You did not come up through the studio system. Instead you got an MBA from Columbia University. Did that degree, or anything in your business training, help you later when you were making records?
The degree basically helped me get a job. I had a concentration in marketing, and I did it mainly to stay out of the Vietnam War, as well as to please my parents. I went into advertising — major league advertising — and I hated it. Music was always the main thing in my life. I just couldn't ignore it, and I knew that I had the capability for it in some way. I wrote a letter to Clive Davis; the fact that I had an MBA made me appear more serious. I presented myself as a musician who was a student of rock 'n' roll, who also had two degrees and a job. Instead of saying, "Give me a job. I need a job." I said, "I'd much rather work in music because, honestly, I don't like what I'm doing." I think I saw three or four other people and the last one said, "I want you to see Mr. Davis." Mr. Davis gave me a job and that was it.
When you were at Epic Records, one of your responsibilities was editing songs down to single length. Was the actual edit that you did the one that ended up on the radio, or did you do an example and then somebody else would recut it?
I had a tape machine and a splicing block in my office. I really enjoyed editing. They'd bring it to me and they'd say, "How do we do this? How do we get this 8 minute song down to 3:20 without butchering it?" I'd figure out a way. I'd just listen to it a few times. I had the pop structure in mind — intro, verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, solo, verse, chorus, out. I'd make notes. You had to make sure everything was the same going into the splice, and out of the splice. I got very good at hearing whether it would work or not. I wasn't allowed to touch the master. We were a union shop at CBS. So, I'd take the model from my office, walk it down to the studio, and give it to the mastering engineer. I'd say, "Edit here; 1, 2, 3, bang," and he'd copy it exactly. I did some songs that had seven or eight cuts in them. The O'Jay's "For the Love of Money" was so long [7:14]. It was great because it was wide open — it had a lot of space in it. Anything from Philadelphia wasn't going to have much of a tempo problem.
The first artist you signed to Epic was Ted Nugent.
I didn't know what a producer did when I started; I was a talent scout. Embarrassingly enough, I signed Ted Nugent. That's really hard to explain to people these days, given his views and outspokenness. But actually, he's a really good guy. He just got twisted at some point. Ted had a production deal with this guy, Lew Futterman, who would call the shots. He could be the producer. I was kind of bummed by this because I was thinking that maybe I would get a producer. I actually asked Pete Townshend's lawyer if he would consider producing Ted Nugent, one day when we were on a plane together. She laughed. But, to her credit, later on she sent me a letter congratulating me on the success of the record. I horned in. I went into the studio a lot. I slowly, but surely, started making suggestions. Lew was a reasonably creative guy, but he didn't know much about rock 'n' roll and he was nice enough to give me co-production credit. There I was — a producer. I also remixed the whole record. He mixed it; it was delivered and I didn't like it, so I asked for $5,000 to remix. I took it back down to Atlanta, where we had made it, and I mixed it with a really great engineer named Tony Reale. Unfortunately later he borrowed some money from me and disappeared. It was a real disappointment to me because I loved the guy.
What did you look for in the engineers that you hired, and who were some of your favorites?
A sense of humor first. The first engineer I ever latched on to was Gary Ladinsky. When Cheap Trick decided they wanted to record in L.A., I called the Record Plant. I figured, "Well, that's a well-known studio." I spoke to the studio manager and I said, "Can you recommend some engineers?" They had some house engineers — some guys that worked there pretty exclusively, who had come up from tape ops and assistant engineers. I interviewed three of them on the phone, and Gary Ladinsky came off as the best. He was low-key and easy going, and he just sounded good to me.
You figured he had been screened.
Yeah, he was making records. He had made some Moody Blues records. I liked his credits, I liked him, and we decided to work together. We went out there and we made Cheap Trick's In Color, which was Rolling Stone's Album of the Year. He had booked Sound City for the tracking, I think. It was a pretty interesting project, and I really enjoyed working with him. We wound up making 16 records together, almost every one of them at the Record Plant. It was my home away from home — just the best place on Earth. It was a party house, as well as the most professional recording facility I ever saw.
Does that mean the process is almost invisible to you while making the record? Like, nothing is breaking?
Their maintenance staff was unbelievable. We had the same assistant engineer for three years. He went on to win a Grammy. But no matter what kind of chaos was going on in the studio — in the control room, in the halls — you could always count on the fact that your assistant engineer was on the case. He'd mark everything, he'd put everything away, and he'd get it back to the vault. Absolutely button down — it was like a SWAT team. Yet, they did everything that they could to accommodate the rock 'n' roll life. I mean everything. It was great. I lived there.
While you were working with Gary and making those 16 records, you were really just there the whole time?
Pretty much. We did go to Orlando for Molly Hatchet. We did one in Nassau at Compass Point. We did the rest in Orlando at a tiny little studio called Bee Jay [Recording Studios], because the band's manager made a really good deal with them. It was just like Ted Nugent in Atlanta at Sound Pit Studios. Futterman made a really good deal for that studio. I mean, really good. In the '70s we used to make some albums for anywhere from $30,000 to $50,000. And then slowly, by the mid '80s, we went up to $200,000.
Was the increase in budgets due to the fact that you were spending more time in the studio, or that the studios got more expensive?
Spending more time, working with less talented musicians, escalating studio costs, bigger rental fees, more outboard gear, more drugs, more time wasted — it was just a lot of that stuff. I had the permission — the clout — so that we could spend a little more money. Honestly, for most of the records I was making, especially the second and third for any band, I was almost positive that the record was going to recoup so I really wasn't worried. I tried to save money, but I didn't skimp. I'd pay double scale for some backing singers, and keyboard guys who'd come in by themselves. We'd spend two or three days and they'd make a bundle. We'd work out the parts. I couldn't write or read music, so I would sing to the keyboard player or any studio musician that I used.
Did you use studio guys a lot on the records you were making?
I never used a ringer, or anybody uncredited — never. I'd have guests — but never substitutes. One of the stranger guests I had was Mickey Raphael, Willie Nelson's harmonica player. He played on Poison's Open Up and Say... Ahh! on "Nothing But a Good Time" and stuff like that. These guys would come in; they'd get double scale and work overtime. You'd pay what you had to.
It's so foreign now, that there was money to spend.
Yeah. There was plenty of money to spend. On top of that, they'd make a video for $100,000.
Without romanticizing anything, do you feel like records lost anything in that transition to being much more laborious?
Well yeah, they got too perfect. They got a little finished, they got corporate, and I was into that. I was into perfection. I thought that you could not have power without order in music. You had to be on time, and in tune, in order to make really locomotive rock 'n' roll — something that had a lot of forward momentum and rhythm — which was my thing. All of a sudden, around the late '80s, everything that I knew was wrong; everything that I worked for was something that the new bands didn't want. There were times when these new bands said, "That sounds too good." It's out of tune; it's out of time — like the Rolling Stones, times ten. Not only were they imprecise — they were sloppy.
It really seems like the temptation would have been there to bring in some ringers with some of these bands.
Sure. Rikki Rockett playing drums for Poison... You know, that was tough. But I accepted the project by seeing the band, evaluating them, and saying, "Okay, I can make a hit record with you." Not, "I can make a hit record, with two out of the four of you, and bring in some ringers." It wouldn't be the band's sound; it wouldn't be the band's vibe. I think it's always important to try to duplicate, or be faithful to, the band's live sound — even though one of the things I was most criticized for was commercializing the band, and making them too neat and too pop. But that's just who I am. Musically, I gravitate towards the strengths of the record and want to get rid of the weaknesses. The hook and the main guitar lick — in all my work — if there is a good guitar lick, like "Cat Scratch Fever," you're going to hear it. It's going to be featured. We're not going to bury it. We're not going to soft pedal it. I was very good at comping vocals. I'd do three tracks of vocals and I'd be able to pick out whatever was best about every line, every word, and every phrase. I'd say, "Take 15 minutes," and we'd put one together. Then we'd do two more and I'd put that together. By the time we were finished, the vocalist was thrilled. They'd say, "I did that?"
I was going to ask you about that, versus having the guy just punching in.
Oh, yeah. No. I really wanted to shorten the process, and keep him and his voice fresh. The same with lead guitar. I'd bring a guy into the control room and just sit and work with him on the fills. A lot of guys would have a solo, but they wouldn't know how to fill. They'd fill over the vocal, or they just wouldn't feel it. I would sing to them. I'd say, "How about something like this?" I was really good at shortening their day and getting the real meat out of them.
