Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / FM Radio’s Golden Decade: The Rise of AOR [Episode 364]
Transcript
- 0:00Speaker 1: I just think it was appeared when people wrote great songs.
- 0:02Speaker 1: It's almost that perfect storm, so many bands coming along
- 0:04Speaker 1: at once. That record sounded like it was beamed in
- 0:07Speaker 1: from out of space.
- 0:08Speaker 2: If you remove that track from history, does the entire
- 0:12Speaker 2: trajectory of the late seventies arena rock change?
- 0:16Speaker 1: Oh that's a great question.
- 0:17Speaker 2: We're totally boomed rock and roll. I mean, I'll leave you.
- 0:22Speaker 1: You're reading little Hands this.
- 0:23Speaker 2: It's time to rock and roll, rock band roll out.
- 0:26Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to Booked on Rock, the
- 0:34Speaker 2: podcast for those about to read in rock Emeric Sentich.
- 0:37Speaker 2: Before we get started, listeners and viewers get fifteen percent
- 0:41Speaker 2: off classic rock merchandise at oglory dot com with the
- 0:44Speaker 2: code Booked on Rock links in the show notes, or
- 0:47Speaker 2: at bookedown rock dot com under my Deals. Now onto
- 0:51Speaker 2: our guest, Paul Reese. He's the author of Raised on Radio,
- 0:54Speaker 2: Power Ballads, Cocaine and Paola. The Aoar Glory Years nineteen
- 0:59Speaker 2: seventy six to night eighty six. Welcome to the podcast part.
- 1:02Speaker 1: Thank you very much for having Merik. It's good to
- 1:04Speaker 1: be here.
- 1:05Speaker 2: This is the first biography of Aoar album Oriented Rock Aoar.
- 1:11Speaker 2: It gets used as a catch all term. How would
- 1:14Speaker 2: you define it for someone who may think just corporate
- 1:17Speaker 2: rock when they see that term.
- 1:18Speaker 1: Well, I wouldn't define it's corporate rock. I think that's
- 1:20Speaker 1: the thing that it's been todd with for years. I'd
- 1:23Speaker 1: define it as people who knew how to write songs
- 1:26Speaker 1: for radio in the glory years of radio. So the
- 1:30Speaker 1: period of the book, FM becomes the standard sound in
- 1:35Speaker 1: car stereos, and there's a group of artists who just
- 1:38Speaker 1: knew exactly how to write songs that sound it great,
- 1:41Speaker 1: driving along in the cast area. And I think that
- 1:45Speaker 1: the idea when I was doing the book that it
- 1:46Speaker 1: was corporate rock. These were people who just made up
- 1:49Speaker 1: songs on the spot. They were just great musicians. So
- 1:52Speaker 1: I find that just great sounding rock music.
- 1:55Speaker 2: Why did the AAR explosion happen specifically between nineteen seventy
- 2:00Speaker 2: six and eighteen eighty six. What conditions made that possible?
- 2:03Speaker 1: I think, firstly, as I said, the idea, it was
- 2:07Speaker 1: radio became FM in car you know car stereos, and
- 2:12Speaker 1: this was music that sounded perfect in that environment. I
- 2:16Speaker 1: think MTV coming along in nineteen eighty one, and lots
- 2:20Speaker 1: of these bands actually did make videos MTV. You know,
- 2:23Speaker 1: lots of people didn't make videos at that time. There
- 2:26Speaker 1: were lots of these bands who were making videos to
- 2:29Speaker 1: be shown in Europe and stuff like that, so they
- 2:31Speaker 1: landed on the FM playlist. I think in America at
- 2:34Speaker 1: the time, the eight as you go into the eighties,
- 2:37Speaker 1: it's music that sounds perfect in that environment, and I
- 2:42Speaker 1: just think it was appear when people wrote great songs.
- 2:45Speaker 1: There were just lots and lots of bands that all
- 2:46Speaker 1: along the ones. I think the starting point of the
- 2:48Speaker 1: book is the first Boston album, which has a spaceship
- 2:52Speaker 1: on its cover, aptly because it was music that sounded
- 2:55Speaker 1: like it. That record sounded like it was beamed in
- 2:57Speaker 1: from out of space. I think it's just that it's
- 3:01Speaker 1: almost that that perfect storm, so many bands coming along
- 3:04Speaker 1: at once, great musicians who knew it to write great songs.
- 3:08Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a definitive aour era song. Paul Ahern, their manager,
- 3:13Speaker 2: is quoted in the book he said, with more than
- 3:15Speaker 2: a feeling, I knew we'd get twenty four hour a
- 3:17Speaker 2: day airplay, and airplay was the key to it. All.
- 3:20Speaker 2: Starts off sweet and then gets heavy, which does not
- 3:22Speaker 2: disqualify it from housewife airplay time. If you remove that
- 3:26Speaker 2: track from history, does the entire trajectory of the late
- 3:33Speaker 2: seventies arena rock change.
- 3:35Speaker 1: That's a great question. I think if you listen to
- 3:38Speaker 1: something someone like Dennis DeYoung, who I spoke to you
- 3:40Speaker 1: for the book from Styx, we'll say we were doing
- 3:44Speaker 1: that kind of music before you know, we were in
- 3:47Speaker 1: advance of Boston. But I think that that's a really
- 3:51Speaker 1: good question. It's almost like a back to the future question.
- 3:53Speaker 1: I think, yeah, if that song doesn't come out and
- 3:56Speaker 1: make the impact it did, I'm not too sure whether
- 4:00Speaker 1: say Journey would have been quite so determined to get
- 4:03Speaker 1: themselves the front man or Foreigner would have been quite
- 4:06Speaker 1: a set upon the sin they had, or Areo Speedbag
- 4:10Speaker 1: ins record company starts saying you need to write a
- 4:13Speaker 1: radio hit like this. I think it's one of those
- 4:17Speaker 1: game changes. One of the ironies of it, I suppose,
- 4:19Speaker 1: is that there's that, whether it's apocryphal or not, the
- 4:22Speaker 1: idea that Kurt Cobaine took the riff of smells like
- 4:24Speaker 1: teen Spirit from more than a feeling that song Teen
- 4:28Speaker 1: Spirit had exactly the same kind of transitional effect all
- 4:32Speaker 1: those years later. Is it fifteen years later and it's
- 4:37Speaker 1: a hugely impactful song across two generations.
- 4:40Speaker 2: Journey became almost a template for aor, But before Steve
- 4:45Speaker 2: Perry arrived, Journey was more of a musician's band. Steve
- 4:50Speaker 2: is quoting a book about how his voice in Neil
- 4:52Speaker 2: Sean's guitar were like salt and pepper. Did Steve Pierry
- 4:56Speaker 2: essentially create the model for the AAR front man?
- 4:59Speaker 1: Yes, I think that of all the people in the book,
- 5:03Speaker 1: I mean there's there's there's a lot of pivotal characters
- 5:06Speaker 1: in it. Tom Schultz is obviously one of the pivotal characters.
- 5:08Speaker 1: I think Mick Jones is another, and Lou Graham. But
- 5:13Speaker 1: I think for me, Steve Perry is the guy who
- 5:15Speaker 1: tells over the whole era in terms of impact and
- 5:19Speaker 1: the talent as well. I think Steve Perry would have
- 5:22Speaker 1: been a great singer in any era and in any
- 5:26Speaker 1: style of music he chose to apply himself to. But yeah,
- 5:29Speaker 1: that high tenor voice that the mayt of people that
- 5:35Speaker 1: took that on or that that looked to Perry as
- 5:38Speaker 1: an influence, I don't think it's that much of a mystery.
- 5:42Speaker 1: We don't stop believing why that song's endured one. It's
- 5:45Speaker 1: a great song, but I think arguably it's the most
- 5:48Speaker 1: perfectly sung song. His vocal on that song is incredible.
- 5:52Speaker 2: It's incredible. Yeah, it's almost it's non human when you
- 5:55Speaker 2: listen to his voice. It, I mean, it's like he's
- 5:57Speaker 2: from another planet. The book also gets to the high
- 6:00Speaker 2: price to pay for making it during that era. Carrie
- 6:03Speaker 2: Livgren of Kansas talks about success creating an invoid. What
- 6:07Speaker 2: were the most common pitfalls of success during that era.
- 6:11Speaker 1: I think one of the things to be successful in
- 6:13Speaker 1: that era the amount of work that these guys did.
- 6:17Speaker 1: You know, you went out on the road for months
- 6:19Speaker 1: at a time. It wasn't like, you know, twenty thirty dates.
- 6:22Speaker 1: It was year long tours. I think in terms of
- 6:27Speaker 1: we're just mentioning those vocals vocalists, for one thing, You
- 6:31Speaker 1: sing in a height and a voice night after night
- 6:33Speaker 1: out on the road. That's hard physical. It's almost like
- 6:35Speaker 1: a you know, a baseball picture. How difficult that is
- 6:39Speaker 1: to do it night after night after night. So those
- 6:41Speaker 1: guys were I think it was Steve Perry or Lou Grahamson.
- 6:45Speaker 1: You know, it was almost like running a marathon every
- 6:47Speaker 1: night and Perry having a wake up the next morning
- 6:50Speaker 1: wondering if he got a voice for that that evening show.
- 6:53Speaker 1: So it's hard on vocalists, I think, just generally working
- 6:57Speaker 1: that hard in the music business in close proximity with
- 7:02Speaker 1: other band members constantly. You know, egos tend to run
- 7:06Speaker 1: out of control personal battles. The eighties, seventies and eight
- 7:11Speaker 1: is obviously in the music business. Columbia's finest product was
- 7:16Speaker 1: quite prevalent at the time, and I think just to
- 7:19Speaker 1: just to keep going and keep doing what they did,
- 7:22Speaker 1: I think it exacted a high price. I think it's
- 7:25Speaker 1: Mott Lang who told def Leppard Thomas Dolby was working
- 7:29Speaker 1: on Pyromonius def Leopard album, and Lang told him, we're
- 7:33Speaker 1: already married just by what we do. The idea that
- 7:36Speaker 1: you could have personal relationships and continue personal relationships when
- 7:40Speaker 1: you're pretty much out on the road all the time.
- 7:42Speaker 1: So yeah, I mean, I just think that the personal custom,
- 7:45Speaker 1: what it does to your head as well, that level
- 7:47Speaker 1: of success, because it's almost unthinkable now you know the
- 7:50Speaker 1: number of bands from that here who sold ten million
- 7:53Speaker 1: plus copies of an album. That's success on a staggering scale.
- 7:57Speaker 2: Def Leppard with Pyromania, hysteria, massive sellers, bon Jovi Slippery
- 8:03Speaker 2: when wet, New Jersey massive sellers. The pressure that I
- 8:07Speaker 2: can imagine the pressure on the vocalist too, Like you said,
- 8:11Speaker 2: they have to go out there night after night, and
- 8:12Speaker 2: that fear that maybe they wake up one morning and
- 8:14Speaker 2: their voices shot, it's gone. You know that that pressure,
- 8:18Speaker 2: that every day pounding pressure. You know, it has to
- 8:22Speaker 2: you have to have a certain personality type to be
- 8:24Speaker 2: able to withstand that.
- 8:26Speaker 1: I think I think John bon Jovi's talked about it,
- 8:28Speaker 1: hasn't it. I mean, John Bunjovi said, you know that
- 8:30Speaker 1: you look at the cover picture of him on the
- 8:32Speaker 1: back cover of the New Jersey album when he's unshave,
- 8:35Speaker 1: and he said, you know, we pretty much left home
- 8:38Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven and we didn't come back for
- 8:40Speaker 1: three four years, and it was constant treadmill. The way
- 8:43Speaker 1: you did that, that's that's hard grind, hard graft.
- 8:46Speaker 2: There's also the almost famous side of this era, the
- 8:49Speaker 2: chapter titled Michael Bolton and Blackjack, the AAR supergroup that
- 8:53Speaker 2: never was. Bolton on vocals, Future Kiss guitarist Bruce Cullick,
- 8:58Speaker 2: Sandy Gennaro on drums, Sandy Gray. He was on the show.
- 9:01Speaker 2: He was talking about he's got a couple of books out.
- 9:03Speaker 2: I believe he was a guest on the podcast, and
- 9:05Speaker 2: Jimmy haslip on bass Now on paper, Blackjack had all
- 9:09Speaker 2: the ingredients, strong players, big voice, label backing as well.
- 9:13Speaker 2: Why did it not connect?
- 9:15Speaker 1: That's one of those unanswerable questions, isn't it. I mean,
- 9:17Speaker 1: I think it's the reason obviously that you put that
- 9:21Speaker 1: chapters in there, for the idea that there were always
- 9:23Speaker 1: those great misses. You know, in the midst of all
- 9:25Speaker 1: these records selling, you get something like Blackjab and if
- 9:29Speaker 1: you just Michael Bolton alone, that voice alone, and with that,
- 9:34Speaker 1: they've got led Zeppling's lawyer was the guy who negotiated
- 9:37Speaker 1: the deal and was in the background manage and they
- 9:40Speaker 1: just looked like they were a sure thing. And for
- 9:42Speaker 1: whatever reason, there's always those stories. There's always the exceptions
- 9:46Speaker 1: to the room. Later on in the book, you've got
- 9:49Speaker 1: Giant who gets signed by Atlantic Foreigners label and they
- 9:54Speaker 1: believe they were onto an absolute sure thing and it
- 9:57Speaker 1: just just didn't happen.
- 9:59Speaker 2: No Ryman reasons, I'm times.
- 10:00Speaker 1: No, no, it's just it's just it's I mean, It's
- 10:02Speaker 1: a crapshit, isn't it. It's look of the draw, right place,
- 10:05Speaker 1: right time, right songs sometimes right and you know there's
- 10:08Speaker 1: there's no there's no guarantee with any of it.
- 10:12Speaker 2: Cheap Tricks live at Buddhakhan. That's covered in the book too.
- 10:15Speaker 2: Was this the moment that the audience became an active
- 10:18Speaker 2: participant in aoar success?
- 10:20Speaker 1: Yeah, that's another great question. Yeah, I mean because it's
- 10:24Speaker 1: that notion. Yeah, like you said, the idea that this
- 10:27Speaker 1: was corporate music, that it was somehow saniti is all
- 10:31Speaker 1: these bands went out and actually played to people. All
- 10:34Speaker 1: these bands and artists made music to tape in a studio.
- 10:38Speaker 1: A lot of the songs came together.
- 10:40Speaker 2: In the room.
- 10:40Speaker 1: But I think the audience is hugely important in this
- 10:43Speaker 1: because it's quite and that the music's evocative, it's quite emotional,
- 10:48Speaker 1: it's powerful. It doesn't work without that sort of connection
- 10:52Speaker 1: with an audience. Exactly the same way as you know,
- 10:55Speaker 1: arguably captured the Journey albums, that albums that teed them
- 10:58Speaker 1: up for escape because they were fantastic live band and
- 11:02Speaker 1: those songs sounded great like but Buddha cun is that again,
- 11:08Speaker 1: cheap trip don't happen without that record, right right.
- 11:11Speaker 2: Kiss Alive was another example. I can't remember which came first.
- 11:14Speaker 1: I think I think kiss Alive came first.
- 11:17Speaker 2: I think is it seventy seventy six.
- 11:21Speaker 1: Seventy six? Yes, I think it probably came You probably
- 11:24Speaker 1: proved me wrong my memory these.
- 11:25Speaker 2: Days, seventy five seventy six somewhere around there. But yeah,
- 11:29Speaker 2: that was the era too when when live albums they were,
- 11:32Speaker 2: you know, huge money maker for labels, and they weren't
- 11:34Speaker 2: expensive to make, so they didn't have to hire a
- 11:37Speaker 2: studio time record the show. How about Heart and Pat Benattar?
- 11:41Speaker 2: How important are they improving? AOAR wasn't just a boys club?
- 11:45Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's the first one of the really
- 11:47Speaker 1: interesting side issues. I mean, they talked quite a lot
- 11:51Speaker 1: Anna Nancy Willson when I interviewed them. They were they
- 11:54Speaker 1: were very honest about the environment they went into as
- 11:59Speaker 1: women in a rock band. At that time, labels were
- 12:03Speaker 1: very male oriented. Media was very male oriented. It was
- 12:07Speaker 1: a testosterone feel thing, and you know, they were objectified.
- 12:11Speaker 1: They were almost passed over as a sort of you know,
- 12:17Speaker 1: just as you know the way that they advertised that
- 12:19Speaker 1: first Heart record, as you know, the sort of salacious thing.
- 12:24Speaker 1: And I think they're incredibly important because they were strong, decisive,
- 12:28Speaker 1: powerful musicians. And the same with Pat Benattart. There was
- 12:31Speaker 1: nobody in control of Pat Benattar's destiny other than Pat Benattar.
- 12:36Speaker 1: And yeah, it is important and it's it's I don't
- 12:40Speaker 1: think they stuck a blow for everybody that's pretty much
- 12:44Speaker 1: followed in their way. You know, who fronts around any
- 12:46Speaker 1: woman in a rock band. Also because I think, you know,
- 12:51Speaker 1: Nancy Wilson talks about they Nancy Wilson couldn't find a
- 12:55Speaker 1: female influence because there wasn't anybody who played rock guitar, right, Yeah,
- 13:01Speaker 1: so she took it from Jimmy Page because there was
- 13:03Speaker 1: no one else. She was pretty much right in the
- 13:06Speaker 1: rule book as she went along.
- 13:07Speaker 2: Yeah, I never thought about that. Janis Chaplin vocalist, Yeah, yeah,
- 13:11Speaker 2: I never thought about that. And of course then they
- 13:13Speaker 2: went to that period where Anne talks about she the
- 13:15Speaker 2: outside songwriters beautiful women. So let's capitalize on that. Let's
- 13:19Speaker 2: get him dressed up, let's put them in the videos.
- 13:21Speaker 2: And that was a period that Anne was not too
- 13:23Speaker 2: fond of. Although I love those songs, you know, I mean,
- 13:26Speaker 2: it's just maybe our age. I mean that that's those
- 13:29Speaker 2: are great songs, but I see where she's coming from
- 13:32Speaker 2: because those songs may not necessarily be reflective of how
- 13:35Speaker 2: she really felt, but they're hit singles like they had.
- 13:39Speaker 2: Is a Desmond child that wrote songs for them? Or
- 13:41Speaker 2: was it ron Nevison?
- 13:42Speaker 1: I think I think ron Ron Neverson pulled in so
- 13:46Speaker 1: Jim Vallance he used Jim Valence songs, didn't he They
- 13:48Speaker 1: had Holly Knight and people like that. So I think
- 13:50Speaker 1: Neverson had different people when when they brought him in,
- 13:53Speaker 1: he'd got he'd got different songs that he got on
- 13:55Speaker 1: the shelf that he'd be recommended and put them in
- 13:58Speaker 1: touch with.
- 14:01Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the Booked on Rock podcast.
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- 14:37Speaker 2: to the show. Yeah, how about bands like Yes, Genesis
- 14:41Speaker 2: with Phil Collins, Kansas Sticks all had great success during
- 14:46Speaker 2: that era. Why did so many progressive bands begin streamlining
- 14:50Speaker 2: their sound during the aoar boom? Was this a conscious
- 14:53Speaker 2: commercial pivot or was it a natural evolution?
- 14:56Speaker 1: The Kansas guys were pretty honest about it. I think
- 14:58Speaker 1: that the Kansas guys were very much like you and
- 15:01Speaker 1: Blewis to Court as well, who were not progressive, but
- 15:03Speaker 1: they're obviously from that, not strictly in aor band. But
- 15:08Speaker 1: Donald Rosier that the guys in Kansas will very honestly say,
- 15:11Speaker 1: you know, the label puts on the pressure you need
- 15:13Speaker 1: to ever hit single, you need to get songs on
- 15:15Speaker 1: the radio. And I think in terms of all of
- 15:20Speaker 1: those bands, first of all, it's the sound. I think
- 15:23Speaker 1: you become aware of the set if you're touring America
- 15:26Speaker 1: for any length of time or in America for any
- 15:28Speaker 1: length of time during that period. You hear what's on
- 15:31Speaker 1: the radio, and you hear the guys that are making
- 15:34Speaker 1: the records that that get on that radio. So I
- 15:37Speaker 1: think they first of all, they knew that. I mean,
- 15:39Speaker 1: h pajim Is, the Genesis producer, said he spent so
- 15:41Speaker 1: much time in the States love listen to the radio,
- 15:44Speaker 1: so he began to understand what would sound great on
- 15:47Speaker 1: the radio. So I think there's there's partly that you
- 15:51Speaker 1: respond to where you are at the moment. You respond
- 15:54Speaker 1: to the influences around you, in the environment you're in.
- 15:57Speaker 1: And for sure, I think all those bands assigned to
- 16:00Speaker 1: major labels, and the one thing major labels wanted during
- 16:03Speaker 1: that time was hit single and hit records, so that
- 16:07Speaker 1: they were they were for sure, they were told four
- 16:12Speaker 1: minutes songs gets on the radio. I mean Asia, who
- 16:16Speaker 1: obviously you know, featured members of King Crimson and yes,
- 16:21Speaker 1: John Kalodna put that band together completely with the idea
- 16:24Speaker 1: that they were going to start writing hit single.
- 16:27Speaker 2: The first song that comes to mind for Kansas is
- 16:29Speaker 2: fight Fire with Fire, right, I mean, that's like the classic,
- 16:32Speaker 2: that's the AOAR influence.
- 16:35Speaker 1: Yeah.
- 16:36Speaker 2: Paul Reese is the author of Raisin Radio, Power Ballads, Cocaine,
- 16:39Speaker 2: and Pay All the AAR Glory Years. In nineteen seventy six,
- 16:42Speaker 2: to nineteen eighty six. The power Ballad was basically Aoar's
- 16:46Speaker 2: emotional engine. Bands with a harder edge like Foreigner having
- 16:49Speaker 2: huge success with songs like I Want to Know What
- 16:51Speaker 2: Love Is, but Lou Graham worried that the band was
- 16:54Speaker 2: getting too soft, which led to his exit from the band.
- 16:57Speaker 2: Was that an isolated issue or a wider struggle that
- 17:01Speaker 2: a lot of these bands face between staying rock, maintaining
- 17:06Speaker 2: the rock roots and chasing a broader audience.
- 17:09Speaker 1: I think it's a common thread, you know. Graham's probably
- 17:13Speaker 1: the most explicit about it, you know, particularly with I
- 17:17Speaker 1: Want to Know What Love Is. I think that he
- 17:19Speaker 1: felt at that point they were they were becoming something
- 17:24Speaker 1: he felt uncomfortable with him. But I think all those bands,
- 17:28Speaker 1: you know, the idea it became a you need to
- 17:30Speaker 1: have a ballad on the album, or you need to
- 17:32Speaker 1: have that that kind of song on the record. I
- 17:35Speaker 1: think Neil Sean less so now, but he you know,
- 17:38Speaker 1: famously did not like Open Arms and did and and
- 17:43Speaker 1: didn't really feel comfortable performing it. He says now he's
- 17:46Speaker 1: changed his mind over that song. Gary rich Ruth from
- 17:53Speaker 1: YEH not happy with you know, because he was the
- 17:56Speaker 1: prime songwriter before Kevin Crohnin comes up with people on
- 18:00Speaker 1: Loving You and that the minute that he wrote the
- 18:04Speaker 1: big hit, that changes the guys in stix other one,
- 18:07Speaker 1: you know, James Jong, Tommy Shaw less comfortable with the
- 18:12Speaker 1: fact that, you know, Dennis Dejung writes hit balance. But
- 18:15Speaker 1: I think it's that separation point, isn't it all bands,
- 18:17Speaker 1: If there's a guy who writes those kind of songs
- 18:20Speaker 1: and writes the hits, they become the main guy in
- 18:23Speaker 1: the band. And that in any environment, when you're in
- 18:26Speaker 1: a group of people, that there's always the first among
- 18:29Speaker 1: equals and it doesn't necessarily go right down well with
- 18:32Speaker 1: everybody else.
- 18:33Speaker 2: Was the aour era the first time that labels actively
- 18:37Speaker 2: pushed outside writers on to establish rock bands. Had it
- 18:41Speaker 2: happen prior to that? I think in the fifties they
- 18:44Speaker 2: were all outside songwriters, right.
- 18:47Speaker 1: Yeah, and Tim Panelli, I mean it was a tradition
- 18:49Speaker 1: of the music business. You could mowtown all. So it
- 18:52Speaker 1: had been within the music industry that these Bengali figures,
- 18:58Speaker 1: there were these people that wrote the song, be it
- 19:01Speaker 1: from Elvis to to wherever you want to join the
- 19:03Speaker 1: dots that there were always songwriters. I think the thing
- 19:08Speaker 1: with the rock here obviously is you come out. You
- 19:11Speaker 1: have this thing with the Beatles and the Stones and
- 19:13Speaker 1: Zeppelin and people like that, and then the Birds and
- 19:16Speaker 1: Neil Young that the the artist is the songwriter, and
- 19:20Speaker 1: it becomes this sort of sacrisanct thing that you know,
- 19:23Speaker 1: you write your own songs that if you don't, it's
- 19:25Speaker 1: somehow invalidates it, or it's it damages your standing as
- 19:32Speaker 1: an artist, and it's you know, ultimately, the songs of songs,
- 19:36Speaker 1: a song, you know, our bon Jovi any lesser of
- 19:39Speaker 1: a band because Desmond Child had a hand in writing
- 19:42Speaker 1: Living on the Prayer is Pyramania or Hysteriany lesser of
- 19:46Speaker 1: an album because of mort Lang's input on it and
- 19:49Speaker 1: the fact that he gets songwriting credits. I just think
- 19:52Speaker 1: you do what you do the great songs of great songs.
- 19:55Speaker 1: It doesn't really matter where it's come from, and it
- 19:58Speaker 1: doesn't lessen the the quality of the people performing that song,
- 20:02Speaker 1: because how.
- 20:03Speaker 2: Much did listeners know the difference?
- 20:06Speaker 1: Yeah? And do they do? People actually care?
- 20:08Speaker 2: They care? Yeah?
- 20:10Speaker 1: I mean you're not, you're responding to the song. It
- 20:14Speaker 1: doesn't matter. You know. One of the I think one
- 20:17Speaker 1: of the great songs that came out of that era
- 20:19Speaker 1: is Boys of.
- 20:20Speaker 2: Summer Henley written by Mike Campbell, written by.
- 20:25Speaker 1: Mike Campbell, that song that Tom Petty had sort of
- 20:27Speaker 1: gone not really not for me, and Don Henley writes
- 20:32Speaker 1: the lyrics of it, and and that's incredibly important. But
- 20:36Speaker 1: that song is a Mike Hambilson. Does it matter that
- 20:39Speaker 1: Mike Campbell's involving it's not all Henry's. I don't think
- 20:41Speaker 1: it matters a bit. It's still Henley. Still, there's no
- 20:44Speaker 1: one sings that song like Henley, so yeah, and same
- 20:48Speaker 1: with a Loan by Heart. You know, there's a Ann
- 20:51Speaker 1: Wilson did not want to sing that song originally and
- 20:54Speaker 1: felt uncomfortable. But no one sings that song like Anne Wilson.
- 20:58Speaker 1: And that that's that's the hard part. That's equation. It's
- 21:01Speaker 1: still hugely important the performer as well.
- 21:03Speaker 2: Well. What's impressive though, when you think when you realize
- 21:06Speaker 2: that Ann Wilson, something like Anne Wilson didn't want to
- 21:08Speaker 2: sing the song, and you you hear her singing on
- 21:10Speaker 2: the song so passionately. You know, that's a pro. I
- 21:13Speaker 2: mean that's an absolute pro because you would not know that,
- 21:16Speaker 2: you wouldn't listen to song and say, oh, you could
- 21:18Speaker 2: tell she doesn't care.
- 21:19Speaker 1: Ann Wilson is not phoning it in on that song.
- 21:22Speaker 2: No, she's not. You may know this story. Mike Campbell's
- 21:25Speaker 2: book came out recently and he talked about how Tom
- 21:27Speaker 2: Petty was like, yeah, man, I got to give that
- 21:29Speaker 2: to you. I kind of I kind of screwed up
- 21:31Speaker 2: on and then he wrote Runaway Trains for Petty. He said,
- 21:35Speaker 2: I'll give you another Boys of Summer like song, and
- 21:38Speaker 2: it was Runaway Trains, which is off of let Me Up,
- 21:41Speaker 2: I've had Enough.
- 21:43Speaker 1: Actually, one of my favorite Tom Petty songs is when
- 21:46Speaker 1: I Didn't know that.
- 21:47Speaker 2: Oh cool. Yeah, Now when you listen to it, you'll
- 21:49Speaker 2: be like, oh yeah, the beginning, you know, that's that's
- 21:52Speaker 2: you can hear it there. Yeah. Let's talk a little
- 21:54Speaker 2: bit more about Mutt Lang. He's basically like the sonic
- 21:57Speaker 2: architect of that polished arena rock sale. What he did
- 22:01Speaker 2: for ac DC with Howard Helen back in Black Death Leopard,
- 22:04Speaker 2: the Cars, with Heartbeat City, The proof is in the numbers.
- 22:08Speaker 2: What made his productions immediately recognizable compared to other producers
- 22:13Speaker 2: of the time, Well.
- 22:14Speaker 1: I think it's the starting point was. Mc jones kind
- 22:17Speaker 1: of pointed that that that mo Lang grew up in
- 22:21Speaker 1: grew up into the business in South Africa. He wrote
- 22:23Speaker 1: radio jingles in South Africa, so he knew and he
- 22:29Speaker 1: was educated in exactly what worked as a radio song.
- 22:32Speaker 1: And I think his probably what set him apart was
- 22:37Speaker 1: he did it to the nth degree. I mean, if
- 22:39Speaker 1: you read the book, he's an obsessive perfectionist to the
- 22:43Speaker 1: nth degree. You know, went to the boardline, limits of
- 22:49Speaker 1: human patients and endurance to get what he wanted. So
- 22:52Speaker 1: I think that sets it's it's music so perfectly crafted,
- 22:57Speaker 1: it's almost you know, it's all most impossible to believe
- 23:01Speaker 1: he did that. But though that sound he gets, it's
- 23:04Speaker 1: instantly identifiable as Mut Lange. You know that the vocals,
- 23:08Speaker 1: I think the vocal harmonies are extraordinary, and the precision
- 23:13Speaker 1: with which it's put together. And I think Brian Adams
- 23:17Speaker 1: said that the one thing that made Lang was every
- 23:20Speaker 1: vocalist he worked with, he got the best ever vocal
- 23:23Speaker 1: that they've ever done out of them. I think that's
- 23:27Speaker 1: probably if you picked anything out Mutlang's thing, it's that
- 23:31Speaker 1: precision in writing a song or arranging the song and
- 23:34Speaker 1: then the vocal, the vocals of the harmony vocals in
- 23:38Speaker 1: mut Lang's works are monumental, and that thread from him
- 23:44Speaker 1: runs from what he did in this here into modern
- 23:47Speaker 1: you know, he obviously went on and worked with Shania
- 23:50Speaker 1: Twainian and you near the influence of that. I think
- 23:53Speaker 1: in an awful lot of modern mainstream country music and
- 23:56Speaker 1: Taylor Swift that that vocal arrangement is his biggest thing,
- 24:01Speaker 1: I think.
- 24:02Speaker 2: And a very low key guy. Try to find an
- 24:04Speaker 2: interview with him, try to find a picture of him,
- 24:08Speaker 2: and you.
- 24:09Speaker 1: Try and contact him, try and find this literally, no,
- 24:12Speaker 1: he's almost He is the man of mystery, which is
- 24:16Speaker 1: for a man who's been responsible for so many hit records,
- 24:19Speaker 1: is some achievement.
- 24:21Speaker 2: The story the Craslery with Joe Elliott on Pyrammini, he
- 24:25Speaker 2: said Muttlane pushed his push him so hard with the
- 24:28Speaker 2: vocals that the blood, the blood would stop rushing to
- 24:32Speaker 2: his head. So he'd have to stand upside down for
- 24:34Speaker 2: a little bit just to get the blood phone back
- 24:36Speaker 2: into his head, and then he'd go back in and
- 24:39Speaker 2: go at it again, you know, until he could get
- 24:41Speaker 2: it just so. But you're right, the biggest, the biggest
- 24:44Speaker 2: difference to me is that Car's Heartbeat City album because
- 24:47Speaker 2: everything prior to that had such a different sound. You know,
- 24:50Speaker 2: it's a distinct difference in uh. And I'm also now
- 24:54Speaker 2: I'm drawn a blank on who produced all the producer
- 24:57Speaker 2: for the early Cars albums.
- 24:59Speaker 1: He just passed away Thomas.
- 25:01Speaker 2: Oh Roy, Thomas Baker, who did a fantastic job. But
- 25:04Speaker 2: I think it was Ricord Kasik that said I want
- 25:07Speaker 2: to bring in a different producer, right, He's the guy
- 25:09Speaker 2: who made that call.
- 25:10Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think I don't know that thing exactly
- 25:13Speaker 1: what you said about bands making conscious decisions. You call
- 25:18Speaker 1: him mut Lang. When you want to have a big hit,
- 25:21Speaker 1: blockbuster record, you don't put yourself through working that all
- 25:25Speaker 1: the you know, the the commitment required with working Mutlang.
- 25:31Speaker 1: I love Heartbeats. I think it's such a great record
- 25:33Speaker 1: and such a and again a brilliant, brilliant sounding pop album.
- 25:38Speaker 1: Which is I guess, is the theme that that that
- 25:41Speaker 1: keeps coming round and round in the book and through
- 25:44Speaker 1: the air, that these records just sound great, that they
- 25:46Speaker 1: sound brilliant.
- 25:48Speaker 2: There's another guy you talk about. There is a chapter
- 25:50Speaker 2: Mutlange with the Cars and David Foster with Chicago the
- 25:53Speaker 2: great dictators, and we know what Lang did. Foster helps
- 25:56Speaker 2: hear Chicago towards that ballad driven success. What was David
- 26:02Speaker 2: Foster's magic touch? What was he like to work with
- 26:05Speaker 2: in the studio?
- 26:05Speaker 1: Well, I think the same thing. Foster's the first and foremost.
- 26:08Speaker 1: Foster's a songwriter, knows how to write and arrange songs,
- 26:12Speaker 1: so he has that. I think David Foster's just a
- 26:15Speaker 1: fascinating character. So the idea, I think he again vocals.
- 26:20Speaker 1: He he isolated the most important either the songwriter or
- 26:25Speaker 1: the vocalist in the band. He's probably a man who,
- 26:29Speaker 1: ironically from he did, shouldn't have worked with bands because
- 26:32Speaker 1: it wasn't a healthy thing for either the Tubes or
- 26:36Speaker 1: Chicago in terms of the band dynamic. But if you
- 26:39Speaker 1: go into if you think of the Chicago at the
- 26:41Speaker 1: time he goes into them, it's a sound sort of
- 26:43Speaker 1: predicated on and based upon that horn section. And Foster
- 26:48Speaker 1: goes in and said, the horns don't really matter on
- 26:52Speaker 1: the records I'm going to make. He's got sidelines of horn,
- 26:54Speaker 1: and he brings in people Steve Lucath and others, people
- 26:59Speaker 1: who can write hit songs and and so you work
- 27:03Speaker 1: with Peter Setira with with Chicago It's fee Way Belt
- 27:08Speaker 1: and brings in Luke Rthur to write songs. So Foster
- 27:11Speaker 1: is one of those guys. In another way, to Motlan,
- 27:14Speaker 1: he did precisely what needed to be done to write
- 27:19Speaker 1: hit songs and and didn't really really cared if he
- 27:24Speaker 1: offended any egos or he said the apple cart along
- 27:27Speaker 1: the way. It was all about the end result.
- 27:30Speaker 2: And did Foster do the tubes? Was the Backwards Principle album?
- 27:36Speaker 2: He produced that.
- 27:37Speaker 1: One, Yeah, and the two big hits. You know, She's
- 27:42Speaker 1: so unusual being one of them that the two big
- 27:44Speaker 1: hits that they had, Foster's responsible for that. Luca that
- 27:49Speaker 1: is the co writer on that with Wab and Wabe
- 27:53Speaker 1: took the book that the rest of the band sort
- 27:56Speaker 1: of objected to it and decided as a sort of
- 28:00Speaker 1: democracy that they didn't want Foster to be their producer
- 28:03Speaker 1: any longer.
- 28:04Speaker 2: Yeah, talk to you later, Oh, talk to your layers.
- 28:06Speaker 2: On the completion Backward Principle and then Outside Inside has
- 28:13Speaker 2: She's a Beauty Yeah, two huge hits, Yeah, yeah Yeah.
- 28:17Speaker 2: Tom Schultz paints a brutally negative picture of the machinery
- 28:20Speaker 2: behind the hits the contracts, the leverage, the radio politics,
- 28:24Speaker 2: and how success magnified conflict were legal battles almost inevitable
- 28:29Speaker 2: once these bands become valuable assets.
- 28:32Speaker 1: Yeah, because I think the music business you're still coming
- 28:34Speaker 1: out of, you know, the infamously sixties seventies contracts. You know,
- 28:39Speaker 1: we're very much in favor of labels and or manipulative management.
- 28:45Speaker 1: You know, the artist was usually bottom of the food chain.
- 28:49Speaker 1: And I think when it's the same in any industry,
- 28:52Speaker 1: isn't it or any business, wouldn't you get enormous success.
- 28:56Speaker 1: There's always someone at the end of the line who's
- 28:59Speaker 1: catching the check, and it's it's it's weighted one way another.
- 29:03Speaker 1: I think in the music business, Schultz particularly because you know,
- 29:07Speaker 1: like we said, the whole idea was it was a production,
- 29:10Speaker 1: like you kept churning it the hits, and Schultz didn't
- 29:14Speaker 1: play ball. Did Schultz wanted to sit in his basement
- 29:19Speaker 1: agonizing over every last note.
- 29:21Speaker 2: Every for years, many many years.
- 29:26Speaker 1: So he was he It was kind of like the
- 29:28Speaker 1: immovable object meets the unstoppable force with with him and
- 29:32Speaker 1: Columbia Records and Schultz one which is an usual you know,
- 29:37Speaker 1: victory for artists.
- 29:39Speaker 2: Steve Howe caught in the book saying, I can't honestly
- 29:41Speaker 2: say we never thought about money, because that would be silly.
- 29:44Speaker 2: I have two children to send it school. And this
- 29:47Speaker 2: is in the chapter titled Chicago Asia and the Fine
- 29:50Speaker 2: Art of Reinvention. Don't responsibilities versus rock idealism?
- 29:55Speaker 1: I think that was one of the things. I think
- 29:57Speaker 1: it's because it's a rare moment of realism, isn't it.
- 30:00Speaker 1: The Steve had the idea that real life, these were
- 30:02Speaker 1: guys who you know, had responsibilities, had families, and you
- 30:07Speaker 1: know it. It's a strange one, isn't It's the idea that.
- 30:10Speaker 2: A lot of them will get into their thirties by
- 30:12Speaker 2: this point.
- 30:12Speaker 1: Yeah, it's the idea that none of us make decisions,
- 30:16Speaker 1: that being in a band excludes you from making decisions
- 30:20Speaker 1: based on hard realities in life. And if someone says,
- 30:24Speaker 1: you know, in the case of Asian Steve Howe, make
- 30:27Speaker 1: a record with some formuli pop songs and your family
- 30:32Speaker 1: will be secure for life, or carry on making twenty
- 30:36Speaker 1: minute noodling epics forevermore. And he did the one you
- 30:39Speaker 1: know that the Asia, And that's same thing with Jonathan Kainer.
- 30:43Speaker 1: Think he says in the book, when Escape came out
- 30:46Speaker 1: from Journey, the journey's lawyer said to him, you will
- 30:48Speaker 1: never have to worry again where you know, about providing
- 30:54Speaker 1: for family or about money. I think it's it's a
- 30:57Speaker 1: strange thing in the hip hop era and to a
- 31:01Speaker 1: degree in the pop here and there, it's that sort
- 31:03Speaker 1: of great success is celebrated. The idea of people being
- 31:07Speaker 1: able to consciously write hit songs is celebrated. It's almost
- 31:11Speaker 1: sort of been in rock frowned upon, which is which
- 31:14Speaker 1: is ludicrous. I don't again, I don't think the idea
- 31:18Speaker 1: that you'd consciously it's not that easy to consciously right
- 31:21Speaker 1: hit single. If they did anything, you do it, so
- 31:23Speaker 1: it you know, it's it by saying we wanted some hits,
- 31:27Speaker 1: you still got to go out and write them, and
- 31:29Speaker 1: it's it's a hard thing.
- 31:30Speaker 2: To do, and it's still an art form. In my opinion,
- 31:33Speaker 2: it's an absolute yeah. Absolutely. The Bookdown Rock Podcast is
- 31:39Speaker 2: part of the Boneless podcasting network. If you're a fan
- 31:42Speaker 2: of classic rock and classic film like I am, go
- 31:45Speaker 2: to Boneless Dot Lovable Dot app to find over twenty
- 31:48Speaker 2: great shows there that's Boneless down Lovable Dot app or
- 31:52Speaker 2: just go to bookdown rock dot com, the Boneless podcasting network.
- 31:56Speaker 2: It is what you want to be listen with confidence.
- 32:01Speaker 2: There's the chapter on Billy Squire's Rock Me Tonight video
- 32:04Speaker 2: marking the downfall of his career. I've read about this
- 32:08Speaker 2: so many times and I think people really kind of
- 32:10Speaker 2: blown out of proportion. However, this was the exception to
- 32:13Speaker 2: the rule and was his MTV would help break an artist?
- 32:17Speaker 2: Was this the beginning of the end for Classic ao
- 32:20Speaker 2: R MTV?
- 32:22Speaker 1: I think I think Billy Squad makes some interest, but
- 32:25Speaker 1: I think it, like you said, it is over bakes
- 32:27Speaker 1: the idea that that one song it was a hit single.
- 32:29Speaker 1: At the end of the day it was still and
- 32:31Speaker 1: the album from which it was taken went platinum, so
- 32:34Speaker 1: you could you could argue that both ways. Up, I
- 32:37Speaker 1: think the thing that MTV did that I think Billy
- 32:40Speaker 1: Squad makes a really really good point. In the book,
- 32:43Speaker 1: he said that previously on the radio, you were allowed
- 32:50Speaker 1: to impose your own view of a song and create
- 32:53Speaker 1: your own visual world around the song. So you'd hear
- 32:56Speaker 1: a song and your relationship to it was sometimes you
- 33:00Speaker 1: miss hear the lyrics, you wouldn't necessarily know what the
- 33:03Speaker 1: people behind it made so you would create your own world.
- 33:05Speaker 1: There was a mystique around it. Once MTV took off,
- 33:10Speaker 1: and it took a while for MTV to be nationally distributed,
- 33:15Speaker 1: that's taken away from you. The video becomes your connection
- 33:19Speaker 1: to that song, and I think and also image becomes
- 33:23Speaker 1: so much more important. You know, there was no one,
- 33:27Speaker 1: no image maker was dressing Journey or a Reo Speedwagon
- 33:30Speaker 1: or Toto or any of those guys. They were just musicians.
- 33:34Speaker 1: And after MTV explodes, image becomes as important. The way
- 33:39Speaker 1: you look becomes as important. And I think that did
- 33:43Speaker 1: contribute towards marginalizing these bands because they didn't they didn't look,
- 33:49Speaker 1: they weren't pinups, they weren't poster boys.
- 33:51Speaker 2: Yeah, nobody captured better than Mark Naufler Money for Nothing,
- 33:55Speaker 2: Chicks for Free.
- 33:56Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely just.
- 33:57Speaker 2: Encapsulated that whole era. Chapter seventy five titled end Days.
- 34:01Speaker 2: Denny Carmassi of Hearts quoted underneath that saying the cracks
- 34:04Speaker 2: started to become holes in the ground. What eventually led
- 34:08Speaker 2: to the end of the AOAR era? Did they just
- 34:10Speaker 2: finally get burned out?
- 34:12Speaker 1: Partly that, and I think partly like this, the same
- 34:14Speaker 1: with all musical movements, you know, there's there's a sort
- 34:17Speaker 1: of narrative arc, isn't that there's a beginning, a middle
- 34:20Speaker 1: where and a cresting and then a tip down the
- 34:23Speaker 1: other side. I think partly that idea that it did
- 34:27Speaker 1: become too prescriptive, that you know, power ballads became bi
- 34:33Speaker 1: wrote and expected on every record, And partly exhaustion, you know,
- 34:39Speaker 1: the idea that you can keep churning out hits and
- 34:43Speaker 1: keep working. But also I do think that the MTV
- 34:46Speaker 1: influenced that. The reason, you know, by the time you
- 34:49Speaker 1: get to Hysteria and Slippery, when were those two records
- 34:53Speaker 1: def levem bon Jovi are bands that fit MTV image
- 34:58Speaker 1: as well. They were, they were good looking bands, and
- 35:01Speaker 1: I think that sort of gives way and leads into
- 35:04Speaker 1: pop metal and the hair metal, and suddenly you know
- 35:09Speaker 1: guys who looked like Kevin Cronin and and that look
- 35:12Speaker 1: a little bit old and a little bit staid and
- 35:15Speaker 1: a little bit tired. And so I think it's just
- 35:17Speaker 1: that inevitable course of events that there's always something new
- 35:24Speaker 1: that appears younger and fresher and better looking and better
- 35:28Speaker 1: package coming along, and that that probably tips it over
- 35:31Speaker 1: the edge.
- 35:32Speaker 2: The final chapter titled Resurrection. So you got people like
- 35:35Speaker 2: Joe Elliott, Steve Lucather, Sammy Higgar, Brian Adams, Dennis Young.
- 35:39Speaker 2: They're all talking about how this music has come back
- 35:41Speaker 2: and these bands and these artists are playing to huge
- 35:43Speaker 2: audiences after being dismissed for decades as uncool, these artists
- 35:49Speaker 2: are now filling arenas again. And the streaming numbers you
- 35:52Speaker 2: see it massive numbers. Is a R being rediscovered or
- 35:56Speaker 2: is it finally being understood the way audience is understood
- 35:59Speaker 2: it all along.
- 36:00Speaker 1: I think it's a bit of both. I think it's
- 36:02Speaker 1: a bit of both things, and I think it all
- 36:04Speaker 1: boils down to, ultimately the same thing. Why any kind
- 36:09Speaker 1: of music endrs And it's the strength of the songs
- 36:13Speaker 1: and the performances. And these are great songs.
- 36:16Speaker 2: You know that.
- 36:17Speaker 1: There's a reason why that we said don't stop believing
- 36:20Speaker 1: in Africa and hold the Line and whatever any other
- 36:24Speaker 1: ones you want to quote, because they're great songs, brilliantly written,
- 36:29Speaker 1: brilliantly perform And I think that where we are now,
- 36:33Speaker 1: obviously with streaming and that sort of shifting the culture,
- 36:40Speaker 1: I think the audience that grew up with those records,
- 36:43Speaker 1: has never dropped those records. There's something so evocative about
- 36:47Speaker 1: those records of time and plays. But I also think
- 36:50Speaker 1: there's a generation now you listen to music now, you know.
- 36:56Speaker 1: I've got two young sons of twenty one and seventeen.
- 37:00Speaker 1: They respond to songs they don't respect. They don't care
- 37:03Speaker 1: what people look like, they don't care what ear they're from. Okay, yeah,
- 37:07Speaker 1: both of them heard separate ways by Journey when it
- 37:10Speaker 1: was used on the trailer for Stranger Things, and to them,
- 37:14Speaker 1: that's just a brilliant song. They have no absolutely no
- 37:17Speaker 1: idea what. It's just a brilliant song, brilliant.
- 37:19Speaker 2: And it's a brilliant, brand new song to them.
- 37:22Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly exactly, that's it's an absolutely brand new song.
- 37:26Speaker 1: And I think that's it's it's almost come full circle
- 37:29Speaker 1: in that sense. The way these songs were picked up
- 37:31Speaker 1: by radio and people heard them on the radio, they
- 37:34Speaker 1: said it perfect on radio. You put these songs on.
- 37:37Speaker 1: Now you stream these songs, you listen, they still said perfect.
- 37:41Speaker 1: They still they saying like they were recorded yesterday. They
- 37:44Speaker 1: haven't dated in that sense at all, And I think
- 37:46Speaker 1: that that's what makes the great pops on.
- 37:48Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just the vehicle in which they're now going
- 37:50Speaker 2: to be delivered and has to change. The approach has
- 37:53Speaker 2: to change, getting them in strangers things, putting them in
- 37:56Speaker 2: Netflix series, movies, whatever it is, commercials, whatever it. Whatever
- 38:00Speaker 2: you got to do is just at least reintroduce it
- 38:02Speaker 2: or introduce it to a new audience is the key,
- 38:05Speaker 2: and it's it's it's definitely working. Yeah, it's definitely. We
- 38:08Speaker 2: got raised on radio power ballads, Cocaine and Pale or
- 38:11Speaker 2: the ao R Glory Years nineteen seventy six to nineteen
- 38:14Speaker 2: eighty six. And the book is out now. You can
- 38:15Speaker 2: find it where books are sold. You can look forward
- 38:18Speaker 2: at your nearest independent bookstore. Book down rock dot com
- 38:21Speaker 2: is where you can find your nearest independent bookstore. And Paul,
- 38:24Speaker 2: where can people find you online if they want to
- 38:26Speaker 2: reach out to you?
- 38:27Speaker 1: Yeah, we've got it. There's a website. It's ref Paul
- 38:31Speaker 1: Dash rece dash author dot com. So there's a website there.
- 38:34Speaker 1: I've got substack as well. It's called Access All Areas
- 38:38Speaker 1: if you want to look at it. I think it's
- 38:39Speaker 1: poor resuk at substack dot com if you want to
- 38:42Speaker 1: go there. So I'm right in there two or three
- 38:45Speaker 1: times a week if people want to check that out.
- 38:47Speaker 2: Cool. And we were talking before we started recording that
- 38:50Speaker 2: the book is getting a lot of buzz and that
- 38:52Speaker 2: popular channel Professor of Rock, he was talking about it
- 38:55Speaker 2: in one of his videos and I saw it there
- 38:57Speaker 2: and yeah, so people the word getting out there about
- 39:00Speaker 2: this book. It's just a fantastic read. I love the
- 39:03Speaker 2: Aour years, I love this music, and it's just great
- 39:06Speaker 2: to finally get that complete story. And by the way,
- 39:08Speaker 2: as you can see the Van Hilln banner behind me,
- 39:11Speaker 2: there's that great chapter on the Sammy years with Van Hillen.
- 39:14Speaker 2: There's so much in this book. I mean, this is
- 39:17Speaker 2: just scratching the surface on this. So congratulations on a
- 39:20Speaker 2: fantastic book.
- 39:21Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Erran, and thank you for the
- 39:23Speaker 1: kind words and father, and they'll really enjoyed it.
- 39:33Speaker 2: That's it.
- 39:34Speaker 1: I just think it was appeared when people wrote great song.