An instrument I began to experiment with during the making of that album was a relatively new “sampling computer” called the Fairlight. It was basically a piano keyboard interfaced with a computer. Ardent purchased one of those extremely expensive, state-of-the-art machines and I first got a taste of it with Carl Marsh, the guy I hired to do the music programming on Jump To Conclusions. It was a game changer in many ways.
Despite my love of the studio, though, Farrell and Farrell’s Jump To Conclusions album would be my last non-D&K album I ever produced while the band was together. We were so busy with the band I needed more time to focus on my family. I didn’t want my little girls to refer to me as “company” ever again.
THIRTY-TWO
Destined to Win
Communication became our best-selling record to date. It seemed all the hoopla surrounding MTV banning our video really worked out positively for us. In that story, the controversy worked to our advantage. We seemed to be hitting on all cylinders for the first time in our career.
In 1985, after wrapping the Farrell and Farrell record, it was time to craft the seventh DeGarmo and Key album. There was a certain rhythm to things by that point. Our audience continued to grow and we figured out the radio piece, which helped immensely. Now, we had the video, press, and publicity pieces working overtime together in sync, and we definitely knew how to tour to top it off. We knew what worked, but we never wanted to repeat ourselves from album to album. In many ways our group was a finely tuned machine. In some ways the next album really reflected that.
Commander Sozo and the Charge of the Light Brigade was unlike any other album we ever made. That was due, in large part, to my infatuation with the Fairlight. The album had very little actual drums or bass on it. It was mostly samples and sequencers. That being said, Greg Morrow still played a major role. He sat for endless hours with John Hampton and me, programming the Fairlight to play the drums exactly like he would have played them. The sounds, however, were completely controlled by the computer. Greg then tracked live cymbal parts over the Fairlight tracks to give it more of a live sound.
The same was true of Tommy’s bass guitar. Most of it was programmed into the Fairlight, although Tommy did play on “Destined to Win,” “Temporary Things,” and “Charge of the Light Brigade.” I played Moog synthesizer bass on “Casual Christian” and “Activate.” All in all, I believe the decision to record the album this way gave it a much more mechanized “feel.” You can really hear that, and even feel it, on the song “Competition.” It started with a lyric Dana gave me one day. I put music to it, we worked together on the melody, and then built the thing from the ground up with the Fairlight. I believe we really captured the futuristic “Mad Max” type of attitude we were going for.
The corresponding video for “Competition” hits that same theme. With some pretty sophisticated visuals, Marius Penczner displayed the craziness of a death match fight. In the end the champion fighter is not willing to go through with it and make the kill. The video also earned a rotation slot on MTV. That was exciting.
Truth be known, Dana wasn’t actually a big fan of the record’s biggest song, “Destined to Win” before we recorded it. It often took a while for things to grow on Dana. He had to sit and ruminate sometimes. I found this true time and again throughout our career together. In fact, we had a huge argument about the album title. I wanted it to be called Destined to Win. So did Dan Brock. Dana wanted a more eclectic title. We hammered on it for hours and eventually settled on the crazy long and confusing, Commander Sozo and the Charge of the Light Brigade. “Sozo” is a Greek word that means “to save, deliver, or heal.” “The Charge of the Light Brigade” was a nod to the iconic English poem with a play on the word “Light.” God’s children are indeed children of the “Light.”
All I knew was the title was way too long and weird to market properly and was difficult to explain to anybody. That is what we ended up with, though. Even though the album sold well, I still believe it would have done even better had it been Destined to Win. That was a good “remember-able” title. Dana and I would often debate things like that for days on end. Sometimes he would give in. Sometimes I would. We always seemed to work it out, but we fought like brothers, or dogs and alley cats, to get it done. More often than not, the tension brought out the best in us. We had been fighting like that since the first grade you know, so we had experience.
We followed a singer named Jessy Dixon a couple of times at music festivals and knew first-hand how electric a performer he could be. Following soul gospel performers is not the smartest thing to do. They don’t warm up an audience, they wear them out. Jessy was a really impressive performer.
Dan Brock and the folks at Benson recommended we give Jessy a shot at singing the song with Dana, and we were game to try. “Destined to Win” turned out really well. It was amazing, actually. It became a legacy song for us—one of the biggest of our career. It was big for Jessy, too. He and Dana sang it until the day they departed the earth. It feels good to have been part of something like that.
We spent a few months building the sets and assembling all the sound and lighting components. The big Sozo tour was coming just over the horizon. With the support of The Benson Company we embarked on a ninety-city tour. It takes around 140 to 150 days to play ninety concerts if you perform five nights a week. That’s about the physical limitations for rock ‘n’ roll. If you don’t have a couple days off each week your voice begins to wear out or you get sick. You can burn out if you are not careful to rest up a little.
Dan and Darlene Brock did an amazing job coordinating all the details with Benson. They became our national tour promoters and managed all the local people involved in the shows, including on-site promoters, radio, retail, press and publicity, and church relationships. It was a huge undertaking for all of us as we were centralizing so much of the promotion. Jessy Dixon was booked to open the entire tour, and he traveled along with us on our tour bus. Dana and I decided we wanted to perform the show as a four-piece band again. We rehearsed incessantly for the tour and were at the top of our game. Off we went.
The most remarkable concert we played during the Sozo tour definitely wasn’t memorable for its grandeur. It was very humbling. We were booked to perform in the small town of Cottonwood, Arizona. We pulled up to an old theater in downtown Cottonwood at the normal 8:00 a.m. Our tour bus and our tractor-trailer took up almost the whole city block on the street in front of the theater. Cottonwood only had around ten thousand residents. We were part of many well-attended and very special concerts in small towns across America for years. The size of the town didn’t concern me. Sometimes concerts in smaller towns can be even better than the big city concerts because there is not nearly as much competition—unless it’s a Friday night during high school football season, that is. Friday night lights can kill a rock band.
As the crew was getting everything set up, I met with the concert promoter and asked him how ticket sales were going. It was a standard question. He told me the concert was general admission, so there were no advance ticket sales, but interest was high. The only competition was the local high school football game. He was bullish. Yeah, I thought.
The crew took the rest of the day getting the massive sound and lighting systems set up just right in that antiquated, well-worn theater. They had to sit a lot of the larger pieces of our equipment across the front of the base of the stage on the floor where the audience would sit because the stage was too small.
As I mentioned before, it was normal for lines and crowds to begin to form outside the front doors several hours before show time at general admission shows. The folks who showed up first got the best seats. Often times I would go out to the back of the auditorium and circle around to sneak a peek at the fans in line. That night was definitely different. When I came around the side of the building there were only three people in line.
Uh oh!
You heard me right. There were only three people in line. I went back around
to the rear of the auditorium and explained what I saw to Dana and the band. Dana and I immediately went to the promoter to discuss what was going on. He acknowledged the problem, but said he had tried his best to turn out a crowd. It must be the Friday night high school football. Yeah, I thought.
Feeling pretty bummed out, I prayed to God that I would have a good attitude. Then I went to give a pep talk to the band.
“Guys,” I started. “I know this is a real disappointment, but we have to remember these people bought a ticket just the same as if the theater was jam-packed. We owe it to them to give it our best and to put on a real show. Who knows? I’m trusting God has the people here he wants here tonight!”
Christians say those kinds of things, but on the inside I was freaking out. I was hoping God wanted more people there so when we took the stage we would be pleasantly surprised. Well, God didn’t let us down. When we ran on stage and started to play I counted seven people all in the front row. From a certain point of view, our audience more than doubled in size from the three folks I saw outside earlier.
We played our hearts out that night as if the place had fans hanging from the rafters. More importantly, when Dana shared the Gospel and we gave an invitation to accept Christ, one lone guy got up and came forward. It turned out he was the local town scoundrel and bad-boy. He got saved that night. Isn’t that just how God works? So much for us acting like rock stars.
Another highlight of the tour was being invited to perform at “Family Values Day” in Washington, DC, in front of joint members of Congress. That was such an honor for us. The Staple Singers played that day too. I was able to meet Pops Staples and have a conversation with him. Wow! Barbara Billingsley, who played the mom from Leave It to Beaver, was also part of the day. So that was interesting; meeting Pops Staples and June Cleaver in the same day.
A lot of growth happened for us during the Sozo tour. Our touring became much more strategic and organized. Our concerts were more professional and impressive. We now owned and enjoyed our own new tour bus. Gone were the days of Happy Truck, the Lark, or the 1964 funky bus. We felt more like real humans for a change. We had arrived. Yep, we were a fine-tuned machine. Something was telling me, though, that maybe we needed to rough it all up a bit. Maybe we’d gotten a bit too smooth.
THIRTY-THREE
Every Moment
With the exception of 1981, when we spent the year on the road with Amy Grant, D&K released a new album every year since our first album came out in 1978. In 1986, as the Commander Sozo juggernaut came to a close, we immediately started thinking about some changes. Like I said before, we always wanted to keep our sound fresh—for both our fans’ sakes and our own. Sozo tested the extremes of mechanized programming, sampling, and computerized music. So, when we got ready to head back into the studio we wanted the pendulum to swing back toward our rock ‘n’ roll roots. It’s good to be reminded of who you are sometimes.
One of the real benefits of commercial and radio success is it allows you to take risks artists trying to break into the scene cannot take. We were grateful for the favor we found with the industry helping us reach our audience. It gave us a sense of freedom and the license to unleash musically a bit, I think. Our goal for the album that came to be known as Streetlight was to lose the programming and to really craft a pure rock ‘n’ roll project from the ground up.
One of the first decisions we made was to track the whole band playing as a unit. All four of us played on the studio floor at the same time. We wanted a truly live sound and that was the best way to get it. Plus, we had a really good band. We made a rule we would get “keeper” tracks of the drums, bass, rhythm guitar, and rhythm keys for every song. Then, we went back and overdubbed vocals and lead instruments. It was back to the old school for us, and we were excited.
We also decided to bring John Hampton back as our co-producer. He was a huge help to me, particularly as our engineer on the previous three albums. John engineered our basic tracks, and then I engineered most of the overdub process. Then Hampton mixed the records. We believed we could use a fresh production perspective, and Hampton was ideal to be involved beginning to end. He knew us inside and out.
We set Greg’s drums up in the center of the large room at Ardent’s Studio C. Tommy, Dana, and I set up around him. Our amps were cordoned off in isolation rooms to reduce noise bleeding onto the drum tracks. We gave ourselves six days to record the tracks for Streetlight, which basically came to two tracks per day. Once we got started, though, we caught fire. We recorded all eleven tracks in just two days. I’ve seen some impressive musicians in my day, but Greg and Tommy blew my mind. Not many players are able to lay down that many tracks—all of which sounded amazing—in such a short amount of time. I think you can hear the chemistry and the energy in the project.
One of the standout tracks on Streetlight was definitely the first single, “Every Moment.” It was sort of a different sound for us. I wrote it after seeing Bruce Springsteen’s Born in the USA tour. Musically there is no denying “Every Moment” was a bit of a tip of the hat from us to The Boss. We made it our own, though. Dana sang it so passionately. It was our first single released from Streetlight.
We had Marius Pencnzer make the video for “Every Moment” a tribute to missionary pilots who fly supplies into the most remote places on earth imaginable. The video was aired on almost every mainstream and Christian music video outlet and became a huge hit for us. To make it, we flew to Zaire (now known as Congo) in Central Africa, as part of a larger effort called The Air Care Project, which was the name for our next long form video release. We became familiar with a non-profit called Mission Aviation Fellowship (M.A.F.) through our friend Jon Roberson at Celebration Concerts in California. Jon’s company promoted many D&K shows up and down the West Coast.
Dana and I took an immediate liking to Mission Aviation Fellowship and their purpose. Many of their staff were commercial pilots who took furlough from their jobs to help folks by flying for M.A.F. They used small planes to transport missionaries, doctors, medical supplies, patients, and more to all parts of the remote world. They often faced impossible conditions with grace and courage. They are a crucial lifeline for mission work around the globe, but receive very little publicity or recognition for their massive contributions. We hoped to help raise their visibility a bit.
Along with Marius and his video crew, we set off to the jungles of Zaire in May of 1986. The goal was to film the M.A.F. in action, and to get behind the scenes footage of them at work to use in the “Every Moment” video as well as The Air Care Project. It was an eye-opening experience in more ways than one.
Over the next three weeks we experienced the third world, its poverty, its challenges, and its miracles, firsthand. The M.A.F. missionaries were incredible people and impressive professionals. They flew us, in tiny planes, to villages so remote it looked like they were out of a Tarzan movie. We landed on airstrips carved out of steep jungle mountainsides. The local people were wonderful and oh, could they sing! They sang beautiful harmonies to us a capella. We visited several hospitals and saw the plight of the poor and sick firsthand. We experienced the awesome work of the missionaries and the local doctors and nurses firsthand as well. It was truly amazing and inspiring.
During the trip we were able to play an open-air concert on a town square in Kinshasa to several thousand folks. Our guys brought their guitars, and the locals were able to round up a little electric piano and a set of drums as well as a small sound system. I’ll never forget the smile on the locals’ faces while we played. I don’t know if they knew exactly what to make of our appearance and garb, but they seemed to enjoy the music. Music really is the universal language. I sometimes wonder what kind of music God likes. That’s some deep water.
Marius was able to use the Africa footage, as well as some performance footage of us, to create an excellent video for “Every Moment.” It was an honor to be involved with Mission Aviation Fellowship. The video was received extremely well by mainstrea
m and Christian video channels and got heavy airplay. It was great to be able to use our music and platform to provide a boost for those deserving servants.
Back home we were about to experience another look from the mainstream music world. Benson and Dan Brock made a deal to license Streetlight to Capitol Records. Capitol was known as one of the pillars of the mainstream record business. They were home to The Beatles and The Beach Boys when I was a kid, and Queen, Heart, Duran Duran, and many others in the eighties. This was a big deal. Capitol released Streetlight to the general marketplace and their radio team began to promote “Every Moment” to mainstream rock radio with some immediate success. D&K earned a lot of publicity from the “Six, Six Six” controversy. Capitol could ride that buzz, add their own marketing and promotions to it, and take “Every Moment” up the charts.
That was the plan, anyway.
It really felt like we were riding a wave, of sorts. The Capitol Records team achieved a lot of success early on with “Every Moment,” especially within the AOR (Album Oriented Rock) format. The song even got to number one in a few large cities. Coincidentally, we were scheduled to play a concert in Anaheim, California, at a venue called Melodyland right as the song was climbing the mainstream charts. Capitol informed us their entire Hollywood-based promo team would be at the concert that evening. Dan Brock, Dana, and I had a serious conversation in our dressing room before the concert.
“Dana,” I started. “I’ve been giving a lot of thought to the concert tonight because of Capitol being here. If you decide to preach and we give an invitation for people to accept Jesus, I feel it’s likely to freak the Capitol execs out. They may not understand. I just want you to consider all of the possible ramifications of that.”
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