Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Ladies and Gentlemen.
Speaker 3: This is a special Quest Love Supreme, your host Quest
Speaker 3: Love here with Sugar Steve. I'll say that our guest
Speaker 3: today are the founding Trailblazers and New York legends. Along
Speaker 3: with drummer Clin Burke, bassist Lee Fox, guitarist Tommy Kessler,
Speaker 3: and keyboardist Matt Kat's Bohen, they ushered in be very
Speaker 3: influential punk slash dew wait movement. I know musicians hate
Speaker 3: when things get a title. I often cringe when I
Speaker 3: hear the neo soul title. But you know this is
Speaker 3: too legendary to casually not spot spot on describe what
Speaker 3: they represent in the world of music. They to me
Speaker 3: are the epitome of cool and the epitome of style
Speaker 3: and practically dipping their toe into every genre of music
Speaker 3: that defined a movement and a city pop, rock, punk, disco, reggae.
Speaker 3: And they're especially noted for being one of the early, early, early,
Speaker 3: early co signers of the burgeoning hip hop movement. You know,
Speaker 3: there was a period where the first five, depending on
Speaker 3: who you ask and how conservative they are, ten maybe
Speaker 3: twenty years in which hip hop was hopefully going to
Speaker 3: be like a fad that went away, like a flu
Speaker 3: that influenza that goes away eventually. But they were one
Speaker 3: of the very first to co sign the movement and
Speaker 3: really brought it to a wider audience, going as far
Speaker 3: as to use the cachet to bring the light projects
Speaker 3: like the iconic score to Charlie Ahern's Hip Hop Classic
Speaker 3: Wild Style, and also being one of the first people
Speaker 3: to introduce hip hop to a worldwide audience. Of course,
Speaker 3: the legendary Saturday Night Live episode with the Funky four
Speaker 3: plus one that they literally just put their money where
Speaker 3: their mouth is. And you know, it's one thing to
Speaker 3: just say you're down with a movement, but to really
Speaker 3: use your your power, you know, to do so is another.
Speaker 3: They're currently celebrating the release of their Mammoth Against the
Speaker 3: Odds box set, which basically celebrates the hits, the demos,
Speaker 3: and the remixes of their illustrious career over one hundred
Speaker 3: and twenty four songs. In awe, this is an honor
Speaker 3: to say, please welcome to Quest Left Supreme Chris Stein
Speaker 3: and Debriye Harvey of Blondie.
Speaker 2: Thank you.
Speaker 3: I'm the only one clapping the day, So just pretend
Speaker 3: it's like fifty two billion people.
Speaker 4: That was very very generous.
Speaker 3: Thank you, No, you know, it's it's I've been a
Speaker 3: massive fan of you guys, you know, and so likewise,
Speaker 3: and I have to say, Debbie, thank you very much
Speaker 3: for my note. You happen to come on the show.
Speaker 3: Oh I'm talking with the tonight show, in which I
Speaker 3: was hoping to holler at you for a second before
Speaker 3: I went on stage, but I had to do something,
Speaker 3: and then by the time I got off stage, you'd
Speaker 3: already left, because it's like a very long show that
Speaker 3: we shot that day. But I saw the beautiful note
Speaker 3: that you left in my dressing room, and I really
Speaker 3: appreciate that thing.
Speaker 4: Oh, thank you much.
Speaker 5: I meant every word of it, even though there were
Speaker 5: some misspellings and scribbles.
Speaker 2: No, I appreciate it. I appreciate that acknowledgement.
Speaker 6: I want to thank christ for your nice notes that
Speaker 6: you left me on my recording console.
Speaker 2: Whatever.
Speaker 3: Steve, you know, I personally, I want to know, first
Speaker 3: of all, I really do love the box set, and
Speaker 3: as a person that's just starting to think about looking
Speaker 3: under the hood of my own career in terms of
Speaker 3: you know, looking at artifacts and going through storage units
Speaker 3: and all those things. You know, oftentimes you're so present
Speaker 3: in the moment you don't realize that the most minuscule
Speaker 3: thing you have is going to wind up being history
Speaker 3: ten years later.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 3: So in terms of just getting all these artifacts together
Speaker 3: and keeping those demos and keeping those tapes and all
Speaker 3: that stuff, how what was the process, like how painstaking
Speaker 3: was the process and putting this all together?
Speaker 4: Well, it went on over a pretty long period. I
Speaker 4: just had all this stuff, you know, when we first
Speaker 4: started making money. You know, I always say the model
Speaker 4: for the rock star was different back then, or at
Speaker 4: least for me, right and Debbie was. We didn't think
Speaker 4: about buying Rolexes and Bentley's and shit we wanted to.
Speaker 4: We just I bought recording equipment, so I bought guitars,
Speaker 4: so I bought I had my own old MCI set up,
Speaker 4: you know, the automation whole thing. And I got around
Speaker 4: to a bunch of different apartments. We lived in different spaces,
Speaker 4: and tapes accumulated along with that, and eventually that stuff
Speaker 4: all died and I gave it all the way and stuff,
Speaker 4: and I wound up with a garage full of tapes
Speaker 4: of State New York, which was where we did the
Speaker 4: assault on the tapes.
Speaker 7: Okay, so like what kind of tape like two inch
Speaker 7: tapes or everything?
Speaker 4: Everything? Everything? No? No, what? Uh had a lot of
Speaker 4: half inch, A lot of two inch, Yeah, a lot
Speaker 4: of two inches. I mean I had I wound up
Speaker 4: with a complete copy of the Cuckoo record that we
Speaker 4: did with Nile and Bernard and now got the whole
Speaker 4: thing on like just like two or three tapes because
Speaker 4: he was running at seven and a half. You know,
Speaker 4: oh really yeah, it was it was economical.
Speaker 3: I was going to say that at the time, like
Speaker 3: when did you realize I mean, most artists I know
Speaker 3: are not sentimental at all.
Speaker 2: There's a story.
Speaker 3: Well, I mean he's not a musician, but you know,
Speaker 3: I consider a historian Don Cornelius in order to save
Speaker 3: maybe hundreds hundreds of dollars, would I mean, you know,
Speaker 3: when it came time to look through the Soul Training archives,
Speaker 3: you know, the staff there was stat to announce to
Speaker 3: me that, you know, Don wasn't too sentimental. So you
Speaker 3: know this the stage and the lights and the all
Speaker 3: the designs of the shows, of the Soul Train show
Speaker 3: within you know, the forty year history of it.
Speaker 2: He just had it all destroyed and crushed, crushed and
Speaker 2: thrown away.
Speaker 3: And I was like, none of you at all were like,
Speaker 3: you know this will be historical one day, like we.
Speaker 2: Should save this stuff.
Speaker 3: And you know, at the time, Don was just thinking
Speaker 3: like uh uh, storage, storage space is too expensive and
Speaker 3: I can't afford it. So I mean oftentimes, you know,
Speaker 3: I'll tell new artists now like don't throw away that
Speaker 3: concert poster, don't throw away your itinerary, don't throw away
Speaker 3: I mean even Prince, Like when Prince passed away, Like
Speaker 3: literally anything he wrote on is almost damn near like
Speaker 3: five figure worthy in auctions now, like even directions to
Speaker 3: the house or or you know, Prince was world famous
Speaker 3: for writing. Whoever, the lady of the moment was like
Speaker 3: poetry and stuff like you know, thing revealing too much.
Speaker 3: But what I'm basically saying is, did you guys realize
Speaker 3: in the beginning, like I should save everything, like even
Speaker 3: with besides the music, Like are you saving the outfits
Speaker 3: and the wardrobes and old posters or ticket stubs or itineraries.
Speaker 4: I got a lot of junk left still, But you know,
Speaker 4: I mean you hoard totally. My wife is like, I
Speaker 4: can't go in there because it's like freaks me out.
Speaker 4: It's so hoarded out the room in the you know,
Speaker 4: in the basement where we are. Uh but uh, you know,
Speaker 4: there's so many stuff fell by the wayside. I sold
Speaker 4: so many damn guitars that I could retire now on
Speaker 4: what those things are worth in today's market. You know,
Speaker 4: it's just really yeah, it's just crazy.
Speaker 2: I would like to know.
Speaker 3: Well, I asked the both of you'll start with wri
Speaker 3: what was your first musical memory.
Speaker 2: Oh wow, I know.
Speaker 5: Oh that's it really goes back, doesn't it. I had,
Speaker 5: you know, children's records back back then. I had a Victrola,
Speaker 5: at least that's what my dad called a Victrola. And
Speaker 5: it was in a box, you know, a little suitcase,
Speaker 5: and it had a speaker that was attached to the
Speaker 5: arm where the you know, where the needle was and
Speaker 5: you would just drop it down onto the record. And
Speaker 5: so that those were my earliest things. And I think
Speaker 5: one of my one of my favorites was a thing,
Speaker 5: oddly enough called Little Toot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, was that a Disney record or enough?
Speaker 5: It was a Disney record.
Speaker 7: It might have been.
Speaker 5: It might have been, but it was a really great
Speaker 5: little song that went through a lot of different emotional
Speaker 5: interpretations because it told a story of this little tougueboat
Speaker 5: and you know, the worthlessness of this little and little
Speaker 5: togueboat and how the big togboats always you know, pushed
Speaker 5: it around. But then little little too became like the
Speaker 5: hero of the day and uh.
Speaker 2: So, basically off the ret nose Reindeer. Where were you born.
Speaker 5: I was born actually in Miami, but I grew up
Speaker 5: in Hawthorne, New Jersey, which is just outside of Patterson,
Speaker 5: New Jersey. Well, my parents and all my grandparents lived
Speaker 5: in Patterson.
Speaker 2: Okay, Chris, what was your first musical memory.
Speaker 4: Well, I don't really remember locking onto any little kid music.
Speaker 4: My first affinity for music started when I was like,
Speaker 4: I guess, you know, around ten or eleven, with movie scores,
Speaker 4: which was and man, some of those novelty songs, you know,
Speaker 4: like the Chipmunks and Purple People Eater and stuff. But
Speaker 4: I you know, I don't know how much that moved me,
Speaker 4: that stuff. But then I started, you know, like Lawrence
Speaker 4: of Arabia's West Side Story. I mean, I I it's
Speaker 4: very hard for me to explain to younger people what
Speaker 4: a huge cultural touchstone West Side Story was. West Side
Speaker 4: Story was as big as the damn Beatles, There's no
Speaker 4: question about it. I don't think people people have at
Speaker 4: that the nowadays.
Speaker 5: My oh god, my mother got so mad at me
Speaker 5: because I took my sister, who is seven years younger
Speaker 5: than me to see West Side Story and she almost
Speaker 5: had a heart.
Speaker 4: Oh no, you took her.
Speaker 1: You took her to see that?
Speaker 5: Oh no, how could you? But it was fabulous. It
Speaker 5: was so wonderful. And you know, Leonard Bernstein was never better.
Speaker 3: Really, I was going to say that, I'm currently reading
Speaker 3: Little Stephen Stephen van Zant's autobiography, and he too has
Speaker 3: an immense obsession with West Side Story and pretty much
Speaker 3: described it as the way that you guys did like
Speaker 3: when it came out.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 4: Such a huge deal, I know. I mean, you're probably
Speaker 4: on your soundtracks that I was praying more obsessed with
Speaker 4: Lawrence Arabia soundtrack, MAURICEI alre, you know, great story.
Speaker 5: And the other thing that I listened to a lot
Speaker 5: was like the Cowboys Singers, which is you know, Western,
Speaker 5: not even country western, it was really Western music and
Speaker 5: those were those were great, you know, great songs and
Speaker 5: people like Burl Lives and stuff.
Speaker 4: Burl Lives. Yeah, we know she is.
Speaker 3: Okay, So now that you you know, declared your love
Speaker 3: for Lawrence of Varibia, I gotta ask. You know, it's
Speaker 3: important because the very first okay, So, I grew up
Speaker 3: in the household with an older sibling who you know,
Speaker 3: because of my sisters, because of her school situation. You know,
Speaker 3: she was fitting in with her girlfriends what they were
Speaker 3: listening to at the time. So you know, she's bringing
Speaker 3: in a lot of you know, the classic new wave
Speaker 3: and punk stuff or whatever. But the one album that
Speaker 3: I remember, even though she had like you know, each
Speaker 3: of the and all that stuff, like I remember the
Speaker 3: day that she brought Auto American.
Speaker 4: Okay, okay, okay, okay. So now on the orchestral session,
Speaker 4: there was a bag one of the bass players played
Speaker 4: on the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack and that so that.
Speaker 3: I was gonna ask, is your obsession because you know
Speaker 3: the way that you open up Auto American with the
Speaker 3: Europa score.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, you know you know that by then
Speaker 4: I was at Adito Roda very deep and all this
Speaker 4: other stuff, you know, I always had a thing for soundtracks.
Speaker 4: I think soundtracks nowadays, that's a whole other topic, are
Speaker 4: way over used. Uh They're becoming like laugh tracks, you know,
Speaker 4: where they steer your emotions in the direction right of
Speaker 4: where whoever, whoever, the committee that wrote the thing, they
Speaker 4: think you should be feeling, you know. And then, you know,
Speaker 4: gradually I started assimilating the pop music that was around me,
Speaker 4: like the locomotion. Everybody loved the locomotion, no matter what,
Speaker 4: you know. And you know, this stuff like the Shambra Laws,
Speaker 4: I didn't really appreciate till a little later when we
Speaker 4: were doing the band. I was kind of like commercial
Speaker 4: to me at the time.
Speaker 5: You know, well, I'm older than Chris, and I remember
Speaker 5: this thing. I used to listen to radio a lot.
Speaker 5: I had a little radio and I always had my
Speaker 5: ear right next to the speaker. The speaker was only
Speaker 5: at this big and they had a radio thing called
Speaker 5: the Hit Parade. Yeah, and all those like crooners and
Speaker 5: you know, band singers and stuff like that. There was
Speaker 5: a lot of that. It was kind of great, yeah
Speaker 5: before yeah, and.
Speaker 4: Then it was And then I went into folk music
Speaker 4: of course, you know, because I was fifteen and sixty five,
Speaker 4: and by that time I've been playing I've been playing
Speaker 4: guitar for since I was twelve, and folk music was it,
Speaker 4: and I remember learning how to play house at the
Speaker 4: Rising Sun was such a big deal to me, you know.
Speaker 3: So can you describe to me what the New York
Speaker 3: nightclub scene was in terms of like the pre punk,
Speaker 3: the pre New wave movement, Like if it's seventy four,
Speaker 3: if it's seventy three or seventy four, you know, where
Speaker 3: are you playing or like where are you hanging out?
Speaker 4: At least well, we met Debbie was doing a show
Speaker 4: in a bar, so I don't even I hadn't didn't
Speaker 4: go out to many clubs before I was in the
Speaker 4: band situation. I mean, Maxis was kind of the first
Speaker 4: thing I was going to regularly.
Speaker 5: Mostly it was bars, you know, people just setting up
Speaker 5: blah on the floor and bars and stuff. And then
Speaker 5: a little bit later on they became officially became clubs,
Speaker 5: but initially they were bars, Okay, I.
Speaker 4: Mean, well, the stuff that we were involved with was
Speaker 4: like Martin Mercer Arts Center came out of the art scene.
Speaker 4: I mean Maxis was an art bar, you know, all
Speaker 4: those all those guys all those people went on to
Speaker 4: be famous, and the art world had tabs Maxes.
Speaker 2: You know, the post Warhol movement or were Andy.
Speaker 4: We know he was always in the middle of everything
Speaker 4: for us anyway, for you know, he was just there.
Speaker 4: He was a staple.
Speaker 7: I wanted to know.
Speaker 6: Well, they mentioned Maxis Kansas City, and it's hardy not
Speaker 6: to think of the Velvet Underground.
Speaker 7: Did you guys see the Velvet Underground play live there?
Speaker 4: I opened up for the Velovet thats when I was seventeen.
Speaker 2: What was that like?
Speaker 4: It was amazing and it was a pivotal moment in
Speaker 4: my musical life. It was they were playing in a
Speaker 4: place up town called the Gymnasium, which was Andy had
Speaker 4: connections to the like these Polish hall people you know
Speaker 4: who were in these old world halls, and his place
Speaker 4: was was the Gymnasium and also did show this. This
Speaker 4: was nineteen sixty seven. I me and my friends all
Speaker 4: knew who the Velvets were at that point. And I
Speaker 4: had a really close friend who a guy I grew
Speaker 4: up with known for fifty years who was working for
Speaker 4: Andy at the time. His name Joey Freeman, still my buddy,
Speaker 4: and he showed up my house in Brooklyn one afternoon
Speaker 4: and he said, listen to the opening band for the
Speaker 4: Velvets didn't show up. Do you guys want to do it?
Speaker 4: So we took our guitars on the subway and we
Speaker 4: went down. It was like up in the West Side,
Speaker 4: somewhere in the seventies or so sixties or seventies, and
Speaker 4: developers let us use their amps, and Marine took her
Speaker 4: let us put her bass from upright, you know, because
Speaker 4: she only played it like like a temporary you know,
Speaker 4: on its side right. And they were nice and we
Speaker 4: played our blues rock set. You know, I don't remember.
Speaker 4: I only remember we did you can't judge but book
Speaker 4: by its cover, But I don't remember much of the
Speaker 4: other stuff, you know, like Rude sixty six, that kind
Speaker 4: of joke we were doing. And we were really daunted
Speaker 4: because his place was big and echoey and it was
Speaker 4: like not there weren't too many people there. But then
Speaker 4: the Velvets came on and they took advantage of the echo.
Speaker 4: And that was also a life lesson for me, because
Speaker 4: you know, the place you're playing in becomes a part
Speaker 4: of your sound stem. You know that, you know, unless
Speaker 4: you're doing this all the time, and they were awesome
Speaker 4: and filled the room and Andy was there. We never
Speaker 4: saw him, and somebody came over and said, oh, any
Speaker 4: thinks you're great. That was terrific. That was That was
Speaker 4: the event, but it was a really wonderful thing.
Speaker 5: I saw them at this place called the Balloon Farm
Speaker 5: on Saint Mark's Place and Andy was doing the lights
Speaker 5: and Nico was with them that night and it was beautiful.
Speaker 5: It was just I mean beautiful visually and in sound wise,
Speaker 5: and everything about it was beautiful.
Speaker 3: Like I know that you were in separate bands or
Speaker 3: can you tell us how the band came to be
Speaker 3: as far as you know the official start of Blunde.
Speaker 4: Well, the scene was very incestuous and we all had
Speaker 4: mutual friends, though the two of us never met. We
Speaker 4: think we both were at Woodstock, but we didn't meet there.
Speaker 4: Debbie had a job working for the first head shop
Speaker 4: in New York, which was called the head Shop, which
Speaker 4: was on East ninth Street, and I remember going in
Speaker 4: there the day before shop. It's called the Headshop.
Speaker 2: What is a headshop is a headshot?
Speaker 4: They sell, yeah, bonds and posters and rolling papers and
Speaker 4: we'd supply you know, but it was it was where
Speaker 4: you've been, you.
Speaker 2: Know, dog, I'm I'm sorry, I'm the forty.
Speaker 4: And you know it was it was a little more
Speaker 4: clandestine and it wasn't like it was kind of understated
Speaker 4: that it was all based on weed consumption.
Speaker 2: I never knew that it was called a headshop.
Speaker 4: Headshop, Yeah, sure, hedshop.
Speaker 3: Well, because where weed where I grew up, it was
Speaker 3: always the you know you always uh at the mom
Speaker 3: and pop rec good store.
Speaker 4: Yeah right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: I would assume that the guy also sold we because
Speaker 3: you know, just the smell of the record store mixed
Speaker 3: with you know, lisol and incense like to try to.
Speaker 4: Well, he wouldn't head hups wouldn't back then in the
Speaker 4: sixties wouldn't sell weed. They because they were they were
Speaker 4: too big a target, you know, they would just sell
Speaker 4: the the stuff.
Speaker 2: I got it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so I was. I was in the headgshop the
Speaker 4: day before it opened talking to a girl and well,
Speaker 4: I know that was us, and we talked to each other.
Speaker 4: But three years later, four years later, I guess that
Speaker 4: was like sixty nine or sixty or seventy or something
Speaker 4: like that. Then you know, everybody knew each other and
Speaker 4: I had friends and one of my friends. You know,
Speaker 4: a very long story, but a mutual friend said, I
Speaker 4: heard about this band is playing called the Stilettos Girls singers,
Speaker 4: go see them. And that was Debbie and two other girls.
Speaker 4: So that was it.
Speaker 6: Did that band have any any kind of startup or success? Debbie,
Speaker 6: you and the other two girls?
Speaker 5: Well yeah, I mean we had a small amount of notoriety.
Speaker 5: I suppose an interest. I don't think there was any
Speaker 5: real reality as far as you know, a professional career
Speaker 5: or you know, recording or anything like that. Everything we did.
Speaker 4: Was some stuff with the dolls. We did stuff with
Speaker 4: the dolls. Remember later on yeah you guys, you guys
Speaker 4: sang back up in a couple of dolls shows.
Speaker 5: So yeah, all right, it was that.
Speaker 4: Eighty two, Yeah, baby, or I think there's a picture.
Speaker 5: Of us at eighty two. Eighty two was another club
Speaker 5: that existed sort of in a even darker way than
Speaker 5: Max's or CBGB's. It was an old transvestite club from
Speaker 5: the nineteen forties.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was very gangster.
Speaker 5: It was.
Speaker 4: It was number eighty to the east third Street, I guess,
Speaker 4: or something like that something the second first Street, all
Speaker 4: the way east and it was in the basement. It was.
Speaker 4: That was a great scene. A lot of bands played there,
Speaker 4: but we went there. All this stuff went on there,
Speaker 4: there's not a lot of okay.
Speaker 3: So one of my favorite kind of underground New York
Speaker 3: labels was Private Stock. Well, no, a lot of legendary
Speaker 3: records are on there, and especially for hip hoppers, there's
Speaker 3: like incredible breakbeats on there. But I gotta know, like,
Speaker 3: how did what was it like dealing with Larry Utel.
Speaker 4: Larry had come out of like the brill building scene.
Speaker 4: He had been He had been a part of Bell
Speaker 4: Records with I think Seymour and yeah, they were all
Speaker 4: play partners at one point and then they spliped went
Speaker 4: through different ways. Marty Marty foul you know, managed the
Speaker 4: Dolls all through their earn hey Day and the first
Speaker 4: records and all that stuff before before McLaren picked up
Speaker 4: on him, and uh, Larry was you know, it was
Speaker 4: kind of a vanity project for him. I mean, I
Speaker 4: think his daughter Jody, who was like the press person,
Speaker 4: had a better idea what was going on in the
Speaker 4: reality of the street and music you know that was
Speaker 4: coming out of the streets. Larry was like, you know,
Speaker 4: Larry was you know, guy with the open shirt and
Speaker 4: the big gold chainer on his back.
Speaker 5: He liked he was friends with you know that that
Speaker 5: one Valley.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Frankie Valley was on the label, right, Yeah, that
Speaker 4: was their big act. And Peter Lemon Jello, man, you know,
Speaker 4: Peter Lemon Jell. Peter Lemon Jello was like this m
Speaker 4: R M O R singer, but the girls liked him
Speaker 4: because he was like sexy, you know, thing that helps.
Speaker 4: And then then they had also on the label.
Speaker 2: Which is yeah Walter, Walter h.
Speaker 5: It was an odd place to be for us. It
Speaker 5: was very odd and uh, which tried.
Speaker 3: You know, we we live in the time now, which
Speaker 3: you know, literally you can create a fully produced and
Speaker 3: realized album on your laptop, But what what is the
Speaker 3: process of getting a demo? Like, Okay, you're going to
Speaker 3: start a band now, I mean at any point are
Speaker 3: you guys like, hey, we're just hanging around doing the scene,
Speaker 3: or you guys like actively like we were trying to
Speaker 3: get a record deal.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean that was the goal was to get
Speaker 4: the music out. Everybody knew. I mean, we all grew
Speaker 4: up with records and records being very important to us,
Speaker 4: so that was of course a goal, but in New York,
Speaker 4: so there was I don't know, one hundred bands instead
Speaker 4: of one hundred thousand bands the way it is now,
Speaker 4: you know, so that that made a big difference.
Speaker 3: I always wanted to know this, and I know it's
Speaker 3: a captain obvious question, but what was what was the
Speaker 3: actual reason why you guys settled on the name Blondie.
Speaker 5: We had been trying to pick out a name, and uh,
Speaker 5: I mean, you know, you search for a name, and
Speaker 5: we called ourselves the Angel and the Snake for a
Speaker 5: few months, and that that was sort of a you know,
Speaker 5: it wasn't really it would have been a good name
Speaker 5: for nowadays, but at that.
Speaker 4: Point for a metal band, yeah maybe, you know.
Speaker 5: Yeah, well we wanted to be a metal band.
Speaker 4: But I don't know if we even had that much
Speaker 4: of it. I don't know what we what we wanted
Speaker 4: to be anything.
Speaker 5: Well, I was working as a beautician. I was working
Speaker 5: in New Jersey as a beautician, and you know, during
Speaker 5: a slow hours, you know, we would do each other's hair,
Speaker 5: and so one day they did me and I was,
Speaker 5: you know, had blonde hair and walking to Chris's house,
Speaker 5: you know, it was getting you know, some street noise, Hey, Blondie, Blondie,
Speaker 5: and I just said, oh, okay, well that will work.
Speaker 5: And that was that.
Speaker 2: Okay. I always thought it was a blondie deck would reference.
Speaker 5: Well it became that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we were aware of that, and you know, and
Speaker 4: those guys never bothered us for all all the time.
Speaker 4: They never It was never a.
Speaker 2: Tough yo like.
Speaker 5: No.
Speaker 4: I mean, there was never any complaints about us commandeering
Speaker 4: the name or anything from the comic people.
Speaker 2: You mean that, I thought you meant just. I thought
Speaker 2: you meant just in New York. No, everybody, I.
Speaker 4: Forget about that ship. We got bothered a lot in
Speaker 4: New York.
Speaker 5: To be fair, I did say to the guys, you know,
Speaker 5: when when we started getting you know, official attention, that
Speaker 5: they should all bleach their hair, you know, and be
Speaker 5: like wrestlers, you know, and the guys should all have
Speaker 5: blonde hair, and we'd all have blonde hair. But nobody
Speaker 5: wanted to do it.
Speaker 7: Just while we're on the name Blondie.
Speaker 6: So by now, of course we all know your name
Speaker 6: is Debbie Harry. But people must have been calling you
Speaker 6: personally Blondie this whole time. Is that the longest bother
Speaker 6: you or is that something that you'd just gotten used to,
Speaker 6: or do you say, hey, my name is Debbie, you
Speaker 6: know what the band is?
Speaker 7: Blondie.
Speaker 5: Well, I think there was that, you know, kind of
Speaker 5: the definition thing. For a while. I didn't mind, especially
Speaker 5: being cold Blondie because I had the blonde hair and
Speaker 5: you know, basically, you know, I guess little boys get
Speaker 5: called that too, you know, hey Blondie, but usually you know,
Speaker 5: little girls with my coloring, you know, are cold Blondie
Speaker 5: very often. So it didn't really bother me. It did
Speaker 5: bother me, you know that we had to sort of
Speaker 5: identify ourselves constantly. But I think that you know, you know,
Speaker 5: I guess it's something that you you know, you learn, right,
Speaker 5: you learn that you have to identify yourself well.
Speaker 3: As I said at the top of the show, people
Speaker 3: will often lump you guys in with the punk movement
Speaker 3: or the new wave movement. You know, it's kind of
Speaker 3: like I didn't necessarily think that you were either, because
Speaker 3: for me, at least with the first the first three records,
Speaker 3: like from the self titled record to Parallel Lines, you know,
Speaker 3: there's there's a heavy sort of post I guess you
Speaker 3: could say wall of sound feel in there like in
Speaker 3: terms of like a very updated, like an updated kind
Speaker 3: of specters thing going on. So for you, was it
Speaker 3: always an eye rolling thing? If you know, critics that
Speaker 3: obviously weren't on the scene that were like hanging around
Speaker 3: to see, Like, was it weird to get type cast
Speaker 3: to be part of a movement that really I don't know,
Speaker 3: I think between you guys and the police, like even
Speaker 3: though you're you're lumped in with this movement, you guys
Speaker 3: really weren't that level of punk to me, Like, you
Speaker 3: guys were more of a stylish at least my my,
Speaker 3: how it.
Speaker 2: Looked to me when I was like nine or ten
Speaker 2: years old.
Speaker 4: I think, I think, I think the punk form is
Speaker 4: much more defined nowadays. And you know, in twenty twenty onward,
Speaker 4: you know, you got all these fands, you know, Surpoort
Speaker 4: and Amal and the Sniffers and all these guys are
Speaker 4: very defined in their punkness, you know. Back I mean
Speaker 4: when you think about you know, ustin television and talking
Speaker 4: heads and Patty, it was very diverse. That kind of
Speaker 4: sounded and it wasn't so. I mean, the Moons were
Speaker 4: very much in their own groove of the thing, but
Speaker 4: they were they were specifically.
Speaker 5: Them, you know, yeah, I mean there was a rockabillity there,
Speaker 5: you know, was the sort of art rock, you.
Speaker 7: Know, blues.
Speaker 5: It was all a punk scene and and incorporated a
Speaker 5: lot of different styles of music which you know, we
Speaker 5: were actually experimenting with, you know, and trying to pull in,
Speaker 5: you know, references that you know sort of befitted a
Speaker 5: girl singer and you know, a rock band and and
Speaker 5: with you know, attitude. You know, I think for me,
Speaker 5: I wanted to be a punk. I felt like I
Speaker 5: had enough attitude.
Speaker 4: But the punk definition was very much like a lifestyle
Speaker 4: thing way the way a hippie was, you know, it was,
Speaker 4: you know, it's like relistic and about do it yourself,
Speaker 4: very much about do it yourself too, and you know,
Speaker 4: and then there was, uh it was a backlash against
Speaker 4: all the real heavy m R stuff that was happening
Speaker 4: in the mid seventies there, and that was you know,
Speaker 4: above ground you know whatever. You know, these went to
Speaker 4: rost pretty you know sedation for us.
Speaker 2: You know at that time.
Speaker 3: Socially, who were your peers of that movement? Like were
Speaker 3: you friendly with the Ramones and the New York zones?
Speaker 4: We were very close to the Ramones, and the Dolls.
Speaker 4: There was kind of there were kind of two camps
Speaker 4: at CBS of the art rock people and the pop
Speaker 4: rock people, and we were kind of on the pop
Speaker 4: rock side, you know. And it was a band called Miami's.
Speaker 4: It was band called Fast you know those people. Yeah,
Speaker 4: Johnny Heartbreakers were great, bad all that stuff. You know.
Speaker 3: I believe that my band was the third, the second
Speaker 3: or the third to last act to play at CBGB's.
Speaker 3: I got a note was that nice bathroom always filthy bathroom.
Speaker 4: The bathroom used to be upstairs, and the stage used
Speaker 4: to be on the on the left facing facing the stage,
Speaker 4: and then it moved to the right, and the bathroom
Speaker 4: moved downstairs and got it even worse. It wasn't It
Speaker 4: was probably a little less gross when it was upstairs.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I see any any fond memories there. I hate
Speaker 3: I hate being that person that's like like salivating over
Speaker 3: like again, these folklore stories of clubs of your and
Speaker 3: you guys are just like whatever.
Speaker 2: We showed up and we played.
Speaker 3: But you know, at any point during that period, did
Speaker 3: you know that this was like the zegeist of the scene,
Speaker 3: or again, was it just a hey, Thursday night, We're playing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, we were pretty much in the moment, you know.
Speaker 4: And what I always I also say, is everybody, every
Speaker 4: single person I knew, would say, this is New York
Speaker 4: is so horrible. I just got to get out of here.
Speaker 4: I can't stand it anymore. But nobody left. And there's
Speaker 4: this great mood Red monologue where he talks about how
Speaker 4: awful it is in New York for him, but how
Speaker 4: much more uncomfortable he is everywhere else. So that that
Speaker 4: was that pretty much. But yeah, I mean lots of
Speaker 4: crazy shit went down at Steevie's all the time, accidents too.
Speaker 5: It was you know, well it went through stages, you know,
Speaker 5: stages of development because it wasn't like a full on,
Speaker 5: you know, big club scene from the start. You know,
Speaker 5: it was a bike of bar with you know, some
Speaker 5: you know Bowery guys, you know Alki's and stuff that
Speaker 5: hung out at this bar. And then for some reason
Speaker 5: Hilly you know, started having music, and you know, I
Speaker 5: have suspicions about you know, there used to be a club,
Speaker 5: a club restaurant on Ninth Street, right off of Sixth
Speaker 5: Avenue between fifth and sixth, and it was called Hilly's.
Speaker 5: I somehow think that Hilly was involved with that, and
Speaker 5: he had.
Speaker 4: A couple of bars. Yeah, I think he had one
Speaker 4: that was like downstairs from Trudy Heller's too at one point.
Speaker 5: Oh really yeah wow.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he had a couple of bars around town
Speaker 4: and he and he was a single role, so he
Speaker 4: had he had a country single on the jukebox in
Speaker 4: CB that I don't really hear people talking about too much.
Speaker 4: I don't remember what it was, but it was there.
Speaker 7: New York is.
Speaker 5: Great for clubs, you know, I mean it's always been
Speaker 5: that way. It's great.
Speaker 2: How often is the rotation?
Speaker 3: I know that for me in Philadelphia there's really only
Speaker 3: at least for the roots, like maybe if you're lucky,
Speaker 3: there's like six clubs to play, because we also had
Speaker 3: like you know, five or six major colleges there, so
Speaker 3: you know where you play at University of Penn, play
Speaker 3: at Temple play. You know, you would just go to
Speaker 3: where the colleges were. But as far as rotation is concerned.
Speaker 4: Well, there was a there was a thing where if
Speaker 4: you played at Max's, you shouldn't play at Seb's the
Speaker 4: next weekend. Yeah, that's to like wait a week. But
Speaker 4: there were other little bars. It was like Rudby Charlie's
Speaker 4: and a place called the Mushroom and that Monty Python
Speaker 4: Bar and all these little things. With my mother's my others.
Speaker 4: Was a tourney right across from the Chelsea there was
Speaker 4: my father's place was up in Long Island City that
Speaker 4: you know, stuff would come and go.
Speaker 3: I would assume that, you know, by the time, at
Speaker 3: least by the time you guys get to Chrysalis that
Speaker 3: you know, you're not you're no longer a like a
Speaker 3: local rock band, and you're also doing national and yeah,
Speaker 3: going out of state and whatnot.
Speaker 4: So yeah, all that stuff went on, but it was
Speaker 4: still the you know. The other thing people may not
Speaker 4: get nowadays is what a goddamn wild West show the
Speaker 4: music industry was the touring touring in those days. It
Speaker 4: was now it's so slick, you know, your live nation
Speaker 4: all this stuff, you know, boom you go there.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, yeah, was there something as a
Speaker 3: rider like okay, okay, because I ask each act to
Speaker 3: do this for me because I truly want to know,
Speaker 3: you know. And the thing you mentioned at the top
Speaker 3: about the rolexes and all that stuff, Yes, I'm in
Speaker 3: I'm in the hip hop generation, especially the first generation
Speaker 3: of like post hype William videos where around ninety four,
Speaker 3: I would say that, yes, like even coming into the game,
Speaker 3: like we came into the game with two tour buses
Speaker 3: and a really good rider and Musilix and like, you know,
Speaker 3: like where's my where's the you know, the where's the
Speaker 3: manicurist at like that sort of.
Speaker 4: So fucking we were in a fucking we did a
Speaker 4: tour in Australia. We were we were in like a
Speaker 4: school bus man that was like a let me know,
Speaker 4: old school with like it was filled with dust. You know.
Speaker 4: We had we and we had like a an America.
Speaker 4: When we went on the tour with Iggy and Bowie,
Speaker 4: we were in an r V, which is like really
Speaker 4: crappy and falling apart. I remember too, So all that
Speaker 4: kind of stuff was was yeah.
Speaker 2: All right, so let's skip to skip the parallel lines.
Speaker 3: Can you walk me through the process, Like okay, so
Speaker 3: the idea of like tour buses and good hotel lodging,
Speaker 3: like at what at what point does that even happen
Speaker 3: or is that something that was just invented in the nineties, Like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm gonna go with nineties because we had some man.
Speaker 4: It was you know, it was a lot of.
Speaker 2: We briefly, we we lived for these nerds.
Speaker 3: Story says, don't don't think you're like sparing us by,
Speaker 3: like you don't want to hear about the time when
Speaker 3: but we store store our lunch meat or something.
Speaker 4: We never had. We never flew private. There was just
Speaker 4: no such thing. But briefly, I remember there was like
Speaker 4: ten minutes when we was Chip Gordon. There was like
Speaker 4: in Europe. We had a little four seater jet for
Speaker 4: a couple of publicity dates. But that was like you know,
Speaker 4: two flights or something like that. We went on the Concord.
Speaker 4: We were on the We were on the Concord a
Speaker 4: bunch of times.
Speaker 7: That was.
Speaker 4: That was nice.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, Shepp is one of my
Speaker 3: closest friends, and what time does he enter managing the band.
Speaker 5: Like the late seventies early eighties.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, so he was there for Parallel Lines.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, that was that was each of the beat.
Speaker 5: It was the very end. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well Auto American, I know he was there.
Speaker 4: For An American and the Hunter, which was you know successful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Auto American platinum plaque is hanging up above
Speaker 3: the guest bedroom. So nice you guys Teddy Pendergrass and
Speaker 3: Luther Vandro's records.
Speaker 4: Like, uh.
Speaker 2: When I stay at his house and his guest room.
Speaker 3: So with with parallel lines at least, which you know
Speaker 3: many consider that to be like you're your your your
Speaker 3: super breakthrough with it. Can you talk about the making
Speaker 3: of Harder Class AKA once I had a love and
Speaker 3: bringing that forth?
Speaker 4: Well, it was it was all about the getting the
Speaker 4: rolling rhythm machine hooked up with this, the rolling whatever
Speaker 4: that held. I can't remember I should.
Speaker 2: Know this, but was there mid back in the day.
Speaker 4: No, it was. It was all voltage, voltage controlled, you know. Okay,
Speaker 4: so it was pre MIDI and that was such a
Speaker 4: huge deal. That's where the whole the whole song was
Speaker 4: built up on the synth being to the rhythm machine
Speaker 4: and everything was built around that. You know. We had
Speaker 4: the we had the cords, some stuff in the structure
Speaker 4: somewhat you know, very.
Speaker 5: Time consuming, very time consumer.
Speaker 4: Yes, I mean going in with Chapman was great. I
Speaker 4: mean Chapman was a master and he was at the
Speaker 4: peak of his game, and we were also at the
Speaker 4: peak of analog too. It was the high point of
Speaker 4: fucking analog you know he had he had the one
Speaker 4: the digital REAVERB. I guess it's not don't know, even
Speaker 4: Tide or whatever it is. He had that one unit.
Speaker 4: But everything else was just like that. And I'm glad
Speaker 4: we got to be there at that moment too. But
Speaker 4: Chapman was great. He was like going in with George Martin.
Speaker 4: For us, it was like a whole you know, he
Speaker 4: was like the extra member of the band. It was
Speaker 4: just it was fantastic and we all, you know, he
Speaker 4: beat the heck out of us. But it was great.
Speaker 3: I was going to ask with because the thing is
Speaker 3: is that, you know, Heart of Glass was even more
Speaker 3: than even more than Miss You. I feel like hearder
Speaker 3: Glass is like the perfect, perfect dance song that's not
Speaker 3: blatantly a disco song. And not to say that Miss
Speaker 3: You by the Rolling Stones was a blatant Yeah, people
Speaker 3: seem to consider anything with four on the floor to
Speaker 3: be disco, but always wanted to know obviously there there
Speaker 3: had to been some sort of conscious decision like okay,
Speaker 3: let's make something accessible.
Speaker 4: We always had like graph for work. We were referencing
Speaker 4: graph work.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that was it.
Speaker 4: Not so much disco music.
Speaker 3: But I always wanted to know the like for such
Speaker 3: a song that that has such a steady four in
Speaker 3: the fourth pace. Why was there a decision to make
Speaker 3: the last bridge into seven to eight meter which I
Speaker 3: don't know.
Speaker 4: If that was an accident or not. I mean, Chapman
Speaker 4: would Chapman would edit fucking slice the two inch tape
Speaker 4: with a fucking razor, which is kind of unheard of.
Speaker 2: No, you guys were playing, which one is that one
Speaker 2: little section?
Speaker 4: I can't, I can't. I mean, I'm sure if you
Speaker 4: asked everybody, everybody will have a different opinion. Why that
Speaker 4: came about, Whether it was accidental or not, I don't know.
Speaker 3: You know, hearder Glass seems very accessible to play at
Speaker 3: a jam session. But there's always that moment right after
Speaker 3: the last There's always that moment right on the course
Speaker 3: where I'm looking at the people like, wait, are we
Speaker 3: are we about to do to the level.
Speaker 2: We're going to do the seventy part.
Speaker 3: We're just going to act like the beginning, the beginning,
Speaker 3: and then it's always a car crash.
Speaker 4: That's very gratifying.
Speaker 5: It made it worthwhile.
Speaker 4: The drums are all the drums are all pieced together
Speaker 4: the way a disco record, the bass drums recorded by itself?
Speaker 4: Uh you know the kid? Yeah yeah, recorded by itself,
Speaker 4: you know, yeah, it was that. That was the only
Speaker 4: song like that. That was the only one who was
Speaker 4: done like that.
Speaker 2: What was the logic behind that? A better mixed to it?
Speaker 4: Mike had done some kind of disco music again, maybe
Speaker 4: be able to bring out the kick a little more.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, okay, I see that.
Speaker 5: I think it was his ears, you know, I mean
Speaker 5: that's he had. He had those ears.
Speaker 7: You know what studio was this? Parallel lines?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: Power station?
Speaker 5: Right?
Speaker 4: Power station? Or or plant? Record plant? Record plant or
Speaker 4: power station.
Speaker 6: Yeah, at the time of Parallel Lines. And and now
Speaker 6: I guess also do you do you which do you
Speaker 6: enjoy more?
Speaker 7: Playing live? We're making records.
Speaker 4: I like recording. I'm a recording guy always. I'm not
Speaker 4: I'm not doing a tour, but that's mostly because of
Speaker 4: health stuff. But you know, they got to replacement for
Speaker 4: me lately. But I think Debbie probably both maybe I don't.
Speaker 4: She gets off on doing the shows a lot. I mean,
Speaker 4: I like to doing the shows. I always love doing
Speaker 4: the shows. But I just I've been doing recording ever
Speaker 4: since I was a little kid man, I was screwing
Speaker 4: around with you know, old wall and sack reel to
Speaker 4: real recorders and stuff like that, and I would always
Speaker 4: have a TA four track that if I could beg
Speaker 4: borrow or steal. So, I mean, that was just part
Speaker 4: of my life, is doing recording. I love the laptop,
Speaker 4: digital stuff, go sit in logic for hours and tweaking stuff.
Speaker 3: Does the music creative decisions start with the two of you?
Speaker 3: Or is it an actual democracy in which it's it's
Speaker 3: the six of you?
Speaker 2: Sort of?
Speaker 4: You know, it's a monarchic democracy.
Speaker 3: So aggressive, Yeah, I mean, what do you guys think? Okay,
Speaker 3: this is what we're gonna do.
Speaker 4: So yeah, I mean I always managed to get up
Speaker 4: a lot of by that time we had been I
Speaker 4: mean I okay, So the only song that we before
Speaker 4: we recorded it, I knew it was going to be
Speaker 4: a hit as tight as High, I mean the other ones,
Speaker 4: I really didn't. I wasn't sure, but I knew if
Speaker 4: we could pull up a decent recording of Titus High
Speaker 4: that it was, it would be successful.
Speaker 2: Were you a fan of the Paragon's original or.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the original? Yes, the originalist Godhead and probably the
Speaker 4: only reggae song I ever heard that as a violin
Speaker 4: in it from that period, which is amat so the
Speaker 4: horn lines are based on the violin line.
Speaker 2: This is we have to figure out.
Speaker 3: There's about nine mammoth songs in E minor that that
Speaker 3: come out in uh you know the first the first
Speaker 3: half of nineteen eighty nine Mammoth Dance Floor of Rockers
Speaker 3: in in E minor. I will ask this much, was
Speaker 3: was good Times that much of an influential song that
Speaker 3: it's almost like was it unavoidable? Because you know, when
Speaker 3: I asked some of these people, when I when I
Speaker 3: ask you know, the other artists question, someone will say, like,
Speaker 3: you know, like sometimes you just so consciously go there
Speaker 3: without purposely trying to go there, whereas like you know,
Speaker 3: Brian may may confirm or may not confirm that another
Speaker 3: one by the Dust was exactly what's our version of
Speaker 3: good Times?
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, rapture was totally homage to shake, Okay, No,
Speaker 4: I just wanted to know there no question about it.
Speaker 4: I was totally thinking of that the whole The baselines
Speaker 4: is the first thing that came up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was that was an extremely that was an
Speaker 3: extreme radical thing to do, like you know, of all
Speaker 3: the songs in your catalog.
Speaker 2: That was super super risky. Could you just talk about
Speaker 2: how does hip hop reach you as a New Yorker, Like,
Speaker 2: were you aware of what was happening in the Bronx
Speaker 2: or yeah?
Speaker 4: We No, I really wasn't that aware. We'd heard rappers
Speaker 4: to lie, you know, on the radio, a couple of things.
Speaker 4: But then we hooked up with Freddy and Freddie I
Speaker 4: guess it was seventy seven took us up to this
Speaker 4: event at a police athletic league up in the Bronx,
Speaker 4: and that was that was like just this eye opening experience.
Speaker 2: You know, it was wait, what year did you meet? Five? Five? Freddy?
Speaker 4: Probably seventy six or seven?
Speaker 2: Oh damn, okay, long time ago.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I've gone over the date with him
Speaker 4: trying to figure out what did what day, what year
Speaker 4: that was, and he thinks seventy seventh was who When
Speaker 4: we went up to this thing.
Speaker 3: One of my all time well, I won't say great
Speaker 3: punishment stories. Was kind of like a fistfight that almost
Speaker 3: got into with my cousin because you know, at this
Speaker 3: point it's it's, uh, the summer of nineteen eighty one
Speaker 3: and he's singing like, we're we're I don't know where
Speaker 3: we're coming from. We were coming from like my grandmom's house,
Speaker 3: us walking from the corner store and going back home.
Speaker 2: And he's singing to himself and he's like, you know.
Speaker 3: Any in my mother, fast as fast, fast as fast,
Speaker 3: fast as fast, that's as cool.
Speaker 2: And I was like, wait, why do you repeat that
Speaker 2: three times?
Speaker 3: And he's like, because that's how the song goes, flashes fast, flashes, fast,
Speaker 3: flashes fast.
Speaker 2: I said, no, it doesn't, she says.
Speaker 3: And so basically, my cousin never heard of Rapture, and
Speaker 3: I never heard of the Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on
Speaker 3: the Wheels of Steel, which, for hip hop historians is
Speaker 3: basically the first time that the world is hearing what
Speaker 3: cutting and scratching is. Like, you know, Grandmaster Flash goes
Speaker 3: in the studio and he does his seven minute open
Speaker 3: format demonstration of the records of the day, you know,
Speaker 3: takes Cheeks, good Times and Apache and and Rapture and
Speaker 3: you know, just just the part songs of the moment
Speaker 3: and does a demonstration of what scratching is. You know,
Speaker 3: because for most hip hop records, you know, you'd have
Speaker 3: to get a band get keithleb Blanc or whatever to
Speaker 3: redo the breaks and whatnot because technology wasn't there yet,
Speaker 3: and so you know, of course I'm my level of
Speaker 3: know it all snobbery, you know, I'm so angered. Like
Speaker 3: he then knew he could get my goat, so he
Speaker 3: would just sing it like anytime he just want to
Speaker 3: fuck with me, he'd just be like fastest, fast flashest,
Speaker 3: fast flashes, fast, flash and flash, and then.
Speaker 2: We just you know, and then you know, we got
Speaker 2: put on punishment.
Speaker 3: So you know at the time, like for you, were
Speaker 3: you shocked at the reception? Were you nervous about it?
Speaker 3: Or for you was it just like this might be
Speaker 3: filler on the album, or like, yo, this shit's gonna
Speaker 3: go to number one.
Speaker 4: Frankie Kroch or was it ma major components in that.
Speaker 2: I forgot that's it.
Speaker 3: It goes to Paradise Garage, it's going to Frankie Crocker,
Speaker 3: then it's going to the world.
Speaker 2: Okay, he was.
Speaker 4: He was a big supporter, and then we were eternally grateful.
Speaker 3: Yeah, man, at that moment, did you realize you were
Speaker 3: seeing a revolution at the time or was it just
Speaker 3: like no, because.
Speaker 4: You know, it's funny what you said earlier about being
Speaker 4: a fan, because I talked I was up there with
Speaker 4: all these record company guys and people on the inside
Speaker 4: of the industry, and nine percent of them all said, Oh,
Speaker 4: it's it's a fad, it's going to go away.
Speaker 5: Said they said that. They said that about punk too,
Speaker 5: you know, that was their favorite thing to say, you know.
Speaker 5: And and the other thing was, so you know when kissed,
Speaker 5: when every time that there was a technological advancement or
Speaker 5: you know update, you know, say ah, you know, it's
Speaker 5: not going to last. It was that was a big
Speaker 5: thing to say, it's not going to last.
Speaker 3: One of the first thing I did when I started
Speaker 3: working here at at thirty Rock, which, of course you
Speaker 3: know where the Tonight Show is and SNL and all
Speaker 3: these like legendary shows. There's a giant database system that's
Speaker 3: hooked up to all of our computers. So any episode
Speaker 3: of SNL I want to watch, what like, you can't
Speaker 3: get it on YouTube, but I can sit here for
Speaker 3: days go through the archives. How hard was it for
Speaker 3: you guys to actually broker that deal so that the
Speaker 3: Funky four plus one gets on.
Speaker 4: The real hard aspect of the Funkies being on the show,
Speaker 4: was trying to get them.
Speaker 2: To scratch and yeah, I was going to say.
Speaker 4: I couldn't get it done. And even it was a
Speaker 4: moment when they even got a limousine and sent through
Speaker 4: them uptown to get a cable. You know, that didn't work.
Speaker 4: They just couldn't get it done. They went onto a
Speaker 4: tape and then they also went on the crawl at
Speaker 4: the end of the sh oh you know under the
Speaker 4: credits right it still but you know, I'm a sure
Speaker 4: Rock is still by many considered the first female rapper,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: So yeah, well now that that that to me was
Speaker 3: a credible co sign because you know, they were, to
Speaker 3: me like the epitome. And you know, the fact that
Speaker 3: you didn't see female mcs that much and and and
Speaker 3: they could have been like, hey, go with someone to
Speaker 3: go with flashing them or go with the sugar Hill Gang.
Speaker 2: And the fact that you guys saw that.
Speaker 4: We were buddies with those guys. I hung out with
Speaker 4: Rodney for many years, you.
Speaker 2: Know, legnend Darry Rodney.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so get into it. So, how how did you
Speaker 3: meet with Charlie Ahern and uh, your involvement with Wild Style.
Speaker 3: Are you shocked at all? That suddenly not even suddenly,
Speaker 3: well I'll say that a good fifteen years after you
Speaker 3: create these tracks, that suddenly, like they they do become
Speaker 3: sort of like a staple of hip hop culture at least,
Speaker 3: like us using those breaks for real, not just for
Speaker 3: the purpose of Yeah no.
Speaker 4: No, no, no, I'm shocked. I mean I I what I
Speaker 4: what I did was aware of when I told Charlie
Speaker 4: at the time was you know, as soon as this
Speaker 4: thing comes out, there's gonna be one hundred Hollywood movies
Speaker 4: like this, and like Beets Street was like immediately there after,
Speaker 4: like a bigger budget version, you know, but uh now
Speaker 4: it was. It was great. It was just all people
Speaker 4: that we worked with. It was part of the TV
Speaker 4: Party emailue, that whole thing, you know. I mean think
Speaker 4: I think Lenny plays drums on some of that stuff.
Speaker 4: He was in the TV Party orchestra.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say, who's who's the other the Blondie
Speaker 3: guys are not playing on that.
Speaker 4: Right, No, it's no, It's just I came into the
Speaker 4: studio with my old Roland synth guitar and put tracks
Speaker 4: on top of what was already had been recorded, which
Speaker 4: was space and drums and then Freddie did like those
Speaker 4: sound effects of like like razors and all kinds of
Speaker 4: weird stuff that he did. So the drums I might
Speaker 4: be lending. I'm not sure. You got to ask Charlie
Speaker 4: on this. I never you know, I never got together
Speaker 4: with I did that. I did those tracks with Kaz,
Speaker 4: and I only met Kaz like three years ago for
Speaker 4: the first time, you know, really yeah, yeah, oh wow.
Speaker 4: And that one track that I did with Kaz, I
Speaker 4: tried to sink synthesizers up to the scratching by just
Speaker 4: taking the line out of the one of the out
Speaker 4: of the out of the scratching track and hitting the
Speaker 4: putting it into the voltage controlled input of the SIN.
Speaker 4: So that actually is happening on I don't even know
Speaker 4: if that's been done sin. It's a little chaotic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was about to say, that's very primitive level
Speaker 3: of uh yeah.
Speaker 2: Of making that stuff. Who who has the master tapes
Speaker 2: to those sessions, Charlie.
Speaker 4: I guess he's in control that whole thing. I might have.
Speaker 4: I might have copies up in the tapes. I'm not sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was about to say, down by law, it
Speaker 3: might be like one all time.
Speaker 4: Everybody, everybody gravitated towards that, and it was so smart
Speaker 4: that they pressed up vinyls and gave them out to
Speaker 4: the people who were doing the shows that were being filmed, right,
Speaker 4: they all gravitated towards that one track too.
Speaker 3: I was going to say, like, how many copies of
Speaker 3: those instrumentals were made initially?
Speaker 4: I don't know, twenty to fifty.
Speaker 2: Maybe, oh, okay, okay.
Speaker 4: So then you know it's been repressed and be released
Speaker 4: on like a white label thing that's like simulates the
Speaker 4: I mean, I had guys I would go to the UK,
Speaker 4: I would go I had guys come up to me
Speaker 4: and beg me for copies the originally.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, I think like they reprinted them at
Speaker 3: least the instrumentals, like uh, you know, around like nine four.
Speaker 3: So yeah, but for the longest, you know, I couldn't
Speaker 3: find any of those things.
Speaker 4: And it was the basketball throwdown sequence is like the
Speaker 4: greatest goddamn thing to this. It's it's so it's never
Speaker 4: been done since, you know, and they did a lot
Speaker 4: of takes to get that, but it's you know, you
Speaker 4: can find it on YouTube. It's just awesome.
Speaker 3: Hey, uh, dev I wanted to ask about your your
Speaker 3: first solo Alley Uh working with now.
Speaker 2: You did? Uh backfired and cuckoo cuckoo. Yes.
Speaker 3: Could you talk about the process of making it, like
Speaker 3: had you always wanted to do your own solo stuff?
Speaker 5: Or oh, well, I think it became apparent. You know
Speaker 5: that we, you know, I guess, had divergent interests, you know,
Speaker 5: with the blondie format and as you know in the
Speaker 5: record industry, as you well probably know that, you know
Speaker 5: a lot of times the labels reject you know, you're changing.
Speaker 5: And you know, Chris and I were, you know, we
Speaker 5: liked a lot of different things, and we especially liked
Speaker 5: Chic you know, we liked Nile and Bernard and uh
Speaker 5: Donna Summer. So you know, I guess we just got
Speaker 5: to know. I got to know Nile a little bit.
Speaker 5: Bernard was a little more quiet. Nile was I was
Speaker 5: out there, you know, he was very social and yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 5: So one.
Speaker 4: Of the first times we met him, he was going
Speaker 4: on about how much he loved EVO, which was you know,
Speaker 4: and he said to this day he says he was
Speaker 4: didn't know much about rap music and that we were
Speaker 4: the ones who introduced him. So I that seems strange
Speaker 4: to me.
Speaker 2: That he's the proprietor of right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's there's that's that's a common
Speaker 3: story where you know, when he was alive, I'd always
Speaker 3: tease Prince about the fact that, you know, Prince Prince
Speaker 3: is very is a very famous uh lurker on the internet.
Speaker 3: You know, would often kind of irol proverbial irol whenever
Speaker 3: I talked about, you know, his diamonds and pearls gangster
Speaker 3: rap period, you know, with the gun mic and all
Speaker 3: that stuff, and you know, I would tell him all
Speaker 3: the time that you were actually more hip hop when
Speaker 3: before you were wrapping on purpose, you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: because everything about him was you know, was that it
Speaker 3: was you know, he's drum programming, he was ghost writing,
Speaker 3: you know, he was making up his own groups and
Speaker 3: had aliases like everything that was hip hop, even down
Speaker 3: to like the women that he chose and marketed, like
Speaker 3: all that was that was the blueprint that hip hop
Speaker 3: built itself upon, you know what I'm saying. And so
Speaker 3: oftentimes I just find it weird that the second that
Speaker 3: he becomes aware of hip hop, then that's sort of
Speaker 3: like that's where it got weird. But he was to
Speaker 3: me on hip hop before he sort of became aware
Speaker 3: of it. So you're telling the story of now rogers
Speaker 3: like really not being into it even though the irony
Speaker 3: of the good times thing? Can you speak upon like
Speaker 3: the circumstances after eighty two and the band wanting to
Speaker 3: take a break. Was it just because you guys were
Speaker 3: just on a ten year stretch by that point you
Speaker 3: just needed.
Speaker 4: Up on drugs. I got really sick. I had this
Speaker 4: lung protracted illness, just all kinds of crap. What's going on?
Speaker 4: You know, our finances went to shit. We've got you know,
Speaker 4: we were got victimized in a lot of places. You
Speaker 4: found out this account we had the two years we
Speaker 4: made the most money, didn't pay our taxes, just trying
Speaker 4: to get us at the tax shelters. So ke, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's just a standard show business bullshit, you know.
Speaker 3: You know at this point when you're celebrating, uh, your
Speaker 3: entire history, Like for you, what's the what's the biggest
Speaker 3: lesson that you've learned?
Speaker 4: Oh geez, well there's a lot, you know, just relax
Speaker 4: for yourself, don't trust anybody, you know, just the basic stuff.
Speaker 4: And it's all gonna sound so cliche.
Speaker 3: We we love cliches on the show, like because to me,
Speaker 3: it's about the creative process, but it's also about you
Speaker 3: know what, what have you learned in hindsight?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: I mean, I just love the fact that you saved
Speaker 3: all those demos. Yeah, I for one wasn't too sentimental
Speaker 3: with the demo. I was smart enough to not throw
Speaker 3: them away. But now it's I'm going through the painstaking
Speaker 3: process of just going through trash bin after trash beIN
Speaker 3: after it because I know, like in ten years, I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have to, yeah, make some make some sort of
Speaker 3: sense of it. So can you just talk about the
Speaker 3: process of finding these things?
Speaker 4: And that was long and arduous, you know. I just
Speaker 4: we did the the last Blendy album we had at
Speaker 4: the Magic Shop and Steve There, you know the place
Speaker 4: where Bowie did Black Star, you know, his last He
Speaker 4: did his last two records there, and phenomenal amount of
Speaker 4: stuff came out of that place, and so we really
Speaker 4: liked the last band to record there. And Steve there
Speaker 4: has the record tape salvaging company also, you know, he
Speaker 4: bakes the tapes and all that stuff, so that that
Speaker 4: was easy. We just I just I turned it over
Speaker 4: to him. And our manager Tommy over other thing. And
Speaker 4: you know, I would get these millions of little fragments
Speaker 4: on dropbox and listens of stuff and go, yeah, it's
Speaker 4: school whatever, et cetera.
Speaker 6: So, Chris, what was like the coolest thing that you
Speaker 6: found in the archives person you know, like personally to you,
Speaker 6: where you were, where you were excited about what you found.
Speaker 4: Did we have a version of the of Moonlight Drive
Speaker 4: by the Doors that we recorded in the studio while
Speaker 4: we were doing either the first or second album, which
Speaker 4: is really great, But they whoever was sitting in the
Speaker 4: control room didn't hit record at the top of the song,
Speaker 4: so they they did a job. They did a good
Speaker 4: job coming in afters after the first movement. But and
Speaker 4: it's you know that I don't know that I was
Speaker 4: aware that that existed even but that's out there.
Speaker 7: Well, and that's on the box set.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's on the box. Yeah, it's a very cool thing.
Speaker 7: Did you fade it in on the box set or
Speaker 7: did you just started?
Speaker 4: It starts? It starts with some drums, but you know,
Speaker 4: it misses the whole little intro section, first first verse. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 4: fired him.
Speaker 3: It's cool though, Yo, could you briefly talk about so
Speaker 3: one point, you guys were gonna work with Georgio Moroder.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, Georgio didn't want to put up with the
Speaker 4: band bullshit and all the ego mania and us having
Speaker 4: to play things one hundred times to get it right
Speaker 4: and all that stuff. He's like, he just wants to
Speaker 4: go in there and get it done.
Speaker 2: Want and done.
Speaker 3: So you're saying that your your process is more meticulous
Speaker 3: in terms of like wanting to do because you guys
Speaker 3: are super tight as a band.
Speaker 2: I was going to ask, like.
Speaker 4: No, no, I it's quite the opposite. The opposite we were.
Speaker 4: We were sloppy and we'd have to go over ship
Speaker 4: a lot to get it done. I mean by you know,
Speaker 4: after a while. By now people have their skills honed.
Speaker 4: But in the early blondie days it was pretty funky.
Speaker 3: Well I mean, you know, I mean the way that
Speaker 3: you execute it call me at least, uh, you know,
Speaker 3: I you guys were air tight by then, you know.
Speaker 4: So yeah, but call me. Call Me has a lot
Speaker 4: of Georgia's session guys on it, as well as the band,
Speaker 4: you know, I mean, Clem's on there for sure. Okay,
Speaker 4: I'm not even one hundred percent on who's what in
Speaker 4: that track?
Speaker 3: Okay, I see, but I do want to know in closing,
Speaker 3: just where are you now as far as like creativity
Speaker 3: is concerned and still well, we just.
Speaker 4: Finished the twelfth record with John Congleton and that was
Speaker 4: that's very exciting. It's a little it's it's a little
Speaker 4: more raw than the previous one. I'm listening to the
Speaker 4: mixes coming back. It's great. I'm excited to get it
Speaker 4: out in the world.
Speaker 2: When when you uh, when do you propose that that
Speaker 2: will be? Uh, next year?
Speaker 4: Next year?
Speaker 6: Okay, I have a final question question you don't mind? Yes,
Speaker 6: it's it's kind of I ask a lot of people
Speaker 6: from your generation, especially that their vinyl record collections from
Speaker 6: from your past, you still have your your.
Speaker 4: I still haven't, but I don't I you know, I'm
Speaker 4: happy to listen to digital stuff at this point that
Speaker 4: you know, it's like digital. I do a lot of
Speaker 4: photography still, and I'm not going to go back to film,
Speaker 4: if you know. I mean, I like film. It's nice,
Speaker 4: but it's also kind of it's kind of like a fetish.
Speaker 7: But you still have returned, Yeah, but.
Speaker 4: I haven't put anything on it in ten years or whatever.
Speaker 4: You know. Yeah, you guys appear.
Speaker 7: Sorry, Steve. It's nice that he still has his collection.
Speaker 7: You know a lot of people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, no, I got playing stuff. I got Charles Manson's record,
Speaker 4: I get the first pressing.
Speaker 2: Really yeah, Okay, what.
Speaker 4: Was I watched? I was just watching some dumb TV
Speaker 4: show and they closed with a Charles Manson song? What
Speaker 4: the heck was that? I can't remember? Yeah?
Speaker 2: But for you, okay, So for you, what's what's in
Speaker 2: your your top five records of all time?
Speaker 4: Oh? Man, well that's a lot. You know what John
Speaker 4: Faye is?
Speaker 2: I know John Fay.
Speaker 4: Yeah, John Fay like superhero me. I saw him play
Speaker 4: and talked to him briefly. Top five beyond that, just
Speaker 4: you know, standard stuff, what you consider, you know, bowl
Speaker 4: your records? Like I was at Studio fifty four and
Speaker 4: when James Brown did have a double Yeah I saw
Speaker 4: I saw one of those shows.
Speaker 3: It's funny you say that for James Brown fans, I
Speaker 3: will personally say that the thing that I mind most
Speaker 3: about James Brown is that he doesn't know mediocrity.
Speaker 2: So either either he will be.
Speaker 3: The the the height of perfection or it's it's the
Speaker 3: worst shit ever.
Speaker 2: And as a kid. As a kid, I.
Speaker 3: Remember saving like seeing James Brown live at Studio fifty four,
Speaker 3: and you know, this is when I'm first starting to
Speaker 3: discover breakbeats and everything.
Speaker 2: So I was like, oh, man, look at the cover.
Speaker 2: He's sweating. It's going to be real good. I brought
Speaker 2: it home and I was like, ah, this is the worst.
Speaker 4: So I was one. I was at one of those shows.
Speaker 4: I don't know if it was the one that are
Speaker 4: on the record, but they kind of remember it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Live and fifty four. Well, you know, Chris, I
Speaker 3: want to thank you. We we had a technical difficulty
Speaker 3: and we lost and.
Speaker 4: She fell out. She got lost in the ether. But
Speaker 4: any anyone want to get together and bullshit, I'm be
Speaker 4: happy to also my pleasure.
Speaker 3: Yes, definitely, you're You're a legend and I appreciate us.
Speaker 3: So on behalf of Sugar Steve.
Speaker 2: And I'm paid bill in my ear and fan take
Speaker 2: a lott.
Speaker 3: This is Quest Love of Quest Love Supreme, and thank
Speaker 3: you Chris and Debbie for going over your history with
Speaker 3: us and we really appreciate it and we will see
Speaker 3: you next time the next go round of Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: All right, West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
Speaker 2: For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app,
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