsby. They came, a lot of them came.
Speaker 5: It was a paper called the Recycler where you could
Speaker 5: put an ad in for twenty five dollars or however much,
Speaker 5: and then people would respond to and call, hey, I
Speaker 5: play guitar, you know. Then we had Jeanie Cunningham was
Speaker 5: the first guitar player. Then came show Coolly actually, and
Speaker 5: then how we arrived at the climax that we are
Speaker 5: now show on first and then it came Lynn came
Speaker 5: into an audition. I believe she came in from the
Speaker 5: Recycler paper. Then there were a couple other girls in
Speaker 5: the group who I knew from Compton, who I eventually,
Speaker 5: how can I say, I eventually let them go and
Speaker 5: I found new girls. Joyce Soby didn't come into the
Speaker 5: group until after our first album, and we had a
Speaker 5: contract style we already had a recording deal when she
Speaker 5: came into the group. Because I I fired the bass player.
Speaker 5: Now why I fired the bass player, I can't exactly
Speaker 5: remember the reason. It was a conga player and a
Speaker 5: bass player. Got rid of them because for some reason
Speaker 5: or another. And mister Griffy came to me. He goes on,
Speaker 5: this was after you guys want to get to that point.
Speaker 6: No, no, we take your time, take.
Speaker 3: Time, stories stories you never told before.
Speaker 5: So yeah, I mean mister Griffy. You know me and
Speaker 5: mister Griffy. Ah, I loved him. He was a wonderful,
Speaker 5: wonderful gentleman. And I mean, yeah, I mean to me,
Speaker 5: I don't know anybody else's experience, but he gave me
Speaker 5: my first opportunity as a writer a producer, and you know,
Speaker 5: without him, I would not be talking to Puesla. Okay,
Speaker 5: bottom line, bottom line, okay. This man would not only that,
Speaker 5: he would take us out to dinner and teach us
Speaker 5: about wine and my first taste at escargo. He was
Speaker 5: a wonderful guy. He would call me up and talk
Speaker 5: to me about the band. He was a wonderful guy.
Speaker 5: And he called me up. He goes, you know, why'd
Speaker 5: you fire the bass player? I really loved the bass
Speaker 5: I thought the bass player was cool. And I go, well,
Speaker 5: because for this reason, He goes, well, we gonna do now.
Speaker 5: So we talked about it, and he said, hey, I
Speaker 5: remember this girl uh In Fayevielle, North Carolina, who keeps
Speaker 5: you know, kept giving me yeah, who kept giving me
Speaker 5: a tape, who kept giving me a tape and all
Speaker 5: these things. And I go. He goes, I'm going to
Speaker 5: bring her out here, and I want you to let
Speaker 5: me know what you think. So I said, okay. He
Speaker 5: brought her out. She seemed cool. Everything was good. You know,
Speaker 5: she at the base, she came to rehearsal. She was
Speaker 5: a nice girl. Everything was cool. He says, what do
Speaker 5: you think. I said, can we just try her out
Speaker 5: for a little while? He goes, no, we need to
Speaker 5: move forward. We got a contract, I can't. We got
Speaker 5: to get somebody stable in the group. So that's how
Speaker 5: Joyce Sophi got signed.
Speaker 3: All right, yeah, yes, sir. Did you know that Fronte?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah. When I was a kid.
Speaker 4: Now, when I was a kid, I mean, I.
Speaker 3: Don't know her from Faitville.
Speaker 4: I was like five, but yeah, but I remember like
Speaker 4: all the stations around the station we used to listen
Speaker 4: to when I lived with my grandparents back in Robinson County.
Speaker 4: They would always like when they played Climax joints, they
Speaker 4: would shout out Joyce and they was like.
Speaker 3: Shout out yeah, yeah, she got mad love. Oh yeah.
Speaker 5: Then and then Lorena came in one day from a rehearsal.
Speaker 5: She was on her way to by word of mouth,
Speaker 5: someone said, hey, they're looking for a lead vocalist. She
Speaker 5: came in and blew me away and she got hired.
Speaker 5: She got hired on the spot, and she became the
Speaker 5: voice of Climax.
Speaker 3: Is it always okay? Now?
Speaker 2: I mentioned that you you know, you said you fired
Speaker 2: the bass player. But because it's such a rare, it's
Speaker 2: such as rare to get.
Speaker 5: Fired is such a harsh word let's just say it
Speaker 5: didn't blend in with the concept. Okay, so I fired it.
Speaker 2: But I was there always a concern or fear that
Speaker 2: if you let a member go, the amount of work
Speaker 2: that you got to put in to find someone that
Speaker 2: really fits a very specific criteria that will make the
Speaker 2: band work. Like, is that always concerned?
Speaker 5: We were young. I was young. I didn't you didn't
Speaker 5: think about those kinds of things when you're young. But
Speaker 5: you know, I just I don't know, I wasn't thinking
Speaker 5: about that. It's just the concept. It just wasn't blending in. Uh,
Speaker 5: And I didn't think about it. I just was like,
Speaker 5: it's not working. And then mister Griffy was like, well,
Speaker 5: what are we going to do now? You know? And
Speaker 5: we figured it out.
Speaker 6: Did you start to develop your own band rule as
Speaker 6: you call?
Speaker 5: Oh we had rules, Yes, we had rules. You guys
Speaker 5: are asking me, I gotta think way back. I mean,
Speaker 5: you know, it's just like you know, you know X
Speaker 5: amount of dollars and fifty two dollars five dollars if
Speaker 5: you get the band rehearsal late, you know, you know,
Speaker 5: you know, you're fine, We're fine, you know, you know
Speaker 5: we this is pre Joyce, because that's another you know,
Speaker 5: the original band, which was Lorena Show, Cooley, Lynn Mars,
Speaker 5: Robin Grider and myself, we struggled. We were such a unit.
Speaker 5: We were so dedicated in the vision and trying to
Speaker 5: achieve this recording deal. You know, we we starved. I
Speaker 5: was kissing the uh the the rehearsal studio owner, trying
Speaker 5: to get more studio time. We were doing whatever we
Speaker 5: needed to do to.
Speaker 6: These lyrics. Okay here, yes, just just a kiss and
Speaker 6: get you.
Speaker 5: More, all right, kid, a kiss, got his two hours.
Speaker 6: And that.
Speaker 3: Okay, I get it.
Speaker 5: Those were they were really picks. They were that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: he was the older handsome guy, mister Cooper, mister Cooper,
Speaker 5: and you know, uh yeah. I don't know how that evolved.
Speaker 5: I don't know how that happened. One day he just
Speaker 5: said hey, you know, and I was like, okay, can
Speaker 5: we get some studio time?
Speaker 6: He was sometimes you got what you got?
Speaker 5: Two pecks? Got his four hours?
Speaker 2: Okay, wait, you you mentioned uh the legendary uh.
Speaker 3: President Solarick Griffy. Yes, can you can you describe? Because
Speaker 3: I also know that.
Speaker 2: Those nightclubs, like the Total Experienced nightclubs and all those
Speaker 2: spots that are on Crenshaw was rather legendary for a
Speaker 2: lot of those developing acts. Could you basically describe what
Speaker 2: like black LA nightlife was as far as like seeing
Speaker 2: bands and interacting with other bands and just in general,
Speaker 2: like I came up in a time my time period
Speaker 2: of La, pretty much the center of all the action
Speaker 2: was in West Hollywood on Sunset which I was told
Speaker 2: that was never happening like before, like nineteen ninety five
Speaker 2: where you had to go. So if you're if it
Speaker 2: is nineteen eighty one eighty two, where am I going
Speaker 2: to see like the bands I like?
Speaker 3: And where y'all hanging at? You're not on Sunset Boulevard?
Speaker 3: Like were they open to black people then back then?
Speaker 5: Or I'm sitting here trying to search the name of
Speaker 5: this club that was in Compton. It was a club
Speaker 5: that Easy and the nperformed in and they showed it
Speaker 5: on their movie in the beginning. Yeah, I can't remember
Speaker 5: the name of that club, but you know, I popped
Speaker 5: in here and there. There wasn't any particular clubs, I
Speaker 5: think the Roxy. Every once in a while you'll get
Speaker 5: a good deal a band happening in like in West Hollywood,
Speaker 5: let me think. I'm trying to think where did we go?
Speaker 2: But were you part of the Total experience that club?
Speaker 2: Or where was that like more of a seventies mid
Speaker 2: seventies thing.
Speaker 5: It was the seventies and eighties. But I was just
Speaker 5: kind of like, you know, into my my thing. I
Speaker 5: didn't really do a going a lot of going, which
Speaker 5: I did go to the Total Experience. I saw, you know,
Speaker 5: I saw the dramatics. I saw the dramatics. Wow experience. Yeah.
Speaker 3: And then and how big is that nightclub?
Speaker 5: It was? It was a nice size, maybe about five
Speaker 5: hundred people.
Speaker 3: So established acts? Was that the House of the Blues,
Speaker 3: House of the Blues? Was that sort of the House
Speaker 3: of Blues of its day?
Speaker 5: Yes? It was?
Speaker 2: Okay, so no act was too big or too small.
Speaker 2: You can see riffs and Chaka Khan at the.
Speaker 5: Total Spirits and then Maverick Flats, Okay, remember that. Yeah,
Speaker 5: people used to go there dance. Every once in a
Speaker 5: while there will be a band or two, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 5: and then you know, you went to the Forum, and
Speaker 5: then you went to the the all the what was
Speaker 5: it the San Diego Jazz Festival? That was? That was
Speaker 5: the thing I used to enjoy going to I'm seeing.
Speaker 2: How did the deal with so our Records come to be?
Speaker 2: How did you get the attention of Griffy? A?
Speaker 5: We did a we did a demo and the demo
Speaker 5: was sent to many record labels and one of the
Speaker 5: labels was so Lark Records. And the lady there, Margaret Nash.
Speaker 5: Margaret Nish got ahold of the demo, went to mister Griffy.
Speaker 5: She was, what's the guy I can see? I can
Speaker 5: see cleanin now. She was Johnny Nash's ex wife. Okay,
Speaker 5: she worked at Solar. So she went to Dick Griffy
Speaker 5: and said, hey, you gotta you gotta hear about these girls.
Speaker 5: You gotta see these girls. You know, you got to
Speaker 5: check it out. She came down to rehearsals, saw us,
Speaker 5: went back and told Dick griff me. Next thing we know,
Speaker 5: Dick Griffy was walking into rehearsals.
Speaker 3: I see.
Speaker 5: He walked in and he said he looked, he saw
Speaker 5: we were playing. Oh, there's freaky good. He looked at us,
Speaker 5: he was smiling. He left and he says, uh. Before
Speaker 5: he left, he says, I'm going to sign your go
Speaker 5: for a record deal. That's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you were fine with that, Like, so I seemed
Speaker 2: like a logical spot.
Speaker 5: For you to Yeah, no one else was asking, you know,
Speaker 5: and it was the first thing. And that's what our
Speaker 5: attorney said, Hey, not the best still in the world.
Speaker 5: What other deal do you have? You know, you get in,
Speaker 5: you make it happen, which is the famous Ryan Sweeney.
Speaker 5: You get in, you make it Happenn Sweeney was your lawyer. Yes,
Speaker 5: we were his first clients.
Speaker 3: What yeah, yeah, legendary wyn Sweeney.
Speaker 5: Okay, legendary wyn Sweeney. And he said, what else do
Speaker 5: you have? He said, you get in, you get a
Speaker 5: hit record, and you make changes.
Speaker 3: When that happens, you get to renegotiate.
Speaker 6: Then was it easy to renegotiate with Griffin once we
Speaker 6: got a hit?
Speaker 7: Yeah, I mean, I just not not that I'm fishing
Speaker 7: for stories, but it's just just like, depending on who
Speaker 7: comes on our show, I have there's various degrees of
Speaker 7: Dick Griffy's stories, and.
Speaker 6: She says she got stories.
Speaker 2: I guess I could say that I'm led to believe
Speaker 2: that he was sort of like the the proto Sugar
Speaker 2: night of his day.
Speaker 3: No, he groomed sugar.
Speaker 5: Sugar was his bodyguard. That's how I met sur Night.
Speaker 5: Sug used to be dig Griffy's bodyguard, and no, listen,
Speaker 5: you know, listen. I don't know if anyone else's experienced,
Speaker 5: you know, with mister Griffy. I can just tell you
Speaker 5: that he was kind to me and he was kind
Speaker 5: to us, you know. I mean, did we get this
Speaker 5: or that? I don't I'm not quite sure. But he he,
Speaker 5: he was there. We were at every meeting. We talked
Speaker 5: about things, we discussed them in all palls, and we
Speaker 5: did it. He didn't want to do it at first,
Speaker 5: you know, he said, I'm not doing no song about
Speaker 5: mental pause and then.
Speaker 6: The Lord he gets real complicated.
Speaker 2: Yes, my mom too thought you guys were thinking about menopause.
Speaker 5: So did he?
Speaker 3: That was like, do you not know what a pun is? People?
Speaker 5: Particularly? So did he? We broke it down and I
Speaker 5: was saying, no, it's the men all paused. When I
Speaker 5: walked into the room, he started smiling. Next thing, you
Speaker 5: know that the record is on the album.
Speaker 6: I see when did the.
Speaker 5: In the beginning and it became our first hit. We
Speaker 5: didn't even know it because by that time, you know,
Speaker 5: there was a couple failed albums. We were trying to
Speaker 5: figure out what we were going to do with the
Speaker 5: next phase of our life. You know, we were telling
Speaker 5: I'm going to go back.
Speaker 3: To school, go ahead, Can I wait?
Speaker 2: I don't want to glide by this two records because
Speaker 2: it's two portant. Well one important factor with you guys
Speaker 2: working with Jimmy and Terry. But what I want to
Speaker 2: know is, you know, of the acts that were on
Speaker 2: the label, between Lakeside and Midnight Star Carrie Lucas, the
Speaker 2: Whispers and whatnot, they like the common the common factor
Speaker 2: or the common denominator of most of those acts that
Speaker 2: were hip makers of Solar was the production of Leon Silvers.
Speaker 3: Yes, and I was shocked.
Speaker 2: I came aboard on meeting in the ladies room, and
Speaker 2: then eventually I found out that you guys had two
Speaker 2: other records, and then I went and brought those and
Speaker 2: you know, I saw like Otis Stokes and you know,
Speaker 2: the cats from from Lakeside, and I always wanted to know, like,
Speaker 2: why didn't you guys work with Leon Silvers who was
Speaker 2: clearly giving everyone out, you know, handing out hits like hotcakes.
Speaker 5: At the time, Leon didn't want to work with us,
Speaker 5: and it could be because he was so busy, you know,
Speaker 5: or he didn't really express an interest in working with us.
Speaker 3: You know, did you guys ask him.
Speaker 5: I'm sure something, probably, I'm not quite sure. I didn't
Speaker 5: ask them. You know, I don't know if I'm sure
Speaker 5: I asked them. You know, I don't think he you know,
Speaker 5: we passed him every day and we saw him in
Speaker 5: the studio. He didn't really have an express an interest
Speaker 5: in wanting to work with us. So he brought in
Speaker 5: Otis Stokes, which was like working with Otis and then
Speaker 5: was cool, but it just wasn't the direction that we
Speaker 5: wanted to go in. We were more independent. We were
Speaker 5: young girls, but we were like really independent and fun. Oh.
Speaker 5: We just kind of wanted to put us in a
Speaker 5: box of you know, of your typical I'm your woman
Speaker 5: and you're my man, and I'll do whatever you want
Speaker 5: me to do kind of thing, right, and we were like,
Speaker 5: now we don't really know. I'm not doing that. I'm
Speaker 5: not going to do that. So, you know, it took
Speaker 5: us a while. Didn't take us. It took us. We
Speaker 5: had to get with Jimmy and Terry to find a voice.
Speaker 5: That's when we found our voice.
Speaker 2: They encouraged that, so can you describe what working with
Speaker 2: Jimmy and Terry, you know, and like for the second album,
Speaker 2: the Girls will Be Girls record. It's really like great
Speaker 2: songs on there that just never really got the push, and.
Speaker 5: I'm kind of glad. I'm kind of glad because it
Speaker 5: wasn't us, you know. Yeah, yeah, well you know up
Speaker 5: into Jimmy. Do you have more Jimmy and Terry? Yes, yeah, no,
Speaker 5: they came in with they didn't do girls were good.
Speaker 5: There was there was ODIs Stokes.
Speaker 3: Well, I meant the album. I know that they.
Speaker 5: Jimmy. Yeah, okay, that's when they came in and they
Speaker 5: came in. They were sneaking away from fence and they
Speaker 5: were like, you know, it was all they were up
Speaker 5: doing some We were the first band that I think
Speaker 5: they worked with, either us, the S O S band.
Speaker 5: I really don't remember.
Speaker 3: Yes, we're technically first.
Speaker 5: Yeah, we were in the room when Prince called and
Speaker 5: fire them. Found out that they were working with us. He
Speaker 5: called them up and they came out the room. They said,
Speaker 5: we just got fired. Well I guess we can start
Speaker 5: our new career now, you know. But that's yes, yes
Speaker 5: and no. Hey, it was wonderful. It was like a
Speaker 5: breath of fresh air, because here are these guys who
Speaker 5: praised mistakes. Okay, no, no, we're going to keep that.
Speaker 5: It's a mistake. We're going to keep it, you know.
Speaker 5: And I was the one who was always writing songs,
Speaker 5: and they fell in love with all my songs. They
Speaker 5: were like, let's do burning that Cooper songs, you know,
Speaker 5: telling Dick, you should be doing these songs. These are
Speaker 5: the songs you should be doing. Because all of that,
Speaker 5: I know I'm looking good. That's the way we used
Speaker 5: to talk on a daily base. I walk into the studio,
Speaker 5: I know I'm looking good, you know. And they wanted
Speaker 5: to put all of that onto tape. And that's what
Speaker 5: they started doing. They were taking a lot of my
Speaker 5: songs and putting on the tape and encouraging us to
Speaker 5: write the things that we really feel and we really love.
Speaker 5: So that's what they did.
Speaker 6: That's good. So when we got introduced to y'all, we
Speaker 6: was getting introduced to y'all for real. Everybody else who
Speaker 6: thought they.
Speaker 5: Knew y'all when Networker came out with meeting in the ladies'
Speaker 5: room in the mental pause, I mean, because we kind
Speaker 5: of went to school with wild girls, that was I mean,
Speaker 5: that was Terry Lewis. That was them kind of experimenting
Speaker 5: with us, trying to help us find our sound, and
Speaker 5: they got it. It just didn't hit, that's all, you know.
Speaker 5: But by the time they moved on and Jick was
Speaker 5: he was he was available, his ears were available at
Speaker 5: that time to listen to the things that we really
Speaker 5: had because Ellie, Jimmy I hit keeps down on and
Speaker 5: bevery face. Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis encouraged him to
Speaker 5: open his ears and listen to the tracks that I
Speaker 5: was writing and the other girls were writing, and he
Speaker 5: was open to us, so we were giving him. He
Speaker 5: just kind of gave us free rain. You guys go
Speaker 5: do this album yourself. By that time, were you.
Speaker 3: There for the infamous Uh?
Speaker 2: Jam tells the story about the I asked about a
Speaker 2: certain engineer that they had to fire because of them
Speaker 2: destroying the Heartbreaker song.
Speaker 3: There it was like a punch in doing the mixdown. Uh.
Speaker 2: The engineer had a race like one of them, I'm
Speaker 2: such a mess thing and then they just fell down
Speaker 2: a rabbit hole of trying to fix the edit that
Speaker 2: was previously erased.
Speaker 5: No, I don't remember that.
Speaker 3: Okay, you never knew that story.
Speaker 5: I wrote the song and I was there, but I
Speaker 5: don't remember that story.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, Yeah, basically, like one of the I'm such
Speaker 2: a Mess lines Heartbreak, I'm such a mess on the
Speaker 2: Heartbreaker song, the engineer was trying to punch in make
Speaker 2: an edit and accidentally erase some of the background. Yeah
Speaker 2: and yeah, jam I was asking about like a time
Speaker 2: when things went awry, and he just talked about accidentally
Speaker 2: erasing like some of the background vocals on Heartbreaker and
Speaker 2: them trying to fix it.
Speaker 5: That's a possibility.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Well they fired the engineer, and I guess they
Speaker 2: kept that from you guys, so now.
Speaker 3: You know forty years later. Sorry.
Speaker 2: But with with meeting in the Ladies Room, well, first
Speaker 2: of all, just as the band Dynamics one, how did
Speaker 2: you whittle it down to the six members that we
Speaker 2: got to know on meeting in the Ladies.
Speaker 5: Room through you know, being in the band. You have
Speaker 5: the girls and certain things happened. I think they were
Speaker 5: went down from it was eight and then it went
Speaker 5: down to six, and that's the group that you know.
Speaker 6: Now.
Speaker 5: There were two other members. I can't remember why they
Speaker 5: left the group, but why they weren't involved in the
Speaker 5: group anymore, but it was a decision that was made
Speaker 5: and then we were left with the six core members
Speaker 5: of the group. And I think that was the reason
Speaker 5: for our success. So I think it would have been
Speaker 5: successful with those other two members or any other members.
Speaker 5: Now I think it was these are the ones that
Speaker 5: we're meant.
Speaker 6: To be, so move forward, did you so, do you
Speaker 6: remember the rules from that point? They kept y'all together,
Speaker 6: They kept you from having like petty arguments, They kept
Speaker 6: y'all from some of the things.
Speaker 3: That other groups or howard decisions made.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well, you know, well, you know, it became that
Speaker 5: group thing where you know, the vote, the whole group vote,
Speaker 5: which you know, which was very stifling you know to
Speaker 5: me at points.
Speaker 6: You know, because it's your group.
Speaker 5: Not so well, I just had more forward ideas, and
Speaker 5: I sometimes you know, when you have an idea, you
Speaker 5: see things and people don't don't see it. Then you
Speaker 5: got everybody kind of raised in their hand, and that's
Speaker 5: very stifling for a creative person, you know. So it
Speaker 5: was a majority rules.
Speaker 6: That's interesting as you had the same hand as everybody else,
Speaker 6: because even I mean I even think I guess that
Speaker 6: in the roots, like a mere hand in a turikan
Speaker 6: is different than other hands.
Speaker 3: Right, Like, but was it?
Speaker 2: But that's why I'm asking, was it a real democracy
Speaker 2: or was it like the idea of a democracy?
Speaker 5: It was, okay, let's say this. It was all good.
Speaker 5: And then when Joyce came in the group, a little
Speaker 5: bit of a power struggle started because for whatever reason
Speaker 5: she you know, she came from a military base and
Speaker 5: she you know, so that's when things kind of started changing.
Speaker 5: From the group that we had that was all for one,
Speaker 5: one for all. Things started, like everything became a vote
Speaker 5: because the the vision, the vision had gotten interruption, I interrupted,
Speaker 5: very good.
Speaker 2: So would you say that Joyce was sort of the
Speaker 2: because she was the last member to join, kind of
Speaker 2: the outsider in a situation where there was already an
Speaker 2: established rapport with.
Speaker 3: The five of you.
Speaker 5: Yes, and she definitely had her own way of seeing things,
Speaker 5: you know, which is not.
Speaker 3: Bad in her own opinions.
Speaker 6: Yeah, And that was right.
Speaker 5: And I was always you know, you know, one for all.
Speaker 5: We hadn't even got to a point of an ego yet,
Speaker 5: you know, we were we were I was about, hey,
Speaker 5: whatever's good for the group, you know, That's how I
Speaker 5: lost control of the name because, you know, Joyce came
Speaker 5: and said, like, I think we should all be a
Speaker 5: part of the name of the group, and I was like, sure,
Speaker 5: no problem. I wasn't you know, I wasn't savvy. I
Speaker 5: wasn't savvy, and I was just kind of like, well,
Speaker 5: the band, we're gonna be together, We're gonna make things work.
Speaker 5: And that's why the name is so out of control.
Speaker 5: You know, right now, I wish I would have known
Speaker 5: better and had trademarked that.
Speaker 3: You know, So, could you tell me how your personal
Speaker 3: life changed. Let's let's let's say too, Let's say three
Speaker 3: months after Men All Pause comes out. Oh my goodness,
Speaker 3: where you guys?
Speaker 2: Were the songs on the radio killing it and you're
Speaker 2: on you know, the videos being played everywhere.
Speaker 6: And because I don't even know where Men on Pause
Speaker 6: across from meeting in a lady's room, they kind of
Speaker 6: just they.
Speaker 5: Listen, listen. We were preparing to go back to school. Loreena,
Speaker 5: you know, she's always wanted to be married. Everybody was
Speaker 5: playing in their life because we mister Griffin, you know,
Speaker 5: he stuck with us through all those Felt albums. We
Speaker 5: were all in the car following each other. I don't
Speaker 5: know where we were going, but I think there were
Speaker 5: two cars one two, or maybe we were all in
Speaker 5: the same car. Mental Pause came on over the Christmas holidays.
Speaker 5: You know how everybody goes on break during the Christmas holidays.
Speaker 5: After that Christmas holiday Mental Pause, the Mental Pause was
Speaker 5: ahead and the record coup. He says, you guys got
Speaker 5: to hit record. DJ's were playing it, they were going crazy,
Speaker 5: and that's when our lives went on. Things changed drastically.
Speaker 5: First video, that was the first video. I mean, we
Speaker 5: did the Mental Pause first video. Then after the Mental
Speaker 5: Pause came meeting in the Ladies grool, right, and with
Speaker 5: with Louis Silence, put me into the studio and with
Speaker 5: tave Mo and we remixed the Leader, and that's when
Speaker 5: I added the you know, I had to leave my
Speaker 5: condo to come to this, you know, that's when I
Speaker 5: added that, Yeah, we did. That was the remix version
Speaker 5: that became the big.
Speaker 2: Even though it was a little bit. I mean, I
Speaker 2: was twelve thirteen, and again, like there weren't many in
Speaker 2: depth interviews with you guys back then, I'm certain that
Speaker 2: there had to been comparisons like, oh, you guys are
Speaker 2: like a female time, and you're kind of like a
Speaker 2: mar state. Was that bothersome to you.
Speaker 5: Or not at all? And Terry used to always call
Speaker 5: me they used to compare me because my personality was
Speaker 5: such like a Morris. Okay. They used to call me
Speaker 5: burn the day, you know. Yeah, And they wanted to
Speaker 5: write things by character because I didn't really know much
Speaker 5: about the time, you know, they were just doing it
Speaker 5: the first time I heard seven seven ninety three eleven
Speaker 5: in the studio, you know, and I didn't really know much,
Speaker 5: so I couldn't really pattern myself after him. But after
Speaker 5: after seeing his character and how much we favored there's
Speaker 5: so many ways. It was like, that's what the answer
Speaker 5: of when Jiggilos need love to I wrote, yeah, divas, Yeah, right,
Speaker 5: divas came from an asker that was like an answer.
Speaker 5: You know. I'm in the process right now. I'm working
Speaker 5: on the song, hoping to get Morris on it. I
Speaker 5: just I just think that would be such a great concept.
Speaker 5: He and I have talked to please call him and
Speaker 5: tell him. He and I have talked about it. I've
Speaker 5: sent them tracks and he's like, man, okay, I called
Speaker 5: him up, Morris Morris, So I have this track that
Speaker 5: I'm working on right now that I'm going to send
Speaker 5: to him, because I just think it's beyond beyond. It's
Speaker 5: beyond just a song. It's about being entertained and how
Speaker 5: the public would love that. Yes, a personality from a
Speaker 5: girl band and the girl band and the time. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that's great. We're opening up the ground is.
Speaker 4: With that, miss, But I want to ask what you
Speaker 4: say you're working on tracks? What equipment and like software
Speaker 4: are you using now to work on your music?
Speaker 5: You know, I'm protus and I write on the NPC
Speaker 5: X Okay, yeah, yeah, because I'm in the PC sixty
Speaker 5: n PC. You know, two thousand, two thousand XS. I
Speaker 5: know the NPC, So I grabed X because there's so
Speaker 5: much you could do with it, and I could travel
Speaker 5: with you do vocals on another even though I haven't
Speaker 5: even used half of it. So I write a lot
Speaker 5: of my tracks, which I don't really like to write
Speaker 5: tracks that much anymore because I'm lazy and I'm always
Speaker 5: questioning if the right snare or if if it's gonna
Speaker 5: sound right. So I focus more now on lyrics and
Speaker 5: melodies and content and vibe. You know, I just did
Speaker 5: something with old slape.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, Okay, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: I call believe in US. I dropped it if dropped
Speaker 5: it in on the UK, and I'm focusing on that.
Speaker 5: So I'm thinking a lot of tracks from people that
Speaker 5: I know or old things that I have. But right now,
Speaker 5: actually the track that I'm working on is an old
Speaker 5: Sonati track, but I rearranged it, you know, so that
Speaker 5: it would fit me in more. So I'm working on
Speaker 5: concept now. I just think that would be such an
Speaker 5: entertainment thing.
Speaker 6: It's gonna happen.
Speaker 4: I love man, that's so Dopeyeh, you worked together.
Speaker 3: Something.
Speaker 2: What why did you guys pivot to Constellation mc A,
Speaker 2: Like were you still technically under the umbrella of Solar
Speaker 2: or like what did you officially leave Solar to go
Speaker 2: to Los Alas and.
Speaker 5: MC it like was no Solo Records did a distribution
Speaker 5: deal with them?
Speaker 3: Okay, I never knew the story.
Speaker 5: Of yeah, Solar, we're on Solar and Solar did the change.
Speaker 5: We didn't make the change. We kind of got over
Speaker 5: there cause Solar. You know, once the success of meeting
Speaker 5: in the Ladies Room and climax became this big Oh
Speaker 5: my god, after I miss you, it was over Lynn
Speaker 5: Massby wrote that, by the way, you know, that's the
Speaker 5: biggest climax song ever. Yeah, that was That's a big
Speaker 5: that's a huge that's on music baby. Okay, yeah, so
Speaker 5: she you know, they wanted us. So Dick did a deal,
Speaker 5: you know, and we went over to our constellation. Constellation
Speaker 5: was his deal that he made via I guess a distribution.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I didn't know, so he owned that.
Speaker 6: I was just going to ask you drop two names,
Speaker 6: and I wanted to know when you circle back and
Speaker 6: finally met them, what was it like. And that was
Speaker 6: Morris Day and Patrice Russian.
Speaker 5: Patrice was just a high and by and I admire you.
Speaker 5: It wasn't a deep conversation like Tina, me and Tina
Speaker 5: and Okay, yes, a lot of stories. So more Sometimes
Speaker 5: you have to bear with me because I gotta think.
Speaker 5: I gotta but Moreri's Day. You know. I see Morris Day.
Speaker 5: We do. We do a lot of touring together. I
Speaker 5: see him in and out. And the last time I
Speaker 5: saw him, we were in we were in Florida and
Speaker 5: I went up to my I said, we got to
Speaker 5: do a song together, Morris, I said, we got to
Speaker 5: do it for the people that would be such a intertain.
Speaker 5: I'm cool, send me tracks, all right. So I sent
Speaker 5: him a couple of tracks. He was like, man, you know,
Speaker 5: but this one's really hot. And even if it's not
Speaker 5: this one, somebody got to give us a track and
Speaker 5: we got to do a thing together because that could
Speaker 5: be such a great.
Speaker 6: Interdis have to do this, they do. I was gonna
Speaker 6: say that there must be a.
Speaker 2: Four minute monologue at the end with you trying to
Speaker 2: each other.
Speaker 5: You know what. That's that's the song that I'm writing.
Speaker 5: So you know, we'll see how it comes up. I'm
Speaker 5: gonna have to reach out to jam and Lewis and
Speaker 5: let them kind of hear this and maybe somehow, if
Speaker 5: it's not this, they can come up with something. We
Speaker 5: got to do.
Speaker 3: Let us manifest this.
Speaker 5: Yes, I'm going to leave it up to you quest
Speaker 5: to make that happen that the.
Speaker 3: People want it. I want that. I definitely want that.
Speaker 5: Yes, that would be so, And I envisioned it. I
Speaker 5: envisioned it with the girl band and that's on one
Speaker 5: stage and time when we bottle it. Wouldn't that be hot? Yes?
Speaker 3: Yes, and burn for a couple of pecks. I'll mix
Speaker 3: it for you for free.
Speaker 5: You know what, don't try me.
Speaker 3: I come out to tell it once while give me
Speaker 3: some sugar. Steve Steve. Steve is a legendary engineer.
Speaker 6: She knows I gave him the intro.
Speaker 2: Okay, I'll drumb on this ship that happen, Yeah for free,
Speaker 2: I'll do it.
Speaker 3: Just with it call.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I really believe that in my heart,
Speaker 5: and by being so hard or a visionary, I can
Speaker 5: kind of stay around corners sometimes. I just think I
Speaker 5: have always felt that's a very strong concept and the
Speaker 5: people would be like, oh my god, you know it
Speaker 5: would be great for the demographics as well as the
Speaker 5: new generation.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious to know, with the success of where
Speaker 2: the climax record was at the meeting in the ladies room,
Speaker 2: what was your family's reaction to it. Was it sort
Speaker 2: of like, Okay, you made it.
Speaker 5: Good job, you know what, question, I don't really have
Speaker 5: a happy story to tell you. And regarding that, I
Speaker 5: didn't really have a lot.
Speaker 3: Of either way.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I didn't have a really good family motivation. I'm
Speaker 5: very self motivated, and that's kind of beauty of one
Speaker 5: of the beauties of my success is I'm very self motivated.
Speaker 5: I really didn't have my family behind me.
Speaker 6: Yeah, because I also wonder once you found your voice
Speaker 6: and people realized it was so strong and maybe anti
Speaker 6: with a lot of these other female singers or groups
Speaker 6: are singing to somebody else, you know, writing or whatever.
Speaker 6: Was how long did it take for somebody and now
Speaker 6: tell you to shut up?
Speaker 5: You know, I don't know. It's just it's kind of
Speaker 5: like I just moved forward another noise.
Speaker 6: Right, So you really persevere throughout all this what I'm saying,
Speaker 6: like no family support and a strong female you know,
Speaker 6: home mission and lyrics, you know.
Speaker 5: You know in the beginning. God, I got some stories.
Speaker 5: I remember when Dick Griffy sent me out to there
Speaker 5: was a woman by the name of Kat Miller. I
Speaker 5: did my first song called beat My Face, and Drick
Speaker 5: Griffy is like, you, here's twenty five hundred dollars go on.
Speaker 5: And I got this girl named Cat Miller, and I
Speaker 5: think you'll be really really good with producing her, you know,
Speaker 5: and she's out in Tennessee, so I want you to
Speaker 5: go to Tennessee and work on her song. So get
Speaker 5: the song. Went to Tennessee and the engineer laughed he
Speaker 5: would refuse to work with me while I was there
Speaker 5: when I first walked in the door, but when I left,
Speaker 5: he became best friends. I think. I think. I think
Speaker 5: when people see the talent, you know, it's kind of
Speaker 5: like you can't you can't deny the talent. You know,
Speaker 5: you can't, you know, and it's kind of like the
Speaker 5: passion and the talent. And I know what I'm doing
Speaker 5: and I enjoy what I do. So I think once
Speaker 5: you get a hold of that, by the end of
Speaker 5: the session, we were cool. He respected me, He didn't
Speaker 5: have a heart, you know, I would tell him what
Speaker 5: to do. He didn't want to do it at first,
Speaker 5: but by the end of the session he was doing
Speaker 5: it without me, you know.
Speaker 6: So that's exacted you to be probably in the booth,
Speaker 6: not at the book exactly.
Speaker 5: So that's the moral, that's that's the way my life
Speaker 5: has gone, you know, dealing with male males in the
Speaker 5: studio whatever. I think, when they see the talent, they become,
Speaker 5: we become everything becomes really really cool and their appreciative
Speaker 5: that had been in my space and our and I
Speaker 5: enjoy being in their space.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 2: So you're saying that them offering their two cents of
Speaker 2: what they think it should be and getting unsolicited advice
Speaker 2: where it's not even asked for.
Speaker 5: Listen, I have a clear vision, a clear vision of
Speaker 5: what I'm doing. If I wrote it, I know the
Speaker 5: way it sounds. Now. My thing has always been as
Speaker 5: your vision or if you come up with something that's
Speaker 5: better than mine, to it. But if it's not, you know,
Speaker 5: I don't really like to compromise. That was one of
Speaker 5: the reasons why it was difficult for me to be
Speaker 5: in Climax, because I just felt stifled because the compromising
Speaker 5: is very difficult for a person who who was creative, right, No, yeah,
Speaker 5: I just.
Speaker 3: Thought about something I did read once was Penny Ford
Speaker 3: in the original No.
Speaker 5: Plenty fourtune Lorena Lorena Lorena was with child. Okay, she
Speaker 5: got clear and we needed someone to take her place
Speaker 5: because we were going on the road. And during that time,
Speaker 5: I did not believe as the leader of Climax set
Speaker 5: that was a positive image for girls that time, at
Speaker 5: that time, in the eighties, okay, in the nineties. Now
Speaker 5: now women are doing it. But I just you know,
Speaker 5: that was that just wasn't you never saw.
Speaker 6: That tradition following tradition, Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So, and then was it didn't seem like we
Speaker 5: had little young girls, you know, and were following us.
Speaker 5: So you know, you know, rightfully, so she was married
Speaker 5: or she you know. But so Penny was working for
Speaker 5: Ron Sweeney as the second as the secretary, and Ryan
Speaker 5: Sweeney was like, you guys really need to take Penny
Speaker 5: for what she could sing. So Penny four came in
Speaker 5: and she blew the house down and she went on
Speaker 5: the road. I love it, okay, Yeah, we talk all
Speaker 5: the time.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, she's uh.
Speaker 2: For those that don't know Penny, it's probably best known
Speaker 2: as the the voice of a snap.
Speaker 3: I Got the Power.
Speaker 2: And amongst the other things that you know, she's been
Speaker 2: sort of ghost.
Speaker 6: Singing on her right, she wanted Shaka Babies.
Speaker 2: She was well, yeah, I think the story was that
Speaker 2: uh Shaka Khan was actually supposed to do I Got
Speaker 2: the Power and kind of.
Speaker 3: She admitted that she dropped the ball.
Speaker 5: I just did it. I just dropped another UK track
Speaker 5: and with Penny for It all over and I love
Speaker 5: Penny Penny is. There's not many vocalists who can sing
Speaker 5: like Penny for It. Penny for It. It cuts, it cuts,
Speaker 5: you know, and I always play with these with these
Speaker 5: female singers, It's not about what your capable of doing,
Speaker 5: is how you make me feel, you know, And like
Speaker 5: Aretha made you feel, you would pull over to the
Speaker 5: side of the road on I Got to find Me
Speaker 5: an Angel and you would cry. Right, I'm sure you've
Speaker 5: got that experience right well, you know, she made you feel.
Speaker 5: These singers nowadays, they can sing and the apparatus is good,
Speaker 5: but it's about what makes you feel good. And Penny for.
Speaker 2: There's there's a question I always wanted to know the
Speaker 2: answer to for the next album, the self title record,
Speaker 2: the Climax album. Did you guys work with Rod Temperton
Speaker 2: or did he just submit the man sized love song?
Speaker 5: We worked with him?
Speaker 3: Please tell me what was like working.
Speaker 5: With Rod Temperton, you know, Carol bear Fager, I remember
Speaker 5: it was all after after that the album, everybody was coming,
Speaker 5: you know. We were going up and smoking a joint
Speaker 5: with Carol beer Feger and you know, and all of them.
Speaker 5: And Rod temper to had man sized level. Should have
Speaker 5: been a huge head because the biggest pope, right, and
Speaker 5: he he had us come in because he wanted to
Speaker 5: audition who was going to be the lead vocalist on it.
Speaker 5: And of course I'm not. I don't consider that myself pious.
Speaker 5: I was just there, okay, but Joyce. He didn't want
Speaker 5: Joyce Joyce, No, he wanted Lorena.
Speaker 3: That's ironic considering that Joyce's voice, his.
Speaker 5: Voice is very specialized, it's very Mychael Jackson Ish Jackson
Speaker 5: wouldn't have been able to sing man sized love. I
Speaker 5: need a man you know, you needed a man sized voice.
Speaker 5: That was That was a difference between I had my
Speaker 5: That's that's what made Climax incredible. And another thing that
Speaker 5: made Climax incredible was we all knew our space. We know,
Speaker 5: I knew what I brought, you know, and Joyce knew
Speaker 5: what she brought to the you know, Lorena knew what
Speaker 5: she brought. So it was like we just really step
Speaker 5: on each other's toes. We were like, okay, you come
Speaker 5: in here with your voice. It was really a cool
Speaker 5: thing in the beginning. And Rod Templeton heard Lorena and
Speaker 5: He's like, I want that big voice on it. So
Speaker 5: he chose he chose Lorena.
Speaker 3: Was that initially on the Running Scared soundtrack?
Speaker 5: Yes? Yes so?
Speaker 2: And also, uh, I mean you worked with Dick Griffy. No,
Speaker 2: Richie Rudolph.
Speaker 5: Well he wrote Man Sized Love with Rod Templeton, right right, Yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 5: I didn't. I didn't see him. I met him later
Speaker 5: at Tina Marie's house, but I didn't see him their
Speaker 5: the session.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, when you became established, did you
Speaker 3: did you have a clique, Like who in the industry
Speaker 3: was like your did you have running buddies?
Speaker 2: Were you cool with? Like who were your best friends?
Speaker 2: Like who did you vibe with that were artists?
Speaker 5: Tina? Let me see, I would love to say bet
Speaker 5: Mitler that wouldn't be a show.
Speaker 3: Though right.
Speaker 5: On one song? Yeah, but we were, you know, she
Speaker 5: just loved the song and she did it. Let me see.
Speaker 5: Who did I hang out with a lot?
Speaker 6: Uh?
Speaker 5: It was Tina Marie mainly. Tina mainly. I didn't really
Speaker 5: have a lot of friends.
Speaker 6: Please Tina, please tell us, because she has been gone
Speaker 6: for so long that please just tell people something about Tina.
Speaker 5: And I don't know how we became. You know, Tina
Speaker 5: had a lot of people around her all the time,
Speaker 5: you know, she was the people person. So our times
Speaker 5: together were very kind of solemn. It was her and
Speaker 5: she come over to the house and smoke a joint
Speaker 5: and we talk about life. She was so deep. Tina
Speaker 5: was no joke, okay. And we would talk about her past,
Speaker 5: her life and the things she was going through and
Speaker 5: relationships and all of those things like that. And then
Speaker 5: one day she called me up, Hey, come down to
Speaker 5: the studio. I want you to be on this record. Okay,
Speaker 5: I'll be down in an hour, okay. And then I
Speaker 5: called her back, Hey, I got this song, come down.
Speaker 5: I want you to be on this record. Now when
Speaker 5: I call somebody and go I want you to be
Speaker 5: on a record, well it's ten thousand dollars. You know,
Speaker 5: people call your people, so you know, further moment, Hey,
Speaker 5: let's go to Chicago. Okay. You know by those days
Speaker 5: you could go buy your ticket at the counter, right
Speaker 5: and San Francisco, let's go hang out. You know, it's
Speaker 5: not really not a bad stories. It's just really wonderful memories.
Speaker 6: Oh I don't want any bad stories. I wanted two
Speaker 6: great memories or things that we didn't know about.
Speaker 3: You know, because she passed away so early, we never
Speaker 3: just got to know her.
Speaker 5: She was just she was just you know, Tina became
Speaker 5: my friend before I really went to any concerts of
Speaker 5: hers when I want to go to a concert. I
Speaker 5: was blown away that this girl was my friend, all right.
Speaker 5: I was sitting out in the audience and she got
Speaker 5: up a play guitars. She came out and the people
Speaker 5: I didn't realize how massive Tina Marie was. And then
Speaker 5: afterwards I said, wow, you're really something special, right, and
Speaker 5: we laughed about it and it was it's all good.
Speaker 5: It was. There's no really bad stories for me.
Speaker 6: Gotta be something made about her life, like she cannot
Speaker 6: be forgotten. It's just very interesting.
Speaker 5: You know. I can't really share a lot of things,
Speaker 5: you know, because you know I can't, you know, but
Speaker 5: all wonderful memories. I can't really think of any thing
Speaker 5: that stands out that that I should speak about.
Speaker 3: I know. I know around this time.
Speaker 2: You started doing like production work on your own, uh,
Speaker 2: for other acts, and I gotta know, like you're the
Speaker 2: history of you forming Madam X, of which no, I'm
Speaker 2: telling you I loved. I was like, ah, not not
Speaker 2: like why did you give the song away?
Speaker 3: But just that type of girl to me could have
Speaker 3: been just such a killer, killer, killer climax song.
Speaker 5: I didn't write it.
Speaker 3: Why did you give that song away? Oh? You didn't
Speaker 3: write that.
Speaker 5: No, I didn't write it until I was you know,
Speaker 5: I had moved forward.
Speaker 3: Okay, So it wasn't like you had that song under
Speaker 3: your hat before.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 5: No, that was a last minute song that was written
Speaker 5: by you know, I was. I was working on the album.
Speaker 5: I created the concept in my mind. First of all,
Speaker 5: let's talk about the beginning of these three girls. And
Speaker 5: I still have a concept right now. I just don't
Speaker 5: understand why we don't have a three girl group right now.
Speaker 5: I don't get it. Why is the only guy's a group?
Speaker 5: Where's the band? Where's the two guys and one girl
Speaker 5: wrap group? Where's the the female migos? I don't get it.
Speaker 5: I'm not grabbing onto right right right way A climax.
Speaker 5: That's a climax, right exactly. You know. You know, I
Speaker 5: came up with this concept of the girls and I
Speaker 5: didn't even have the group yet, and I met with
Speaker 5: Sylvia Roan. Sylvia Rome was interested in the concept, so
Speaker 5: she came back out to l A and she met
Speaker 5: with me. I told her about the concept. I will
Speaker 5: do this in a way I want them to look,
Speaker 5: and this is how I want him to do. She says, great,
Speaker 5: I'm gonna sign it the concept, I said, okay, So
Speaker 5: we did the deal with Ron Sweeney and negotiator for
Speaker 5: I learned to life and on, you know, and uh
Speaker 5: then I started formulating the group. I got the three
Speaker 5: girls who were who came to be Metal Max started
Speaker 5: working on the project, and I needed this last song, Okay,
Speaker 5: I need Okay, it's just I'm listening to the album.
Speaker 5: I just don't hear. I don't hear a clear big
Speaker 5: single and Cornelius Mims bass player. Yeah, yeah, okay, Cornelia's
Speaker 5: hit me up. I got this track Baby, come on over.
Speaker 5: And you know, I got this thing. Baby, I think
Speaker 5: you go dig it. So I'm like, okay, come on over.
Speaker 5: I'm at the studio. I'm at studio masters. He came by.
Speaker 5: He played this, He played this track, which was actually
Speaker 5: a back it went. He was working on the song
Speaker 5: and the song went backwards. Okay, yeah, he was working
Speaker 5: on the track and something technically happened and the song
Speaker 5: started playing backwards. That's the track. That's just that type
Speaker 5: of good.
Speaker 3: Steve's going to talk, yes, yes, yeah, mistakes, Okay, I'm
Speaker 3: the best mistakes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, shout out to bad engineers man all.
Speaker 3: Over the world.
Speaker 5: On all my song's mistakes. I don't do I don't
Speaker 5: do the perfection thing all the time. You know, if
Speaker 5: it feels good, it's staying, you know. But so you
Speaker 5: brought me this backwards track and he says, baby, you
Speaker 5: know it was a mistake, it went backwards, and that
Speaker 5: I'm like, I love it. I love it. So I
Speaker 5: took it. I said, leave me a track, and I
Speaker 5: took it, and I wrote the lyrics.
Speaker 3: I got to tell you like.
Speaker 2: It's I meant for for nineteen eighty seven. It was
Speaker 2: a very unusual sounding song. Very shocked that it hasn't
Speaker 2: been sampled or I still DJ. I still played to
Speaker 2: this day on my DJ sets, and I'll say that
Speaker 2: at least thirty to forty percent of the time someone
Speaker 2: will think think that I'm playing something like new like
Speaker 2: it just it doesn't. It didn't sound like anything that
Speaker 2: was in the marketplace at the time. How come that
Speaker 2: project was short lived? Like did you manage the band
Speaker 2: as well?
Speaker 3: Lord?
Speaker 5: You know, you know everybody's equal in poverty And that
Speaker 5: that statement comes from mister Dick Griffy himself, who I
Speaker 5: had a chance to visit right the day before he
Speaker 5: passed away. And I was able to thank him for
Speaker 5: my career, okay, And everybody started pulling at these girls
Speaker 5: when I when I created that, you know, and a
Speaker 5: certain manager, I don't want to say any names, but
Speaker 5: a manager came in who I really was told not
Speaker 5: to work with. And the next thing, I know, the
Speaker 5: girls that went by my back and signed with this manager.
Speaker 5: And Sylvia was not happy with it. And there was
Speaker 5: a clash, all right, and things got really out of
Speaker 5: control and things got crazy, and that's what happened to
Speaker 5: Manick pretty much. And they didn't want to you know.
Speaker 5: And I'm gonna tell you something, but a lot of
Speaker 5: women don't like to do this is with other women.
Speaker 5: A lot of women don't want other women's telling them.
Speaker 5: Would to chill. They would rather a man tell them
Speaker 5: the wrong way than the woman to tell them the
Speaker 5: right way.
Speaker 6: And now call that trauma.
Speaker 5: And get I even get that to this day, women
Speaker 5: don't want other women in control of them, you know,
Speaker 5: and then they.
Speaker 6: Want a man, right, they want to manage it.
Speaker 5: So it became this thing where they you know, the
Speaker 5: guys were pulling them and then you know, I'm gonna
Speaker 5: give you a solo deal and I just said go,
Speaker 5: I'll put another group together, and you know, it became
Speaker 5: a big It became a very big, a misunderstanding and
Speaker 5: a horrible thing. And the manager who pulled them away,
Speaker 5: Sylvia wasn't happening so happy with it. So it was
Speaker 5: a it was a horrible thing. So I tried to
Speaker 5: go forward with one of the other members who now
Speaker 5: is passed away but passed away from cancer.
Speaker 3: Which which one passed away, and that was.
Speaker 5: There was Dickie, there was Iris, and there was Alisa.
Speaker 5: Alisa Alsa, yes.
Speaker 3: The one that did the.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, they see once again, once again. I love
Speaker 5: the beauty of finding your strength, your strength, your strength together.
Speaker 5: We got a band because everybody can't do the same thing.
Speaker 5: So we had we had Valerie who was that uh
Speaker 5: you know, that Grace Jones kind of vibe, you know, man,
Speaker 5: you know, did we have Iris, who had a more
Speaker 5: jazzy vibe that we had a Lisa who had who
Speaker 5: could same sing, same thing, you know, yeah, it's the
Speaker 5: same same sing. So I tried to do a project
Speaker 5: with Alisa, but it did. The vibe was all gone now.
Speaker 5: But that's what happened to Madame Max. That's a problem.
Speaker 5: There was no that's it. That was it.
Speaker 3: That's what happened, was producing other acts, like a pleasurable
Speaker 3: experience for you, like working with ro Lynn.
Speaker 8: And you know, I look, you know, I'm not even
Speaker 8: gonna fall down that rabbit hole.
Speaker 3: But this is not the first time I've heard that
Speaker 3: sort of response.
Speaker 5: You know, every everything has their stories, you know, and
Speaker 5: I have, you know, with cho Lynn. I enjoyed Choln.
Speaker 5: Cho Lynn had to manage you were just for whatever reason,
Speaker 5: didn't really take to me. So I just remember Jerry,
Speaker 5: Jerry was an engineer. That's where I first met Jerry Brown.
Speaker 5: Jerry Brown, he was with chro Lynn and he says,
Speaker 5: I'm working with you. And then you know, Pebbles told
Speaker 5: him he was working with Pebbles, and Pebbles says either
Speaker 5: Bernadette or me. He says Bernadette. So Jerry and I
Speaker 5: have been together every since, you know. But that's where
Speaker 5: I met so cho Lyn. You got you know, every
Speaker 5: every story has a little thing that comes along. I've
Speaker 5: heard the stories you know, people I didn't people's. And
Speaker 5: when she was dating Howard Hewitt, right, and I was
Speaker 5: doing this song called the Entity Sex that I wrote,
Speaker 5: which was a big which was a big which is
Speaker 5: a big voice record, you know. And once again I
Speaker 5: had specifics of how I wanted that song to be,
Speaker 5: you know, performed, and she had her ideas, so.
Speaker 6: She didn't really have a big voice though.
Speaker 5: You know what, if you listen to the song she did,
Speaker 5: we did a heck of a job. But that was
Speaker 5: after she cried. And you know Howard you had came
Speaker 5: in telling me, well, I didn't know what I was doing,
Speaker 5: and you know, you know, but I got the best
Speaker 5: out of her. You know, every every there's been a
Speaker 5: lot of situation. Once again, the man, So.
Speaker 3: You're are you? You?
Speaker 2: Are you demanding when it comes to your your art
Speaker 2: and the people that you work with?
Speaker 3: Yes, yes, okay, I can respect.
Speaker 5: That demanding in the sense of I already see when
Speaker 5: you write the song, you have a clear vision, right
Speaker 5: do you know how the moldy goes? You know how
Speaker 5: it should be, you know what it should sound like
Speaker 5: from that perspective. I'm not mean or difficult, you know,
Speaker 5: I'm just demanding on trying to get the best out
Speaker 5: of you.
Speaker 6: I'm just curious if you've talked to I mean, it's
Speaker 6: only a few I don't want to say it's a
Speaker 6: few of your peers. It's it's a lot of women
Speaker 6: behind the scenes making music throughout the years. However, have
Speaker 6: there been some peers that you've you've spoken to and
Speaker 6: had like these similar experiences? Because I'm listening to you
Speaker 6: and I'm thinking, I wonder how Missy you know, yeah,
Speaker 6: like and from her beginnings and earning her respect and
Speaker 6: then getting getting telling other women and other men what
Speaker 6: to do? You know, Missy Missy.
Speaker 5: Was probably she came up with that hip hop world
Speaker 5: and she was who was the person who was? Was
Speaker 5: it Diddy? Who was? Yeah? So you have what you
Speaker 5: got Kimberland behind you. They much, you know, But I
Speaker 5: was used by yourself. Yeah, I was by myself. So
Speaker 5: when Timberland is saying, hey, this is missus, She's gonna
Speaker 5: tell you what to do?
Speaker 6: Who are your peers in that way? Then Bernie that like,
Speaker 6: who are the other sisters that have been through the
Speaker 6: same thing?
Speaker 5: I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 6: You know what.
Speaker 5: I got a story. When I was forming Climax, I
Speaker 5: asked Eater be in it? Okay, he said, only if
Speaker 5: it Chila I Climax.
Speaker 6: Well, I mean y'abo drummers.
Speaker 5: But you know, she wanted to be Yeah, you know what,
Speaker 5: you know what, she's bad. Okay, I give my props
Speaker 5: to Sheila. Okay, yeah, but that's just a story. Nothing
Speaker 5: bad about it.
Speaker 6: It don't have to be bad, right right. You know,
Speaker 6: you guys want you know, you just want the good stuff.
Speaker 6: We don't want to know, you know.
Speaker 5: No, I got a lot of stories, but I'm just
Speaker 5: so like a protective of a lot of people, and
Speaker 5: I don't want to say too much. But there there's
Speaker 5: a million.
Speaker 2: Stories, all right, So I kind of say this not
Speaker 2: for last but because I never knew. Even though I
Speaker 2: know that that v H one thing was on the air,
Speaker 2: I didn't see exactly what went down.
Speaker 3: But I do not know. Have you guys Climax included?
Speaker 5: Do you guys? You guys, have you got anybody were
Speaker 5: at that recent Billboard article about you?
Speaker 4: About you?
Speaker 5: Anybody right now? If you want to google it Billboard
Speaker 5: and climb actually see what just happened.
Speaker 6: It just came out.
Speaker 5: Well, so it's probably last month, two months ago. Did
Speaker 5: you hear about Climax being inducted into a woman's house
Speaker 5: songwriting house of Hall?
Speaker 6: So familiar?
Speaker 5: Okay, we heard, we heard about it too. When it was,
Speaker 5: and then I'll get back to the v H one thing.
Speaker 5: But let me started the VH one thing because it's
Speaker 5: a prelude to this. Okay, during this particular time, go ahead.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry, no, no, I just I want to know
Speaker 2: what the straw that was that broke the camel's back
Speaker 2: that led to the breakup of the group, or for
Speaker 2: you leave because another group went on without you, like
Speaker 2: good Love and whatever the other songs were.
Speaker 3: But you know what was it like to leave the
Speaker 3: band that you started?
Speaker 5: There was power struggles and when you's difficult for individuals
Speaker 5: to say. And this would be a better place if
Speaker 5: we were able to do this. I'm jealous of the
Speaker 5: fact that I put in equal amount of work as you.
Speaker 5: All right, I've been in this band at the same
Speaker 5: time in you. But all people want to do is
Speaker 5: focused on Burnett Cooper. That's very very I'm jealous, I'm
Speaker 5: angry about it, and I'm mad as hell. Okay, at
Speaker 5: that point, we could talk about it and we can
Speaker 5: get through it. But what happens with people is they
Speaker 5: start to nitpick, and they start to get in groups
Speaker 5: and go against you and all of those kind of
Speaker 5: things like that. Which makes me being from a family
Speaker 5: of women who have attacked me. When I'm in a corner,
Speaker 5: I come out fighting for survival. So I kind of
Speaker 5: felt like there was nothing big, major blow upers fight
Speaker 5: other than the fact is I got frustrated with having
Speaker 5: to compromise my creativity for people who really didn't want
Speaker 5: me to be successful or wanted me to move forward
Speaker 5: in life past them. So I made a decision after
Speaker 5: being I would say at sometimes bullied, ulfilling bullied, that
Speaker 5: I didn't no longer want to be in this situation.
Speaker 5: And there was the biggest move in my life. But
Speaker 5: I just asked you because I wasn't happy and I
Speaker 5: had to move forward. That's pretty much it. And I
Speaker 5: tried to stay, but it was this particular member in
Speaker 5: the group was the treasurer of the group, and I
Speaker 5: said I would stay if we got a real treasurer
Speaker 5: and not you know, we've growne we've gotten bigger, and
Speaker 5: this particular treasurer of the group I would like in
Speaker 5: the outside treasure I'll stay if I get my money
Speaker 5: and my things individual because I don't want this particular
Speaker 5: person to handle And they were like, no, wait.
Speaker 3: I have a question.
Speaker 2: So at this point in your career where there's platinum
Speaker 2: singles and YadA, YadA, YadA, you guys are still operating
Speaker 2: on that sort of level where like I'll collect the
Speaker 2: payment at the end of the game, Like you don't
Speaker 2: have a business manager.
Speaker 3: Or what we had.
Speaker 5: But we had a treasure in the group, and I
Speaker 5: didn't feel good about this particular situation, and I was like, no,
Speaker 5: we need to go to another level, because it's about levels,
Speaker 5: and it's about vision, it's about growth. Now everybody doesn't.
Speaker 5: Sometimes you just simply I'll grow a situation. That's pretty
Speaker 5: much what it is. We're climbing. I just simply outgrew
Speaker 5: this situation where it's like a relationship, you're married. Do
Speaker 5: you want to go back to your ex wife? No,
Speaker 5: you know, because you guys are going you know, because
Speaker 5: you've out growth the situation. You know, it doesn't mean
Speaker 5: anything other than that. But yeah, we were still operating
Speaker 5: on that level, and this particular individual ended up being
Speaker 5: the problem who's still to this day is collecting royalties
Speaker 5: that we don't know about. Now let's get to the
Speaker 5: VH one situation. So the group had just spanned it
Speaker 5: for a while, and you know, Joyce. You know, I
Speaker 5: had to say, hey, let's get the group back together. No, no, no, don't.
Speaker 5: I wasn't feeling that if everybody was going to make
Speaker 5: that first move, I felt that it should be me.
Speaker 5: So I didn't go forward with that. And I never
Speaker 5: got a call from this person at all. And next
Speaker 5: thing we know, she was trying to trademark the name
Speaker 5: and it got we found out about it and it
Speaker 5: stopped it. But that's when the VH one came in.
Speaker 5: And then after the VH one story came in the
Speaker 5: in the when I saw how people were still very
Speaker 5: very much focused on climax of wanting to do things
Speaker 5: and shows and things like that, we decided to move
Speaker 5: forward to do Okay, here we are twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: If you will read then we.
Speaker 3: Gotta yeah, I mean I'm reading it. Yeah. Oldline is
Speaker 3: clim don't like the look. Okay, you want me to
Speaker 3: say the name? Okay, I won't say.
Speaker 5: Well, it's up to hear whether you want to say it.
Speaker 5: It's in Billboard.
Speaker 3: You out, Yeah, Sharyl Cooley, that was your quote.
Speaker 5: But you know, so this individual has been doing all
Speaker 5: these and savory things, bringing the bringing our brand down
Speaker 5: to your typical band that plays at the local uh
Speaker 5: food mark for for five hundred dollars, you know, using
Speaker 5: the name. So we tried to get her to stop,
Speaker 5: and she admitted that she would stop and that she
Speaker 5: would only go out because you know, as sure Cooley
Speaker 5: for formerly a Climax or client. We have that on tape,
Speaker 5: all right. So then I get a call one day
Speaker 5: that all of our all of our publishing on Askcap
Speaker 5: and on Ascaps specifically had been changed, publisher splits, including
Speaker 5: Rod Templeton, including a bunch of people, the publishers, all
Speaker 5: the splits, all the splits, all the writers shared had
Speaker 5: been changed. And to show Cooli's name, how can you
Speaker 5: do that legally?
Speaker 6: That's interesting.
Speaker 3: Nobody turn away from the farm and listen.
Speaker 6: Listen.
Speaker 5: People are not paying People just weren't paying attention, you know.
Speaker 5: So anyway, let's move forward. Sony gets involved because they
Speaker 5: own half of that publishing from the post, so they
Speaker 5: get involved. There was Sony an Ascap trying to figure
Speaker 5: out how this person got in and changed Jimmy Jams publishing,
Speaker 5: read writers splits, Climax, not just us, Rod Templeton, All
Speaker 5: of these people come yeah, Coolie, So anyway, moving on,
Speaker 5: we called them. I sent them a letter. They fixed it,
Speaker 5: she changed it back somehow. Then we got we woke
Speaker 5: up to Wow, Lorena said me, because Lorena and I
Speaker 5: we speak all the time. Shout out to Lorena, who's
Speaker 5: recovering from a cancer. Scare. All right, we just did
Speaker 5: a project togethers really good. So Lorena, uh, she goes, hey,
Speaker 5: you got you know, look at this article. And an
Speaker 5: article states the Climax Climax will be inducted into the
Speaker 5: Women's Writing Hall of Fame. All right, and we were honored.
Speaker 5: We finally came together as a group as being honored.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, I don't you know, we don't get along,
Speaker 5: but oh my god. So we waited around, you know,
Speaker 5: a week or two. I sent a letter, thank you,
Speaker 5: we're honored, Lindzen the letter thank you joys in it. Wow,
Speaker 5: no response. Find Finally we got a hold of the
Speaker 5: people and they were like, well, we're given the honor
Speaker 5: to Cheryl Cooley. So we were like, wait a minute,
Speaker 5: wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. I
Speaker 5: you know in kind wrote a letter. No, this Climax's group. No,
Speaker 5: you have to show us who owns the name Sharrel
Speaker 5: was telling people that she owned the name, and apparently
Speaker 5: this individual who's over this has some connection with Cooley,
Speaker 5: and she was dead set on giving Cooly this award.
Speaker 5: The COOLi does a right, she wrote, right, I put
Speaker 5: the name on I put Cooley's name on Heartbreaker just
Speaker 5: because we're in the group. We didn't write none and so.
Speaker 3: But yeah, and it looks like you guys are abandoned
Speaker 3: right right, right right, and in this situation, situation.
Speaker 5: The one song that we did was never undermestiate the
Speaker 5: power over woman Shaye Cooley and I did that, excuse me,
Speaker 5: the very first song, right. But other than that, Choc
Speaker 5: is just not a writer. Okay, I'm not saying, you know,
Speaker 5: she's not a hit writer. Let's put it like that.
Speaker 5: And if you look at if you look at all
Speaker 5: the names. So she she happily went up to accept
Speaker 5: this award. Right. So it was on such a big
Speaker 5: platform of Billboard being announced. People were calling me, hey, congratulations,
Speaker 5: and I'm like, okay, so I called bill Board and
Speaker 5: I'm like, you guys have to give us a chance
Speaker 5: to respond to this, because you know it's not right.
Speaker 5: You know, they didn't say we're given award to climb
Speaker 5: sua coolie of Climax. They said climax, and that's that's
Speaker 5: a big coming from So Billboard we did a you know,
Speaker 5: we responded. We responding and and Billboard, you know, to
Speaker 5: try to set the record straight to make people understand.
Speaker 5: And also, you know, Billboard grabbed onto that Astep story
Speaker 5: because that was a big story with all the changes
Speaker 5: being made. So that's it. So I just sent out
Speaker 5: to see Centersistent hopefully, you know, because she was intent
Speaker 5: on going out as Climax and the original climate. You're
Speaker 5: not the original climate, you know, So let's just hope
Speaker 5: that we can at least, you know, with the Truth
Speaker 5: and Music Act, you can go out and you can perform.
Speaker 5: Nobody's trying to stop you, but you gotta play fair.
Speaker 5: And playing fair is climax. Cody, that's what you mean
Speaker 5: a music Act? Okay, Yeah, are you familiar with that?
Speaker 6: I wasn't until you said that. I feel like I
Speaker 6: should be there.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think I heard about this with Dennis Edwards.
Speaker 5: Well, Mary Mary Mary Mary Wilson of the Supremes. She enact.
Speaker 5: She helped to enact that law. That is, if you
Speaker 5: are in an individual member of a group that was successful,
Speaker 5: you have the right to go out using their name
Speaker 5: to make a living that yeah, yeah, but you have
Speaker 5: to be an original member, you know. And and that's
Speaker 5: why you see so many groups kind of like, you know.
Speaker 6: Going and doing so many different versions of groups, like
Speaker 6: a lot of climaxes on the internet.
Speaker 5: There's a lot of climaxes on the Internet. I'm trying
Speaker 5: to separate that now and I'm really evolving into Bernadette
Speaker 5: Cooper and putting out music. But you know, I can't.
Speaker 5: There's synonymous. Bernida Cooper is pretty much synonymous, so I
Speaker 5: can't escape it. But it is what it is. There's
Speaker 5: nothing that can be done about.
Speaker 2: It presents the climatic, right, the climatic, you know.
Speaker 5: So and when we go out, you know, climax is
Speaker 5: much bigger than just Bernadette Cooper. Climax is coming with
Speaker 5: the hits. So Bernida Cooper has a whole, the whole
Speaker 5: other album drama according to Bernadette Cooper. So it's it's
Speaker 5: you know, so yeah, So Joyce is going out with
Speaker 5: her concept shocles, going out of the concept and you know,
Speaker 5: everybody's allowed to do it. And the main thing is
Speaker 5: we're doing the hits and people are it's keeping the
Speaker 5: hits and people's memories. So that's the way I look
Speaker 5: at it. I'm not tripping about it no more.
Speaker 3: There's just no.
Speaker 2: Ice cubes chance in hell that this can come to
Speaker 2: a place where you guys, we'll.
Speaker 5: Just I'll say never, say never. But I have a
Speaker 5: clear vision of where I want to go with the
Speaker 5: second with the second half of my life, you know,
Speaker 5: talk about it, which includes because when you go back
Speaker 5: into the group scenario, it becomes that whole compromise thing.
Speaker 5: I don't want to compromise at all. I don't want
Speaker 5: to compromise anymore. My you know, life is short. I
Speaker 5: want to be able to do it my way and
Speaker 5: at the end of the day, go, oh, you know,
Speaker 5: Frank Sinatra, I did it my way, you know, and
Speaker 5: it kind of like no disrespect. But you know, that's
Speaker 5: that's the way I feel about it, and I don't
Speaker 5: want to shed you know, history is history, and everybody
Speaker 5: has history, and everybody has things they say about the
Speaker 5: members of the band and all of that. But I
Speaker 5: would never It's all good. We had a great run,
Speaker 5: we created history. We should be honored, you know. I
Speaker 5: don't understand how they could do music walk Girls Alive
Speaker 5: and Girls Listen. I was curious.
Speaker 6: I was like, did Beyonce ever come out? Does she know?
Speaker 6: Because the whole girl band that she had going on,
Speaker 6: I was like, I'm curious.
Speaker 5: If she knew the the girls in the band know
Speaker 5: we can who play instruments. Okay, that's what matters, you know,
Speaker 5: But you know, not to you know, not to come
Speaker 5: off vain or egotistical or any of those things, because
Speaker 5: you know, I'm just I'm pretty even, but I'm cool.
Speaker 5: I'm cool. I just want to move forward. And the
Speaker 5: girls are entitled to use the name. And if anybody
Speaker 5: is out there and you go see Climax teacher and whoever,
Speaker 5: and if we're all playing fair enjoying the music, you know,
Speaker 5: because yeah, so when I'm long gone, that music would
Speaker 5: still be going on. You know, Yes, ma'am. And that's
Speaker 5: pretty much it.
Speaker 6: That's right, shut down, interviewed themselves.
Speaker 5: But I'm going to can I ask myself a question? Yeah, yes, No,
Speaker 5: I'm just playing with guys. I mean no, no, no,
Speaker 5: I'm no, I'm good. I'm just you know, just moving forward.
Speaker 5: That's it. That's we didn't we didn't talk about drama.
Speaker 5: According to Bernie that Cooper.
Speaker 3: Was, I'm about to go there.
Speaker 2: That's a question I was going to ask when when
Speaker 2: when you finally got to that came out in nineteen ninety,
Speaker 2: I believe you got the drama, Bernard that Cooper. How
Speaker 2: liberated did you feel and in it falling on you
Speaker 2: and like being your own artist, being.
Speaker 1: Your own voice, Oh my gosh.
Speaker 2: Like was it was it a breath of fresh air
Speaker 2: or that can that much freedom can also be scary.
Speaker 3: So for you, what was it like?
Speaker 5: Freedom? You know, it's Jerry I equated very much to
Speaker 5: what's happening today, even though a lot of people, I mean,
Speaker 5: we're able to put out music freely and you know
Speaker 5: put it on you know, CD baby or whatever and
Speaker 5: put you music out. But back then it was freedom
Speaker 5: to me, you know, being in a band, and you know,
Speaker 5: probably that's why the album was such a cool album
Speaker 5: because it was my first taste of freedom.
Speaker 3: Wow, okay, I greet him.
Speaker 5: And a lot of people was on that album, Lenny Kravitz, Uh,
Speaker 5: there was a Paulino Dacors. A lot of people played
Speaker 5: on because Jerry Brown was bringing in all those major musicians.
Speaker 6: Funny because as Lenny Kravis and you went back from
Speaker 6: the scene of being in California back in the day,
Speaker 6: because I know he was a little younger, but I
Speaker 6: know he was out and about before he was supposed
Speaker 6: to be too.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I met him through Tina. He used to hang
Speaker 5: out a Tina's. You said you was gonna give us
Speaker 5: a Tina story. Well, the time they come to me,
Speaker 5: I know, I met him, you know, through Teenate would
Speaker 5: hang out at Tina's house. You know, he was he
Speaker 5: was dating Lisa Burnett at that time. You know, So
Speaker 5: I asked him if he would play. He came and playing,
Speaker 5: but he but he then immediately got to deal with
Speaker 5: Version Records and he told me he couldn't. He didn't
Speaker 5: want me to credit him, so you won't see his
Speaker 5: credit on the album. But wow, yeah he played on it.
Speaker 5: He played on Let's be the screet about It. That's
Speaker 5: Lenny really funky guitar.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, now I got to revisit that.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, wait, can you explain?
Speaker 3: Okay, have the set a long long time ago?
Speaker 2: The Howard Hughes song, can you like the way that
Speaker 2: your mind works?
Speaker 3: Like how do you even go? Like what was it.
Speaker 2: I know that the whole that album elevates your your
Speaker 2: personality and.
Speaker 3: Even more. But like from the beginning, like who was
Speaker 3: the who conceptualized that record as far as really bringing
Speaker 3: your character to life?
Speaker 5: I did. I remember, I had the free I had
Speaker 5: the freedom to do that and taking things from a
Speaker 5: song by a song by song basis and living and
Speaker 5: looking at what I had and what I needed, you
Speaker 5: know too, Yeah, I just took it. You know. I
Speaker 5: would listen to the song of Jerry and I. Jerry
Speaker 5: and I did a lot of that, talking about it
Speaker 5: and conceptualizing what's needed. Oh you need something really funky now, okay,
Speaker 5: let's be the street about it. Mini Cravis is coming. Okay,
Speaker 5: what do I need? I need something about a woman
Speaker 5: who's just you know, who's looking for a wealthy man,
Speaker 5: because that's the reality of the world. You know, women
Speaker 5: women love to be they love the security. So that's
Speaker 5: how Howard Heal sitcom came up. Yeah, that's how that
Speaker 5: came up. Wasn't from experience, It was purely from you know,
Speaker 5: just thinking about what's missing and what's needed.
Speaker 2: Well, you also mentioned Lou Silas, who you know, of
Speaker 2: course has had major success and has left us. But
Speaker 2: what was he like as an executive?
Speaker 5: Oh my gosh, loul oh. Going out on the road
Speaker 5: with him the first time. He was our point person
Speaker 5: who would take us from ound to the radio stations
Speaker 5: and things. And he got a fixation on Lorena, so
Speaker 5: you know, uh so we would go out on the
Speaker 5: road to deal with that all the time. And he
Speaker 5: was very very he had he had great vision and
Speaker 5: he would have, Hey, Bernidette, come come on down to
Speaker 5: the studio. I got a concept and I want you
Speaker 5: to put a concept on this. I think, you know,
Speaker 5: just talk and put the microphone in from you. He
Speaker 5: was very good at bringing people together and as a businessman,
Speaker 5: you know, sign me as he signed me as a
Speaker 5: solo artist. So he was wonderful. He was at MCA
Speaker 5: he says, you're one of the first acts I want
Speaker 5: to sign, and he signed me.
Speaker 3: Well that's what I was going to say, Like, I know,
Speaker 3: like was he more of a suit or was he
Speaker 3: really a music guy?
Speaker 5: He was a music guy. He had ideas, he had vision,
Speaker 5: He knew how to bring the right people together and
Speaker 5: in order to achieve a certain song, a certain thing
Speaker 5: on an album, because you know, after I did the
Speaker 5: mental pause. He says, Okay, you got to come back
Speaker 5: with that same thing on Meeting in the Latest Room
Speaker 5: because that was so popular. That was one of the
Speaker 5: things that people remember, I need that same thing on
Speaker 5: this particular album, Meeting in the Latest film. So we
Speaker 5: went to Larabie and he turned the mic on and
Speaker 5: I said, I had to leave my condo to come
Speaker 5: to this, you know, And that's how that happened him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wait, how did you How did you even know? Uh,
Speaker 2: it's so weird because you know, if you really look
Speaker 2: at the character that you built, I mean, it's so
Speaker 2: it's such a precursor to what hip hop became ten
Speaker 2: years later. Like you are probably the first person I
Speaker 2: ever heard name drop like Versace. Yeah, names I never
Speaker 2: heard of before that rappers would start just that became
Speaker 2: their birthright ten years later.
Speaker 5: And in Tiva, In Tiva, I was fearless. You have
Speaker 5: to understand, and I was and I was in and
Speaker 5: I was in too close and they started sending me
Speaker 5: close and I just kind of like I just kind
Speaker 5: of spoke my mind. I wish I really allowed myself
Speaker 5: to have You know, now, you have to be a
Speaker 5: little bit more resolved because everybody is so sensitive and
Speaker 5: the things that you say.
Speaker 6: You know, but that's what age was for, so you
Speaker 6: don't have to you know.
Speaker 5: You know, I even think about it, you know, because
Speaker 5: I even think about my demographics, what they want to
Speaker 5: hear from me, you know, they you know, and I
Speaker 5: don't want to continue and be a caricature of my
Speaker 5: old self, you know.
Speaker 2: So I was going to say, do you get tired
Speaker 2: of having to turn it on in a snap like
Speaker 2: other days where you just wish like you never had
Speaker 2: to invent that character too?
Speaker 5: You know, I'm naturally a a comedian, so I'm always
Speaker 5: that comes very easy from me. The character is easy.
Speaker 5: The character is more easier than me being myself. You know. Yeah,
Speaker 5: I could bring the character, and I'm much more comfortable
Speaker 5: on stage than I am anywhere, you know, So I
Speaker 5: don't struggle with it at all. I don't struggle with it.
Speaker 5: I'm I'm working on now in the product that you
Speaker 5: hear me putting out is kind of the the me,
Speaker 5: the evolution of Bernadette Cooper and me who has evolved
Speaker 5: into the woman, and kind of like slowing down a
Speaker 5: little bit so that I can perform my songs way
Speaker 5: until you know, I get older and older my songs
Speaker 5: to be able to And I wish I could do
Speaker 5: a song on an album on Janet Jackson is. I
Speaker 5: think she would be good at doing that, so she
Speaker 5: doesn't have to get up and do real domnation and
Speaker 5: all of those things. That's a lot to be dancing
Speaker 5: and all that. You know, now's the time to kind
Speaker 5: of slow it down and go into the new you
Speaker 5: and your and your demographics will follow because they they're
Speaker 5: there too. They're there too. There's train age, you know.
Speaker 5: So that's what I'm doing right now with the projects
Speaker 5: that I'm that I'm working on.
Speaker 3: You know, one more thing.
Speaker 2: It just hit me, did you at any point did
Speaker 2: you ever consider the sort of going down the acting
Speaker 2: lane because you were so charismatic, you know, I never
Speaker 2: you should have done movies.
Speaker 5: You know. I've had many people come to me. I've
Speaker 5: even gone to auditions. I flupped, Oh my god, my
Speaker 5: mouth wi more. It's not for me. That's for somebody.
Speaker 6: The audition.
Speaker 5: I'm just like, you know, panic, that's for somebody who
Speaker 5: has who has studied. I've gone there and live literally
Speaker 5: couldn't read the lines. My mouth wouldn't move. I was
Speaker 5: so afraid. I said, this is not for me. I
Speaker 5: don't have a head, I don't have a toget, I
Speaker 5: don't want to support. But you know what I have
Speaker 5: a passion for, and that's coming out. And here's here's
Speaker 5: a commercial head that I'm gonna drop that I'm doing
Speaker 5: audio books.
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, I doing.
Speaker 5: Fiction and I'm doing the characters with soundtrack and all
Speaker 5: of that, and yeah, yeah, it's really really episodic adventures.
Speaker 5: It's really really going to transition, yes, and I love it.
Speaker 5: I love it on a couple the newest one where
Speaker 5: I've written I've written several books. I haven't released them
Speaker 5: because I'm creating the audiobook from these concepts. But the
Speaker 5: new one, The Strokes, is coming out probably and Jerry
Speaker 5: is mixing the last song probably maybe December, if not December,
Speaker 5: first of the year. And it's really really cool because
Speaker 5: I'm looking at the our demographics and women now being
Speaker 5: a majority of the bread winners. And but we're busy.
Speaker 5: We're taking the kids to school, we're going to work.
Speaker 5: Then we got to get off work and we got
Speaker 5: to go pick up the kids. Then we got to
Speaker 5: come back home. And then we got to cook and
Speaker 5: get them to bed. We don't have time to read
Speaker 5: a book. So these episodic adventures are things you can
Speaker 5: put in and you can listen to on your way
Speaker 5: to soccer practice. You know it comes back, and they're
Speaker 5: so funny and exciting. The first one is The Strokes.
Speaker 5: It's a racial thing about a woman who's transformed of
Speaker 5: by a racist white woman who's transformed. Something happens to
Speaker 5: where she has to be transformed by a black woman
Speaker 5: who's in her proximity, and she changes for the best,
Speaker 5: and they're all situated into a nursing home, and you
Speaker 5: also get the characters. And because if you ever go
Speaker 5: into a nursing home, which I've been in a lot
Speaker 5: of them because I've been dealing with my grandmother and
Speaker 5: my mother's health, there's some old souls in there, some
Speaker 5: unresolved souls, And if you listen to those people who
Speaker 5: are ninety years old, they're putting these racist white people
Speaker 5: in with black people and there's a lot going on
Speaker 5: in those songs. But it's interesting because you learn about
Speaker 5: the souls and the things that they've gone through. So
Speaker 5: this particular, this host out of your book kind of
Speaker 5: explores that you know that pretty much if you don't
Speaker 5: take care it resolve those negative spirits, and those spirits
Speaker 5: in the inside of you now they follow you until
Speaker 5: the rest of your life. So that's what this book
Speaker 5: is about.
Speaker 3: Wow.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it's really I love it.
Speaker 1: I like that. Yeah.
Speaker 5: I've been talking to you. I've been you know, I've
Speaker 5: been talking to some have you hitters about it, you know,
Speaker 5: HarperCollins talk about it, Yeah, and Patrick Ovid Harper Collins.
Speaker 5: We've been discussing it for for a while and it's
Speaker 5: just so it's such a new concept. It's not your
Speaker 5: typical audio book that he doesn't know what to quite.
Speaker 5: We're trying to figure in fit it into it because
Speaker 5: the beauty of it quest is also the soundtrack.
Speaker 2: Is available, right, Okay, okay, you know, Wow, I'm glad
Speaker 2: to know that you're still having dreams and you're you're
Speaker 2: you're still manifesting it.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The fact that you know, you allowed us to gave
Speaker 2: us the honor of being your audience to to really
Speaker 2: learn of your.
Speaker 3: Story and your history, and thank you, you.
Speaker 2: Know, because again, like there're there weren't platforms like this
Speaker 2: when I was a kid, wanting to know of my
Speaker 2: favorite groups that I saw on television, and you know,
Speaker 2: like if you weren't in right on magazine, it wasn't
Speaker 2: like Rolling Stone was going to take the time out
Speaker 2: to give you guys the same building that they would
Speaker 2: give like the Go Gos or.
Speaker 5: That's exactly exactly Yeah, absolutely, wow, absolutely, But I'm honored
Speaker 5: to to be here really yet and that you invited
Speaker 5: me onto your show. This is like really a cool
Speaker 5: thing for me.
Speaker 3: Wow. Well I'm glad you did it, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Ladies and gentlemen, the the the Immortal Burnon de
Speaker 2: Cooper or in Quest Loft Supreme.
Speaker 3: I thank you very much for coming.
Speaker 5: Thank you girl band.
Speaker 3: Uh, Sugar Steve and fond Ticolo. Why do you have
Speaker 3: to say on behalf? Can we say goodbye for ourselves?
Speaker 2: Look this is my love piece and soul dude all
Speaker 2: Sugar Steve? Yeah yeah, I'm paid.
Speaker 3: Bill, You got any last words? Tooker Steve? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Bye anyway, y'all and we'll see you on the next
Speaker 2: go round.
Speaker 3: Go find yo, what's up? This is Fante.
Speaker 4: Make sure you keep up with us on Instagram at
Speaker 4: QLs and let us know what you think.
Speaker 3: Who should be next to sit down with us.
Speaker 4: Don't forget to subscribe to our podcast all right peace.
Speaker 5: M H.
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