Life on Planet Rock

by Lonn Friend

  Rock doesn’t abide by those rules. It pays no mind to whether it ever crashes upon the shoreline of acceptance. It exists as a manifestation of expression, raw, wondrous, and if authentic, it will eventually find its audience. I was soon to discover, however, that my idealistic outlook on music flew directly in the face of how things got done on the inside. If certain swords aren’t brandished and the right pockets aren’t lined, no matter how great the act, they may never get a chance to rise above the underground.

  “Let’s all welcome Lonn Friend, our new vice president of A&R on the West Coast,” said Clive. “Lonn has hit the ground running. Tell us about the Bogmen.” I gave the captive, three-piece audience a Reader’s Digest version of the campaign to date, thanking Tom Ennis for his support and outlining what was ahead. Though I wasn’t quite sure what that was. When I showed a brief clip of the recently held MTV Video Music Awards where one of the presenters, Adam Sandler, was wearing a Bog-men cap—a favor to a friend—the room broke out in applause. Influence had its props, especially in here.

  “You must put together a list of potential producers,” urged Roy. I convened with Bogmen manager Steven Saporta, and we created a wish list of individuals that we thought would fit his outfit. Like most baby bands, they’d never worked in a professional studio with a real producer. Now they had a major-label deal and a quarter of a million dollars to spend.

  I offered up names from past relationships, like Mike Clink from GN’R and Michael Beinhorn, lauded for helming Soundgarden’s Superunknown, released earlier that spring to critical and commercial acclaim. But the guy I had a good feeling about was relatively untested. His name was Eric Rosse, and he’d produced only one major LP, Tori Amos’s Under the Pink, a masterwork of sound and creative vision. We’d become friends through chance encounters and a visit to the studio while Tori was mixing the disc in Los Angeles.

  “What about Jerry Harrison?” asked Saporta. Harrison was a brilliant idea for a number of reasons. The former keyboardist for the Talking Heads had found great success behind the console in the early ‘90s by shepherding the band Live to multiplatinum sales, most notably with 1994’s Throwing Copper. “Clive will love Jerry,” added Saporta. “He’s a song guy, makes records for the radio. But it won’t be easy. He’s really hot right now.”

  On August 13, 1994, Clive sent me a memo in response to my producer hit list:

  We went over and studied your list of possible producers and went through all the background we also have on each of the suggestions. The two producers (apart from Eric Rosse) who should remain in contention are Jerry Harrison and Michael Beinhorn.

  I’d already flown the band to L.A. to meet with Clink, but Campion didn’t connect with his hard-rock résumé, and if the Captain didn’t vibe, that was a problem. On August 3, the Grateful Dead were playing Giants Stadium with Traffic. Percussionist P. J. O’Connor was a tie-dyed Deadhead. The other guys loved Jerry Garcia’s legendary traveling circus too. The Dead had been on Arista since 1977’s Terrapin Station LP, so tickets were just an interoffice memo away.

  I invited Eric Rosse to attend the concert with all six guys and me. I thought he and Campion would connect. While Traffic was whirling through their opening set, P. J. lit up a joint. We were all feeling groovy, anticipating the transcendental experience that was the Grateful Dead live. Campion then asked me if I wanted something to drink.

  I said, “Yeah, get me a Coke.”

  He and Eric disappeared and returned in twenty minutes with my drink. “Here ya go, Lonnie,” he said with a devilish grin.

  A few minutes later, I started to feel really disoriented, far beyond the normal, recreational marijuana buzz. “P.J., what kind of pot was that?” I asked.

  “Just some home grown. Nice stuff, huh?”

  Campion was chuckling. “Lonnie, I gotta tell you something. We put a hit of acid in your Coke.”

  That’s when I completely freaked out. “You what?” I yelled. “Oh, my God, Billy, I’ve never done acid in my life. Ever. Oh, God, this isn’t good. I need to walk around.” For the next imperceptible amount of time, I wandered about the stadium floor, bumping into the “spinners” (the stoned-out hippie girls who spun aimlessly to the music, creating sort of a loveable mosh pit). I’d been high before but not like this. I kept thinking about how much soda I’d drunk.

  Finally, Eric grabbed me by the shoulder. “Lonn, come with me. The guys have something to tell you.”

  When we got back to our seats, their faces looked like distorted caricatures, straight out of The Twilight Zone. “Lonnie, we’re fucking with you,” laughed Campion. “We didn’t put acid in the Coke. I swear. It’s just P. J.’s homegrown and power of suggestion that’s got you flying. Relax.”

  I will admit, “Sugar Magnolias” sounded exceptionally cosmic that night.

  Campion loved Eric Rosse but Clive wouldn’t hear of it. He didn’t have the discography to warrant the big man’s respect. Beinhorn loved the demos but had already committed to his next project. I had to deliver Jerry Harrison. Saporta called him at his home in Marin County just north of San Francisco.

  “I talked to him. He’s really busy but mildly interested. Thinks the songs need a lot of work. I’m going to need your help to close him. This isn’t going to be easy.” Saporta set it up. Jerry and his wife, Carole, would meet us at our hotel downtown, and we’d take them to dinner at this fancy sushi place nearby. I wasn’t nervous at all. I knew I had an ace in the hole. History. And one other thing—a T-shirt.

  We emerged from the elevator and there they were in the lobby. Before we even shook hands, Carole screamed, “Oh, my God! Where did you get that T-shirt?” I was wearing a rare, original, slightly faded Talking Heads “Psycho Killer, qu’est-ce que c’est?” that I’d bought at Moby Disc Records back in 1977. “Oh, I love it! What a classic!”

  Formal introductions were made, and right there, in the middle of the lobby, I ripped off the shirt and handed it to Carole. “Here, it’s yours.”

  Carole was glowing. “Are you serious?” Jerry was smiling ear to ear.

  “I’d be honored. Gimme five minutes to go upstairs and change.”

  Dinner could not have been more enjoyable. I recounted my college tale, the outdoor show at UCLA, Patti Clark, and the Headhunters. Saporta did his thing, profiling the boys, the history and ethos of the Bogmen, their distinctive style, and the challenge of making the right record, for them and Arista. By dessert, the deal was struck. Sometimes, it’s not the color of the chameleon’s skin that makes the difference, but what he throws on top of it.

  Clive called Jerry the next day and expressed his support and excitement. Arista believed in the Bogmen and felt they could hit right out of the box. It was up to Jerry Harrison to turn a ragtag bunch of street minstrels that had never seen the inside of a recording studio into a polished, major-label modern-rock band. There was no middle ground. I’d signed the bloody contract and so had the Bogmen. We would sink or swim together.

  From December 1994 to March 1995, the band took up residence on a houseboat in the seaside burg of Sausalito, California, five minutes from the two recording studios where they would birth their debut LP. Basic tracking was done at Studio D. This is where Jerry Harrison and engineer Karl Derfler schooled the boys (and their A&R guy) in the ways of record production. Even though I’d had numerous glimpses of the process, this was different. Now I was on the inside, a cog in the creative machine, rather than a fly buzzing about the dials with no attachment to the outcome.

  I flew up almost every week to check on the progress, going straight from the airport to the studio and then to a local restaurant where I’d run up my expense account keeping everyone connected. Jerry loved the guys. They worked so hard on their instrumental parts. Campion, on the other hand, was drinking too much and chomping at the bit to track his vocals, but his voice was in no shape to record. In late January, Jerry called me. “Lonn, I think Billy needs some R and R. He’s becoming a distraction. And his voice is shot.
”

  The bandleader and key factor in the success or failure of the Bogmen arrived at the small but comfortable Culver City enclave of the Friends. Artist and Repertoire has a wide interpretation. It means, “whatever it takes to get the job done,” like giving your lead singer the extra bedroom in the back. Joyce and I had closed in December on a bigger house in the pastoral Cheviot Hills section of Los Angeles, but we wouldn’t be moving in until March 1.

  “Do you mind if Billy Campion stays with us for a couple weeks?” I asked the empress of the house.

  “Of course not. I love Billy. We’ll fix him up.” Joyce became my A&R partner, fixing Billy healthy meals and special teas for his throat. She washed his clothes and kept an eye on him when I was at the office. I took him to my health club and we worked out together.

  Billy was a big kid with an immense heart, and like so many gifted artists, he had demons, addictions that fueled his pen but brought harm to his person. I took him to a two-hundred-dollar-an-hour vocal coach who gave him exercises to strengthen his pipes and insights into how to deflect the trappings of stardom. He didn’t drink a drop of alcohol the entire stay at our home and rejoined the band in Sausalito healthier, wiser, and in a great headspace to track his vocals.

  Overdubs and mixing (helmed by Grammy-winning mix engineer Tom Lord-Alge) took place up the road at the Plant, where local residents Metallica had just financed the construction of a brand-new studio. As soon as we were finished, the quartet would begin sorting out their next LP, Load. “Don’t let your Bogmen ruin our studio before we get there!” teased my old friend Lars Ulrich. “I’ll be counting the fucking pencils!”

  Life Begins at 40 Million was delivered in May 1995 to the raves of the company, including Clive. For the next two months, different departments began drafting their individual plans for how they would work the record into the marketplace. As Promotion, Artist Development, Publicity, and others weighed in with their thoughts and impressions, one thing was becoming clear: the record was so full of great songs, no one could figure out what the lead single should be. And I was just as confused as my diligent coworkers.

  If there was a standout, “reactive” track on 40 Million—a song that a programmer believes will solicit phone requests from listeners—it was “Suddenly.” Clive and Roy wanted to put our best foot forward and release the core fan base’s favorite ballad as the lead single. Arista wasn’t about to invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in tour support to let the band build an organic following. If the Bogmen had signed a deal someplace else, that plan might have been an option. But when your company’s success is based on slamming hits through the radio at Top 40, rock-’n’-roll patience doesn’t figure well into the artist-development scheme.

  At Arista the Bogmen were not going to get an armful of chances to break through. We had to lead with the song most likely to get airplay. But the band members thought differently, arguing that “Suddenly” was not typical of their sound. They pushed for “The Big Burn,” the frantic, more rock-sounding opening track on the album.

  We went with “The Big Burn” and quickly lived to regret the decision. Beyond their home station, WXRK-FM in New York, the song saw little airplay. In September 1995, when Clive asked me how I felt about the Bogmen’s campaign so far, I had a meltdown in front of the entire Luncheon. “Why the fuck can’t we get any airplay on ‘Big Burn’? Maybe it’s because we didn’t make a video. What does that say to the industry? It says we’re not committed! It says Arista still doesn’t give a fuck about rock music!”

  In the early ‘90s, the indie way of doing things was severely impacted by the advent of Broadcast Data Systems (BDS). BDS was the first company to monitor radio airplay by using computerized “fingerprint” technology, with songs being encoded. Computers placed throughout the country scanned the radio dial, “listening” to each song played and identifying it. Those airplay results were sent to eager record-company promotion and marketing reps, who used them to strategize their efforts.

  Prior to BDS, radio stations would phone in weekly reports to industry trades like Radio & Records, which allowed for easy fabrication of airplay numbers and publication-chart manipulation. When BDS came on the scene, this chart game basically ended, as stations’ actual airplay information was available for all BDS subscribers to see. All that being said, it was still an influence game to get the program director to spin the record in the first place.

  The week after its August 29, 1995, release, 40 Million sold 2,500 units, a respectable number for an unknown group. That was the biggest week the record ever had. After “The Big Burn” failed, we regrouped and threw our collective hands in the air. Harrison thought we missed by not leading with the infectious and unique “Raga,” while my A&R compatriots Steve Ralbovsky and Kurt St. Thomas (former program director of the influential WFNX in Boston) thought “Yellar” was the right call. I was too close to the record to be objective. I thought every track was a hit.

  The curse of having too good an album seemed to be hovering above our heads. Finally, we opted for the path of least resistance to radio acceptance—the most novel yet potentially reactive song in the band’s catalog, “Suddenly.” The decision was made as Clive brought a new major player into the company, as recently ousted MCA Records president Richard Palmese became Arista’s new head of promotion.

  A wheezy-voiced veteran member of the Illuminati of backroom-influence peddlers—who knew how to work the old-school strong-arm when it came to romancing programmers and breaking Top 40 records—Palmese quickly became the most important figure in the company with regard to the success or failure of a single. But MCA was as anemic a rock label as Arista, thanks in part to Palmese’s inherent distaste for the genre. He also didn’t get or care about the Bogmen. But Clive still did, so we lined up the ducks for “Suddenly.”

  Campion had befriended noted video director and avant-garde photographer Matt Mahurin, whose groundbreaking “The Unforgiven” clip helped set the dark, seductive tone for Metallica’s earthshaking Black adventure. Mahurin had virtually stopped making rock clips, opting instead to concentrate on his still photography, where he would manipulate existing images into compelling presentations.

  Mahurin was so taken by Campion and “Suddenly” that he agreed not only to shoot the video but also to do it for a fraction of his normal fee. The clip fit the song beautifully—a tongue-in-cheek vignette about a young man who “suddenly” discovers that his girlfriend prefers someone else. Just before the Video Music Awards (VMA) in September 1995, I screened the video at the weekly Luncheon, and the room was unanimously enthusiastic. “We can see here that Billy Campion is a star,” proclaimed Clive. “And ‘Suddenly’ is a very reactive song.”

  I glared at Palmese, sitting to the King’s left, who never lifted his head from the stack of BDS printouts sprawled out before him. He never tapped his toes. His mind was on TLC—the R&B trio he was hammering onto stations from Maine to San Diego. The only video images Palmese saw that day were “Waterfalls,” the kind that pop princesses swim in and fledgling rock acts drown under.

  Lewis Largent from MTV’s programming department was schmoozing in the lobby—at the VMAs, this is where most music-industry folk can be found during the insufferably long and boring presentation. “I saw the Bogmen clip, Lonn. It’s fucking awesome. You’ve got a shot, buddy. Go get some spins.” MTV only took risks on new bands if there was a radio story brewing commensurate to the excellence of the video.

  At the lavish afterparty, I ran into Oedipus, program director for the powerful rock station WBCN in Boston. “Are you going to add ‘Suddenly’?” I asked him point blank. “MTV loves the video.”

  He grabbed a couple carrots off the massive veggie platter, looked me right in the eye, and said, “Lonn, your label is a joke in rock music. You have no roster, no leverage. Everyone knows that. No programmer is going to step up and put his ass on the line for an Arista rock act. Not until they absolutely have to.”

  In my brief but e
nlightening tenure at the label, I’d seen Arista take some of the most pathetic, disposable, forgettable pop pabulum—bands like Ace of Base and the Real McCoy— and turn them into multiplatinum success stories. But this was rock, and Arista had failed in rock for so long, even the cocky rock journalist couldn’t right the ship.

  No matter how unique the Bogmen were, the commercial failure of 40 Million was a foregone conclusion. The band toured sporadically, doing opening stints with Barenaked Ladies and drunken Irish poet Shane McGowan. Their agent, Mike Donovan of the Agency Group, worked his butt off but had a frustrating time finding them touring opportunities. The Bogmen were musical snobs and only wanted to play with other off-the-wall alternative acts.

  In a different universe, they might have developed their career on the road—sans any appreciable radio support—à la Phish, Dave Matthews, Radiohead, and Tool. How ironic that Arista was the Grateful Dead’s label, the godfathers of organic fandom that birthed the massive jam-band movement—but had lost complete connection to the ineffable magic of community that has always been the benchmark of long-term rock-’n’-roll success. In Clive’s kingdom, bands lived or died on the radio.

  By November 1995, the campaign was over. I went about my business, fielding tapes and heading out nightly to see mostly unmoving bands that didn’t have one-tenth the Bogmen’s energy or originality. The next two years were a struggle for me, both with the Bogmen, who by contract had a second LP to make and release, and with talent scouting in general. Everything I pitched was rejected, including a hardcore rap-rock hybrid from Florida called Limp Bizkut (later changed to Limp Bizkit). Arista still had no rock roster and no leverage to speak of.

  If the Bogmen had hit, I may have had that A&R autonomy that Clive promised me when I came aboard. But they didn’t, so what my friends in the business had foretold was ringing true. Nevertheless, a year into the gig, the Friends were living in a nice neighborhood, Joyce was opening her retail vintage-fabric children’s clothing store, Baby Rose, and I was still looking for the next big rock thing.