Hitmaker

by Tommy Mottola

  What was supposed to be a casual meeting over drinks turned into a four-hour dinner. Michele and I had an immediate connection. Musically. Historically. Emotionally. Businesswise. Not to mention the whole Italian-Jewish thing—her mom was Jewish and her dad was Catholic. It was like meeting somebody in your family whom you somehow never got to know when you were growing up. I instantly trusted her as if I’d known her all my life—and still do to this day, twenty-five years later.

  We talked about everything. Michele had been raised around the musicians that her father managed because they often stayed in her home. As a kid, she’d tagged along with Dee when he’d go to meetings with Ahmet Ertegun and Chris Blackwell and Jerry Moss. She’d gone on tour with Dee as a teenager, and at three in the morning he’d stuff the night’s take into her handbag before they left the Fillmore, figuring that nobody would suspect the cash would be in the hands of a fourteen-year-old girl. Michele saw the music industry through the eyes of a manager—just like me—only she wasn’t a manager. She’d gone into law, and she was working for a high-powered firm in Los Angeles, alongside lawyers like Lee Phillips and Peter Paterno, while simultaneously doubling as a mother hen for bands at the center of the alternative rock scene in L.A. and Seattle.

  The combination of her experiences, her point of view, her skill set, and her connections in the alternative music world was as unique as Mariah’s voice. I didn’t want to let her leave the table until she agreed to join my team.

  “Okay, listen,” I finally said. “I want to make you an offer.”

  “What are you talking about?” she asked.

  “I want you to work for the company.”

  “Are you kidding me? All the people who work at CBS are living in the past. I know you’re trying to change the culture. But I wouldn’t work in that company for anything in the world!”

  She went on a riff about how awful the company was to work with when it came to new young bands and how nobody in L.A. or Seattle would do business with it. “There is no A&R in your company,” she went on. “And your business affairs department is draconian.” I tried to hold back a smile. But I couldn’t help myself. She was dead-on. Every one of her criticisms of the company was exactly what I was trying to change.

  My mind went into overdrive. “Not only do I want you to work for the company,” I told her, “I want you to come in and ride shotgun.”

  “What does that mean?” she asked.

  “I want you to be the corporate vice president underneath me and Mel Ilberman overseeing the activities of all the labels. I want you to change business affairs. I want you to bring in A&R people.”

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “No, I’m not.”

  It didn’t faze her at all. She still said no. “I don’t want to leave my artists,” she said. “I’m committed to them.”

  “What do you think, we’re selling shoes here? If you think you’re doing good for your artists now, wait until you see what you can do for them from inside the company.”

  Then she told me she didn’t want to get involved in record company politics. “At least with my practice,” she said, “if I don’t get along with an artist, we part ways. In a corporation, I’m stuck.”

  “There are no politics in the company,” I told her. “No politics.” Well, there was Walter. But he was beyond politics. Of course there was politics. But the fiefdoms that created political tension at CBS were exactly what I wanted to tear down.

  I was not going to stop at anything to bring Michele aboard. I knew in my gut that quadrupling whatever she was making at that law firm would be the best investment the company could ever possibly make. But she was perfectly happy where she was and completely attached to her artists. So I had to reach her another way. “Why don’t you come in and get to know everybody before you make a decision?”

  The dinner ended, but the conversation didn’t. It went on for weeks. I called her every day. I was relentless. Finally, Michele agreed to come to our New York offices. Mel and I talked for a couple of weeks prior to her arrival, and we had the meeting well scripted. Just before she walked into my office, she went to see Mel.

  “I’m not going to take the job,” Michele told him. “I’m just not arrogant enough to think I know how to run a company this size. There are areas of this operation that I just don’t know.”

  Mel said: “Here’s what we’re going to do. You’re going to come into this company and do exactly what you’re great at doing. And then I’m going to teach you anything and everything that you don’t know.”

  Remember, Mel was like Yoda. He saw a curiosity in her eyes, an understanding that she could go to a whole new set of places and take her artists with her.

  “Not only that,” Mel said, “but after I train you, you can have my job.”

  “I don’t want your job!” Michele said.

  But Mel had made his point. In an instant, the corporate horror and vicious politics that Michele feared had been wiped aside. What Michele saw was Mel’s pure generosity and an education that she could never get anywhere else.

  Before she left the building, she took the job. She was only thirty-four years old. It was an out-of-the-box hire, and the management community in the music world was stunned. But I knew our company had just gained instant credibility and integrity in an area of music that it didn’t even have a foot in. Michele gave us access to artists and producers who were just not engaging with the company. Alice in Chains signed with CBS/Sony. Then Michele brought in rock A&R specialist Michael Goldstone. Then came Pearl Jam. Then Rage Against the Machine. One after the next.

  But this was more than a huge change for the company in a single branch of music. It was like I’d been given another arm. Mel was my right hand. Michele became my left.

  Now, my team was in place. We were about to really sail. That was just when Walter Yetnikoff started rocking the boat. Even though I was steering, it began to feel like Captain Ahab was walking the deck.

  Walter no longer had to answer to Larry Tisch or William Paley. He’d gotten a $20 million signing bonus and a new contract from Sony, and Tokyo was far, far away. He began to act as if he had absolute power.

  One night, Walter and I were eating dinner at Café Central when Bruce Springsteen came in. Bruce was with his wife-to-be, Patti Scialfa, along with Sting and his soon-to-be wife, Trudie Styler. They sat at a table in the middle of the restaurant.

  Bruce was trying to avoid Walter. But it was a social setting, and I was sure that at some point Bruce was going to get up and come over to say hello. He didn’t. Instead, Walter got up, walked over to Bruce’s table, and hit Bruce in the back of the head. It wasn’t a vicious smack. It was the kind of smack that said: What, you don’t come over to say hello to me?

  Ohhhhhh, shit, I thought. I was ready to crawl under the table. First off, you don’t hit a man in the back of the head with his fiancée sitting right next to him. That’s crazy to begin with. But to do that to somebody who’d never caused you problems? Who’d brought you success after success over the years? And who’d long been one of your cornerstone artists?

  Sure, the artists realize the guy in charge is writing the checks, and there must be respect that comes along with that. But like in any business dealing, it’s the good spirit coming from both sides that makes the relationship work. And here was Walter slapping the Boss in front of an entire restaurant!

  From across the room I carefully watched Bruce’s face turn red. At first, he was obviously stunned. But he didn’t react even though he was smoldering inside. Bruce knew better than to get into a fight with Walter. I didn’t know what was going to happen, but my guess was it wasn’t going to be good. So I started walking toward the table to try to defuse the situation. Before I got there, Bruce looked Walter straight in the eye and said, “Don’t you ever do anything like that again. I’m not that little kid anymore that you used to push around. Do you understand?”

  Now Walter was stunned. In his mind, he was the Boss, not Br
uce, and he couldn’t fathom Bruce’s reaction. It was a defining moment and a permanent breakdown in their relationship. I’d been around Walter so long that I’d gotten used to this sort of behavior. But that slap was an unmistakable omen. I had the feeling that Walter Yetnikoff might soon go overboard. And I began to wonder if he was going to take me down with him.

  I was in an incredibly difficult situation. It was impossible for me to distance myself from Walter. Not only had he given me my big break, but we were on the verge of pulling off a deal even more audacious than the one that maneuvered the sale of CBS Records to Sony. Walter and I were orchestrating Sony’s deal to buy a movie studio, and if it worked out, it was going to be monumental for him, and anything that was monumental for Walter would be great for me, as well.

  The movie studio deal immediately lifted my profile in Tokyo. They were impressed that I quickly had identified the right candidate and brought Mike Ovitz into the discussions. Soon, the three of us began to formulate a plan. Once all the pieces were identified, it seemed easy and beautiful to put them all together. Mike, Walter, and I would be able to synergize on a full-blown entertainment company.

  There was a lot riding on this deal. If we were successful, Walter would be closer to the executive hierarchy in Tokyo—and so would I.

  It was stunning to think how far things had come in so short a time. Not long before, I was picking up John Mellencamp’s cash in the Indiana snow and trying to convince Carly Simon to sing onstage. Now, as this deal took shape, I was sitting with Walter and Sony’s founder, Akio Morita, at Chasen’s restaurant, the Hollywood hangout famous for sending its chili to the set of Cleopatra in Rome at the request of Elizabeth Taylor.

  Everything was all set. Sony had brought in the same rep it had used to help negotiate the deal to take over CBS Music, Mickey Schulhof, to work toward a deal for the movie studio. Ovitz was about to come in with an offer to run the studio. And then came the unexpected.

  Ovitz sat down with the Japanese and asked for an enormous figure simply to pull off his end of the deal. When the Japanese heard Ovitz’s number, a call must’ve gone out for oxygen. The meeting sharply concluded and the Japanese stopped the negotiations. Nobody was counting on Ovitz asking for that much money or the Japanese refusing to negotiate. It was the worst thing that could’ve happened. The Japanese were insulted, and Ovitz was out.

  As soon as Walter heard what happened, he called me and I went down to his office. He was freaked. It was as if all the blood had drained out of his body. We were both freaked. Of course, it wasn’t our fault. Ovitz had essentially negotiated himself out of what would have been the biggest deal of his life. Walter was beside himself. I wouldn’t say that it sent him over the edge. But it added to his anxiety and frustrations, and from that point on his abuses accelerated.

  “We’ve got to come up with another plan!” he said. “We can’t lose this deal!”

  Walter reached out to Jon Peters, the ex-boyfriend of Barbra Streisand, who had produced hits such as Flashdance, Batman, and Rain Man with his partner, Peter Guber. They were hot at the time, and they seemed like the perfect solution. Guber was especially charming, the ultimate salesman, and not likely to alienate the Japanese.

  Guber went to Japan, got along great with the execs at Sony, and moved a deal forward quickly. During this time, Mickey Schulhof inserted himself into the mix between Sony Tokyo and Sony Entertainment. He was a good friend of Norio Ohga’s—they were both aviation fanatics and pilots who sometimes got behind the cockpit of company planes—and he had Ohga’s full confidence. It looked like Walter had averted disaster by making that call to Jon Peters, but there was still a huge problem that needed to be solved. Guber and Peters were contractually obligated to Warner Films. Extracting the two from that contract meant a war with Steve Ross. This would normally have been right up Walter’s alley—except this time Steve Ross had all the ammunition.

  Warner sued Sony for $1 billion for the loss of Guber and Peters. Steve Ross started squeezing Walter in the settlement negotiations, and Walter was not the kind of guy who liked to be squeezed. He liked to do the squeezing himself. But this time he was in a vulnerable place, and he was pushed aside in the negotiations. In order to free Guber and Peters, Sony had to surrender half of the Columbia Record Club, trade plum real estate with Warner for property of lesser value, and give Warner cable television rights to the Columbia Pictures library. Anyone who picked up Variety read that it had cost Sony nearly a billion dollars simply to free Guber and Peters. The entire purchase of Columbia Pictures was seen in the industry as a notoriously bad deal for Sony, and it was during this period that Walter started spinning out of control. We’re talking bizarre behavior. He was seen walking around the office with a riding crop and yelling, and people around the office came in to work wondering if a secretary was going to get smacked in the ass.

  Walter’s dream deal ultimately closed in the autumn of 1989. Sony purchased Columbia Pictures for $3.4 billion and received two film studios, a television unit, and the Loews theater chain. Peters and Guber were given one of the most lavish contracts ever extended to run a studio. And the settlement with Warner was sealed. You’ll excuse me for not dwelling on any celebratory moments. For one, Walter was not around to celebrate. His behavior had escalated to the point where it was necessary for him to check in at Hazelden Treatment Center in Minnesota for rehab.

  And second, the purchase would become known as one of Hollywood’s great failures after the studio burned through money like a blowtorch. Five years later Sony had to write off losses of nearly four billion dollars. And that would have an impact on a lot of people down the road.

  I stayed focused, and all the obstacles and turbulence around me would vanish when a great song or album came along. One particular moment around this time still stands out. I remember meeting Billy Joel at the Hit Factory recording studio to hear the tracks for his new album—Storm Front.

  Most of the artists liked to be in the room when my team was hearing their work. Some would not. Some would prefer that we listen, digest, and get back with our reactions. But I remember Billy watching our expressions as one song started playing. I wish there had been a video camera on my face at that moment, because I’d like to see what I looked like when I first heard those lyrics.

  My God, I thought, you’ve gotta be kidding me.

  Billy was rapping and singing newspaper headlines as only he could do. It was somewhere between Walter Cronkite and LL Cool J. The song was like a history lesson, a rap record, rock ’n’ roll, and pop music all blended into one stunning anthem that was set to an incredible, high-voltage music track.

  “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was absolutely riveting. I made him play it in the studio at least six more times to fully digest it. I think we grew more stunned with each playing. The more I asked him to play it, the happier Billy got. Moments like those were the high points for me. Getting to fully engage with Billy on that day, to appreciate the full vision of his work and to see how proud he was to present it to us.

  When my team walked out of the Hit Factory we were overwhelmed and elated. One of our artists had just created one of his best pieces of work ever—and we were on the brink of breaking something special to the public.

  Billy was an established icon putting out his twelfth album, but he had just taken his art to a new place. That was our starting point. We clearly knew who his audience was. But it was now our job to reenergize his core audience and broaden it without compromising it. As soon as that song was released it shot to the top of Billboard’s Top 100. Eighth graders were looking up references to the lyrics and writing history papers about:

  Little Rock, Pasternak, Mickey Mantle, Kerouac

  Sputnik, Chou En-Lai, “Bridge on the River Kwai”

  In the midst of all this excitement and enthusiasm over Storm Front, we couldn’t lose focus on a much broader responsibility. There were close to four hundred other artists signed to the label worldwide, and so many of them deser
ved the same attention. Might be classical, country, or R & B. Each artist was different, and each one needed to be handled, marketed, and sold differently.

  The point is this: All the details surrounding the launch of Storm Front were different from the strategies used to release Gloria’s next album. In that case, we were carefully considering the Latin market. And we certainly wouldn’t be applying the strategies for Gloria when we released a New Kids on the Block album.

  New Kids were stalled when I arrived and it took a mall tour to break them wide open. That tour went right to the New Kids’ audience. All their fans congregated in malls and we teamed them up with a pop phenomenon at that time named Tiffany, who had a big hit. At first, only a hundred kids showed up. Eventually it turned into a thousand and then it steamrolled into thousands more. All of a sudden radio stations started getting phone calls to play “Hangin’ Tough,” and the kids were leaving these concerts and walking straight to the record store to buy the album.

  After a few months, “Hangin’ Tough” shot to the top of the charts. New Kids ended up selling more than 80 million CDs and won two American Music Awards; they had a forty-four-city tour sponsored by Coke, a cable television pay-per-view special that broke all records at the time, and an animated Saturday morning cartoon show. In a few years they were atop the Forbes list of highest-paid entertainers, over Michael Jackson and Madonna.

  The strategies that got this band started and that process will probably never be talked about again, and the people who pulled it off will never be remembered. That’s a shame because there was a real talent and skill to this process. Especially when you compare it to blowing up a singer overnight on a one-hour singing contest on television. Sadly, the next year, you can’t even remember that artist’s name.

  After more than a few months of work on Mariah’s album, it was clear that she was going to need a new producer.