Speaker 1: Let's talk for a minute about Akron, Ohio. It's a
Speaker 1: historical site for pop and rock music. It turns out
Speaker 1: it's where the Black Keys met and Devo. It's Chrissy
Speaker 1: hines hometown, the city she wrote my City was Gone about.
Speaker 1: And then that song became the theme for the Rush
Speaker 1: Lim Boss Show, and that makes me feel bad. And
Speaker 1: somewhere in that city there's a Sheraton hotel lobby that,
Speaker 1: for a brief moment in nineteen ninety one, was a
Speaker 1: magic portal. You walked into that lobby and if you
Speaker 1: sang for the right person in the right way, you
Speaker 1: walked out with a life that was changed forever. If
Speaker 1: that Nicole Brown sang a song called go Outside in
Speaker 1: the Rain for Michael Bivens in that hotel and her
Speaker 1: life changed course. And that same night, in that same place,
Speaker 1: a young guy who was about to start his freshman
Speaker 1: year at Ohio University tried the same thing.
Speaker 2: I sang for him in a hotel lobby at like
Speaker 2: two in the morning, and he called me the next
Speaker 2: day and he was like, going off for your record deal. Whatever.
Speaker 1: Hayden hi Do was eighteen, a jock with a voice
Speaker 1: big enough to fill a Sheriton Hotel Atrium. He sang
Speaker 1: for Michael Bivens, and his life took a detour, one
Speaker 1: that went right through the East Coast family, one that
Speaker 1: lasted about a decade, one that involves Beyonce. He's gonna
Speaker 1: tell us about it right now on Waiting for Impact,
Speaker 1: a Dave Holmes passion project. While Hayden Hid's life was changing,
Speaker 1: so was the rest of popular music. Later in the show,
Speaker 1: We're gonna go deep on the pop charts of nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one and why that was the year that changed
Speaker 1: everything about what got played on the radio with one
Speaker 1: of my favorite writers, Chris Malanfi. You're gonna learn something
Speaker 1: really interesting about the week that changed pop music forever,
Speaker 1: the week Nirvana's never Mind took the number one spot
Speaker 1: away from Michael Jackson's Dangerous. But here's what we've learned
Speaker 1: so far about Sudden Impact. We know Sudden Impact was
Speaker 1: one of the first artists to join Michael Bivins East
Speaker 1: Coast family. We know he got them signed to Motown.
Speaker 1: We know Bivins was so enthusiastic about them, so certain
Speaker 1: they would succeed like Boys to Men ABC BBD, that
Speaker 1: he put them in the music video for Motown Philly.
Speaker 1: We know Motown Philly was inescapable in nineteen ninety one.
Speaker 1: The three big places you could watch music videos back then, MTV,
Speaker 1: VH one, and b ET played it all day long.
Speaker 1: We know that after Motown Philly, Sudden Impact changed their
Speaker 1: name to White Guys Whytgize, but we don't know why.
Speaker 1: We know that, in the wake of Boys to Men's
Speaker 1: success in nineteen ninety one, Bivins began expanding the East
Speaker 1: Coast Family. He signed rappers, vocal groups, singers, and we
Speaker 1: know that one of those singers is someone we now
Speaker 1: know as a vet, Nicole Brown, who joined the East
Speaker 1: Coast Family after angrily singing and Michael Bivins in that
Speaker 1: same magical Sheriton lobby. And we know that in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety two Bivins gathered all his protegees together to record
Speaker 1: a single and video called One for All four one.
Speaker 1: They did a whole album, actually, East Coast Family, Volume one,
Speaker 1: one four All four to one. The song and the
Speaker 1: video are pure nineteen ninety two sac The raps mostly
Speaker 1: ciggity sound like viggety this because that's what rappers did
Speaker 1: that year. It combines elements of the new Jack swing
Speaker 1: sound that was hot at the time with the heavy
Speaker 1: hip hop beats that were becoming more popular. It's what
Speaker 1: we would later call a posse track. Chris Malanfi will
Speaker 1: tell you more about this in a little bit. Besides
Speaker 1: Yvette and white guys, there are a couple standouts in
Speaker 1: this video for me. One a kid who introduces himself
Speaker 1: as Bivins's cousin Fruit Punch. He says, yup, my name
Speaker 1: means fruit Punch, but I don't get out much, which
Speaker 1: is an alarming thing for a child to say. There's
Speaker 1: a rap duo called ten ten, two kids who both
Speaker 1: look about ten, both with their suspenders on backwards like
Speaker 1: Chris Cross was doing at the time, and then about
Speaker 1: a third of the way through, the guy that told
Speaker 1: me should have been huge, Hayden hiding. He only goes
Speaker 1: by his first name, Hayden, a corn fed white guy
Speaker 1: with a sport coat over his shoulder, looking every bit
Speaker 1: the midwestern fraternity boy. He was one chance meeting away
Speaker 1: from becoming Hayden can fucking sing, and with a vet's help,
Speaker 1: I got in touch with him. Initially, I'm hoping he'll
Speaker 1: be the guy who hooks me up with sudden Impact,
Speaker 1: and I still hope that, but once I start talking
Speaker 1: to him, I find that I just want to know everything.
Speaker 1: He didn't get the fame and fortune he expected when
Speaker 1: he got that phone call from Michael Bivins, but he
Speaker 1: seems genuinely happy. Maybe what he got was something better.
Speaker 2: I was in the East Coast family, so I was
Speaker 2: a solo artist signed to bit ten Records.
Speaker 1: When I speak with Hayden over Zoom, he's in his
Speaker 1: basement back in Ohio. He looks about the same as
Speaker 1: he did in the video. He's unassuming friendly. The music
Speaker 1: business is a memory for Hayden now, and probably a
Speaker 1: complicated one.
Speaker 2: When my album was due for release, two weeks before
Speaker 2: my album was released, the CEO of Motown, Jerald Busby, resigned,
Speaker 2: so they put me on hold, and I was kind
Speaker 2: of in a holding patterns.
Speaker 1: But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Hayden Haidu grew up
Speaker 1: in Akron, Ohio. He was an athlete, a football player,
Speaker 1: but one who also liked to sing. And in the
Speaker 1: eighties you were supposed to stay in your lane. Mixing
Speaker 1: sports with the arts unthinkable. Zac Efron and Corbyn Blue
Speaker 1: hadn't even been invented yet. That's a high school musical reference.
Speaker 2: I sang in choir my senior year. I did a
Speaker 2: play by vi Berdie. But this was before you know,
Speaker 2: now you have athletes that want to get into acting
Speaker 2: because you know, Disney's really popular, and it's the thing
Speaker 2: when I was in high school, like, if you played football,
Speaker 2: you didn't like do the acting thing, you know, I
Speaker 2: mean you were either an athlete or so. I was
Speaker 2: kind of, you know, I was kind of breaking a barrier.
Speaker 1: I think Hayden's plan was to go to college, but
Speaker 1: he wasn't much of a student and his football career
Speaker 1: wasn't enough to get him a scholarship. So he applied
Speaker 1: to Ohio University and he sang for them.
Speaker 2: I ended up going to OU and was offered a
Speaker 2: vocal scholarship. I went down and sang for them because
Speaker 2: I didn't have the grades.
Speaker 1: But late that summer, just before he was about to
Speaker 1: start his freshman year, Hayden decided to take bold action.
Speaker 2: Before I went down, Michael Vivins, the Belvit Devo, was
Speaker 2: doing a tour and they were in Ohio and Afron, Ohio,
Speaker 2: and that was right when Michael Vivins had founded Boys
Speaker 2: to Men, So every time he came off tour in
Speaker 2: this hotel, there were thousands of people going to sink form.
Speaker 1: Yeah, join that East Coast family.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah right. And a buddy of mine called and
Speaker 2: he's like, dude, you got to get down here in
Speaker 2: sink for him.
Speaker 1: When you showed up at that hotel lobby to sing
Speaker 1: for Michael Bivens, what did you want? Did you did?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: Like, what what did you picture?
Speaker 2: I think, honestly, I was I had no I had
Speaker 2: no idea. I was so innocent. I wish I could go,
Speaker 2: you know, like I knew I could sing, but I
Speaker 2: just got up and just sang, you know, And I
Speaker 2: didn't I didn't have any you know. My buddy called
Speaker 2: me and I just went up there and all these
Speaker 2: people were singing, and actually I was just waiting and
Speaker 2: I was like the last person to sing for him,
Speaker 2: and he just he wrote down my number on like
Speaker 2: the little gum wrapper.
Speaker 1: You know what happened next? Bivins called an Offred Hayden
Speaker 1: a record deal. Now you may be asking yourself, how
Speaker 1: does Michael Bivins have the cloud to just be tossing
Speaker 1: recording contracts out to strangers and share it and hotel lobbies.
Speaker 1: It's a good question and we will try to answer
Speaker 1: it later in the episode. But Bivin told Hayden, I'll
Speaker 1: call you back in two weeks. Write a song. Hayden
Speaker 1: had never written a song, but he figured he'd learn.
Speaker 1: He actually did go down to Ohio University to start
Speaker 1: his freshman year. But put yourself in his shoes. One
Speaker 1: of the biggest pop stars on the planet says, he's
Speaker 1: going to make you a pop star, and you're going
Speaker 1: to focus on Polysi one oh one or whatever. Get
Speaker 1: out of here.
Speaker 2: I was wet behind the ears. You know. I was
Speaker 2: a Midwest kid from Ohio. Who you know. I mean,
Speaker 2: I signed my record deal and then I went off
Speaker 2: to OU my freshman year, so I didn't even go
Speaker 2: to class. You know. I was like, I'm out of here,
Speaker 2: you know. I mean, it was not it was not
Speaker 2: a good mix for me.
Speaker 1: I bet was there money involved at that stage?
Speaker 2: Well? Yeah, so when I signed, when I signed the deal,
Speaker 2: at first, yeah, they gave me a little bit of
Speaker 2: money and then I just went to college and he
Speaker 2: was like, look, you know, we got to get things
Speaker 2: set up and so it was about seven or eight
Speaker 2: months in and then I started going out to LA
Speaker 2: quite a bit, and it was just too hard for
Speaker 2: me to do both. You know. My dad was kind
Speaker 2: of like, are you sure you want to do this?
Speaker 2: And I was like, I'm out, you know, at eighteen
Speaker 2: years old, get to move to LA and kind of
Speaker 2: work on an album.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then once the ball started rolling and you
Speaker 1: got signed, what were you picturing?
Speaker 2: I think in my mind, I thought I was going
Speaker 2: to like be a superstar. Honestly, I think I thought like,
Speaker 2: and I don't say this in a bragging way because
Speaker 2: I'm older now, but but I don't think I realized
Speaker 2: maybe the talent that God gave me. And then when
Speaker 2: I started working with like real professionals and they were like,
Speaker 2: you're You're really good.
Speaker 1: They settled on an image for Hayden. They wanted to
Speaker 1: make him like a nineties blue eyed soul man. They
Speaker 1: recorded an album, and Bivens kept working on Hayden. If
Speaker 1: you know the story of New Edition, you know, these
Speaker 1: guys worked their asses off to be the biggest and
Speaker 1: the best, and Michael Bivens expected that kind of discipline
Speaker 1: from his artists.
Speaker 2: The Big ten label was more. They were really hands on,
Speaker 2: right you know Mike. Mike's a different dude. Like, you know,
Speaker 2: I would be in an airport and he would be, I, dude,
Speaker 2: get on the tart, like, get on the you know,
Speaker 2: get up and start singing. He was like old school Motown.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, like embarrassing moments like we did a restaurant.
Speaker 2: He'd be like, stand up, start singing and people are like,
Speaker 2: what are you doing?
Speaker 1: So wait, so what what does that feel like to
Speaker 1: have to do that?
Speaker 2: You're like, you're, well, you don't want to crap your
Speaker 2: you don't want to crap your pants because you're you know, yeah,
Speaker 2: you're you know, every time you do something, it's like
Speaker 2: it's live or die with him. You know, he grew
Speaker 2: up with you know, he was from an era where
Speaker 2: you know, you worked for everything you you wanted to
Speaker 2: make you a real artist. Right, So at the time
Speaker 2: you don't know that. You know, at some point you're thinking,
Speaker 2: in my am I filling up this guy's ego And
Speaker 2: what's the point. What's the point. But then when you
Speaker 2: look back, you know, I think he really wanted to
Speaker 2: prepare you for you know, you know, I mean new
Speaker 2: addition They're one of the hardest work in groups, you know.
Speaker 2: You know, they had sixteen hour rehearsals of pain, so
Speaker 2: he was all about he really wanted you to become
Speaker 2: an artist.
Speaker 1: If you remember, Evet said she loved that Hayden album,
Speaker 1: An event does not lie. Hayden's proud of it too.
Speaker 1: It's got a cover of Steely Dan's PEG with gospel
Speaker 1: group Take six doing the background vocals. They made a
Speaker 1: video for the first single, Funhouse, with Hayden kind of
Speaker 1: doing a James Dean thing out in the California desert.
Speaker 1: Motown was on board. The album was about to drop.
Speaker 1: You finish your record, and then then what happens.
Speaker 2: Well, I get home to Cleveland and we shoot a
Speaker 2: video and it's like we're ready to go, like we're
Speaker 2: looking for a promotional tour two three weeks, and then
Speaker 2: all of a sudden, Joe, you know, I get a
Speaker 2: call Gerald Busby's resigned. You know, obviously Motown's on hold.
Speaker 1: This is a tale as old as time. A big
Speaker 1: executive gets excited about you, signs you to a deal,
Speaker 1: invests some time and money into you, and then that
Speaker 1: executive goes somewhere new maybe they get fired. Maybe they
Speaker 1: just get a new job somewhere else. But you can't
Speaker 1: follow that executive to where they go because you're under
Speaker 1: contract to the place they signed you too. You're obligated
Speaker 1: to the play and not the person. And the new
Speaker 1: executive comes in, and that new executive has projects that
Speaker 1: they're excited to invest some time and money into, and
Speaker 1: you're not one of them.
Speaker 2: Actually, the album we did was it was a really
Speaker 2: good album, but it just it never surfaced because you know,
Speaker 2: when Jerald Busby left Motown, there was quite a hiatus
Speaker 2: for a while.
Speaker 1: I'll say a couple of things here. One, after I
Speaker 1: spoke with Hayden, I emailed him to ask whether it's
Speaker 1: possible to hear that album anywhere, and as of now,
Speaker 1: he hasn't gotten back to me. It might be a
Speaker 1: sore spot. I would understand if it were, but I'm
Speaker 1: dying to hear that record. And Two, I tried to
Speaker 1: track down Jerald Buzzby and he died in two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. But Hayden's album sat on a shelf. It's
Speaker 1: nobody's fault. It's just the way it goes. It's actually
Speaker 1: the way it goes. A lot.
Speaker 2: I don't think anyone goes in and makes an album
Speaker 2: and says this is this is going to fail, especially
Speaker 2: then because you know at the time, like you know,
Speaker 2: Motown Price spent one and a half million dollars on
Speaker 2: my album. I honestly believe that if we would have
Speaker 2: released that album, it could have been pretty big because
Speaker 2: I would have been like he was kind of marketing
Speaker 2: me as like the new version of Elvis in a way,
Speaker 2: so it was very R and B. But like we
Speaker 2: redid Love Me Tender from Elvis, and it was like
Speaker 2: it was you know, it was just a there was
Speaker 2: nobody in the industry, you know, that was doing what
Speaker 2: I was doing. I always tell my wife, he loves
Speaker 2: Justin Timberlake. I'm like, he stole, he stole everything from me.
Speaker 1: Man, justin Timberlake cannot catch a break this year, can he.
Speaker 1: Hayden's debut album is gathering dust. Motown's not releasing it,
Speaker 1: and because he's under contract, nobody else can release it.
Speaker 1: So Hayden is in a holding pattern. He's in Hollywood,
Speaker 1: collecting a stipend, playing golf, starting to drink a little.
Speaker 1: Like his album, He's just sitting there waiting, even.
Speaker 2: Just trying to find some side projects for me to do.
Speaker 2: And at this point, you know, we're becoming like brothers.
Speaker 2: We're really tight because we've kind of been through the
Speaker 2: war together. And I think in his defense, you know,
Speaker 2: he was pushing this Midwest stern white kid and era
Speaker 2: where you know, like you know, there was no cross
Speaker 2: pollination of like music, and he's trying to figure out
Speaker 2: his way and I'm hammering him like, dude, I'm ready
Speaker 2: to go. And through all that, I think we're really close.
Speaker 2: But you know, it was like it was like almost
Speaker 2: it was a year of just you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: I got really good at golf, right, I played a
Speaker 2: lot of golf. I mean that year of not doing
Speaker 2: anything and get twenty five hundred bucks a month is
Speaker 2: you know for a twenty year old kid, it's not
Speaker 2: bad when you're living at home. Bad, No, not bad.
Speaker 2: So yeah, so I was just put on hold. But
Speaker 2: I was still trying to, like I really wanted to
Speaker 2: because I had gotten the la bug now, right, So
Speaker 2: I'm like, now, you know, before it was like I
Speaker 2: just want to go sing. But then you know, I've
Speaker 2: seen some pockets of fame, and I'm like, you know,
Speaker 2: being famous wouldn't be terrible.
Speaker 1: Hayden was getting frustrated his college years had passed him by,
Speaker 1: his hopes had been raised and then dashed too many times.
Speaker 1: Something had to give.
Speaker 2: We did a demo and then we we ended up
Speaker 2: doing a couple of other songs outside of what he
Speaker 2: was having us to do, and eventually we got to
Speaker 2: deal with Columbia. That was out, you know, that was
Speaker 2: not a part of Michael Bibbins at all. And that's
Speaker 2: when our relationship just it ended. And I've reached out
Speaker 2: a few times, but how did you leave it? Well,
Speaker 2: so I you know, at the time we had hired
Speaker 2: an attorney. He called Mike and it was like breaking
Speaker 2: up with your It was like the breakup, you know.
Speaker 2: It was like, hey, I'm going to sign with Columbia,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to view with fIF ten. And it
Speaker 2: was like it was sad, you know. I mean I
Speaker 2: cried a little bit after that, but you know, look,
Speaker 2: I was I had probably been on hold for you know,
Speaker 2: I had put my life in Mike's hands from the
Speaker 2: time I was eighteen to now we're talking. It was
Speaker 2: probably twenty three. So at some point I got to say,
Speaker 2: am I going to continue?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And I didn't. I couldn't really see the forest through
Speaker 2: the trees. I had to make a tough decision for
Speaker 2: myself and what I thought was best. I kind of
Speaker 2: moved on. And you know, my attorney was like, that
Speaker 2: was unbelievable. He's like, you two grown men. It just
Speaker 2: broke up, like two heterosexual males just broke up.
Speaker 1: Now I can't help but notice, as Hayden says this,
Speaker 1: that he's not angry. There don't seem to be any lingering,
Speaker 1: hard feelings. It may have been a heterosexual breakup, but
Speaker 1: as with a vet, it's pretty obvious Hayden still loves
Speaker 1: Michael Bivens. The music world turned upside down in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one as the smooth listen at work sounds of
Speaker 1: Top forty radio gave way to alternative and hip hop.
Speaker 1: For some more insight on that, I turned to my
Speaker 1: friend Chris Malanfy. Now, Chris is a music critic, a
Speaker 1: pop chart analyst, the host of the podcast Hit Parade,
Speaker 1: But back in ninety one, he was an obsessive just
Speaker 1: like me. Who were you nineteen ninety one?
Speaker 3: Let's see a pop fan who also cared about hip
Speaker 3: hop and alternative music. A writer for my college music magazine,
Speaker 3: A guy who read Billboard every week, because that's the
Speaker 3: kind of nerd I am. I've been that nerd since
Speaker 3: the mid to late eighties, so that's made great.
Speaker 1: I love it. And now look at.
Speaker 3: You, yeah and my Bowie T shirt. Fifty years old.
Speaker 1: I knew the pop music world that's sudden impact. Evtnicole
Speaker 1: Brown and Hayden we're trying to break into really changed
Speaker 1: around this time. But I hadn't really thought about how
Speaker 1: that all happened until I got a hold of Chris.
Speaker 1: It all boils down to a Barcode scanner.
Speaker 3: Ninety one is the year. It's the BCAD moment of
Speaker 3: chart following because it's the year of sound scan. It's
Speaker 3: the year that SoundScan is added to the album chart
Speaker 3: in May, the Hot one hundred in November, and it
Speaker 3: utterly changes our understanding of how songs and albums become hits.
Speaker 1: Billboard Magazine is a music industry trade publication whose album
Speaker 1: and singles charts are the gold standard. It's the singles
Speaker 1: chart Casey Caseum used for American Top forty. That's how
Speaker 1: legit it is, and starting in nineteen ninety one, they
Speaker 1: began using Nielsen SoundScan data collected from scanners at record
Speaker 1: store cash registers. You bought a record, the person behind
Speaker 1: the counter wave the wand thing at it, it went boop.
Speaker 1: That information went to Nielsen, who sold it to Billboard,
Speaker 1: and that's how they compiled the sales chart, which makes sense.
Speaker 1: It makes so much sense you kind of have to
Speaker 1: ask what had we been doing.
Speaker 3: We had our Billboard had been phoning and faxing retailers
Speaker 3: and radio programmers to ask them, give me your top
Speaker 3: thirty records this week or whatever, and then they would
Speaker 3: rank them. It wasn't as if the system was devoid
Speaker 3: of data, but it was very imprecise and frankly fudgeable data.
Speaker 3: Fudgeable is my favorite adjective for it, because it suggests
Speaker 3: all sorts of nefariousness without actually coming out and saying it.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: Up until this point, the album and singles charts that
Speaker 1: I had grown up following were tabulated by like rumor.
Speaker 3: And what it did was it taught us that the
Speaker 3: patterns that we had been assuming albums and singles would
Speaker 3: follow were basically all wrong. The simple way I like
Speaker 3: to say it is albums open like movies. We used
Speaker 3: to think that an album would open somewhere in the
Speaker 3: middle of the chart and then rise to number one
Speaker 3: or number five or whatever. An album's biggest week is
Speaker 3: its first week, and we only learned that through SoundScan.
Speaker 3: Prior to nineteen ninety one, there'd only ever been six
Speaker 3: number one debuts in the history of the album chart
Speaker 3: in like forty years. And I can name him off
Speaker 3: the top of my head, Please Don't two by Elton John,
Speaker 3: one by Stevie Wonder, one by Bruce Springsteen, one by
Speaker 3: Whitney Houston, and won by Michael Jackson. And after sound scan,
Speaker 3: the first one was by skid Row, right right. Not
Speaker 3: to disparage skid Row, they were at the peak of
Speaker 3: their popularity, but.
Speaker 4: Skien were clearly skid Row if you want, like they
Speaker 4: were big for hair metal in nineteen ninety one, but
Speaker 4: like they were not even the biggest hair metal band
Speaker 4: at the time.
Speaker 3: Yet they were the first Scouts sound scan, excuse me,
Speaker 3: the first act in the sound scan era to debut
Speaker 3: at number one on the album chart. They that's a
Speaker 3: record nobody can ever take away from them.
Speaker 1: When skid Row debuts at number one with a record
Speaker 1: that doesn't even have a single on the radio.
Speaker 3: You know, the culture is changing, and what it's told
Speaker 3: you right away is, oh, this is not special anymore.
Speaker 3: This is just going to keep happening week after week.
Speaker 3: And now if you look at the album chart most weeks,
Speaker 3: you know, call it thirty to forty weeks out of
Speaker 3: a fifty two week year. The new number one album
Speaker 3: is a debut. It's a brand new album because it
Speaker 3: opens like a box office hit. It opens like a movie. Right,
Speaker 3: Avengers Endgame doesn't open at number ten and rise to
Speaker 3: number one. Avengers Endgame starts at number one and then
Speaker 3: gradually drifts down.
Speaker 1: That's how albums open to singles charts the top forty.
Speaker 1: You know what Casey Casem used to do. They're a
Speaker 1: combination of record sales and radio airplay. And in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety one, Nielsen also debuted Broadcast Data Systems, an early
Speaker 1: version of Shazam that listened to and report did which
Speaker 1: songs radio stations were actually playing. Previously, Billboard had just
Speaker 1: had to take the word of record stores and radio stations,
Speaker 1: but now they had the real raw data. The big
Speaker 1: sound just before the change was adult contemporary Michael Bolton, Wilson, Phillips,
Speaker 1: Amy Grant, which just keep her song Baby Baby in
Speaker 1: the back of your mind for later in this series.
Speaker 1: You might want to go to YouTube and watch the video.
Speaker 1: That's all I'm gonna say. It's possible, and I'm not
Speaker 1: making accusations here. I'm just saying it's possible that the
Speaker 1: middle aged white men who ran radio stations and owned
Speaker 1: record stores might maybe have over represented the middle of
Speaker 1: the road white adult contemporary artists that they were comfortable with.
Speaker 1: Like Chris says, it was fudgeable until it wasn't. The
Speaker 1: pop charts had reflected what record stores and radio stations
Speaker 1: said people were buying and listening to. In ninety one,
Speaker 1: they began to reflect what people were actually buying and
Speaker 1: listening to. How then did the pop charts start sounding different?
Speaker 3: I mean, you're already you're already seeing hip hop make
Speaker 3: a run at the charts prior to sound scan, right,
Speaker 3: You've already seen everybody from mc hammer to Vanilla Ice
Speaker 3: to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, you know, make
Speaker 3: a run. Tone Lok in nineteen eighty nine got a
Speaker 3: couple of top three hits. But what changes is that
Speaker 3: now it's much more plausible that rap can.
Speaker 1: Top the Hot one hundred, the.
Speaker 3: Very first this is not a terribly hardcore street rap record,
Speaker 3: but the very first number one on the Hot one
Speaker 3: hundred the week they flipped the switch towards SoundScan and
Speaker 3: BDS is set a drift on Memory Bliss by PM Dawn.
Speaker 3: That's a very poppy, catchy, mainstream friendly record, which was
Speaker 3: already in the top five before they flipped the switch,
Speaker 3: but by the following summer baby got back by Sir
Speaker 3: mix a lot. It's hard to picture that record spending
Speaker 3: five weeks at number one without sound scan accurately itallying
Speaker 3: sales and airplay, and then you know, within a few years,
Speaker 3: Tupac is scoring, you know, a number one hit. You know,
Speaker 3: Puff Daddy is scoring number one hits. Like all of
Speaker 3: that is really you know, Bone Thugs and Harmony score
Speaker 3: a number one hit. All of that's kind of unimaginable
Speaker 3: before SoundScan. Sound scan makes that plausible.
Speaker 1: Like Chris, I was in college that winter when Nirvana's
Speaker 1: never Mind went to number one. It was astonishing something
Speaker 1: so strange and so seemingly unradio friendly becoming an actual hit.
Speaker 1: It was a sea change. I watched it happen, but
Speaker 1: it wasn't until just now talking to Chris that I
Speaker 1: thought about how it happened.
Speaker 3: So, like, I mean, you know the Nevermind phenomenon, right,
Speaker 3: that's unimaginable without sound scan. That's more on the album
Speaker 3: chart than the singles chart. Although Smells like teen Spirit
Speaker 3: is a top ten hit, it goes to number six.
Speaker 1: Just breaking in here really quickly to tell you, I
Speaker 1: could talk to Chris malanfe about what songs peaked at
Speaker 1: what position on the chart all day long, and for
Speaker 1: all of the terrible things the Internet that has done,
Speaker 1: I am so glad it has facilitated this conversation.
Speaker 3: But get this, but that fabled moment that everybody talks
Speaker 3: about where Nevermind knocks out Michael Jackson's dangerous that is
Speaker 3: entirely due to SoundScan. I actually did a whole Hip
Speaker 3: Parade episode about this moment, because it's actually a widely
Speaker 3: understood moment. According to Billboard's chart dating system, it happened
Speaker 3: two weeks into January nineteen ninety two. The honest truth
Speaker 3: is that because there's a lag between when Billboard collects
Speaker 3: its data and when they date their charts, what really
Speaker 3: happened is that basically all of the teenagers who got
Speaker 3: Dangerous or some other album for Christmas went to the
Speaker 3: record store and either returned it or used their gift
Speaker 3: cards to buy never Mind. Because the data that was
Speaker 3: collected the week that never Mind went to number one
Speaker 3: was all collected basically like Boxing Day through New Year's
Speaker 3: So basically that week that all the kids are home
Speaker 3: from school, they at voting with their dollars.
Speaker 1: Teenage rebellion by way of gift card. I love it.
Speaker 1: But what we were learning was that the young people
Speaker 1: with disposable income who buy records and drive trends and
Speaker 1: dictate what gets played on the radio, we're going for
Speaker 1: something harder and heavier than what Hayden and Sudden Impact
Speaker 1: slash white guys. We're trying to make the market for
Speaker 1: a blue eyed soul singer or a boy band who
Speaker 1: looks a little like New Kids on the Block was
Speaker 1: less friendly than it seened just a few months before.
Speaker 1: But let's talk about Michael Bivens and how he found
Speaker 1: himself in the position to sign all these acts. Bivin's
Speaker 1: story as a performer begins years before this with new addition,
Speaker 1: but his time as a record mobile begins in the
Speaker 1: spring of nineteen ninety with one song. Do you remember
Speaker 1: hearing the song Poison for the first time. This would
Speaker 1: have been at the end of our freshman year.
Speaker 3: I probably was working a shift at my campus job,
Speaker 3: which was the Durfy Sweet Shop at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut,
Speaker 3: and I'm pretty sure that that's where I heard Poison
Speaker 3: for the first time. And that record is just catch
Speaker 3: as hell and it leaps out of the speakers like
Speaker 3: a rap record.
Speaker 1: Poison sounded like nothing that had been played on Top
Speaker 1: forty radio before. Bell Bivdevou described their sound as.
Speaker 3: Mentally hip hop smoothed out on the R and B
Speaker 3: tip with a pop feel appealed to it.
Speaker 1: It's a mouthful, but it's accurate. And then after Poison,
Speaker 1: do Me, a song so filthy you couldn't believe you
Speaker 1: were hearing it on the radio in the daytime.
Speaker 3: And the fact that Doomy came right after, and Doomy
Speaker 3: was just as huge, and there was I remember, you know,
Speaker 3: I was already a Billboard reader in college, and there
Speaker 3: were radio programmers kind of fretting a little bit about
Speaker 3: do Me, because like, can we play this record during
Speaker 3: you know, sort of the homework hour, The hour when
Speaker 3: the really young kids are listening, you know, like do
Speaker 3: they know what?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: Is he doing her hair? I remember this quote in
Speaker 3: a Billboard story of like a radio like, you know,
Speaker 3: I'm playing the regular version and we haven't done anything
Speaker 3: to it because they don't actually curse in it. But
Speaker 3: it's pretty filthy, you know, and yet they were playing it,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 1: But it was that kind of PG thirteen content, that
Speaker 1: hip hop inflected production, that mixture of pop and R
Speaker 1: and B that mentally.
Speaker 2: Hip hop smoothed out on the R and b's hit
Speaker 2: when a Pop Fail Appeal.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that that made Motown take notice.
Speaker 3: I think that Michael Bivens. But the reason he got
Speaker 3: away with, you know, playing with house money as it were,
Speaker 3: was that a he had had an enormous hit, and
Speaker 3: b he had he was helping the labels solve a
Speaker 3: problem they were having.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: My most recent episode of Hip Parade, the one that
Speaker 3: just came out a couple weeks ago, was about Millie Vanilly,
Speaker 3: And one of the arguments I make about Milli Vanilly
Speaker 3: was that whether you know, fraudulent as they were, they
Speaker 3: were important to the hybridization of rap and pop on
Speaker 3: top forty Radio in nineteen eighty nine and ninety They
Speaker 3: actually even appeared on Billboard's first hot rap single, art
Speaker 3: like That. That's a little remembered fact between like Kid
Speaker 3: and Play and rob Bas and DJ Easy Rock Like,
Speaker 3: they had enough cred for at least a single or
Speaker 3: two to appear on the rap single stret And what
Speaker 3: the problem that Bell biv Devou were solving by ninety
Speaker 3: was that they were much more authentic sounding. Yet they
Speaker 3: came out of what was previously a boy band. So
Speaker 3: they had pop, but they had hip hop street cred,
Speaker 3: and they they you know, nobody was accusing Bell biv
Speaker 3: Devot of being phony, not many anyway, and and so
Speaker 3: it sounded authentically hip hop, and yet it was smooth
Speaker 3: like pop. And so if I'm a record executive in
Speaker 3: ninety ninety one, I'm like, if Michael Bivens wants to
Speaker 3: start shepherding other acts and get me another Bel Bivdavot, Like,
Speaker 3: I'm all ears.
Speaker 1: You know a thing I really should have known is
Speaker 1: that somewhere in New Haven, Connecticut, a twenty year old
Speaker 1: Chrisma Lanfe was watching that Motown Philly video and clocking
Speaker 1: the same thing.
Speaker 3: I was and and what's funny about Motown f Philly
Speaker 3: when when Boys to Men show up? I remember being
Speaker 3: slightly cynical about Boys to Men, even though I love
Speaker 3: to Motown Philly the song because I'm like, this video
Speaker 3: is just one long branding exercise and.
Speaker 1: It's it's their first single, and it mentions other artists.
Speaker 1: It mentions ABC and BBD, which is like, it's it's
Speaker 1: big of them. Yeah, you know, include other like promos
Speaker 1: for other artists in their debut single.
Speaker 3: I guess, or it's or it's the price of fame,
Speaker 3: you know, the ticket for entry, right is that Michael
Speaker 3: Bivens says, I'll record you guys, but you got to
Speaker 3: promote my other acts while you're there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then in the video, as we're getting our
Speaker 1: family portraits taken old timey style with the cape and
Speaker 1: the the thing that you hold, we meet five young
Speaker 1: men and five white shirts and five neckties called Sudden Impact,
Speaker 1: and that's the first and last time we see them, right, right,
Speaker 1: do you remember that moment? Like, do you remember seeing it?
Speaker 1: Do you remember it? In real time?
Speaker 3: All I remember about it, if I'm being honest, to
Speaker 3: reiterate something I said a little while ago. Is this
Speaker 3: added to my cynicism because okay, correct me if I'm wrong.
Speaker 3: By the time Motown Philly hit or dropped, another bad
Speaker 3: creation had at least had a hit or two playground
Speaker 3: in Aisha Aisha. I think Ayisha was first. Aa was Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 3: and they were both top ten hits, So like, okay,
Speaker 3: at least they're promoting an act that's actually had a
Speaker 3: couple hits in BBD the prior year had been huge.
Speaker 3: But like, I'm watching this, you know, Michael Bibvens brand extension,
Speaker 3: and I'm sort of like, well, this is a little cheesy,
Speaker 3: you know, like he's already promoting an act that doesn't
Speaker 3: exist yet. I remembered thinking, like, you know, fair play
Speaker 3: to Michael Bibvens, but this is really cheesy, you know, like,
Speaker 3: don't hate the player, hate the game.
Speaker 1: Except that phrase didn't exist in nineteen ninety one. Glad
Speaker 1: we should have invented it. Yeah, I know. It is
Speaker 1: an introduction to the Michael Bivens extended cinematic.
Speaker 3: Universe, right, another thing that didn't exist in nineteen ninety one,
Speaker 3: But that's exactly it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, let's talk about Chris for a minute. He's taken
Speaker 1: his obsessions and made a career out of them, and
Speaker 1: so have I. But neither of those careers even existed
Speaker 1: when we were twenty. Chris in nineteen ninety one, where
Speaker 1: did you see yourself at fifty?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure.
Speaker 1: Do you have a clear idea of where you wanted
Speaker 1: to go?
Speaker 3: I mean, the reason I can't answer this from the
Speaker 3: vantage point of nineteen ninety one. I've often said this
Speaker 3: is that a lot of things had to be invented
Speaker 3: for me to have this particular career. Like, right through
Speaker 3: the nineties, I was writing record reviews for CMJ, making
Speaker 3: beer money to do that, while I had a a
Speaker 3: completely separate day job. But like blogging had to be invented,
Speaker 3: podcasts had to be invented, The whole ecosystem of online
Speaker 3: journalism had to be invented. And then I discovered, Oh so, actually,
Speaker 3: if you write about your nerdy obsession, your nerdy passion
Speaker 3: about the charts and dissect them and you know, write
Speaker 3: like a critic but analyze the charts, people will want
Speaker 3: to read that. But that didn't really catch on until
Speaker 3: the late aughts and tends. So, yeah, are you happy?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm real happy with how this whole thing's going. Yeah,
Speaker 3: like I said, my brainstorm, My one brainstorm was I
Speaker 3: realized that there were critics who didn't really understand how
Speaker 3: the charts worked, and there were chart analysts who didn't
Speaker 3: write like critics. And so if you could blend the two,
Speaker 3: write like a critic but understand how the charts work,
Speaker 3: just because out of my own passion I've been following
Speaker 3: the charts since the early to mid eighties, that could
Speaker 3: be something. And yeah, and so what's great is that,
Speaker 3: you know, when folks like you want somebody to talk
Speaker 3: at a minutiaal level, like you and I just had
Speaker 3: about how the charts function, but then placing it in
Speaker 3: a cultural context, folks generally come to me, which is great.
Speaker 3: I love playing that role.
Speaker 1: So there's today's lesson kids. That thing you love more
Speaker 1: than anything, that thing you know more about than anyone,
Speaker 1: keep exploring it, keep learning about it. There's a perfect
Speaker 1: job for you out there. You're just gonna have to
Speaker 1: invent it. But back in the nineties, especially if you
Speaker 1: wanted to be a pop star, you needed other people's help.
Speaker 1: Powerful people could make you and they could break you.
Speaker 1: When we left Hayden, he had just broken up with
Speaker 1: Michael Bivens and biv ten Records. After years of waiting
Speaker 1: for his moment, he got a new manager and became
Speaker 1: a part of a new group.
Speaker 2: He ran into three guys from New Jersey who were
Speaker 2: looking for a lead singer, and we ended up linking up.
Speaker 2: We got together, we made a demo, and we ended
Speaker 2: up leaving Michael Bivens, which I think to this day,
Speaker 2: you know him and I had it since then, so
Speaker 2: it was it was you know him and I was.
Speaker 2: It was almost like a divorce. But that group was
Speaker 2: called Signature.
Speaker 1: Signature is of course spelled as yg NA t U
Speaker 1: r E. I don't know what was going on in
Speaker 1: the nineties with the creative spellings, but Signature's manager was
Speaker 1: about to become a big deal in his own right
Speaker 1: thanks to a daughter who you might have heard of.
Speaker 2: Beyonce's dad. Matthews was our manager.
Speaker 1: Yeah you heard him, Yeah, Beyonce's dad. And it's nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety eight, Destiny's Child is taking off and those Signature
Speaker 1: had begun as a vocal group in the style of
Speaker 1: the sexy R and B groups of the time like
Speaker 1: Jo Deasy and Drew Hill. Matthew Knowles noticed a change
Speaker 1: in the atmosphere.
Speaker 2: When Destiny's Child at the time went on tour with
Speaker 2: Back three Boys.
Speaker 1: He really changed the direction, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he saw how good Back three Boys did, and
Speaker 2: I think he saw dollar sign that he kind of
Speaker 2: changed the direction of kind of what we were doing.
Speaker 2: So we were really more of a real R and
Speaker 2: B group. So we actually were signed to the Urban
Speaker 2: Division of Columbia REQ. So it was right around there,
Speaker 2: you know, Carson Daily TRL. I mean we So our
Speaker 2: first tour was we were the opening act for Christina Aguilera.
Speaker 2: It was Christina Aguilera Destiny Shout. There was another group.
Speaker 2: We were like the pre opening act.
Speaker 1: Right, Just gonna interject here real quick and tell you
Speaker 1: the other group was sole decision. This story just got
Speaker 1: so nineteen ninety nine. My tips frosted themselves.
Speaker 2: We didn't ride it toward us, but we were really
Speaker 2: close with Destiny's Child. We really we wrote the coattails
Speaker 2: of their success because Fiata's dad was our manager. So
Speaker 2: we were doing a mall tour and we were doing
Speaker 2: like we were doing a teen people mall tour with them,
Speaker 2: and then we were doing like outdoor arenas and then
Speaker 2: we went overseas to London and Ireland and did some
Speaker 2: stuff over there.
Speaker 1: But this chapter in Hayden's career was the same as
Speaker 1: the last, more waiting for the record label to push
Speaker 1: the album, more trying to get his manager's attention, while
Speaker 1: someone else became a superstar of it. This time it
Speaker 1: was Beyonce. When Hayden sang for Michael Bivens in that
Speaker 1: hotel lobby, he was a now he was twenty seven.
Speaker 2: We were on tour, we were doing we were singing
Speaker 2: with Deptony's Child. You know, we had done this tour,
Speaker 2: we had gone to Europe, we had come back, our
Speaker 2: album still wasn't being released. I had noticed what I
Speaker 2: would say is some shady stuff from Matthew Knowles. I
Speaker 2: was seeing some things that I was like, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't like not taking money from us because we
Speaker 2: weren't making money, but like, what's going on? And you know,
Speaker 2: I ended up approaching it. First. I talked to the
Speaker 2: guys in the group and said, listen, I'm I'm I'm done.
Speaker 2: Like this is two years the album's not released, Like
Speaker 2: what are they doing with us? And I said, look,
Speaker 2: here's the deal. I'm I'm, I'm going solo, like I'm
Speaker 2: going to go do my solo thing. I've talked to
Speaker 2: our attorney. He's like, hey, then I got five record
Speaker 2: labels that will sign you tomorrow. Ready, you know. And
Speaker 2: I said, guys, the minute I make it, I'll put
Speaker 2: you on. So I approached Matthew. That conversation did not
Speaker 2: go well. It wasn't life the Michael business thing. It
Speaker 2: just wasn't in a good conversation. I got on a plane,
Speaker 2: I flew home. I was set to go to New
Speaker 2: York like the following weekend, and my attorney called and
Speaker 2: was like, dude, you're bunny like. Nobody's going to meet
Speaker 2: with you like you. There's there's some really bad rumors
Speaker 2: about you.
Speaker 1: And Matthew Knowles had a lot of power at this
Speaker 1: moment in time, with Destiny's Child blowing up, he had
Speaker 1: proven he could make you or break you. Just ask
Speaker 1: LaToya Luckett or Farah Franklin or Latavio Robertson, and those
Speaker 1: are the people he kicked out of Destiny's Child that
Speaker 1: we know about. We can't say for sure whether it
Speaker 1: was Matthew who started those rumors, but we can say
Speaker 1: they worked. Can I take it back? To that call
Speaker 1: with your lawyer where when he said, you know, nobody
Speaker 1: wants to take a meeting? What what did that feel?
Speaker 3: Like?
Speaker 2: Awful? Like everything? I mean it was. It was awful.
Speaker 2: It was terrible because that's that had been, that had
Speaker 2: become my identity, right. I mean I went from like,
Speaker 2: you know, I was like I lived in a small
Speaker 2: little community in between Akron and Cleveland, and Cleveland's not
Speaker 2: that big. When I came back from fifth ten, man,
Speaker 2: I mean I was like the shit, you know, like
Speaker 2: he had made it. Not many guys, you know, Lebron
Speaker 2: James made it, you know what I mean, James Ingram
Speaker 2: made it, but like nobody from my era, you know
Speaker 2: what I mean, Like I had made it. Like I
Speaker 2: had credibility with the urban crowd, with the you know,
Speaker 2: and I mean so yeah, man, my pride and ego,
Speaker 2: you know, that's what it was devastating. You know. Even
Speaker 2: my friends are like, dude, do you need to talk
Speaker 2: to someone? And I'm like, I'm good, But deep down,
Speaker 2: you know, it was like.
Speaker 1: It wasn't good. Hayden was nearly ten years into his
Speaker 1: music career and he was out of options. He stayed
Speaker 1: in Ohio. He got a job selling used cars.
Speaker 2: I went through like a you know, I mean, I
Speaker 2: went from playing even though you're the opening act right
Speaker 2: playing an Arenas to like I had to go sell
Speaker 2: cars and I live in a community where they're.
Speaker 1: Like, dude, what happened?
Speaker 2: And I just I would act like nothing was wrong.
Speaker 2: But it got it got pretty bad to me, so
Speaker 2: I ended up. You know, I started drinking a ton,
Speaker 2: just fell into like a really bad like drinking depression.
Speaker 1: Things go sideways in a million different ways for everyone.
Speaker 2: Yep, no matter what it is absolutely.
Speaker 1: That you set out to do in life, you know,
Speaker 1: jobs go away and plans change, there is a special
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know if shame is the word
Speaker 1: that the world makes you feel. If your plan was
Speaker 1: an artistic one. There is something about, you know, going
Speaker 1: back to that hometown after going to the big city
Speaker 1: to make your dream happen and having it not pan
Speaker 1: out the way that you had planned that can make
Speaker 1: you feel a different kind of way.
Speaker 2: Well yeah, I mean, you know, shame is Shame's pretty dangerous, right, Like,
Speaker 2: you know, you have guilt and shame, right, and you
Speaker 2: know you're guilty because you did something wrong, right, But
Speaker 2: shame is like the penance that you give yourself for
Speaker 2: doing something. So you know, people don't jump off bridges
Speaker 2: because they're guilty. They jump off bridges because they're filled
Speaker 2: with shame, and shame is like, you know, and that's
Speaker 2: I think you're exactly right. I think most of my friends,
Speaker 2: if I ask them, what are you really passionate about,
Speaker 2: they would say the Cleveland Browns, And I am too right.
Speaker 2: But it's not the same when you're passionate about something
Speaker 2: artistic people who are like working to you know, I mean,
Speaker 2: think about how many people you know who are like
Speaker 2: playing in bars and doing local things just because they
Speaker 2: love to sing, and they would not trade that for
Speaker 2: the world, because it, like it stirs up emotions inside
Speaker 2: of you, it feeds your soul. But most people either
Speaker 2: have something, but they never want to take the chance,
Speaker 2: or they've never even opened up the door the opportunity
Speaker 2: to figure out what they're passionate about. So that small
Speaker 2: group of people, it's hard. It's hard to go from
Speaker 2: like doing that to getting a regular and not that
Speaker 2: that's I don't want to say regular, but you know,
Speaker 2: I yeah, Like that's why you see so many fame
Speaker 2: like sports stars when they retire, they get super depressed,
Speaker 2: like I didn't want to do I wasn't built to
Speaker 2: be a regular person. There's a lot of shame when
Speaker 2: you're artistic and you fail, because it's also like, if
Speaker 2: you fail at your job, most of the time, you
Speaker 2: didn't create that product. You're selling someone else's product. When
Speaker 2: you're an artist, right, or you're a writer, that's your product,
Speaker 2: that's you. They're not. So you feel like you're not
Speaker 2: only rejecting my I'm in sales now, right, I'm in
Speaker 2: sales for a living. It's a company, says, we don't
Speaker 2: you know I'm in I'm in a consultant for a
Speaker 2: technology company. If they don't like our backup recovery service,
Speaker 2: I don't hang up the phone and go, God, why
Speaker 2: don't they like that? I'm like yeah, but if they
Speaker 2: don't like your song, You're like, wait, why no, no, no,
Speaker 2: why don't What don't you like about it?
Speaker 1: You said something that that I want to like push
Speaker 1: back on a little bit. You said, you know when
Speaker 1: when you when you you know, so go for your
Speaker 1: dreams and you fail, a certain thing happens. Do you
Speaker 1: think that you've failed?
Speaker 2: No? I don't think that failed. No, I think I
Speaker 2: was thrown a curveball or it, just like sometimes I
Speaker 2: think it's things just are meant to go, you know,
Speaker 2: the way that what our expectations are, you know, expectations
Speaker 2: are resentments waiting to happen, right, And you can put
Speaker 2: expectations on things. And I think what my expectations were
Speaker 2: from when I started to when it ended were very different.
Speaker 2: But I don't think it was a failure because I think,
Speaker 2: you know, I think that's failure is a strong word.
Speaker 2: So I think you're right. I don't think it was
Speaker 2: a failure. It just didn't end the way that I
Speaker 2: probably envisioned in the beginning. Right, But where I am
Speaker 2: now was nowhere where I envisioned. You know, I'm sure
Speaker 2: it's the same for you, right, Like what you're doing
Speaker 2: now is not at all what you thought you'd be
Speaker 2: doing at twenty one.
Speaker 1: Sure, right, Yeah, I'm I'm not as rich as I
Speaker 1: would like to do, right, But I'm happier than I
Speaker 1: thought I did.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and if you were, Yeah, And happiness has
Speaker 2: nothing to do with like how much money you have.
Speaker 1: No, not at all, not at all, you know.
Speaker 2: I mean it's nice, you know, like not having to
Speaker 2: worry about paying the bill. Ever, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1: I'm sure that would be lovely, but.
Speaker 2: I would spend it on some crap I didn't need anyway.
Speaker 1: I don't think Hayden failed. I don't think Hayden thinks
Speaker 1: Hayden failed. And yet as we talk, I keep trying
Speaker 1: to figure out how it could still happen for Hayden.
Speaker 1: I'm trained to think in those terms, even as we
Speaker 1: talk about how small minded it is to think in
Speaker 1: those terms. You know, I want to fix it, but
Speaker 1: I can't fix it because it's not broken.
Speaker 2: I've had some opportunities, Dave, I've pat you know. I
Speaker 2: had the executive producer of the Voice called me and say, hey,
Speaker 2: you know, I became friends with a guy named Jeremy
Speaker 2: Spun who is pretty high up with the show, The Voice,
Speaker 2: and he's reached out to me and I sent him
Speaker 2: a couple of videos of me singing, and the executive
Speaker 2: producer of the Voice was like, hey, you can get
Speaker 2: through all the roundings. We'll push you into the TV
Speaker 2: round if you want to do it. And I just
Speaker 2: I just have no desire, Like it's just I'm just
Speaker 2: like I just have really embraced like, you know, first
Speaker 2: of all, when you sign that contract, you sign a
Speaker 2: contract like you're obligated to them right for a certain
Speaker 2: amount of time, And I just I wouldn't do that
Speaker 2: to my kids.
Speaker 1: Hayden doesn't have the music career he thought he would have.
Speaker 1: What he has instead is a life.
Speaker 2: I'm coming up to almost eleven years of being sober
Speaker 2: at the end of this month. So I think through
Speaker 2: all of that and seeing what I have now and
Speaker 2: just by the grace of God being sober. I think
Speaker 2: for some of it, it's like for me, I look
Speaker 2: back and go, you know, I don't know, like I
Speaker 2: might not have made it through being an artist. I
Speaker 2: don't think I ever wanted the risk going back and
Speaker 2: doing that because when you really have sobriety, like nothing
Speaker 2: really comes in front of that because you know how
Speaker 2: bad it was before. So it's like, I think all
Speaker 2: of this was kind of a precursor to where I
Speaker 2: am today, and like, you know, having a life and
Speaker 2: being over and all of those things, I think has
Speaker 2: been much more rewarding than like having a little bit
Speaker 2: of fame or something else and then being blessed with
Speaker 2: four kids who you know, luckily they've never really seen
Speaker 2: their dad like as a drunk. You know, I always
Speaker 2: felt like I was. I sort of thought I could
Speaker 2: like make a difference, right, And the only way I
Speaker 2: thought I could make a difference was by like being
Speaker 2: this singer and selling out concerts and being known for that.
Speaker 2: And what I've realized through all that is, you know,
Speaker 2: I can share my story, my hopes and my share
Speaker 2: my story with people, and I can be a difference
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 1: Hayden II do. He survived nearly being famous, he survived
Speaker 1: the shame of coming home. He's made his impact, and
Speaker 1: he's happy. And that's good because it's impossible not to
Speaker 1: root for the guy. In the meantime, I've done a
Speaker 1: little more digging on Sudden Impact. I have found one
Speaker 1: article about them, and it's not even an article. It's
Speaker 1: a stub of an article from a local Virginia newspaper's
Speaker 1: web site. It came up in a Google search, and
Speaker 1: in the one line that I can read, they mention
Speaker 1: a Todd and Noel, but only one full name, Aaron kin.
Speaker 1: So I searched for Aaron Kine Sudden Impact, and that
Speaker 1: is the guy for sure. That's the guy in the middle,
Speaker 1: the guy with the clip on Bowtie who looks like
Speaker 1: he's late for his shift at Buca di Beppo. He's
Speaker 1: still making music. He's got a YouTube channel, and he's
Speaker 1: on Facebook and he's friends with Hayden. So I asked
Speaker 1: Hayden to put in a good word for me, and
Speaker 1: he says he will. Folks, we are one step closer
Speaker 1: to the inside of Sudden Impact. It's happening. We'll see
Speaker 1: how we do next time. On Waiting for Impact, a
Speaker 1: Dave Holmes passion project. This has been an Exactly Right
Speaker 1: production written by me Dave Holmes, produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded,
Speaker 1: mixed and sound designed by and Epen. Additional engineering and
Speaker 1: assembly by Analise Nelson, Music by Ben Wise, artwork by
Speaker 1: Garrett Ross. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark
Speaker 1: and Danielle Kramer. Follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and
Speaker 1: Twitter at exactly Right and follow me at Dave Holmes.
Speaker 1: For more information, go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com. Binge The
Speaker 1: show add free on Stitcher Premium for a free month.
Speaker 1: Head to Stitcherpremium dot com slash Impact and enter promo
Speaker 1: code Impact when you select a monthly plan, listen, subscribe,
Speaker 1: and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts.