Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is musician promotion man A and R
Speaker 1: man manager Phil Carpson. Hello, good evening and welcome. Okay,
Speaker 1: how'd you sign a c d C? I signed a
Speaker 1: c d C in It was luck, as most things
Speaker 1: are in the A and R business. And I don't
Speaker 1: care who tells you differently. It's ninety five percent luck
Speaker 1: of being in the right place at the right time
Speaker 1: and five percent knowing that what is put in front
Speaker 1: of you might be worth something. And such was the
Speaker 1: case with a c d C. I was running Atlantic
Speaker 1: Records outside of America at the time, and so you
Speaker 1: have the whole world other than America, whole world of
Speaker 1: America at that time. You remember how many offices were there, Well,
Speaker 1: the only Lantic office is where Los Angeles and New
Speaker 1: York and mine in London. But we had distribution throughout
Speaker 1: the world through w E A. Right. But did did
Speaker 1: you have any people, I mean, like, did you have
Speaker 1: somebody in Sydney? No, we had. We had a label
Speaker 1: manager in Cynema, but but he was not employed by Atlantic.
Speaker 1: He was employed by the distributor, by our owned distribution company,
Speaker 1: which is w e A right? So you got after
Speaker 1: when it was already you got in it was already
Speaker 1: brianched distribution, but I interrupted. You told me the story.
Speaker 1: Well we're getting into that in a minute, because it
Speaker 1: was not quite the case. But you know, we go
Speaker 1: back to that. So the story of a C d
Speaker 1: C is this. I'd signed a band called Backstreet Crawler,
Speaker 1: and Back Street Crawler was put together by Paul Kozov, who,
Speaker 1: as you know, was the guitarist in Free, in that
Speaker 1: wonderful guitar solo in all Right Now and Here, put
Speaker 1: a band together and actually done a tour and recorded
Speaker 1: a one live show which I heard and I thought this,
Speaker 1: this is fabulous. When he's done is fabulous. So you know,
Speaker 1: I signed the band and I was in the project
Speaker 1: and I just felt it missed a tiny little something
Speaker 1: and it needs I thought it needed some keyboards in
Speaker 1: the mix. So I tracked down this guy that occasionally
Speaker 1: played for the Who Do You Put the Crazy? Played
Speaker 1: in the Free and later he played in the Who
Speaker 1: Buzz Bundrick Rabbits. Yeah, so you know, I'm trying to
Speaker 1: find where the fund can I find this guy? You know?
Speaker 1: So I've called around all the studios and eventually I
Speaker 1: found that somebody calling me. I said, oh, well, he's
Speaker 1: managed by this Australian girl, you know. So I got
Speaker 1: in contact with this young woman. Her name was Coral Browning,
Speaker 1: and Coral in those days, she maybe twenty three or
Speaker 1: twenty four. So she comes into my office and she
Speaker 1: is dropped dead gorgeous Coral, and you know, really so
Speaker 1: it's very nice. But she was so professional, you know.
Speaker 1: She we made the deal for to record on these tracks.
Speaker 1: And then she said to me, she said, I hope
Speaker 1: you don't think this is unprofessional of me, but can
Speaker 1: I talk to you about something else? Well, she could
Speaker 1: have talked to me about. So she brought out a
Speaker 1: thing that I've never seen before and certainly never seence
Speaker 1: since it looked like a briefcase and it opened up
Speaker 1: like a briefcase, but in the Jaws, so to speak,
Speaker 1: a screen pop down. This is before the age of videos,
Speaker 1: so it was a back projection machine that ran Super
Speaker 1: eight with with audio and it was it was. It
Speaker 1: was a C d C doing a long way to
Speaker 1: the top. I caught it almost every day, So people
Speaker 1: don't realize that today's era, it's truly a long way
Speaker 1: to the Oh yeah. So anyway, she plays me this
Speaker 1: thing and and she always reminds me. I stopped it
Speaker 1: halfway through. I said, stop, I said, just tell me
Speaker 1: again about this bad She said, well, you know, my
Speaker 1: little brother manages the band from Australia and at that time,
Speaker 1: and I said, who gave nobody cared what happened in
Speaker 1: Australia the easy Beats, you know, by the way, one
Speaker 1: of the easy Beats was it turns out the brother
Speaker 1: of a young brother, so of which there are many.
Speaker 1: So I said, look, he said. She said. This is
Speaker 1: a record contany called Alberts, and they're pretty big over
Speaker 1: there and a CDC are doing really well, to the
Speaker 1: point where they want to get signed. So they've given
Speaker 1: me a budget to bring the band to England. And look,
Speaker 1: I've already set up these dates. And she gives me
Speaker 1: this list of dates with all the opinion making places
Speaker 1: around London, and she said, well, perhaps you'll you'll come
Speaker 1: and see them. I said, I don't know. I said,
Speaker 1: what if I signed him now? And we'll we'll call
Speaker 1: your little brother on the phone and let's see we
Speaker 1: can get this done. And then the record company can
Speaker 1: still send them over, but I'll put them on a tour.
Speaker 1: In fact, I'm going to put them on the Backstreet
Speaker 1: Crawler tour to open the Backstreet Crawler. So it says
Speaker 1: you can do that. I said, I can do that.
Speaker 1: So we called Michael Browning and I made the deal
Speaker 1: for a c d C over the phone, which is
Speaker 1: a matter of records. I'm not giving you any unknown
Speaker 1: information here, but I signed a c d C for
Speaker 1: dollars per album delivered finished and how many albums, Well,
Speaker 1: it's an interesting question because I signed them with the
Speaker 1: options and I said, okay, we want three albums a year,
Speaker 1: and we want four options after the first year. So
Speaker 1: your math will tell you. That was a fifteen album
Speaker 1: deal which turned out to be the most profitable record
Speaker 1: deal in the history of the music business. The last album,
Speaker 1: which was sold by Atlantic to Sony, was sold for
Speaker 1: ten million dollars. Now this was before the days when
Speaker 1: I and our people got a piece of the action.
Speaker 1: But you know when it started to do when Art
Speaker 1: and bought me up Bentley, So I was thankful for that.
Speaker 1: But okay, well, Richard Griffith's he was the agent. He
Speaker 1: tells a story of of course, Paul Kossof dies on
Speaker 1: the way to do the gig. That's right, he did,
Speaker 1: and then he says a CDC decided to play anyway,
Speaker 1: and he said they were like five people in the
Speaker 1: audience and when they played, those five people left and
Speaker 1: they thought because they did the whole thing with Angus
Speaker 1: on the shoulders whatever. Sure, and he said they called
Speaker 1: everybody they knew for the second set totally four it's
Speaker 1: more or less true than what happened. We obviously had
Speaker 1: to cancel the actual Paul, but so we set them
Speaker 1: up in some pubs around London and it was incredible.
Speaker 1: It caught far really quickly, and then they're doing the
Speaker 1: marquee and it's all moving along. And you know, I
Speaker 1: compiled the first album from their two first Australian records,
Speaker 1: High Voltage and whatever whatever, right, whatever it was, and
Speaker 1: that that's what made the first A c d C
Speaker 1: album had six tracks each each record. So, now, did
Speaker 1: you stay with a c d C as their representative
Speaker 1: at the label all through their career there? Sure? Yeah, Okay,
Speaker 1: so the question becomes, uh, dirty Deeds is not released
Speaker 1: in America when it's when it's recorded correctly, So what
Speaker 1: was the company's viewpoint on the act. At that point
Speaker 1: in time, the and our department hated them. Okay, they
Speaker 1: said this they're going nowhere. This is a derivative album,
Speaker 1: and you know we're passing. Fortunately I managed to intercept
Speaker 1: it before the drop notice went out, but that took
Speaker 1: a little while to do. So we actually did lose
Speaker 1: one album out of my fifteen because of that decision.
Speaker 1: But you know, nobody thought they were going anywhere. And
Speaker 1: of course what happened later on, many years later, after
Speaker 1: we've made Back in Black, Um, I got a call
Speaker 1: from Doug Morris, who was by then president of Atlantic, saying, look,
Speaker 1: you know we want to release we found we don't
Speaker 1: have We never put this album because I put it
Speaker 1: out in Europe, by the way, uh, and we're gonna
Speaker 1: put it out now. And I remember saying him, are
Speaker 1: you crazy, because what are you going to do? You're
Speaker 1: following a Brian Johnson vocal with a Bond Scott vocal.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, but look, it's towards the end of
Speaker 1: the year. We've had a great year. You know this
Speaker 1: is going to infect effect all our Christmas bonuses. I said,
Speaker 1: it will, no doubt do that, Doug. But what it's
Speaker 1: going to do is create a new sales plateau for
Speaker 1: a C d C. He said, what do you mean.
Speaker 1: I said, we look at the time, we sold five
Speaker 1: million back in Blacks, and he said, we're going to
Speaker 1: do two million with this worse way. I said, you're right,
Speaker 1: we'll do two million, but you'll never have an A
Speaker 1: C d C album again that does more than two million.
Speaker 1: And I was pretty well right on that. Okay, let's
Speaker 1: dig a little deeper. So the last album with Bond
Speaker 1: Scott is produced by Mutt Lang. How does that come together?
Speaker 1: John Kalodna, We then enjoy, you know. And John was
Speaker 1: really here and I used to work a lot together
Speaker 1: on making these kind of decisions. And he had seen
Speaker 1: what Matt had done with a with a group called Tycoon,
Speaker 1: which was an Atlantic release, and he and Jerry Jerry Greenberg,
Speaker 1: Jerry Greenberg thought that this would be a very good
Speaker 1: mix to put together and it turned out to be
Speaker 1: to be magic. Actually. Okay, now, Back in Black still
Speaker 1: to this moment, one of the great albums of all
Speaker 1: time for those about to rock, didn't live up to
Speaker 1: that level artistically irrelevant of sales. Let's think about it
Speaker 1: that you know, Dirty Deeds came out in the middle,
Speaker 1: so suddenly you've got a confused audience. Who's the singer
Speaker 1: of a c d C. Is it this new guy
Speaker 1: from Newcastle or is it this great bare chested rock
Speaker 1: and roller bond Scott. You know, it was confusing. So
Speaker 1: we did do two million with with and then we
Speaker 1: did two million with for Those About Rock, which I
Speaker 1: thought was a pretty good album. Had Doug not made
Speaker 1: that monumental error, a c d C would have really
Speaker 1: kept going at that kind of level, but it took
Speaker 1: the steam out of it. And then after Those About
Speaker 1: the Rock they had a couple of albums which didn't
Speaker 1: do that work. Flicking with a Switch, Fly on the
Speaker 1: Wall were not particularly good. They also made an internal
Speaker 1: mistake they took Brian Johnson out of the writing mix.
Speaker 1: One of the reasons that Back in Black did so
Speaker 1: well was his kind of slightly tongueing, tongue in cheek lyrics,
Speaker 1: which with anybody else could be cheesy, but with him
Speaker 1: they worked really well. They touched a nerve in America
Speaker 1: and all over the world, and at that album now,
Speaker 1: I think it's something like twenty five million. That album
Speaker 1: was done, Okay, some people I won't mention their names,
Speaker 1: but closely involved said a lot of that music was
Speaker 1: written before barn Scott died. Is that true? Back in Black?
Speaker 1: Back in they had some riffs that that is absolutely true. Yes,
Speaker 1: it is true, But the actual lyrics and the melodies
Speaker 1: that went on them was really the work of Brian
Speaker 1: and of course mate Langer. I okay, and then I
Speaker 1: didn't know that Brian was that involved on the lyrics
Speaker 1: at that point. How did you were you involved in
Speaker 1: finding Brian? I was They had met Brian finally enough
Speaker 1: at a show in Newcastle years ago in a club
Speaker 1: after an A C d C show, and bon Scott
Speaker 1: arrived at their table and said, if anything happens to me,
Speaker 1: this is your right. And because he was then in
Speaker 1: a group called Jordan, which you know doing doing pretty well.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I was involved in making the deal for
Speaker 1: him to join A C d C with I think
Speaker 1: Peter Men should taken by then, who did an amazing
Speaker 1: job with the A C D. So then he got fired,
Speaker 1: well yeah he did. Whether he fell foul of the
Speaker 1: Young's eventually. I mean it's not for nothing that they're
Speaker 1: called the brothers Grim Okay, how'd you get your job
Speaker 1: with Atlantic Records. To begin with, Uh, it's very interesting. Really,
Speaker 1: I've actually left the music business for a while and
Speaker 1: I was actually in the supermarket game. What then, that
Speaker 1: begs a question, So you're you grew up where in London?
Speaker 1: In London when your father do for a living? I
Speaker 1: would say your mother, But at that point usually women
Speaker 1: didn't tend to work. They said, my mother did not work.
Speaker 1: My father was with with with a tea company, and
Speaker 1: my uncle was with a small supermarket company. So everybody said, well,
Speaker 1: the food business is great, so you've got to get
Speaker 1: in there. So I first of all them joined the
Speaker 1: lines before we go. How many siblings? Brothers and sisters? None?
Speaker 1: Now you're the only kid. Hey, well they've achieved the ultimate?
Speaker 1: What do you want? So do you think they only
Speaker 1: wanted to have one kid? I told them they couldn't
Speaker 1: have any more at that point. Okay, okay, but a
Speaker 1: lot of times you're the only kid, you know, you're
Speaker 1: coddle the hopes and dreams or story after story. Rick
Speaker 1: Rubin was an only kid. What was it like? Were
Speaker 1: your parents very accepting of you? Or you were a rebel?
Speaker 1: I was not a rebel. I went to I did
Speaker 1: pretty well at school, you know, so I was in
Speaker 1: I was destined to kind of university. But you know,
Speaker 1: I caught the bug. You know, in England we got
Speaker 1: this perverse way of school works. It's not the great
Speaker 1: system that you guys have a good English school. You
Speaker 1: go right up to the age of nineteen. They call
Speaker 1: it the sixth form. There's two years in the sixth form,
Speaker 1: which are probably good is four years in American university.
Speaker 1: I hate to say that, it is true. So I
Speaker 1: did not go into the sixth form. I left before
Speaker 1: simply because the boys in the sixth form and a
Speaker 1: rock band and as as a skiffle band. Actually, because
Speaker 1: before you're are we in okay, long before the Beatles.
Speaker 1: It was before the Beatles. Lonnie darn again, all that stuff.
Speaker 1: Lonnie Donegan certainly was around. Yeah, it was rock Island
Speaker 1: Line and all those great songs and this little acoustic
Speaker 1: guitar band and when they were taking a break and
Speaker 1: pick up their guitars and plays away. So eventually I
Speaker 1: decided that, you know, I wanted to play music while
Speaker 1: I was still at school and the easiest job. I
Speaker 1: wasn't a great guitar player, but then I realized that
Speaker 1: a bass guitar, Sandy got four strings, so it's a
Speaker 1: little easier to articulate four strings and six. So I
Speaker 1: bought a bass guitar and kind Hofner Okay, just not
Speaker 1: the same as Paul mcconny, but another model of And
Speaker 1: that was how I started and joined the local band.
Speaker 1: Funny enough, the local band I was in was based
Speaker 1: in Southeast London, where all the great guitar players came from. Really,
Speaker 1: so not when you know this, but Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Page, Mit Green, who was an amazing guitar player
Speaker 1: in a band called Johnny kin and the Pirates. Was
Speaker 1: that Peter Green related to Peter Green? No, Mick Green.
Speaker 1: You've got to check out. I mean, Johnny Kinning Parks
Speaker 1: never made it here. We read about it in English
Speaker 1: stress right, Yeah, but if you listen to that group,
Speaker 1: they so those three and uh, Mr Green, who do
Speaker 1: you personally think is the best. I've got to give
Speaker 1: it to Jimmy Page really, Although I love Jeff Beck's style,
Speaker 1: I mean he's incredible. I mean he plays with no pick.
Speaker 1: I saw him in concert recently and he did something
Speaker 1: just on harmonics. It was what was that damn song?
Speaker 1: It was a big old standard of it's time. Judy
Speaker 1: Garland was in the movie what's the famous movie? Oh,
Speaker 1: you're talking about over the Rainbowl? Exactly over the rainbow
Speaker 1: they were. I wasn't too far out of anyway. He
Speaker 1: played that song on harmonics. I don't think he played
Speaker 1: like a regular note. It was all harmonics. I'm listening
Speaker 1: to this guy. Oh my god, what a player. Well,
Speaker 1: I think he's the best player. Obviously Jimmy could write
Speaker 1: and produce the Jeff couldn't. That's right. But okay, so
Speaker 1: you're playing with this band. It's a skiffle band. I no,
Speaker 1: by then, I sort of that was the school band.
Speaker 1: But by then I bought a bass guitar. It was
Speaker 1: an early rock group. You know. We just we covered
Speaker 1: all the gene vincent things that that's okay? Was that
Speaker 1: your only job? No, it's still at school. But you
Speaker 1: didn't go to sixth form. I did not. I left
Speaker 1: it when I was just seventeen, okay, So I was
Speaker 1: doing that since I was fifteen, okay, And did the
Speaker 1: breast of the band also leaves school? Well, they I
Speaker 1: was not at school with the rest of them. That.
Speaker 1: Actually I joined a group that was already already going,
Speaker 1: you know, So could you make a living working for
Speaker 1: absolutely not. That was just like a semi pro little band,
Speaker 1: you know. But I got the bunk, you know, I
Speaker 1: thought I wanted to play and okay, so did you
Speaker 1: have a day job. I didn't have a day job
Speaker 1: at that point. No, I was still at school. I'm
Speaker 1: telling you, let's but what out of school at school
Speaker 1: and you're playing in the band. You have it? Your
Speaker 1: parents say, hey, you gotta a bike. I got a
Speaker 1: litt if. I got a job for a little while.
Speaker 1: I wanted to be a rocket scientist. I really did.
Speaker 1: So I got a job at the Air Ministry in London,
Speaker 1: which lasted about I don't know, four or five weeks,
Speaker 1: and I was in English. People love an acronyms. Acronyms,
Speaker 1: you know that said it was Sam for two Ways,
Speaker 1: Scientific Advisor to the Air Ministry. I loved that. So
Speaker 1: so there I wasn't there, and somehow I can't even
Speaker 1: remember how I got to offer to join a group
Speaker 1: called the Londoners. The Londoners was a seminal English band.
Speaker 1: This was I guess when was that nineties sixty sixty two. Okay,
Speaker 1: the Londons that had just come back from Hamburg and
Speaker 1: they were really on it. They were really happening band.
Speaker 1: You can read about them. I don't think they made
Speaker 1: a couple of records in Hamburg. They yeah, they didn't
Speaker 1: make it at all here, but I heard the name. Yeah, Well,
Speaker 1: so I joined this band. And my grandmother, who had
Speaker 1: been a showgirl in the early part of the twentieth century,
Speaker 1: says to me, she said, well, look though she was
Speaker 1: a show bises lady and her my aunt, who was
Speaker 1: a daughter, you know, it was also in the in
Speaker 1: the show business, says She says. You know what guitar?
Speaker 1: What what guitar? Do? Player said, when I play a
Speaker 1: half in a bass guitar show, I don't know what
Speaker 1: a bass guitar is? What is I said, well, it's
Speaker 1: like a bass Okay. He said, well, what's the best one?
Speaker 1: I said, well, Fender Precisions is going to be the
Speaker 1: best one. She says, you were, just go and get one.
Speaker 1: I'll pay for it. Said why you know how much
Speaker 1: they are? They are a hundred and twenty five pounds,
Speaker 1: you know, which She's right, about two hundred dollars. So
Speaker 1: she says, yeah, just go and get it. You know.
Speaker 1: I said, wow, thank you, and she the you needed
Speaker 1: one of those box things that goes with you know
Speaker 1: that thing. So you didn't hear I said, what he has?
Speaker 1: It's an ample, Like what's the best amplifier? So now
Speaker 1: I'm no, I'm gonna roll. I said, well, it's a
Speaker 1: Fender basement amplifier. You know, nobody had a Fender basement app.
Speaker 1: I mean I've seen one in the shop window in
Speaker 1: Charing Cross Road and it was the bee's knees. Now
Speaker 1: you've got to realize, back in those days, the first
Speaker 1: question when you call up for a job as a
Speaker 1: musician was what you've got? Okay, Fender base, Fender base,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, okay, good. If you had a van, you've
Speaker 1: got you've got the gig without even playing. So but
Speaker 1: I didn't have a van at that point, but I
Speaker 1: did get the gig, and I wasn't a bad base player.
Speaker 1: I wasn't bad, okay, but a little bit slower. If
Speaker 1: Londoners were happening, how do you get the gig? Do
Speaker 1: you know? I honestly don't remember. It must have been
Speaker 1: a phone call or something. Musicians used to hang out
Speaker 1: those days in charing Cross Road in London, and there
Speaker 1: was a particular store where it was the birthplace of
Speaker 1: a lot of bands. It was Jennings Music Store. That's
Speaker 1: where they were the Vox distributor, Vox Aunt districtor, and
Speaker 1: down says they had a basement. I mean back in
Speaker 1: those days, I was actually in a band with Jeff Beck.
Speaker 1: It lasted nearly all day, so but you know, we're
Speaker 1: still friends and we were jamming down. Then we're going
Speaker 1: to start a band together. I remember driving around London
Speaker 1: looking for particular musicians to join this band, but it
Speaker 1: never went past that. Okay, well I'm getting more of
Speaker 1: a fuel. Okay, so you joined the Londoners and you
Speaker 1: weren't that going a bass player. What happens next, well
Speaker 1: that the Londoners were a really strong band. I mean
Speaker 1: they really great players. They were one of the first
Speaker 1: mans to start playing Ray Charles music, for example. So
Speaker 1: the only place people like to hear what they had
Speaker 1: to offer actually with the American basis around around England.
Speaker 1: So that's where we played a lot. And you know,
Speaker 1: you're playing like three sets a night, and it was
Speaker 1: it showed me what you had to do. And then
Speaker 1: I saw an ad in a in a melody make
Speaker 1: I think it was which as the old English paper
Speaker 1: bass player wanted to join vocal group. I can't sing
Speaker 1: for ship, but still I'll phone up and it turns
Speaker 1: out it's a group called the Springfields, okay, which is
Speaker 1: in those days it was Dusty Springfield and brother Tom
Speaker 1: and Mike Hurst. Mike Hurst went on to produce early
Speaker 1: Cat Stevens records. So you know, the same conversation, what
Speaker 1: do you play with sender base? So but this time
Speaker 1: there was an audition which I passed and I joined
Speaker 1: the Springfields and that was fantastic. I mean they had
Speaker 1: two hits right then, that Islander Dreams and say I
Speaker 1: won't be there, and we're playing all these big places,
Speaker 1: well big two thousand seat package tours, you know in England.
Speaker 1: I think it was pretty much the same in America.
Speaker 1: But they used to have these package tops that would
Speaker 1: go out and I remember doing them with Del Shannon,
Speaker 1: Johnny tillottson. I mean, these were happening names of that time. Okay,
Speaker 1: let's stop for a second. Yes, what are the Londoners
Speaker 1: say when you're gonna quit? I can't repeat that in
Speaker 1: I mean the band was sort of grinding to a halt,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you. I mean they didn't like
Speaker 1: doing these American bases. They couldn't get work anyplace else.
Speaker 1: They were thinking of going back to Hamburg. But that
Speaker 1: boat kind of sailed by. Okay, did you play on
Speaker 1: those Springfield hits or these? Were they already released? They've
Speaker 1: already released by the time I was just a touring
Speaker 1: Musicis you understand? And now you're on tour with all
Speaker 1: these people. Are you the type who ingratiates and becomes
Speaker 1: friends with all the musicians or you stick to yourself?
Speaker 1: Now I was out there, you know, I was, you know,
Speaker 1: you gone great with Johnny Tillotson. Terrific guy, sort of.
Speaker 1: I was in touch with him for years, actually know,
Speaker 1: And it was it was like a family. These tours
Speaker 1: are put together and they last, I don't know, three
Speaker 1: to five weeks or whatever it is, and you become
Speaker 1: a family, you know, and you're all traveling in the
Speaker 1: same transport. By're on a bus, you know, but not
Speaker 1: like sleepers. It's like a regular bus and Del Shannon
Speaker 1: will be up there or Johnny or whatever the other
Speaker 1: people we were playing with, and it was It was
Speaker 1: pretty exciting, you know. So how long did it last
Speaker 1: with you in the spring Fields? Just a matter of months.
Speaker 1: And when they told me they were going to break
Speaker 1: up in the city in sixty three. I joined in
Speaker 1: sixty two and they why were they going to break up?
Speaker 1: Because Dusty was going to go Dusty wanted to go
Speaker 1: solo and she had some she she fell in love
Speaker 1: with R and B music, you know what had happened.
Speaker 1: They had gone to Memphis before I joined them to
Speaker 1: record an album and she sort of fell in love
Speaker 1: with R and B music while she was there, and
Speaker 1: that she saw herself getting involved in that line of music.
Speaker 1: The interesting thing is, you know, so I know the
Speaker 1: band's going to break up, right, So Mike her sister, people, hey,
Speaker 1: let's get a band together. Oh great, Mike, yeah we will.
Speaker 1: The next day, Dusty said, would you come and be
Speaker 1: my musical director? I said, I'm sorry, I just promised, Mike.
Speaker 1: You know you're day late. So, to cut a long
Speaker 1: story short, that Mike Hurst band never played a day
Speaker 1: and Dusty went on to be Dusty Springfield. Well, okay,
Speaker 1: so you didn't realize she was going to be Dusty
Speaker 1: spring No, I knew she was gonna, I mean she was.
Speaker 1: You've got no idea, Okay, were you What was it like?
Speaker 1: Did you have a crush on Dusty Springfield? Actually she
Speaker 1: was a very attractive young woman, I got to tell you.
Speaker 1: But you know, and we used to hang out a
Speaker 1: lot together, you know, frankly it was but it was
Speaker 1: just fun. I mean that right, certainly, never I spect
Speaker 1: a kind of bit of Okay, So she gets another
Speaker 1: musical director, you're with my cursed that doesn't go with nowhere,
Speaker 1: absolutely nowhere. So now I'm stuck with my Fender basement
Speaker 1: and Fender basement amplifier and Vendor precision based guitar and
Speaker 1: nowhere to go. So I start looking for other jobs.
Speaker 1: And because I've been with the Springfields, okay, which was
Speaker 1: a high hope, high profile, think, I was kind of
Speaker 1: sought after, you know, scilly because I had the offender
Speaker 1: base and Defender basement. At this point, with all this work,
Speaker 1: you must be getting better. Oh I was certainly getting better,
Speaker 1: but you know, I mean, you'd Jack Jaco Pastorius were
Speaker 1: not up, not quite up at all. I mean in
Speaker 1: later years in a way after this happens because when
Speaker 1: I joined Atlantic, the guys in Zepplin. Knew I was
Speaker 1: a musician. They used to let me play with them.
Speaker 1: But where I having John Paul Jones to go over
Speaker 1: and play keyboards and I will play bass and they
Speaker 1: do some old rock songs. They've always very kind to me.
Speaker 1: They did things which have just been three or four
Speaker 1: chord changes, and that was. This is in rehearsal on
Speaker 1: stage stage, come on. And the interesting is I say
Speaker 1: this all the time. John Paul Jones could played better
Speaker 1: bass with his feet the batles of a Hammond organ,
Speaker 1: and I could ever manage. I mean, you listen to
Speaker 1: since I've been loving you, the unbelievable baseline that's on
Speaker 1: the Hammond. You know, he's just a monster musician. So
Speaker 1: really I know I knew and made the right decision
Speaker 1: because with players there, well that's just I remember myself.
Speaker 1: But we all played guitars after the beatles, and I
Speaker 1: went to my friend's house side the cheap Japanese guitar.
Speaker 1: He had an E S three thirty five, and he said,
Speaker 1: now we're going to change keys, and I said, I'm out.
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, okay, I get you. So the hearse
Speaker 1: biand goes nowhere, nowhere, right, so I joined who the
Speaker 1: first one I joined was Houston Wells and the Marksman.
Speaker 1: I mean, I know you know that name well, okay,
Speaker 1: So just to refresh those who have not heard of
Speaker 1: Houston Walds and the Marksman. It was a English country
Speaker 1: band which was could have been destined to go nowhere
Speaker 1: except they had recorded with Joe Meek, the legendary Joe Meek,
Speaker 1: who was really the first independent producer of note, and
Speaker 1: they made a record Cad Only the Heartaches, which was
Speaker 1: a country song and it was a hit and before
Speaker 1: I joined and they had recorded it, so it was
Speaker 1: a huge hit. So then now we're off doing package
Speaker 1: tours with Houston Walds and the Marksman, supporting groups like
Speaker 1: Billy J Kerryman, The Dakota's, Johnny Kid and the Pirates,
Speaker 1: the Beatles. We supported the Beatles on their first tour
Speaker 1: of Scotland. We were actually second on the bill to
Speaker 1: the Beatles. See in those days, the pecking order of
Speaker 1: where you were on the set was dependent on where
Speaker 1: you were in the chart, and we had a big record.
Speaker 1: I mean we were like chucking up thirty in on
Speaker 1: the chart. Before they must have been higher up than
Speaker 1: us because obviously they were the Beatles by then, but
Speaker 1: we actually kept them off number one in Ireland for
Speaker 1: a week. You know. It was a big Okay, I
Speaker 1: remember when Beatlemania happened in America. Yes, what was it
Speaker 1: like in the UK? At what point did you realize
Speaker 1: this was just not another band? Oh boy? I mean
Speaker 1: the night the first night, on the date of the tour,
Speaker 1: I was sort of mouth almighty of the Houston Worlds
Speaker 1: and the marks. We would start with an instrumental okay,
Speaker 1: and we're we're wearing sort of country looking gear, you know,
Speaker 1: and we're so we're up there and we'll playing this
Speaker 1: thing called guitar boogie shovel, which is a straight kind
Speaker 1: of twelve bar blues, and I'll get to the end
Speaker 1: of it and we'd start the the riff of the
Speaker 1: next song, you know, and it would be me that
Speaker 1: would do. Good evening, ladies and gentlemen, how you're doing
Speaker 1: out there? I now like to bring on the star
Speaker 1: of our show, Houston World. Well, that introduction was fine.
Speaker 1: When we were headlining the night in Glasgow, it didn't
Speaker 1: go down so well because I did my thing. Hey,
Speaker 1: I now like you to see the star of our
Speaker 1: show and the audience went Houston Worlds, and so he
Speaker 1: walked onto total silence. He didn't like that very much.
Speaker 1: Very That's when I knew the Beatles owned by the way.
Speaker 1: By then, I did have a van by them, and
Speaker 1: it was a white van and it was exactly the
Speaker 1: same as the Beatles van. So we're trying to get
Speaker 1: out the gig. People think we're the Beatles and the
Speaker 1: band's being rocked. So that's when I knew how big
Speaker 1: the Beatles were. Okay, but musically, of course. The first
Speaker 1: records came out in sixty two, yes, and it didn't
Speaker 1: as I say. First, I Want to Hold Your Hand
Speaker 1: was released the very end of sixty three in America.
Speaker 1: She Loves You would come out earlier on Swan, but
Speaker 1: no one had heard it. So when this stuff starts
Speaker 1: to come out and everybody's there's a monoculture, everybody's listening
Speaker 1: to the same radio show, etera, etcetera. When was it,
Speaker 1: really when did the Beatles sort of take over the scene?
Speaker 1: It was sixty three in England for sure. I mean
Speaker 1: they were this tour. I can't remember what month it was,
Speaker 1: to be honest with you, but by then they were
Speaker 1: really rocking you know they were happening, so then were
Speaker 1: you were fair? Oh? I thought they were terrific. You're
Speaker 1: kidding me. I do remember one actually had that same
Speaker 1: thing in Glasgow. Nobody had Rhodes in those days, including
Speaker 1: the Beatles. They have one guy, so you know they
Speaker 1: were there. They were on the side of the stage
Speaker 1: and we were directly under them, so we were going
Speaker 1: right before the Beatles, so they're they're checking us out.
Speaker 1: And because you carry your own bloody amplifier onto the
Speaker 1: stage and so you get oh notes, the appli was
Speaker 1: already there, but you've got your guitar and my lead
Speaker 1: in my head. Suddenly, just before we're going on, my
Speaker 1: guitar lely crumbles and you know why America accord accords
Speaker 1: exactly exactly, so it Paul McCartney's hey, Paul man, can
Speaker 1: I borrow your cord? Sure? And he lends me the
Speaker 1: guitar chord and the funny thing about That's the only
Speaker 1: into action I had with Paul McCartney until years later
Speaker 1: when I made a movie about Sun Records and there
Speaker 1: was a documentary and I wanted Paul to do That's
Speaker 1: all right, Mama, with Scotty Moore and d j Fontana
Speaker 1: Elvis's guys, which he you know. I got a hold
Speaker 1: of his manager and he said, look, I know who
Speaker 1: you are. You ran Atlantic for years, I mean everybody.
Speaker 1: I mean it was in London, everybody. I was there.
Speaker 1: But so he says, did you do you know? Paul?
Speaker 1: I said, well, you know, and he made him once
Speaker 1: and told him this story, said put that in the
Speaker 1: letter you like, and he did. You know, he agreed
Speaker 1: to do this this thing with us, did but he
Speaker 1: didn't remember giving he did. He didn't remember that. Of course,
Speaker 1: of course they just wonder. You never know, things like Okay,
Speaker 1: so you're playing and they have a hit with the
Speaker 1: country styled act and what goes with what happens? Well,
Speaker 1: we did another record with Joe Meet, which I was on,
Speaker 1: and I mean just recording with Joe Meet was an
Speaker 1: incredible experience. So what was it like, Well, it was
Speaker 1: there's days before multi track had been invented, right, So
Speaker 1: he had two I p s interest Brisono machines and
Speaker 1: he would bounce tracks from one to the other. So
Speaker 1: he would build a song, you know, by simply bouncing
Speaker 1: tracks back and forth. And would he do that all
Speaker 1: on the same day or would he mix after you left?
Speaker 1: He mixed after we left. But by the time he
Speaker 1: got to the end over dub, it was pretty done.
Speaker 1: Because you can't actually go back. If you're using that principle,
Speaker 1: you're going to go back one or two generations. So
Speaker 1: but he would the band would basically do the track
Speaker 1: live and he would would do it many times and
Speaker 1: he'd eventually get it right. It was in a tiny
Speaker 1: little it was above a leather goods store in northeast London.
Speaker 1: It was like a two room apartment. It was intense
Speaker 1: and the equipment was just these two machines and a
Speaker 1: mix of which was a rotary knobs on. It very unsophisticated,
Speaker 1: but he got the sounds, you know, and then the
Speaker 1: last thing he would do put the vocal on and
Speaker 1: that was it. But the second record went nowhere. Okay,
Speaker 1: but at this point in time, there's beatle Mania. Sure
Speaker 1: not longer after that people say, oh, I can make
Speaker 1: a lot of dough doing this. Yes, was that somewhere
Speaker 1: of the dream, No, because at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: the next tour that we did with Houston Wells was
Speaker 1: with Billy J. Cramer and the Dakotas, and I think
Speaker 1: Johnny Kidd was on that. So by then this the
Speaker 1: Mersey Beat thing had erupted and they're all the foremost
Speaker 1: Siller black you know, we too, We tour with all
Speaker 1: those people because in this short window where we had
Speaker 1: a big hit, we were something a little bit different
Speaker 1: to the Brian Epstein crew, which was the main fodder.
Speaker 1: So we just would come in and do our little thing.
Speaker 1: So how does it end with that? Badly? You know?
Speaker 1: It was Houston World's got too big for his boots.
Speaker 1: I didn't like him. I started a revolution and then
Speaker 1: I find it was a revolution of one. So I
Speaker 1: got the sack from Houston, Wales and the marksman who
Speaker 1: then disappeared into oblivion. So it didn't really matter. But then,
Speaker 1: because then I've been in the Springfields Houston worlds, and
Speaker 1: I still had my offender base, offender base and a
Speaker 1: van now okay, and I joined a group called the
Speaker 1: Lawn Gibson Trio, which of course you've never heard of.
Speaker 1: They they had they were a country band as well,
Speaker 1: and they had one hit in England called Some Do
Speaker 1: Some Don't. And they also had a radio series, believe
Speaker 1: it or not, it's called Side by Side with the
Speaker 1: Lawn Gibson Trio on BBC Radio, and each week we
Speaker 1: would do record a show and it would be us
Speaker 1: and another man, Wayne Fontana, and the I made vendors
Speaker 1: Um the Beatles were on that show with us, you know.
Speaker 1: So that lasted a little while. I can't quite remember.
Speaker 1: By then, I was about nineteen, and I'm getting and
Speaker 1: I'm not making any money, by the way, longer to type,
Speaker 1: still living at home. He is still living at home,
Speaker 1: you know, coming in late at night, and it's not
Speaker 1: going down that well. And by then my uncle had
Speaker 1: really started moving a little bit up the chain in
Speaker 1: the supermarket business. So he said, look, you know, I
Speaker 1: can't bring it. The companies too small to bring you
Speaker 1: in now, because but if you go and learn the
Speaker 1: business somewhere else, you know, then we can put you
Speaker 1: in there. He eventually, by the way, became chairman of
Speaker 1: safe Way Europe. So wow, okay, he was really in
Speaker 1: the supermarket. He really was. In fact, he tried to
Speaker 1: buy a safe Way with the leverage buy and that's
Speaker 1: the kind of guy he was. So anyway, so I
Speaker 1: get a job with another supermarket and one day the
Speaker 1: guy who was with a salesman for Maxwell house coffee
Speaker 1: and of course birds Custard that you know well came
Speaker 1: into you know, take the weekly order, and he's got
Speaker 1: a guy in a nice suit with him and I'm
Speaker 1: on the floor pricing up cans of beans or something,
Speaker 1: you know. So the guy in the nice suits, we've
Speaker 1: heard a lot about you. You're one of the youngest
Speaker 1: supermarket managers in London. I said, well, yeah, I suppose
Speaker 1: i am. He says, um, well, we've got a training
Speaker 1: program that General Foods and I only usually hire university graduates,
Speaker 1: but you're now about the right age, and do you
Speaker 1: want to join it? And I joined General Foods and
Speaker 1: I was there for almost four years, and it was
Speaker 1: really changed my life, actually because I then completely stopped playing.
Speaker 1: I didn't even pick the guitar up again. My actually
Speaker 1: my precision base got stolen. I remember that so really
Speaker 1: disheartened me. And I went and thought, I'm going to
Speaker 1: do this. And I was in the General Foods product
Speaker 1: development group and doing marketing and setting up sales campaigns
Speaker 1: and this, that and the other, and uh that's that
Speaker 1: led to the next job in a very perverse manner,
Speaker 1: which I shall tell you. The General Feros was based
Speaker 1: in those days up in Birmingham and we were having
Speaker 1: a sales convention in London, and I remember this marketing director,
Speaker 1: the guy that had hired me, said, look, I'm getting
Speaker 1: fed up with the elitism that exists between the salesforce
Speaker 1: and the marketing group. We're all in this together and
Speaker 1: we're going to go. We're having this convention in London,
Speaker 1: and I want each of you to take out a
Speaker 1: group of salesmen. Remember I thought, isn't that a bit elitist? Right?
Speaker 1: But I didn't say anything, so listen. So I got
Speaker 1: my little group of salesman through a four guys, you know,
Speaker 1: we're all in suits, and I take them to a
Speaker 1: restaurant in Barkley Square. Now I could have walked back
Speaker 1: to the hotel we were staying at ten different ways, okay,
Speaker 1: but for some reason I chose to walk back through
Speaker 1: South Molton Street and which is just off Oxford Streep,
Speaker 1: and we walked out there. S anyways, it's a recording
Speaker 1: studio there that i'd recorded him, and I said to
Speaker 1: this group of salesman, any of you guys ever been
Speaker 1: in a recording studio? And the unsurprising answer was no.
Speaker 1: So I said, I just ring the bell, says everybody
Speaker 1: I know now Barry in mind, it's a good three
Speaker 1: years since I had recorded anything, So I ring the bell.
Speaker 1: There's this Swedish engineering there that I would work with
Speaker 1: called dag Fiona and he was a designer of desks,
Speaker 1: is quite well known in London at the time. So
Speaker 1: he said, oh, well, come on up, you know, coming up.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm just finished off and mixed with this
Speaker 1: Swedish band. So this was what in when did I do? That?
Speaker 1: Must have been sixty eight, yes, sixty eight. So I
Speaker 1: got up there and there's this Swedish group. He's just
Speaker 1: in the mixing stage and the manager is there and
Speaker 1: Dad introduces me to the manager from what I was,
Speaker 1: and the managinon looks at me in a suit with
Speaker 1: these three from Bosos, is what what are you doing?
Speaker 1: What are you doing like that? So I told him.
Speaker 1: He said, well, you know, I want to start a
Speaker 1: record label when you join me. I said okay. Because
Speaker 1: he was a very wealthy Swedish guy, knew who he was.
Speaker 1: His name was orker Erhard Larson and he had a
Speaker 1: record company called Olga Records, which was doing incredibly well
Speaker 1: in the four markets of Scandinavia and the group he
Speaker 1: was in there finish out the recording with was called
Speaker 1: the Hep Stars, which were massive in those markets. I
Speaker 1: mean they had two sets of equipment and they would
Speaker 1: play two places in the day outdoor vessels in the
Speaker 1: very short summer of but they were really big. I
Speaker 1: mean they were selling more records in the Beatles in
Speaker 1: those days. So I agree to join this guy and
Speaker 1: we've start selling Olgor, start trying to market Olga Records
Speaker 1: in England, and I made a distribution deal with the
Speaker 1: M I. But it was impossible. I mean, they had
Speaker 1: some great stuff, but it was just impossible to get
Speaker 1: it off the ground. But you know, by then, you know,
Speaker 1: they noticed me a bit at E M I and
Speaker 1: who were distributors of so many American labels at that
Speaker 1: point before the days when the American labels had their
Speaker 1: own companies. So they introduced me to MGM. So I
Speaker 1: switched from Olga Records to MGM at a great moment
Speaker 1: because that was when Stanley Kubrick was finishing up two one,
Speaker 1: and I actually worked with him on setting up the marketing,
Speaker 1: you know, for two thousand and one, and he was
Speaker 1: absolutely terrific. I mean, my god, what a detail oriented
Speaker 1: chap he turned out to be. But you know, that
Speaker 1: was a good moment for me there, and that lasted
Speaker 1: about six months, and then I started to get these
Speaker 1: calls from this guy called Frank Fenter, and you know,
Speaker 1: he's a South African but he's sort of really very
Speaker 1: hip kind of guy. And he said, man, you know,
Speaker 1: I'm leaving Atlantic Records to go and join the phil Walden.
Speaker 1: We're going to start a record label. We've got this band,
Speaker 1: the Almond Brothers, but they need someone here and heard
Speaker 1: a lot about you, and you know, my my boss
Speaker 1: wants to talk to you. I said, well, okay, But
Speaker 1: by then I kind of got fed up with the
Speaker 1: music business and I've taken an interview with McCann ericson
Speaker 1: right the advertising, and I got the job as a
Speaker 1: count director for two products, Danish bacon they still make
Speaker 1: good bacon, mind you, and Lure Pack butter, which is
Speaker 1: also Danish. They were there were sort of premium brand
Speaker 1: leaders and I was going to be the account director
Speaker 1: for those two brands. Big job, and it was well
Speaker 1: paid for its time too. It was I was going
Speaker 1: to get three and a half thousand pounds a year
Speaker 1: and a company car. To put into perspective, my father,
Speaker 1: who was still at Line's d at this time, was
Speaker 1: an area sales manager with four or five guys working
Speaker 1: for him, and he was making two and a half
Speaker 1: thousand pounds a year, so it was big deal. I'm
Speaker 1: account executive at a big agency is a big deal
Speaker 1: to this day. So I agree to take the job.
Speaker 1: And then I started getting these course from Frank Fender
Speaker 1: and then from this guy form with an unpronounceable name
Speaker 1: that sounded something like no Whosi who Ertie Gertney. So
Speaker 1: it turns out to be a course nessa we heard
Speaker 1: again And I'll never forget that meeting. You know, I
Speaker 1: had to show up in my suitain time. And it's
Speaker 1: at Clarridge's Hotel in London, and he's got a nice
Speaker 1: suite in there, and he's very total gentleman, right, I
Speaker 1: don't The Urticans were fabulous people, but we've talked more
Speaker 1: about that in a moment. But here there he is
Speaker 1: in there's magnificent suite, and he tells me that he's
Speaker 1: heard a lot about me and that he knows I
Speaker 1: was a musician. By the way, Dusty has been signed
Speaker 1: to Atlantic in the interim. So he says, and we
Speaker 1: know you played for Dusty and we're like, you know.
Speaker 1: We talked a bit and he offered me the job
Speaker 1: that this guy was just vacating. I said, I don't
Speaker 1: think so he said why. I said, well, I'm nothing
Speaker 1: like that guy. I'm a marketing guy. It's what I do,
Speaker 1: it's what we want. We want marketing. I said, you know,
Speaker 1: I've taken a job. You know. He says, what. I
Speaker 1: tell him what it is and he said. He looked
Speaker 1: at me in astonishment. He said, you mean you're going
Speaker 1: to turn down Atlantic records to work for a fucking
Speaker 1: he can come. I said, it's not quite like that,
Speaker 1: but you know, yes, I'm turning it down. He said,
Speaker 1: what they paying you? We've got a little bit of
Speaker 1: bright heat going on here. I said, they're paying me
Speaker 1: three and a half thousand pounds and a company car.
Speaker 1: He said, I'm going to do something I've never done before.
Speaker 1: I'll double that. No company car, and don't you dare
Speaker 1: ask me for a race for two years? I mean,
Speaker 1: what can you do? That's how I started. I never
Speaker 1: knew Armored at that time. It was just ness, weary
Speaker 1: and me. Next week by then was head of international
Speaker 1: and the jazz department was what he was reponsible for.
Speaker 1: So I joined Atlantic in uh k In is one
Speaker 1: of the first Zeppelin album comes out. The first had
Speaker 1: been had just been released when I joined, and they
Speaker 1: were working on the second one. So that was when
Speaker 1: I came in, and you know, I thought, oh good,
Speaker 1: this is a great opportunity for me to show what
Speaker 1: I can do. And you know, it was he when
Speaker 1: with the design process of the cover and you know,
Speaker 1: and so forth, and Jerry Greenberg, who is the president
Speaker 1: of Atlantic then and gone to the band and got
Speaker 1: them to put out a whole lot of Loves edited
Speaker 1: version as a single. So I think that's great, this
Speaker 1: is a huge I'll schedule the single, which I do.
Speaker 1: I don't think I've actually met Peter Grant at that
Speaker 1: point either way, but I'm working on the record. I
Speaker 1: think we may have spoken on the phone, but that
Speaker 1: was it. So I put the single out, okay, and
Speaker 1: I get this call from Peter Grant manager Yeah, Phil Carson.
Speaker 1: It starts like that. He was a very heavy dude.
Speaker 1: I want you to come to my office immediately. Ps
Speaker 1: I coached this office and he says, you know, we
Speaker 1: don't want to single out. By then I'd chipped the
Speaker 1: damn thing. By the way, three and a half thousand
Speaker 1: of them. He said, you've got to get him back.
Speaker 1: I said, I'm not going to get him back. This
Speaker 1: is it. You know, I don't care. Jimmy Page doesn't
Speaker 1: care get him back. He ses, you want to phone
Speaker 1: your boss and ask him. So I called, aren't explained
Speaker 1: to her? Do what he tells you? So so I
Speaker 1: get these singles like so we were a bit daggers
Speaker 1: drawn Peter Grant right at the beginning. And by the way,
Speaker 1: I wish that when I got them back, I kept them,
Speaker 1: because you know what they're changing hands for it's like
Speaker 1: hundreds of dollars, but at seven inch anyway, I didn't
Speaker 1: keep them. I destroyed them. So that was how my
Speaker 1: first meeting with Peter. But we actually got to be
Speaker 1: very friendly. And it turns out he lived very close
Speaker 1: to where I was at school, and you know, we
Speaker 1: just we we built a rapport. And that was he
Speaker 1: that intelligent or was the band of that good? Or
Speaker 1: was he just a boy? No? No, actually it's all
Speaker 1: of those, yet so much more highly intelligent man could
Speaker 1: be a major Bully. The band was that good, and
Speaker 1: his mission in life was to let Jimmy Page be
Speaker 1: the creative genius that he is keep everybody else away
Speaker 1: from his band. And that's the way they went about it,
Speaker 1: because by the time I joined, the first own that
Speaker 1: already done pretty well in America, so that they were
Speaker 1: really expecting this the second record to come and it
Speaker 1: was it was going to be big, so that they're
Speaker 1: actually at that point where with Frank Barcelona, the agent,
Speaker 1: Premier Town and Premier Town, and that didn't last long
Speaker 1: because the band was so big they didn't need anybody else.
Speaker 1: And Peter saw what he had. He knew what the mystery,
Speaker 1: how he could create mystery by keeping people away. But
Speaker 1: by that time I got pretty friendly with them, you know,
Speaker 1: so I was I was on the road with them
Speaker 1: most of the time, and Peter quickly realized he had
Speaker 1: some bozo that he didn't have to pay that with
Speaker 1: all the work, you know. So that's how our relationship
Speaker 1: sort of flourished for the first few years there, and
Speaker 1: it was just a magic thing to be part of.
Speaker 1: And until the drugs kicked in, it was an amazing ride.
Speaker 1: I mean, being that close to Led Zeppelin was massive
Speaker 1: for me because I was the conduit to Atlantic. From
Speaker 1: from Atlantic to led Zeppelin, they wouldn't talk to anybody
Speaker 1: else except Armett, So it was you know, I was
Speaker 1: the man you know at that point. Then what about
Speaker 1: the stores coming seventy one? Well, Armett signed the Stones
Speaker 1: and yeah, it was at seventy one. I guess it
Speaker 1: must have been about Yeah, yeah, I was by then
Speaker 1: I was working more for Armett than necessary. Uh, you
Speaker 1: don't understand that the the the corporate culture of Atlantic,
Speaker 1: It was really no corporate culture. It was Jerry Wexler
Speaker 1: who was in the student and most of the time
Speaker 1: still clinging to the last vestiges of R and B.
Speaker 1: And there was Nessui, who by that time was setting
Speaker 1: up worldwide distribution, which I helped him with. I was
Speaker 1: actually on the board of most of the companies at
Speaker 1: the beginning, and Ahmett, who was signing everything English that
Speaker 1: could move. So I was in the right place at
Speaker 1: the right time, which leads me back to what I
Speaker 1: was telling you earlier about the luck factor of being
Speaker 1: an I n R. All these English bands wanted to
Speaker 1: be where a wreath had been, or was an otis
Speaker 1: had been, and Benny King had been and Ray Charles
Speaker 1: had been. They wanted to be on Atlantic Records. So
Speaker 1: the guy running Atlantic Records and have to look very hard.
Speaker 1: People were coming to me. So it was a very
Speaker 1: good people Atltic was not famous for rich dealsite it
Speaker 1: was absolutely the opposite. But we broke English acts in America.
Speaker 1: That's why they wanted to be there. So armed had
Speaker 1: made a deal with with with with Robert Steward. And
Speaker 1: also we were distributed then by Polydor, and so many
Speaker 1: of these the Stigwood artists were all on Polydor. So
Speaker 1: that's how that my office within Polydor at that time,
Speaker 1: and a lot of stuff was coming along. Armored had
Speaker 1: signed Yes by the time I joined the company, and
Speaker 1: we I thought Yes was a great brand, a great band, uh.
Speaker 1: And they recorded the first album yet we simply called Yes,
Speaker 1: right right, but that I think it's called Yes, and
Speaker 1: it has an incredible version of every little thing it does.
Speaker 1: That's right, yeah, it does. So they had a couple
Speaker 1: of cover versions on that album. Then they did Time
Speaker 1: and a Word, which was a total stiff in America. Well,
Speaker 1: they both were so no records. My dad has turned
Speaker 1: me on to the first one is that if I
Speaker 1: would tell everybody about it. Yeah, how funny. Well it
Speaker 1: still didn't, and neither did Time and a Word. But
Speaker 1: by then I was really working this band because I
Speaker 1: thought they were terrific, and we've sold quite a quantity
Speaker 1: of records within Europe. We had like a top five
Speaker 1: in Belgium, which meant maybe four thousand records. I mean,
Speaker 1: nothing to write home about. But like you said, the
Speaker 1: Atlantic deals were not rich deals anyway. So Atlantic dropped
Speaker 1: Yes after Time and a Word okay, and the drop
Speaker 1: notice went out and I called up Nessary as it man,
Speaker 1: we can't let this group go, you know, and he
Speaker 1: supported me, so I resigned. Yes, it's to start with
Speaker 1: the Yes album. That was what was a deal the
Speaker 1: same or words, No, it was pretty much the same.
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, they were desperate, they didn't want
Speaker 1: to get dropped. So when I called up and said, look,
Speaker 1: we're rescinding that the drop notice it was, it went
Speaker 1: down quite well. So we've made another Atlantic record style
Speaker 1: deal for VS. And the first record was was the
Speaker 1: Yes album at that point Brian Lane, yeah, he was
Speaker 1: not the manager before then. No, the manager before there
Speaker 1: was a guy called Roy Flynn who was the general
Speaker 1: manager of the industry, hang out the speak Easy and
Speaker 1: then what had Brian Lane done before? Um? Brian Lane
Speaker 1: before that was not known as Brian Lene was known
Speaker 1: as his real name is Harvey Freed, and Harvey Free
Speaker 1: was a known how can I put this delicately alterer
Speaker 1: of the charts? All right? So he people knew he
Speaker 1: could work a little magic by doing that, and he
Speaker 1: came along and I must say it was his idea
Speaker 1: to call it the Yes album, and really thought, what
Speaker 1: are people going to ask for? Right? So yes, let's
Speaker 1: call it that. So so we did. Um and Brian
Speaker 1: I came to know and love and hate Grin at
Speaker 1: the same time. I've always said he's a man that
Speaker 1: would could tell you a lie when the truth would
Speaker 1: be a positive advantage, right right, I know a couple
Speaker 1: of people. But nonetheless he did a good job, you know,
Speaker 1: and the man was incredible, And I used everything I
Speaker 1: knew to break them in America because the Americans didn't
Speaker 1: give a funk by this time. Okay, was Peter Banks?
Speaker 1: How did how did he leave the band? They fired
Speaker 1: him after the time and a word album and got
Speaker 1: Steve Howin they fired him and we made another record
Speaker 1: with him called Flash, which was good, and there was
Speaker 1: Badger too. Badger was Tony Cabe Tony Cabe and replaced
Speaker 1: by Rick Wakeman, not on the Yes album. Right came later.
Speaker 1: How did he get booted? Well? Tonyk is a great
Speaker 1: Hammond B three player, a really great Hammond be through that.
Speaker 1: Ritt Wolves or Wakeman has so much dimension. You know
Speaker 1: who you're going to get. See. It's an interesting thing
Speaker 1: here Atlantic records all of us that were that era,
Speaker 1: particularly with Jerry Greenberg, who I cannot say enough about. Okay,
Speaker 1: Jerry Greenberg was a fantastic leader of people. He was
Speaker 1: very young, he was like thirty two when he got
Speaker 1: the job running Atlantic, but he knew promotion. He actually
Speaker 1: understood what a hit was, how to get it, how
Speaker 1: to make it work as and a musician as well.
Speaker 1: By the way, he was a drummer. Well it's not
Speaker 1: really a musicians. He was a drummer. But so but
Speaker 1: the drummer is always a business guy. Yeah, that's sometimes
Speaker 1: it's true. That's the last thing a drummer says to
Speaker 1: his band before he leaves his Hey, guys, I've got
Speaker 1: a couple of songs. But that's another story. So he
Speaker 1: was the He was a great leader, so on I
Speaker 1: really really like working with and you know, I'm so
Speaker 1: sorry that when he decided not to do that job anymore.
Speaker 1: And he and I had such a partnership of record
Speaker 1: of recordings. So I digress. We're talking, okay, So when
Speaker 1: you're at Yes, are you an A and R guy
Speaker 1: who signs the ban Are you a marketing guy or
Speaker 1: you the guy goes in the studio and gives recommendations.
Speaker 1: Initially I was the marketing guy, and you know, we
Speaker 1: don't forget that. Ere when I first joined in sixty nine,
Speaker 1: we didn't have w e A internactionally, we were distributed
Speaker 1: through Metronome in in Scandinavia, PolyGram in England and Germany,
Speaker 1: different labels all over Europe. So my job was just
Speaker 1: cultivating those independent companies and make sure they worked on
Speaker 1: Atlantic records. So yes, it was marketing, but I was
Speaker 1: also there to spot English talent that we could sign
Speaker 1: just for America, because the deals would be even cheaper
Speaker 1: if we didn't do it for the world, because you
Speaker 1: only pay half as for the rest of the world.
Speaker 1: So that's what my job was. And as a musician,
Speaker 1: of course, you know, I was able to go into
Speaker 1: a studio and make recommendations. So when I say it
Speaker 1: was very much involved in the Yes album. In fact,
Speaker 1: the engineer that I introduced him to Eddie Offord, because
Speaker 1: Eddie was a tape op at that recording studio that
Speaker 1: I told you about the practical advision and one of
Speaker 1: the jobs I had before I joined the Atlantic. It
Speaker 1: was while I was still making records. This was before
Speaker 1: I tried General Foods. Actually was making cover versions for
Speaker 1: wal Wass of hit albums. And I had this tiny
Speaker 1: budget and I had to make an album in a night,
Speaker 1: a whole album. So I would book Eddie with the tapeop,
Speaker 1: but he was also a budgeting engineer, So I book
Speaker 1: advision studios from eight to ten for two hours and
Speaker 1: then eleven to one for two hours, okay, knowing that
Speaker 1: nobody's going to be there, Okay, So we were just
Speaker 1: I bought a reel of eight track. Eight track had
Speaker 1: just come out by then, and we had my own
Speaker 1: eight track tape. We put it on and we would
Speaker 1: make an album in a night. We did that, then
Speaker 1: he would mix it in a night too. Everything done
Speaker 1: finished in a night between eight o'clock and six am
Speaker 1: in the morning when the cleaners came in, and I
Speaker 1: had problem musicians, by the way, the top session players
Speaker 1: to get the tracks done and then we just well
Speaker 1: that's how mud Lang started to doing cover record. I
Speaker 1: think it is South America, South Africa. So okay, So
Speaker 1: when you so anyway, I knew. That's how I told
Speaker 1: you you Eddie, and I introduced Eddie to the band
Speaker 1: and he became the producer for years. Okay, So what
Speaker 1: were you involved in in that era Atlantic that was
Speaker 1: not successful that you thought was going to go Well,
Speaker 1: I'm going to tell you about, but can we tell
Speaker 1: you about a couple of the sex success I was
Speaker 1: going to go there, I figured, Okay, a couple of
Speaker 1: success right, Okay, well I suppose yet how I broke
Speaker 1: yes in America was because I was the guy that
Speaker 1: was taking Jimmy Page or Robert Plant, Scott Mooney you
Speaker 1: know for the hour long in New York City. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and then up in Boston w b C N with
Speaker 1: Edipus up there. So these guys became my friends. So
Speaker 1: I would be able to get new stuff with these guys.
Speaker 1: So they gave yes the time of day, and that's
Speaker 1: how that really started. Breaking because Atlantic was not interested.
Speaker 1: I've gone against the A and R. They dropped them,
Speaker 1: so now they're going forced to work them again. I
Speaker 1: mean Jerry Greenberg was extremely supportive, but the rest of
Speaker 1: them were not so supportive. But so you heard round
Speaker 1: About as a hit. I thought round About it was
Speaker 1: a great song. Okay. So then when they start to
Speaker 1: go off the rails, they do Tales from Topic, Graphic Oceans,
Speaker 1: they do the three that's two albums, then they do
Speaker 1: a three album live set. Were you supported of that?
Speaker 1: Were you telling them, well, this is too much? Well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's progressive music. You know in England is
Speaker 1: a hot? Was the hot the birthplace really a progress music?
Speaker 1: I kind of like what they were doing. And you
Speaker 1: talk about that three albums, that it was the biggest
Speaker 1: album in the history of our German record company, that
Speaker 1: German's love of three albums set for some reason. So
Speaker 1: you know, so there was no trying to talk them down.
Speaker 1: Will some more as a single or something like that.
Speaker 1: Not really obviously we wanted singles, but it wasn't to be.
Speaker 1: And of course eventually you know, the yes thing fell
Speaker 1: apart as well. It just okay, so how w when
Speaker 1: did you leave Atlantic Records. I left at the end
Speaker 1: of Okay, so let's go back. Okay. You had success
Speaker 1: with Yes, and then we were going to see another one.
Speaker 1: I signed Virgin Records to Atlantic. Wow, that's a big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. My then wife was running a TV show
Speaker 1: called The Old Gray Whistle Test, which is a legendar,
Speaker 1: legendary show, and her and the producer decided that they
Speaker 1: were going to put a piece of music on that
Speaker 1: someone had brought into them that day. And those days,
Speaker 1: this is really very early on. It's before videos. So
Speaker 1: this show had a DJ, had a live band in
Speaker 1: the studio and they would play new music. Where they
Speaker 1: put old film to new music was quite clever. Clever
Speaker 1: the way they did that. And then there's the producers
Speaker 1: worked out that any piece of film if fits any
Speaker 1: piece of music, eventually it was seen. So they had
Speaker 1: this old a lot of old film they used. This
Speaker 1: particularly one was an old skiing thing, you know. And
Speaker 1: you know, I was a bad boy in those days,
Speaker 1: you know, And I knew that Tuesday nights when the
Speaker 1: show was live, that was my date night because I
Speaker 1: know where I'm going to get caught. You girlfriend was
Speaker 1: in the studio, so She called me one Tuesday afternoon
Speaker 1: when i'm, you know, getting ready to go out, and
Speaker 1: she says, you have to come into the show tonight.
Speaker 1: You know, there's someone you really got to meet. He's
Speaker 1: bought in this piece of music and you've got to hear.
Speaker 1: And I didn't know what it was, and side going
Speaker 1: there and I'm astonished by this piece of music. And
Speaker 1: the guys she wanted me to meet was Richard Branson.
Speaker 1: So I made a deal with Richard on the spot.
Speaker 1: I signed Virgin Records for a hundred and twenty five dollars,
Speaker 1: you know, and they were with us for ten years,
Speaker 1: with Atlantic for ten years and too. And now this
Speaker 1: is the thing about this guy, Jerry Greenberg, who I
Speaker 1: know you've interviewed. So I said to him, look, I've signed.
Speaker 1: I know this is unusual. I've signed this album which
Speaker 1: is totally instrumental. He said, We've got no chance with
Speaker 1: that in America. I said, look, it's groundbreaking, trust me.
Speaker 1: So he gets to work. He says, you're right, it
Speaker 1: is fantastic. It sounds like a movie soundtrack. So I said,
Speaker 1: well that's a good idea. You know. He goes to
Speaker 1: Warner Brothers. The Exhortist had just been made, and the
Speaker 1: Exhortist soundtrack was cut, done with an orchestra as at
Speaker 1: great cost. He plays this or somehow someone who gets
Speaker 1: it to what's in a really freaking freaking and he says,
Speaker 1: that's going to be my soundtrack. That is how Tubular
Speaker 1: Bells broke totally down to Jerry Greenberg, right, And I
Speaker 1: think Atlantic, so like twenty million, there was something unbelievable
Speaker 1: figure out it was really incredible. Okay, And you're going
Speaker 1: to talk about a couple of missus, you have to
Speaker 1: go there yet, Okay, Well, Paul Kosos band was totally start.
Speaker 1: I suppose my biggest miss ever was the reconstituted Small
Speaker 1: Faces with Stevie Marritt, you know, Ian mccleagan, Steve Marriott,
Speaker 1: Kenny Jones and Rick Wills on base and I thought
Speaker 1: we made a pretty good record. I had to buy
Speaker 1: them out of A and M and it just went
Speaker 1: absolutely where nowhere. So that was okay. So how does
Speaker 1: it end with Atlantic? Um? It ended fives with the
Speaker 1: last year I was involved in any way with the
Speaker 1: mainstream Atlantic. Uh. Mick Jones really a foreigner far and
Speaker 1: up and was getting an Award at a TV show
Speaker 1: called The Tube, which it took place in a town
Speaker 1: called Newcastle, New New Newcastle to London is a bit
Speaker 1: like Pittsburgh is to New York. You don't want to
Speaker 1: go there. But the TV show was being done from
Speaker 1: from New York, from from newcasts Newcastle. So Mix says
Speaker 1: to me, look, I'll go. You know, you've got to
Speaker 1: come with me. I said, okay, all right, uh, and
Speaker 1: we've got to get a private plane. Well what the funk?
Speaker 1: I mean, little did he know they were gonna I
Speaker 1: was gonna recharge the front of the royalty account anyway,
Speaker 1: So we got a little plane and we go up
Speaker 1: to to the Tube and you know what it's like
Speaker 1: with TV shows, there's a hell of a lot of
Speaker 1: hanging about. This particular one was a live show, but
Speaker 1: they would have a live run through with one audience
Speaker 1: and then then kick the audience out and kind of
Speaker 1: like I said, l still does it today. That's what
Speaker 1: they do. So this is the same sort of thing.
Speaker 1: So I'm just wasting time. You know, I've found an office.
Speaker 1: There was no one in it, so I'm start going
Speaker 1: on the phone and doing work, you know, calling America.
Speaker 1: This not the other. Then I hear an American voice
Speaker 1: that I kind of recognize doing exactly the same thing
Speaker 1: in another vacant office. Turns out to be a chack
Speaker 1: on Mark Puma. Mark Human was a runner for led Zeppelins,
Speaker 1: and I've worked with him a lot in the concerts
Speaker 1: Eastern concert West days. So I said, what you're doing?
Speaker 1: I said, well, I've got this band and you know
Speaker 1: we're doing the show tonight. Said what they called it's
Speaker 1: a Twisted Sister. Now I've never heard of Twisted Sister.
Speaker 1: But I see them, this group of you know guys
Speaker 1: would make up, you know, they're all seven ft tall
Speaker 1: walking around the place. And he says, yeah, well, you know,
Speaker 1: we've really want to get signed in England. I made
Speaker 1: a deal with a with a independent label, but I've
Speaker 1: got to do something. And we we we spent out
Speaker 1: to be honest, we spent our last money getting over
Speaker 1: here to see if we can get signed. So I said,
Speaker 1: will I take a look at him? Meanwhile, I mixed
Speaker 1: on a break. I said, oh, I've just met Mark Humor,
Speaker 1: you know, and he has got this group called Twisted System.
Speaker 1: Mixed sense to me, twist his sister. They're all over
Speaker 1: the radio in New York. Little did I know, and
Speaker 1: nor did he that on the radio because J J.
Speaker 1: French the guitar the guitar player had inveigled away to
Speaker 1: buy time cheaply on w n W. And although we
Speaker 1: were playing with a you know that the hook of
Speaker 1: one of their songs. So Mick thought this was an airplayer,
Speaker 1: which it actually wasn't. So I thought, that's interesting. So
Speaker 1: I'll go down there and I'll watch them and the
Speaker 1: run through. I mean, the songs are pretty good. I
Speaker 1: mean they're not pushing the barriers of rock and roll
Speaker 1: any further forward, you know, but there's they had something.
Speaker 1: And then in the show when it went like my god,
Speaker 1: they were good. They were really good. So the Marxist, look,
Speaker 1: we're doing the Marquee on Thursday shows on Tuesday. Okay, Mark,
Speaker 1: he was really an opinion making place in London, helped
Speaker 1: hell about five hundred people something like that. So he said,
Speaker 1: would you come down and see the band? I said, sure.
Speaker 1: I get to the market. It is packed. And I
Speaker 1: missed a rock and roll in London, right. I was
Speaker 1: signed these bands and I thought I knew everything you
Speaker 1: still do to that. So anyway, they killed the audience
Speaker 1: because on the live TV show, de Snyder was restrained,
Speaker 1: not so in the Marquis. My god. They were a
Speaker 1: great live band, and they looked brutal up there, you know, brutal.
Speaker 1: So at the end of it, Mark, Mark, who necessarily,
Speaker 1: what do you I said, Okay, I'll sign them, and
Speaker 1: he looked at me in astonishment. I said, what to Atlantic,
Speaker 1: Well that's where I work. Sure, He said, you've got
Speaker 1: to come back and meet that. I said, I do
Speaker 1: not want to meet the band. I will sign the band. Okay.
Speaker 1: I'm going to give you enough to make the record,
Speaker 1: no advance beyond that, okay. In those says it was
Speaker 1: a bit more expensive to make it records than it
Speaker 1: is of course perversely, but you know, I'll do that.
Speaker 1: It's don't look for a big deal, but I will
Speaker 1: sign the band. So eventually he persuades me to come
Speaker 1: and meet them. But of course they're nothing like that.
Speaker 1: Dee Snyder is. You know, he's a great guy, one
Speaker 1: of my best friends to this day. So you know,
Speaker 1: we get talking and I make the deal, and my deal.
Speaker 1: I didn't call up Jimmy Page, who owned the Soul Studios,
Speaker 1: which had two bedrooms in it. So I said, you,
Speaker 1: I've signed this band. I wanted you to give me
Speaker 1: a decent rate, saying okay, sure, and I want to
Speaker 1: use your engineer, Stewart Apps. So he made me a
Speaker 1: very reasonable deal. But still, you know, it's a residential studio,
Speaker 1: you know. And the deal I made for these guys
Speaker 1: was sixty dollars that included flying them over to England
Speaker 1: and back the studio time, everything sixty. So I make
Speaker 1: the deal, okay. The next Tuesday is the lawyers lunch
Speaker 1: day at Atlantic Records. The lawyers lunch days, I think
Speaker 1: they still have it, and is about fourteen of the
Speaker 1: business side of Atlantic in their plus whoever is the
Speaker 1: president or chairman at it would occasionally join it. It's
Speaker 1: where they go over the business things of the of
Speaker 1: the time. So if I've got anything, if I wasn't there,
Speaker 1: I would call in, you know. So I got in
Speaker 1: the room. It's one of the big conference rooms with
Speaker 1: the you know, little speaker in the middle of you
Speaker 1: visualize it, and fourteen lawyers and business affairs people sitting
Speaker 1: around there in this particular day, Doug Morris chairing it,
Speaker 1: you know. So he's um, he said, oh, Phil, what
Speaker 1: what do you guys? So what, I've signed a band.
Speaker 1: It's a great, great good. Yeah, you're You're always good
Speaker 1: at that, you know. So I said, yeah, yeah, but
Speaker 1: this is an American banker, American band. You signed an
Speaker 1: American banding And I said, yeah, they did this TV show,
Speaker 1: they destroyed the place, and you know, I've made a
Speaker 1: very reasonable deal. He said, what are they called? I said,
Speaker 1: twisted sister. He said, twisted fucking sister. I've turned that
Speaker 1: band down five times. There's a kid in here. Jason
Speaker 1: Flom thinks they're like I've told him he's fired. If
Speaker 1: ever he mentioned them again. So I don't, Doug, I
Speaker 1: really don't know about that. But you know I've signed
Speaker 1: them and that's it. Like I did tell you, I
Speaker 1: was mouth Almighty and Night earlier on and this was
Speaker 1: no exception. And I remember him saying to me, on
Speaker 1: your own head. Then this is really early days for
Speaker 1: Doug nineteen eighty three, so, and he had not signed
Speaker 1: anything right that point. So I said, oh, yeah, Doug,
Speaker 1: on my own head, is it? You know, like yes,
Speaker 1: Emerson Lake and Palmer, A C, d C. On my
Speaker 1: own head, like that is it? And you could hear
Speaker 1: the silence echoing over three thousand miles of telephone lines.
Speaker 1: And that was the beginning of the end from my
Speaker 1: relationship with Doug Morris. So I signed Twist his sister.
Speaker 1: I called up Jason Flom, who reminded me of something.
Speaker 1: He said, you signed my band. I said, yeah, Doug
Speaker 1: told me that, you know, he was going to fire
Speaker 1: you if if you mentioned them again. What do you
Speaker 1: mean your band? He said, don't you remember one day
Speaker 1: you were you were in the office and I gave
Speaker 1: you a package. I said, yeah, I vaguely remember that.
Speaker 1: And I did remember it, because you know what I do.
Speaker 1: I used to get the eight o'clock flight in the
Speaker 1: evening back to England, and he had given me this package,
Speaker 1: as he so rightly said. And I'm sitting in my
Speaker 1: first class seat, you know, sipping my first class champagne
Speaker 1: and about to enjoy my first class caveat, and I
Speaker 1: think I better listen to the little Jason's stuff, you
Speaker 1: know in those days that I think Walkerman had just
Speaker 1: come out at about that time. So I opened this
Speaker 1: package he gave me, and the first thing I pull
Speaker 1: out is like a a a cassette. Then I pull
Speaker 1: out a picture of this, this band, this before I
Speaker 1: had seen in women's clothing, you know. And then the
Speaker 1: next sample is this stenographer's pad, about eight pages of
Speaker 1: closely written notes by Jason for about this band. And
Speaker 1: I took one look at the picture and one look
Speaker 1: at the memo, and I look at my champagne and
Speaker 1: caviare and I threw the whole lot in an airline
Speaker 1: trash back right, so I didn't even know it was.
Speaker 1: But I will give him this. You know, he has
Speaker 1: claimed he signed to his his sister. He did not,
Speaker 1: but without any shadow of doubt, he broke twist his
Speaker 1: sister because he made it a mission. He was going
Speaker 1: around putting up hosters himself everywhere. And you know that
Speaker 1: nobody cared except Jason Flam about this band, and he
Speaker 1: did it on his own. And we got that first
Speaker 1: album up to two hundred thousand or whatever it was,
Speaker 1: which is enough to make the next album grudging Lee,
Speaker 1: you know, from digging and so forth. And that was
Speaker 1: a big, big moment really, because the second album did
Speaker 1: have songs on it and Doug got behind it. But
Speaker 1: just remembering someone some little thing after I had made
Speaker 1: got them in the studio Uh. We were making the
Speaker 1: record and I realized there was a song on there
Speaker 1: that could be a hit single. So I said, to
Speaker 1: look what we're gonna do. We track everything, then we're
Speaker 1: going to concentrate on I Am, I'm me. We're going
Speaker 1: to finish it up, mix it, get it done before
Speaker 1: we address any overdubs, mixes of anything else, and some
Speaker 1: Jimmy's studio. Six weeks we do this and it sounds great.
Speaker 1: So then I got them a gig at the Marquis
Speaker 1: because people wanted to have the band back. So I said,
Speaker 1: we're going to do two nights of the Marquee. We're
Speaker 1: going to record it live. Okay, the B side of
Speaker 1: a twelve inch version of single will be twenty minutes
Speaker 1: of Twitter's Sister Life. So the result of all this
Speaker 1: is I went a little over budget to deal with
Speaker 1: sixty THO. I think I came in at seventy two
Speaker 1: thousand on us and I called up Sheldon Vogel, who
Speaker 1: was the financial actually vice chairman of Atlantic, who was,
Speaker 1: you know, really enamored by Doug Morrison those days, not
Speaker 1: so much later, but in those days, and he we
Speaker 1: have the hell of a row, he said, he said,
Speaker 1: I've just got this invoice here from Soul Studios and
Speaker 1: we're not going to pay it. I said, what do
Speaker 1: you mean you're not going to pay it? He said, well,
Speaker 1: you're twelve thousand over budget. I've paid rest of it.
Speaker 1: I'm not paying the overage. I said, well, you do
Speaker 1: realize this is Jimmy Page's studio. Dude, I don't care
Speaker 1: whose studio it is. I'm not paying it. So I said,
Speaker 1: we'll just put me through to arm it. Now you've
Speaker 1: got to realize I was kind of the golden boy.
Speaker 1: It was like a lot of people thought I was
Speaker 1: arm it's illegitimate, but I wasn't as far as I know.
Speaker 1: So you know, we've he said, that would be ridiculous.
Speaker 1: Just you know, pay it yourself and I'll reimburse. So
Speaker 1: I took care of it, and that was a bit
Speaker 1: of a rough moment for me at the company I
Speaker 1: worked for, but by then I didn't care, because you know,
Speaker 1: I was fireproof, still the only person Led Zeppelin would
Speaker 1: speak to, and this huge track record of artists that
Speaker 1: I've signed, so it didn't really bother me at all.
Speaker 1: So the Twisted Sister Record came out to great business
Speaker 1: of course, and I thought, well, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I want to make a break. And at that point
Speaker 1: both Jumy Page and Robert Plant had asked me to
Speaker 1: manage them, so did a number of other artists. So
Speaker 1: I thought, well, how can I kind of use this
Speaker 1: to my advantage? So I called up. I said to Atlantic, Look,
Speaker 1: the need for an office in London is diminished, you
Speaker 1: know lately, because all the big English bands you know,
Speaker 1: on on the way out whatever. You know. I'd like
Speaker 1: to have my own record label. So Doug thought this
Speaker 1: was a great idea because then I'm outside the mainstream
Speaker 1: of Atlantic, so there's no threat of any kind. So
Speaker 1: I will never forget the meeting that we had when
Speaker 1: we did this. I said, look, I just wanted like
Speaker 1: a reasonable deal. But I was making quite a lot
Speaker 1: of money back in those days. But I want a
Speaker 1: reasonable deal. I want some kind of salary. Doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be what you're paying now, but I just want,
Speaker 1: you know, to any the office paid for, you know,
Speaker 1: And I want to set up a record label. But
Speaker 1: I also, you know, want to manage any artist that's
Speaker 1: on Atlantic. I know I've already got okay, So Doug
Speaker 1: couldn't wait to make the damn deal. He really couldn't.
Speaker 1: And Steve Weiss was my attorney in those days, legendary
Speaker 1: guy as you know, led Zeppelin, Vanilla Fudge, Dustry Springfield.
Speaker 1: Even so, he's there and we're getting everything we want.
Speaker 1: And I could see that this steam coming out of
Speaker 1: Sheldon Vocals is because I make a three year deal,
Speaker 1: which still was quite a lot of money, even though
Speaker 1: I took a lower salary. So it's Steve is packing
Speaker 1: up his stuff, you know that. And I said, Steve,
Speaker 1: you've forgotten something, you know? He said, quick as a flash,
Speaker 1: he said, oh yeah, why don't you tell them? Okay?
Speaker 1: I said, yeah, Well, I've been here quite a length
Speaker 1: of time. I had some big success with you guys.
Speaker 1: I think a terminal bonus is in order. And Sheldon
Speaker 1: looks at me incredulously. He's one of my closest friends now,
Speaker 1: by the way, I mean, I've got on prairie well
Speaker 1: with him. But he looked at me incredulously. A terminal bonus,
Speaker 1: I mean, you've got everything you've asked for. What do
Speaker 1: you want? And I said half a million dollars he's
Speaker 1: got his legal batty threw it on the floor. I
Speaker 1: didn't get half a billion dollars, but I did get
Speaker 1: a terminal bonus and how much was it? But it
Speaker 1: wasn't half a billion dollars to leave me, but I
Speaker 1: got something. So I started this record label, and I
Speaker 1: knew that it was not going to be easy, so
Speaker 1: I wasn't that active about signing anything. But by then
Speaker 1: all the English bands that I had anything to do
Speaker 1: with and something that I had nothing to do with,
Speaker 1: wanted to be with me. So I opened a management
Speaker 1: company with Jimmy Page Robert Plant, both with their own
Speaker 1: solo albums, Bad Company, which I was in partnership with
Speaker 1: Bud breaker Um who was motorhead. Uh. That's how that
Speaker 1: company started. So I had a big deal going from
Speaker 1: the beginning. And then of course I've formed the firm
Speaker 1: between Jimmy and Paul Rodgers. So I had a really
Speaker 1: very successful few years there. Look, I did it then
Speaker 1: with that joint venture sort of slieve. After the third year,
Speaker 1: they didn't want to play anymore. By the way, the
Speaker 1: office rent that they were playing was to building I
Speaker 1: owned in London, so it was it was quite a
Speaker 1: good moment for me. But by then I've become you know,
Speaker 1: quite the management side. Didn't like the management as opposed
Speaker 1: to working for the label. You know. Look, we talked
Speaker 1: about Jerry Greenberg before and what a great guy he was,
Speaker 1: and I under him. I think I could have been
Speaker 1: there forever. I really do. We had a great rapport,
Speaker 1: but he did and he wanted me to move to London. Sorry,
Speaker 1: a big one. Leavelandon moved to New York to be
Speaker 1: executive vice president and a insistant to the president. So um,
Speaker 1: I didn't go, you know, and in retrospect, I think
Speaker 1: he was sort of knew what he wanted to go
Speaker 1: and his sort of grooming me to be the next president,
Speaker 1: which logically I would have been at that point. So
Speaker 1: I just wonder, you know, where Doug would have gone
Speaker 1: had I have made that move. I mean, he's been
Speaker 1: an enormously successful force in our business. But I did
Speaker 1: give him his first hit single, and perhaps by not
Speaker 1: going to America, I did him a big favor. Who
Speaker 1: knows where life could have gone, you know. Okay, so
Speaker 1: today you're involved with foreigner I am and anything else?
Speaker 1: Are you just a foreigner? I've been trying to retire
Speaker 1: seventy five, you know, I'm trying to give it up,
Speaker 1: but Foreigners was a great love of mine, even back
Speaker 1: when Jerry Greenberg and John Klodna signed them, back in
Speaker 1: the early days. I knew Mick as a musician by
Speaker 1: the way, back in that era I told you about,
Speaker 1: so I knew who he was, and he she is
Speaker 1: a great guitar player who came from the same area
Speaker 1: as Jimmy Page and Eric Clapton and Jeff Beck. Uh.
Speaker 1: He's just a brilliant player. And that he didn't form
Speaker 1: one of those English bands because a French singer came
Speaker 1: over to record, who used to have Jimmy Page, you know,
Speaker 1: is his guitar player. He was trying to find a
Speaker 1: guitarist to go back with him to Paris, and eventually
Speaker 1: Mick Jones went to Paris Is with Johnny. For years,
Speaker 1: most Americans have not heard of Johnny Halliday just recently died.
Speaker 1: Yes he did. But he was to France what Elvis
Speaker 1: was to America. I mean, if Elvis had lived, he
Speaker 1: would be no bigger in America than Johnny Halliday was
Speaker 1: in France when he died recently. I mean the government
Speaker 1: closed down the Chasin Lise to do a procession for
Speaker 1: Johnny Halliday. I mean, he was enormous. Mick wrote a
Speaker 1: number of his hits and that was that was just
Speaker 1: quite a big deal for Mick Jones. Believe me. You know,
Speaker 1: I started, he started Foreigner. He started Foreigner with the
Speaker 1: mixed started Foreigner. He came back to England, It's started
Speaker 1: working with Gary Wright in Wonder Wheel and a couple
Speaker 1: of other projects. They moved to New York and he
Speaker 1: had this bundle of songs and he took them to
Speaker 1: Bud Praeger, who was managing Mountain, which was one of
Speaker 1: the bands that Mick was in. He said, oh, I've
Speaker 1: got these songs and Bud Praeger said, well, they're pretty
Speaker 1: damn good. You know, let's den with them. And I
Speaker 1: must say that not maybe people know this, but Bud
Speaker 1: Praeger he invested everything he had in Foreigner, everything including
Speaker 1: his pension plan, you know. And first of all they
Speaker 1: were turned down by everybody, everybody including Atlantic. But then
Speaker 1: you know, he persevered with Atlantic and eventually had Jim Delahatton,
Speaker 1: Jerry Greenberg, Jim down up was come down. I don't
Speaker 1: think Jim Della hadn't liked them at all, but Jerry
Speaker 1: saw something in them, and the rest is history. The
Speaker 1: funny thing is I vividly remember hearing that song on
Speaker 1: the radio the first time, and I literally know people
Speaker 1: talk about this, but I literally drove to the records. Yes,
Speaker 1: I just had to be able to play it at
Speaker 1: it for that. I read what you in you said,
Speaker 1: you know that was but you're right, a lot of
Speaker 1: people did that. But there's a funny thing about Foreigner
Speaker 1: that you know, it's worked two hour advantage in later years.
Speaker 1: But they were a bit of a faceless band. You know,
Speaker 1: most people out there couldn't name anyone in Foreigner to
Speaker 1: this day. So what had happened in two thousand and four?
Speaker 1: I called mack up out of the blue, you know,
Speaker 1: I said, what what you're doing? I'm seeing anything that
Speaker 1: you're doing that. He said, well, you know, I've kind
Speaker 1: of given up, you know, Mick. Sorry. Lou had this
Speaker 1: illness which prevented him from delivering Blue gram and and
Speaker 1: and Mick had his own issues back in those days
Speaker 1: with alcohol and so forth, and he'd might then become sober,
Speaker 1: but he was still very nervous about doing anything. But
Speaker 1: this was all in one phone call. You know. You know, man,
Speaker 1: those songs that they're just too good to be sitting there.
Speaker 1: He says, I think, you know, let's get a band together.
Speaker 1: So on the phone, I can hear him perking his ears.
Speaker 1: We had a good relationship. He knows he knew what
Speaker 1: I was capable of. I said, he said, what do
Speaker 1: you think then? Who will be in it? Well? I
Speaker 1: was managing Jason Bonham, who have finished since since he
Speaker 1: was a child. And I said, we'll start We'll have
Speaker 1: Jason on drums. Well, the funny thing is Jason's was
Speaker 1: on Jerry Greenberg's label. Yeah, I signed him to it.
Speaker 1: I never knew that connection. So okay, so okay, we'll
Speaker 1: start with Jason Bonham. Yes, so I said, And I
Speaker 1: tell you who else I would like to get in.
Speaker 1: There's a guy I put into yes years a few
Speaker 1: years ago. He wrote, owner of a lonely art. His
Speaker 1: name is Trevor Rabin. He's a formidable musician, but he's
Speaker 1: really doing started doing soundtracks now. But I think I
Speaker 1: could get him, so I'll call up Trevor. He's very interested.
Speaker 1: So we had this mix now feeling feeling it though.
Speaker 1: We had a meeting at Trevor Raban studio. Jason, Trevor,
Speaker 1: me and and we're ready to go. We're going to
Speaker 1: find a singer. Jason said, well, what about my singer
Speaker 1: Charles West. There was a singer of the Jason bonhom band,
Speaker 1: so we said, well we try him. Why not? So
Speaker 1: we start thinking about who else is going to be
Speaker 1: in the band, and you know, they go. Mick goes
Speaker 1: back to New York and you know I was living
Speaker 1: here in those days. So Trevor calls me about four
Speaker 1: days later, said I can't do this. So what do
Speaker 1: you mean you're pivotable to what we're doing. Jerry Bruckheim
Speaker 1: is just offered meet like a seven figure number to
Speaker 1: do it a soundtrack. I think it might be that
Speaker 1: one about asteroids or something, so I have to do it.
Speaker 1: By the way, he's a consummate musician, you know you
Speaker 1: can you can conduct a ninety piece orchestra with no trouble.
Speaker 1: And incredible engineer too. He's just that guy. But we
Speaker 1: weren't going to get him. So that was the end
Speaker 1: of that. But by now Micky is interested. So you know,
Speaker 1: I managed to get a gig with a radio station
Speaker 1: up in Santa Barbara that they're doing a charity event.
Speaker 1: So let's just take a gig for the hell of it.
Speaker 1: So we get the old Foreigner sound guy, a guy
Speaker 1: that would played keyboards for years with Foreigner, Tom Gimble,
Speaker 1: who's the multi instrumentalist that we we have to this day.
Speaker 1: And Jason and Oh, Jason called up Jeff Pilson. He
Speaker 1: had been in that movie rock Star with Jeff Pilson,
Speaker 1: so we've got Jeff Perlson on base. You know, it
Speaker 1: was a formidable band actually even without Trevor Rabin, so
Speaker 1: that he goes down great at this charity event, which
Speaker 1: is in two thousand and four, and he said, well,
Speaker 1: you know, let's let's have a go. Then let's try
Speaker 1: and do this, so we did. Unfortunately, Charles West didn't
Speaker 1: make it because he was so enthusiastic during rehearsals he
Speaker 1: had completely blown his voice out by the time we
Speaker 1: did the show. So we knew we had to get
Speaker 1: somebody else, so we looked around. We audition everybody. I mean,
Speaker 1: Jimmy Barnes from Australia, who is by the way, I
Speaker 1: tried to get a band together with him in Jimmy
Speaker 1: Page years ago, but Jimmy Barnes blew that one. But
Speaker 1: I still think he's one of the greatest rock singers ever.
Speaker 1: Remember Cold Chisel. Of course I saw them opening. No,
Speaker 1: I saw Angel opening. I don't know if I saw
Speaker 1: a Cold Chisel whatever. There were some great bands in Australia.
Speaker 1: Well they worked. The thing about the Australian bands, whether
Speaker 1: they said live, they had a totally down I remember
Speaker 1: seeing in Excess at the Whiskey was just astounding. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: so it doesn't come together. You're looking for a lead singer,
Speaker 1: yep uh. And we were going to go out with
Speaker 1: Charles West again because we couldn't find any we honestly,
Speaker 1: we auditioned so many people by tape, some pretty name artists.
Speaker 1: Jodan Turner was one. You know, nobody was really getting it.
Speaker 1: So at least Charles West was a credible front girl.
Speaker 1: So we said, okay, it authorized me to get a
Speaker 1: few shows. I was begging to get twenty tho dollar shows.
Speaker 1: And it was that difficult because the last tour was
Speaker 1: terrible with Loue not being able to cut it properly.
Speaker 1: So but I get a string of dates together and
Speaker 1: we're getting ready to rehearse, and then Tom Gimbal brings
Speaker 1: in this tape of this kid Kelly Hansen and we
Speaker 1: one listened to the tape. He had had a karaoke
Speaker 1: mix and he's singing that foreigners. So with about five
Speaker 1: days to go before the first show, we gave Charles
Speaker 1: West the news and Kelly Hansen took over and changed everything.
Speaker 1: He's a fabulous front man. Have you seen the band?
Speaker 1: I haven't seen it with Kelly, but you know what
Speaker 1: about the videos. You're making some kind of documentary with
Speaker 1: Lou and they were shot like a Nassau Coli CM
Speaker 1: or somewhere Jones Beach their online probably three years ago.
Speaker 1: Uh no, not with The last thing we've we've done
Speaker 1: with Lou was and the rest of the old band
Speaker 1: was a series of shows called double Vision where we
Speaker 1: have the current band plays a whole set and then
Speaker 1: uh there's a short interval and then the original band
Speaker 1: comes out. We met Lou, Dennis Elliott, Rick Wells, Al
Speaker 1: Greenwood and Ian McDonald and they play about five five
Speaker 1: songs and then we all get together at the end
Speaker 1: and do I want to know what that wasn't hot blooded?
Speaker 1: The roof comes off the place to be Franks, Okay,
Speaker 1: I got a question. Suddenly, I can't remember the name
Speaker 1: of the movie. I love this movie and it begins
Speaker 1: with an s or something in any event, it's an
Speaker 1: English movie about getting a band back together, and the
Speaker 1: final song is the flame Still burn. Mick wrote that
Speaker 1: what the hell is it? The group is called Strange
Speaker 1: fruit Um the name of the movie. I keep forgetting
Speaker 1: the next. It's a damn good movie. So I love that.
Speaker 1: But one of the great rockmis how did that song
Speaker 1: get in the movie? The director new Mick and called
Speaker 1: him out and said he look, I need the songs
Speaker 1: I aren't making. I need, you know, a couple of songs,
Speaker 1: and he wrote seven songs in a week, one of
Speaker 1: which they were use in the movie Flame Still, which
Speaker 1: was I think is even better than I Want to
Speaker 1: Know What Love? Well, we've recorded it again. I've listened
Speaker 1: to that version. Okay. So with this late day, you're
Speaker 1: involved with Foreigner and you're trying to get out of
Speaker 1: the business. Yeah, and I've still got Twisted Sister, of course,
Speaker 1: and Dee Snyder, so twist Twisted Sister. People don't realize
Speaker 1: to this day a massive in you, I thought, because
Speaker 1: I hear from J. J. French all the time, I'm
Speaker 1: very sure you do. And he said that they did
Speaker 1: a final tour and he sold his guitars, but then
Speaker 1: he talked about possibly doing it or is this just
Speaker 1: D calling a Twisted Sister. No, they went out as
Speaker 1: Twisted Sister from We put the band back together when
Speaker 1: I was at a movie company for a while at
Speaker 1: the shooting gallery and they we did a horror movie
Speaker 1: with D. That's how I got into the movie business.
Speaker 1: He called me up and said, look, we need to
Speaker 1: You've got to come and work at this record only
Speaker 1: I need you to help me get the soundtrack to go.
Speaker 1: And we did the most amazing sound tract to Strange Land.
Speaker 1: It was a Billboard hit was Kid Rocks. First record
Speaker 1: was on the Snyder's soundtrack and eminem was on it. Uh,
Speaker 1: we had everybody on this damn record as a big
Speaker 1: hit soundtrack. Not such a big hit movie, but for
Speaker 1: a cult movie that costs the little it did okay,
Speaker 1: you know, And after the movie came up, we decided
Speaker 1: we're try and cut a Twisted Sister song to go
Speaker 1: on the soundtrack, which we did and that was pretty good,
Speaker 1: so we decided to give it a go again. This
Speaker 1: must have been two thousands something like that, and the
Speaker 1: first thing we did was we got an offer from
Speaker 1: what's what's that organization that brings entertainment to the troops
Speaker 1: us USO to go to Korea. So we did. We
Speaker 1: went to Career, did a thing for the troops, and
Speaker 1: by then everybody wants to give it a go again,
Speaker 1: and we took it up to a pretty good level.
Speaker 1: We were headlining with Aussie and Metallica in a series
Speaker 1: of events in Europe and the last time Foreigner did
Speaker 1: bang your Head, which is no, not bang your head.
Speaker 1: What's the big one in it's two really big ones
Speaker 1: to our foreigner about Twisted Sister, big German rock Fest rep.
Speaker 1: That's that's a I know where you're thinking, but that
Speaker 1: is the sort of red light area in Hamburg. I know.
Speaker 1: Now I'm getting to know your green That's a racing track,
Speaker 1: that is that's a big one. Rock am Ring is
Speaker 1: a big one. God whackens a massive hundred thousand people sharp.
Speaker 1: So about three years ago, which was the last time
Speaker 1: Twister Saister did play Wagon, they headlined and Far and
Speaker 1: all one of the support bands, and wondered what universit
Speaker 1: he was in when he was there. Actually we were
Speaker 1: making a little documentary and so I'm asking Mick questions,
Speaker 1: and I remember, if I started, He's sitting there knowing
Speaker 1: he had just done a set, knowing that Twist his
Speaker 1: sister are headlining. Okay, so that's my first question to
Speaker 1: Mick Jones was how did Twist his sister change your life? No,
Speaker 1: we can't continue stories for hours. Phil, You've been fantastic. Literally,
Speaker 1: I just had to cut you off because we can't
Speaker 1: go on for four hours. But your stories and your
Speaker 1: career obviously is unbelievable. You were there when it all happened.
Speaker 1: You were not only a fly on the wall, you
Speaker 1: were a participant there. Anything specifically we didn't cover that
Speaker 1: you need to cover just a little period I had
Speaker 1: in the movie business, but I had a lot of
Speaker 1: fun with I made a documentary about Sun Records. I
Speaker 1: saw that was one on PBS. That was great. American Masters,
Speaker 1: thank you, and we did. The soundtrack was pretty down
Speaker 1: good too. I got everybody Paul once I had Paul McCartney.
Speaker 1: I then called Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Bob Dylan,
Speaker 1: and I called Tom Petty So and Jimmy Page and
Speaker 1: Robert Plant played on it. It was a marvelous soundtrack,
Speaker 1: so PBS wanted to do another one, so I did.
Speaker 1: The house that I met built the story of Atlantic,
Speaker 1: which was pretty good movie too, So I was quite
Speaker 1: proud of that departure from music into the movie business.
Speaker 1: I learned a lot. This little company, the Shooting Gallery
Speaker 1: had already had a big hit when I joined. They
Speaker 1: made they made sleem Blade and they specialized in low
Speaker 1: budget art films. And I think I put the average
Speaker 1: age up by about ten years when I joined these people.
Speaker 1: But we had a bit of a run, but they
Speaker 1: got carried away with it, and that's you know the
Speaker 1: problem with movie business without a catalog. Karlcoe was the
Speaker 1: most successful independent movie company of all time. They went bank.
Speaker 1: It's like now there's st X today. They finally had
Speaker 1: it hit. The thing I hate about the movie business
Speaker 1: is everybody has a fucking opinion, okay, whereas the music. Well,
Speaker 1: now that executives think they're bigger, but reality it comes
Speaker 1: down to the music, and you know, and it's something
Speaker 1: you feel or don't. Actually, it's an interesting thing there
Speaker 1: that I always felt that nobody could catch up with
Speaker 1: people like Jerry Greenberg and me because we had the
Speaker 1: greatest possible training that you could ever have from Jerry Wexler,
Speaker 1: Ahmed ed agin Un that's where Edigan and I remember,
Speaker 1: and Tom Dowd engineer I remember. I think it was
Speaker 1: either Tom Dowd or Jerry said to me one day
Speaker 1: when I got the job and I'm in London, he said, look,
Speaker 1: if you're going to sign a band, make sure there's
Speaker 1: at least one virtuoso in the band you're signing, because
Speaker 1: virtuoso musicians don't play with good musicians. They only play
Speaker 1: with great musicians. And if you think about it, there's
Speaker 1: four virtuosos and led Zeppelin right, there's two or three
Speaker 1: in Yes, you know this is why, as you so
Speaker 1: rightly put it, it's the music that counts. And that
Speaker 1: training from those three guys always kept that in my
Speaker 1: head about I have to remember something Doug Morris said
Speaker 1: to me on that fateful day. He said, what about this?
Speaker 1: Because I used to do little talks to our people
Speaker 1: from time to time, and I'd always quote this virtuoso
Speaker 1: musicians scenario. What about that that thing you pontificate about
Speaker 1: when you're talking to people about how you've got to
Speaker 1: have a virtuoso musician. Who the fuck is the virtuoso
Speaker 1: musician and twisted sister. I said, d Snyder. He said,
Speaker 1: what do you mean? I said, he has virtuoso charisma.
Speaker 1: Absolutely absolutely, you know this. But you know that you
Speaker 1: you bring up a lot of things. One do you
Speaker 1: have to see the band live in order to be
Speaker 1: convinced or conn b and make it not be greet
Speaker 1: live a band. Bands have made it a great live
Speaker 1: of course, but you know, for me, I had to
Speaker 1: see a band live. And that's another thing that arm
Speaker 1: It taught me, you know, is that you have to
Speaker 1: go and see your bands play, even after you signed them,
Speaker 1: because that's when you see your band meet their audience
Speaker 1: and that will teach you how to promote and market
Speaker 1: that band. Arm It was, and we could we should
Speaker 1: do another program about armor It, because you know he
Speaker 1: was my mentor and my friend for many years. I
Speaker 1: did produce Cold co produced rather the final led Zeppelin
Speaker 1: concert with which we did from Arment and I just
Speaker 1: know all my dealings with arm but we're not Legion.
Speaker 1: But I remember I wrote about the song Black Velvet
Speaker 1: and I was saying, how you know it wasn't going
Speaker 1: to Ley Goes. That track is a number one record,
Speaker 1: which like you know, like six weeks later starting to
Speaker 1: get traction. Yeah, and it went. Man, they knew this.
Speaker 1: I mean I remember, way after I left Atlantic, and
Speaker 1: you know, way after my Strange Land soundtrack had come
Speaker 1: out with kid Rock on it. He said, I want
Speaker 1: to go and see this guy kid Rock at the
Speaker 1: Planet of Roxy and we we we went along and
Speaker 1: we were sitting there. Kid Rock comes out and nothing
Speaker 1: had happened yet for kid Rock. Actually, he turns to me,
Speaker 1: he said, this guy is big as Elvis, and nothing
Speaker 1: had happened, right, And he was pretty well right. He
Speaker 1: erupted unbelievably in Kid Rocks. One of the few people.
Speaker 1: He's made a lot of money, owns his own plane,
Speaker 1: and he still can work. I mean, I hear from
Speaker 1: him all the times. He's an interesting character because his
Speaker 1: image is low class, but he grew up in an
Speaker 1: upper middle class exactly. But the other thing I think
Speaker 1: that you were with this is what people don't understand
Speaker 1: about the music business today. It's mature. You were there, okay,
Speaker 1: before the Beatles, which showed how much money and what
Speaker 1: reach you could have, when there was still independent distribution,
Speaker 1: when these people still own the label. Now nobody in
Speaker 1: the music business has their own money in the game.
Speaker 1: When you have your own money in the game. I
Speaker 1: have a I have a promoter friend who promotes UH
Speaker 1: clubs in Boston. He says, you've never really been a
Speaker 1: promoter until you've gone to the A T. M. At
Speaker 1: two in the morning to withdraw money to pay the band.
Speaker 1: It's just really so I you know, been there. I
Speaker 1: mean one of the things on luxury I have. As
Speaker 1: you know, I was conscious when the Beatles hit. It's
Speaker 1: like I'm watching some of the Woodstock documentaries and they're
Speaker 1: talking about Vietnam War. People have no idea what it
Speaker 1: was like to get your draft. Be freaked out. You're
Speaker 1: gonna have to go to this we get your ash.
Speaker 1: It was really crazy. Yeah, I imagine they ovously. That
Speaker 1: was when Zepplin were breaking at the time of it
Speaker 1: was raging. You know, that was an awful moment in
Speaker 1: American history. You know for sure. I saw a Zeppelin
Speaker 1: a couple of times. First time I saw him with
Speaker 1: in Haven Uh Collins Yale Bowl, and they were not good.
Speaker 1: This is just after the third album came out, and
Speaker 1: you may or may not remember, in seventy five they
Speaker 1: canceled the tour because of so they were gonna play
Speaker 1: the Rolls Bowl and they didn't, But they came back
Speaker 1: in seventies seven and played the Forum for a week.
Speaker 1: They were unbelievable. They played all of the mean, my
Speaker 1: favorite led Zeppelin song, it was ten years gone, they
Speaker 1: played that, I mean really amazing. Yeah, that was I
Speaker 1: was there for that. Yeah, it was quite I also believe,
Speaker 1: you know, Robert says he doesn't want to do it.
Speaker 1: I guess I have a little bit of a bad
Speaker 1: reaction when these bands get back together solely for the money.
Speaker 1: It's just, you know, all they I want to have
Speaker 1: my kids know we were there, we saw your kids.
Speaker 1: Don't get to seal. I mean, I rub it. He
Speaker 1: has carved himself an entirely new path. Absolutely, and when
Speaker 1: we did the event the O two, I mean he
Speaker 1: had got himself up there. I mean, have you seen
Speaker 1: any of the film of it? I mean, of course
Speaker 1: was there foreigner supported that show. He was just astonishing.
Speaker 1: I mean that that they were absolutely on it. Jason
Speaker 1: Bonham set them on fire because he knew every nuance
Speaker 1: that his father played and some he put in himself.
Speaker 1: He knew every variation of every the song that led
Speaker 1: Zeppelin had ever played, and he was the driving force
Speaker 1: that night. Jimmy was playing great, Robert was phenomenal, and
Speaker 1: John Paul Jans was Joon Paul Jans, who is a genius,
Speaker 1: and that that night was just magic, absolute magic. So
Speaker 1: just taking it leads up one for a minute, what's
Speaker 1: your favorite leads up one album? I liked the second album.
Speaker 1: That's really I Love Since I've been Loving You is
Speaker 1: one of the greatest songs of all time for me
Speaker 1: for a long time. It was the first album for
Speaker 1: me in certainly days and confused. But you have to
Speaker 1: understand when the second album came out in America, the
Speaker 1: single had come out like a week or two before
Speaker 1: instant hit a whole lot of long I bought that
Speaker 1: album the day it came out and went to the
Speaker 1: j a core of that. I played it that and
Speaker 1: only that for a week straight, and then suddenly everybody
Speaker 1: bought it and it was all you heard. I could
Speaker 1: not listen to that album for years, and then when
Speaker 1: you got back to it, you know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: great record. But for a minute there was overplayed, but
Speaker 1: certainly of the first album in physical graffiti for me, Yeah,
Speaker 1: both but how come Jimmy could never like Robert could
Speaker 1: never find his own thing. I managed Jimmy for a period,
Speaker 1: and of course we had the firm manner was managing U.
Speaker 1: The promblem with the firm was that neither Jimmy nor
Speaker 1: Paul Rodgers wanted to do the songs for which they
Speaker 1: were famous. Even so we bed two pretty big too radioactive. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: some good songs on it. But if only they'd just
Speaker 1: done a couple of bad company songs and a couple
Speaker 1: of free or a free song and you know, a
Speaker 1: yard Birds song and have bled Zeppelin song that I
Speaker 1: could have been retired many years well, Robert play did.
Speaker 1: I was a big fan of the album with twenty
Speaker 1: nine palms, et cetera. But when I went to see
Speaker 1: him on that door, he would play some Zepplin stuff.
Speaker 1: Oh he does now. I mean, I managed Robert for
Speaker 1: a while and we're party company over that, because you know,
Speaker 1: I remember having a conversation with him outdoors in a
Speaker 1: restaurant with his band. At one table Robert and me
Speaker 1: and our respective girlfriends. At another table between us was
Speaker 1: Nil Rogers and his girlfriend. But with this conversation is
Speaker 1: becoming heated, so his band, who are listening to everything
Speaker 1: I'm saying. I'm saying, man, you just do a couple
Speaker 1: of Zeppelin songs for God's sake, and the band will
Speaker 1: never do We'll never do Let's I mean fucking band
Speaker 1: right right? They could be replaced at a minute a minute,
Speaker 1: We'll never do led Zeppelin's And of course Rom and
Speaker 1: I parted company over that at that time. And of
Speaker 1: course then he gets hold of Bill kurbish Ly who
Speaker 1: talks him into doing led Zeppelin songs and the rest
Speaker 1: is history, right, and are very good friends. By the way,
Speaker 1: In fact you mentioned twenty nine Palms. He wrote that
Speaker 1: so when he was coming to is it me in
Speaker 1: Palm Springs where I have a house, and you know
Speaker 1: he was with the Atlanta Miles and that line I
Speaker 1: hear your voice on the radio is about a Lanta Miles,
Speaker 1: just a little bit of Okay, how many times you've
Speaker 1: been married? Who's counting three? Three? And are you married
Speaker 1: right now? I certainly am yeah? How long? How long
Speaker 1: is this marriage? Lasted? Twenty years? And you have any children?
Speaker 1: I have to. I have my daughter Jody, who is
Speaker 1: in our business. She has invented a way of selling
Speaker 1: CDs at gigs were by using a charity thing, and
Speaker 1: there was a line in Billboard recently from the head
Speaker 1: marketing guide Atlantic says, Jody Carson is singlehandedly saving the
Speaker 1: physical juice market. I mean she's she's her clients of
Speaker 1: the whole skin of kid rock and she sells. She's
Speaker 1: literally she's raised something like three million dollars for the
Speaker 1: Shriners through this Eagles her work client, and you know,
Speaker 1: she's made a she created a business out of nothing.
Speaker 1: If you got four people working for her going to
Speaker 1: gigs all the time. She started it with she and I.
Speaker 1: She was assistant to a manager, merchandizing girl and you know,
Speaker 1: like everything at one time. And I could never figure
Speaker 1: out why we couldn't sell c ds at gigs, you know,
Speaker 1: So I said, look, I think you've got to take
Speaker 1: the CDs to the people. So she and I took
Speaker 1: a box of CDs each at the end of the show.
Speaker 1: And this may seem undignified for the manager of the
Speaker 1: band and a legendary artists or managers. I'd like to
Speaker 1: pump myself up to be but we're out there going
Speaker 1: to get your CDs up twenty dollars for a CD
Speaker 1: come on, come on. We sold a box each that night,
Speaker 1: so I said, look, it's a little undignified for us
Speaker 1: to be out there doing this, But we did it
Speaker 1: a couple more times, and we got this cash from
Speaker 1: selling these CDs at twenty bucks. Because you can't sell
Speaker 1: a c D a a rock show for less than
Speaker 1: twenty dollars because the record label wants, you know, nine dollars,
Speaker 1: the venue wants like five dollars, so you've got to
Speaker 1: sell it at that price. Except cause we in Foreigner
Speaker 1: came up with the idea of pressing our own. We
Speaker 1: covered every song, We took studio recordings of every hit
Speaker 1: and eventually specifically for licensing and selling it shows. But
Speaker 1: you don't have to the original radars can't say no,
Speaker 1: they don't have to get paid. That's there's that. But
Speaker 1: the interesting is we did eventually release the those records,
Speaker 1: and we've got a gold album for see. The thing
Speaker 1: about Foreigner is that we touched on this before that
Speaker 1: they were a faceless band. Nobody knew who they were.
Speaker 1: I discovered round about two thousand five, when we're really
Speaker 1: starting this that nobody knows who Foreigners are. Okay, you
Speaker 1: know that thing You're sitting on a plane. The guy
Speaker 1: next to you said, what do you do right? I said, well,
Speaker 1: I'm anse rock bands. And they say who, No, not
Speaker 1: the who? Foreigner? Who No, not the who? Foreigner? I've
Speaker 1: never heard of Foreigner. Yes, you've heard of Foreigner. You
Speaker 1: know every song? And I start singing. You know how
Speaker 1: good I am at that? I start singing the songs.
Speaker 1: They know every song. So people who say they have
Speaker 1: not heard of Foreigner, no, every song Foreigner has ever
Speaker 1: recorded and had a hit with. Do you know Do
Speaker 1: you know, Bob, that Foreigner has more top ten singles
Speaker 1: than Journey? Did you know that? Well? I was just
Speaker 1: going to bring up Journey, and I didn't know that
Speaker 1: because I went to see the Earth stats Journey. I've
Speaker 1: seen them a couple of times. I would see even
Speaker 1: at the Hollywood ball Ones three years ago, and you
Speaker 1: know Anniel whatever his name is, the Filipino guys, who
Speaker 1: is that? And the reaction was beyond belief. It was
Speaker 1: clear it wasn't Steve Prey. But what I realized at
Speaker 1: that point is the audience on the songs, it was
Speaker 1: about them now they'd grown up to it. They loved
Speaker 1: the songs, didn't matter that it wasn't Steve Perry. They
Speaker 1: were there for the song. The same thing as with four,
Speaker 1: Absolutely the same movement. But the problem is everybody has
Speaker 1: heard a Journey everybody. All Right, I challenge what. I know.
Speaker 1: You're the manager, but I think you're living in a
Speaker 1: little bit of a bubble. For those of us who
Speaker 1: lived the first albums in seventy seven, I want to
Speaker 1: know what love is? Was the eighty four eighty three
Speaker 1: first album came out in seventy eight, right, they've got
Speaker 1: together in uh and the want of this was on
Speaker 1: the fifth album. Right, So anybody who lived through that
Speaker 1: era knows who foreigner? Well, I have just stopped. What
Speaker 1: made Journey different was the finality of the Sopranos. Irving
Speaker 1: says two things made Journey different. Okay, FINALI of the
Speaker 1: Sopranos and a tour that they did supporting definitely epid.
Speaker 1: He puts it down to those two things. Well, the
Speaker 1: way it was only last year that this is years ago,
Speaker 1: I know because last year they played stadiums them, let
Speaker 1: know what they did. But many years ago they did
Speaker 1: a theater tour playing like the Beacon in you that
Speaker 1: size place and so theoretically, what could you do with
Speaker 1: foreigner to achieve that same mind share. Um, I am
Speaker 1: going to disagree with you. Firstly, that everybody has not hurting.
Speaker 1: I mean, I challenge you to do my test on
Speaker 1: a plane one day. Okay, people under the age of forty,
Speaker 1: but people over the age of forty. I'm surprised. People.
Speaker 1: Our target market is what you've just said. Really, it's
Speaker 1: forty and up evenly split male female. Funnily enough, but
Speaker 1: you talked to people of between your age and my age,
Speaker 1: and you're saying, you know this conversation, they have not
Speaker 1: heard of foreigner. They will tell you they have not
Speaker 1: heard of foreigner. I guess no experience, but I trust
Speaker 1: you've got to do it. Okay, well know they know
Speaker 1: the songs, but they do not know who recorded. So
Speaker 1: what I started to do when I realized that was
Speaker 1: every foreign at print ad that I take has the
Speaker 1: song titles right. So my mantra to my marketing director
Speaker 1: Guy is the mentor the songs are the brand. And
Speaker 1: over the last it's been a slug. I'm telling you,
Speaker 1: over the last fifteen years, we've changed that perspective. But
Speaker 1: the reality is here, we are with more hits than Journey,
Speaker 1: more top ten hits than Journey, and we're worth one
Speaker 1: third of Journey in the eyes of a promoter. Okright,
Speaker 1: we're gradually changing that because we're doing great business this year,
Speaker 1: but this will be next year, will be our third
Speaker 1: Live Nation headline Amphithy editor, so you know we're looking
Speaker 1: forward to that one. Last year we had David Coverdell
Speaker 1: with White Snake and Jason Bonham supporting, and we look
Speaker 1: into a big, big deal for next year. So we
Speaker 1: didn't do it this year. We just did state fairs,
Speaker 1: casinos and did amazing business. And you know that's but
Speaker 1: every time you've got to tell people who they are.
Speaker 1: We've got the same number of hits as Fleetwood Mac,
Speaker 1: We've only got one less top ten song than the Eagles,
Speaker 1: but nobody has heard in Foreigner. Okay, I'm gonna I'm
Speaker 1: gonna cut off your sales pitch, and I'm a Foreigner fan.
Speaker 1: I mean, just like I was talking about, you know,
Speaker 1: because Rick o'kaseck died at rick Akasak however he wanted,
Speaker 1: however he did pronounce it, and of course their comeback
Speaker 1: was with Mutt Lang and you had the same thing.
Speaker 1: But their album with the album that Mutt Lang Foreigner
Speaker 1: for stupendous, Okay, I mean, Waiting for a Girl like
Speaker 1: You doesn't get any better than that. Never mind, you
Speaker 1: know Jukebox here Jukebox Heroes different, but it's like urgent, unbelieving, unbelievable.
Speaker 1: I mean, the whole thing was terrific album. But you know,
Speaker 1: Journey is a different thing. Don't forget they put out
Speaker 1: all the albums with the other singer, Greg Rowley that
Speaker 1: were stiff, okay, and they certainly played stadiums before they
Speaker 1: broke up. But you know, I remember Jeff Beck was
Speaker 1: managed by Harvey Goldsmith, and before Jeff fired him, Harvey
Speaker 1: had him everywhere. Jeff Beck is no better today than
Speaker 1: he ever was. He was always stupendous, But once he
Speaker 1: was on every TV show, the people who didn't know
Speaker 1: that realized that promoter. Right. But I'm trying to say
Speaker 1: is the question is you know whether you can have
Speaker 1: that foreign or moment and if you tried to get
Speaker 1: a one of those multi hits in a definitive movie
Speaker 1: or anything. We have had some successes. We had a
Speaker 1: sync license for I Want to Know What Love Is
Speaker 1: was the final episode of Oranges and The New Black
Speaker 1: and they used the lyrics for a wedding in the
Speaker 1: thing and they went out went out with the whole
Speaker 1: So will be on TV forever, Yeah, it will be.
Speaker 1: It's not as big as the Sopranos. Sopranos that that
Speaker 1: really broke journey. Okay. But the other thing about now,
Speaker 1: I mean you talk about people don't know Foreigner. We
Speaker 1: could sit here and we could talk about the TV
Speaker 1: shows we watched, and they could be completely different shows.
Speaker 1: This was an error where if you watched TV, everybody
Speaker 1: watched when these things would come going out, there was
Speaker 1: only one radio example, you know, and we we didn't
Speaker 1: know it was classic rock at the time right there,
Speaker 1: if that was the only format. Okay, well that begs
Speaker 1: the question today's music, where personally I'm sort of nowhere
Speaker 1: with it because you know, I'm seventy five and I'm
Speaker 1: getting ready to retire. So my whole thing is working Foreigner,
Speaker 1: trying to get it where I want it to be.
Speaker 1: And you know, we're working with THEE. Snyder, we're making movies,
Speaker 1: we're doing all kinds of different things with the who
Speaker 1: is an incredibly talented man, by the way, much much
Speaker 1: less playing music now than writing stuff and co producing.
Speaker 1: His son Cody is making a movie shortly with a
Speaker 1: big studio, so we're working that side of the business.
Speaker 1: But with Foreigner, I just want to leave this at
Speaker 1: least as big as it was back in the day,
Speaker 1: and we're getting there, you know, but it's it's a
Speaker 1: struggle for the for the for the reason I told
Speaker 1: you now. The big thing these days is sync licensing,
Speaker 1: as you probably know, and sync licensing is the number
Speaker 1: one driver of streams. So we got a use in
Speaker 1: um stranger things, and the streams went through the damn
Speaker 1: roofs was cold as ice. And that's suddenly now we're
Speaker 1: starting to see younger people coming for because of these things.
Speaker 1: So we're gung ho after getting if any music supervisor
Speaker 1: at their listings, I will cut you one hell of
Speaker 1: a deal extranger of things. They came to you, or
Speaker 1: you can went to them. Well, Warners have a very
Speaker 1: good sync licensing department and Warner's own the original thing,
Speaker 1: so they came to us with that. You know, I
Speaker 1: don't have anyone out there, you know, because the major
Speaker 1: labels have almost a lock on this stuff because they've
Speaker 1: got such a massive amount of repertoire. You will go.
Speaker 1: You can go to a movie studio meeting, a studio
Speaker 1: meeting and you'll see a rep from Universal Warner or
Speaker 1: well Kevin Weaver Atlanta. Keep my god, that guy gets everything.
Speaker 1: Robert Plant called me up one day after I stop
Speaker 1: managing him because he used to call me, still calls
Speaker 1: me frequently. Uh. He said, can you get me like
Speaker 1: a movie thing? And I called up Kevin and I
Speaker 1: spent here and I spent three days together. We called
Speaker 1: up everybody that we knew, everybody because I know a
Speaker 1: number of directors from that time in film business. He
Speaker 1: knows everybody. The tour of us sat on that phone
Speaker 1: and Kevin got him the end title to the Day
Speaker 1: after Tomorrow, Big movie, right right. Robert, in his wisdom,
Speaker 1: turned it down. Artists, So thanks so much for being
Speaker 1: once again. You're listening to Phil Carson on the barb
Speaker 1: Left That's podcast. We'll see you next week.