Gig: Americans Talk About Their Jobs Part 21

You have to understand that rappers don't really want to be part of the music industry. I'm not exactly sure why, but they are sort of removed from the whole thing. I'm generalizing, of course, but the average rapper really doesn't want to know how the business works- they just want fame and the money and the women. They see a video with Jay-Z driving down the street in a Lexus. They hear Puffy Combs on the radio every three minutes. They have a perception of this great lifestyle where you're famous and everybody loves you and you can f.u.c.k any woman and that's what they want.

But it really isn't like that at all. To get to a level of Puffy is so much work. And it's money. You have to have somebody behind you dumping tons of money into your project. To get that you have to learn how to manipulate the industry. And most rappers don't ever even start to learn-most don't even read their contract. I mean, the average rapper-if I have to lump everybody in a stereotype-the average rapper does not like to read. They don't want to do work that involves anything other than making beats or writing rhymes. So, the business part, they don't care about, especially when they are just starting out.

And this is a terrible thing because, for the most part, the music industry just sees rappers as a "bunch of dumb n.i.g.g.e.rs." You can tell by the deals that they offer. The record companies front-load all their deals, which means they dangle money in your face. They say, "Here's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars." But they don't talk about what you're going to get down the road. Which is usually nothing or less than nothing. They are basically saying, "Okay, these guys are disposable. We'll get them to sign for a BMW or a bunch of sneakers, and a little bit of cash. We'll make a G.o.dzillion dollars and when they are not making money any more-f.u.c.k 'em."

Just look at the points in some of these contracts. A good deal would be somewhere between twelve and fifteen points, which means you get twelve or fifteen percent of the net retail selling price-after you pay back your advance-which when you think really about it really sucks-but you want to be a star and that's the status quo. But with rappers, I've seen contracts go as low as six points. Ice Cube gave Cam six points and he signed it.

There are just so many problems with these contracts. Like, Naughty By Nature gets eighteen points; Scarface gets thirteen. Why is Scarface at thirteen points and Naughty By Nature at eighteen? I bet if I pull the statistics on them they sell about the same amount of units. Why is that? It's because Scarface and Naughty By Nature don't talk, but I talk to both of them and then I bring information back to both of them. I tell Scarface that they are getting eighteen. I tell them that he's getting thirteen. That's my job. My job is to educate them. What they do with that information is on them. I can't make them renegotiate their contracts. I can refer them to attorneys and accountants who can. But Scarface never will renegotiate because he feels that Little Jay, his label, is working in his best interest. He doesn't have a clue. He doesn't realize it's about Jay getting rich, not Scarface getting rich. And Scarface doesn't care because whenever he needs money he goes to Jay and gets money, Jay just gives it to him, and Jay gives it to him because it's all recoupable. Jay just takes it all back out of Scarface's sales.

So what the Rap Coalition does, essentially, is we try to pull people out of bad deals and introduce people to attorneys and accountants. We've got offices in New York and Chicago and next year we'll be opening one in Los Angeles. We've had some real successes. I got Twisted a phenomenal contract-fifty points. He owns half his masters, he owns half of everything. And he has complete creative control. They wanted him that badly and it was the price they were willing to pay. So that was great.

We also have a series of educational programs-for rappers and for the public. We work a lot with the Nation of Islam and, you know, when I first went to Farrakhan's house, I was ecstatic. To me, that was a symbol of success that I had achieved a level of recognition of what I do. It's pretty cool to be at a meeting at the minister's house and you're the only white person there, and he points that out. I was there for the Rap Summit. It was fascinating. We discussed that the lyrical content needs to change, that the black-on-black crime that exists in the lyrics is dead, it has to go away now. There has been a movement against that for about two years-a huge backlash against gangsta rap. Of course, it hasn't gone away. It's still there because the buying public buys it. And, sad to say, that's the bottom line.

I have two opinions about the lyrics-a personal opinion and a professional opinion. Professionally, it is my job to support rap artists. Rap artists can do no wrong. When I'm out in public and somebody says, "Twisted's lyrics are wrong because he degrades black women and he talks about black-on-black crime," I will defend him to the umpteenth degree. It's his First Amendment right to express whatever he wants, blah-blah-blah. He's chronicling what he sees in his area of Chicago, and if you don't like his lyrical content, change the problems of the ghetto in Chicago. That's my professional opinion.

But then I have my personal opinion and there I have a problem with Twisted's lyrical content, and he knows it. I've sat down with him and said, "You know what? This s.h.i.+t is dead-you have got a slave mentality. You're a lost soul and it's really pathetic." So that's Wendy's opinion. But I would never voice that publicly. As the Rap Coalition founder, it is my job to protect and support him.

My family doesn't get what I'm doing. I grew up in wealthy, white, Jewish suburban Philadelphia, in a family that wasn't wealthy, wasn't Jewish. My dad worked for the post office and my mother was a homemaker. We lived on, I'm guessing, twenty-five grand a year. But the neighborhood itself was all wealthy Jewish doctors, lawyers, dentists, psychologists. My parents moved there because the schools were good. I guess they figured we may not have lots of money, but our kids are going to being f.u.c.king educated. So I grew up an outsider and I've always been comfortable with being the oddball out. So it's not weird for me to be a white girl in a sea of black folk.

My exposure to black people as a kid was one busload that was bused in from the poorer area on the edge of Philadelphia to my high school-so my access to people of color was very limited. But growing up in that environment and then working in this one, I've realized that black people are just like me. There are different circ.u.mstances and different situations because of the whole oppression thing going on and the whole economic thing going on, but fundamentally folk ain't all that different. And black people are so attractive to me because they have excelled in the face of all this adversity that has been cast upon them for five hundred years. And to me that's so f.u.c.king amazing. I mean, to watch a kid in Compton like Eazy-E, who lived in a shack that had cold water, excel and become the president of a record label-that's d.a.m.n impressive no matter how you slice it.

My family doesn't understand, though. My father understands more than my mom does. His att.i.tude is do whatever makes you happy. My mom just doesn't get it at all. She accepts me; she's seen the articles in the New York Times and Time magazine. She knows, "Okay, people on the national level have recognized my daughter, so whatever she's doing, she must be pretty good at it." But she doesn't understand why I'm doing it. She does not understand black folk at all. She is a victim of watching the news and thinks that black people are slow and that black men are all criminals. I've tried to educate her on reality and it's just the old dog/ new trick. She's like, "You're white so why are you doing this?"

And you know, that's the first question everyone always asks: "Why is a white person doing this?" And I understand that question. I think there is a problem with a white person running a black organization, but I know my motives and I know my agenda, so if somebody has to do it and it's not a black person, I'm glad it's me. On the flip side, there are a lot of places that my skin color gets me into. I mean, someone from Atlantic Records is much more comfortable negotiating a deal with me than they would be with someone who doesn't look like them. That's just a human nature kind of attribute. It's wrong, but it is a reality. You're dealt a certain hand in life and you play that hand.

I'm a Pisces, so I don't like the

business parts.

MC.

Medusa.

My name is Medusa-I just give you that. And I'm the MC for my own band, Feline Science. I always say this- if you could imagine Sly Stone, the LaBelles, and KRS-One all rolled into one, in a female, that is my music.

Medusa comes from-there were these West African brothers I knew, they used to tell their own folktales to one another. So I'm overhearing these stories, and they told about Medusa, who was like one of five sisters. All of them had special gifts, and hers was the gift to shape-s.h.i.+ft and to speak truth and be powerful with it. And it wasn't that she had snakelike hair, but she had these locks-like, a grip of braids. But if that was unfamiliar to you, you would probably call it snakes for hair, you know? So for her, her power was in her snakelike hair.

And there was a king in a nearby land who sent a group of people out to get her head, so that the king could have the power of her hair. But when they finally caught her and beheaded her, it didn't have any power at all. It actually cursed that kingdom when they took back the head. I thought that was pretty strong, you know? So I took that, that's where it came from.

As far as like, a lot of people are familiar with the story of Medusa and they say, "Yeah, she speaks truth. She has power behind the words." Most people respect it. And when they ask, "Why Medusa? She was so ugly!" It gives me an opportunity to share some knowledge with them.

I'm not a rapper. I'm an MC. It's like the difference between hip hop and rap. You know, hip hop I always break down as: "Human beings harboring opinions in regards to politics and propaganda." Rap would be: "Reincarnated att.i.tudes of your pimping past." So you're rapping, "Say baby, what's up?" That's some rapping. When it's hip hop, you know, there are issues that you're dealing with. And they're probably a little more detrimental to the politician, to the propaganda of it all. We're speaking to more conscious-oriented people. That would be the difference.

The audience difference as far as hip hop and rap is only based on the performers that are hired or whatever. I've done shows with Dazz and Snoop Dogg and all that, and they'll be like really hardcore heads up in there, who are strictly down for gangsta rap. But when I speak my thing, they're loving it, and when I get offstage, you know, the hardest of the hard brothers will step to me on the sly and say, "Umm, excuse me, sister? I really like what you're doing out there." You know what I mean? When typically, they would be with their homeboy and there might be a sister walking by with a little micromini on, and they're like, "Hey! Come here and let me talk to you a minute!" And they don't respond, and all of a sudden, "Aw! b.i.t.c.h!"

Whereas I can walk by and they have a certain respect and they look at me and they say, "How you doing, sister?" It's a whole 'nother att.i.tude. I think it's all in how you touch their hearts and souls and minds. Like anybody who's introduced to something new that actually touches your soul and enhances your spirit and makes you think about yourself and your family, they're with it. They with it. Because people of color, especially, have such a compa.s.sion that it's undeniable. We try to block it, we try to put on our hard sh.e.l.l, but deep down, our heart is real tender. So I go for that. I'm going for the tender s.p.a.ce.

I'm writing for me first. Me. And then the community. Children. And then I start thinking about the audience. As far as message is concerned, I strive for something that is healing for the generation gaps, the gender gaps, and for women in particular because a lot of the music that is out right now can be very damaging and detrimental to women, you know? Like do I want you saying "Ho"? Is it necessary to say it like that? You could say, "motherf.u.c.ker." I might say, "fathersucker." You know what I mean? It's a little easier to tolerate, you know what I mean? And a lot of women lash out about it instead of giving it like a velvet hammer approach. You know what I mean? Like you can be hardcore about your feelings, but are you trying to reach a conclusion? Are you trying to give a direction with your answer? Or are you just trying to talk s.h.i.+t? So I'm trying to give a direction for women. With knowledge that I kick in the music.

It used to be, I had a different group, and my songs were somewhat esoteric. Mystical. Where's the point? You know what I mean? That was a young me. "Diva's Den, won't you come inside / Magic carpet, you want to ride / Exotic rhythms we bring to you / Diva's love is true to you."

That song was just mystical, floaty. My partner back in the day, Koko, and I-we had a group called SIN, Strength in Numbers. It was cool-head-wraps and long G.o.ddess gowns, and spoken word and this soft sultry style. We'd have crystals and ankhs on the stage and it was real mystical, you know? We were doing it way before Erykah Badu was in the game. And it was dope to grasp the attention of people, but at the same time it just wasn't like driving. It didn't make you sit there and really think.

Now, I feel like my sound is exactly where I'm at. Definitely who I am. It's something that everybody can grasp. "Put in Work" is one I wrote recently. It makes you want to stand up and take hold of your life. "Put your fist in the air / Hand over your heart no matter how much it hurts / Do it with pride / And let's walk side by side / Put in work." You know what I'm saying?

MC-as it's been said over and over-means "Move the Crowd." You know what I mean? So how am I going to entice them to be motivated to move? You gotta entice them with the rhythm and the beat and the motion and the colors that they're seeing and the hook that can really stick to them. But you gotta do it with the words, too. The words gotta move as well.

So "Put in Work," that's like, "Aw yeah!" And when I do it, you know, the whole crowd puts their fists in the air and their hands on their hearts like, yeah! "Forget about the lies and let's walk side by side." You know what I mean? That's just something that we need to get to. You know? It's real and it's tangible.

My goal when I perform is for people to leave looking at themselves and each other and their lives different. And for them to be so excited that they'll definitely come back for more. Yeah, that's what I want to do. And it takes all I've got to do it.

When I'm getting ready to perform, I need to kind of stay in my own world so that I can keep my energy pretty concentrated. With all of my chi and all of my chakras. So when I get out there, I explode it and give it all I got. So I'm not as open as I typically am when I'm not performing, you know what I mean? A lot of people meet me and go, "Wow, I thought you'd be like kind of hardcore and you seem so serious and so duh-duh-duh. But really you're really nice and I really like you." You know? Oh, well, that's cool. Or someone says like, "Just the other night I tried to approach you and give you a card before one of your shows. And you just kind of really blew me off, and you know I was really trying to talk to you." And I'm like, "Yeah, you probably caught me in my mode of concentration and really trying to center my energy. Just get me after the show next time, you know what I mean?" It's difficult sometimes. But when I perform, the energy, the crowd, it's all worth it. You know what I mean?

Because, you know, off stage, the daily grind, the working life, it's not so glorious. I'm just like most people. The days are work, work, work. Mornings is telephone time and setting up gigs and making sure packages get out and what have you. If I'm at home, I'll try to take out an hour or two hours to just write-anything. If it's just a thought. If it's something I'm mad about. If it's just something that pops into my mind, like some beats someone has given me or some music, it goes in here. And then after that I'm like on the streets doing my hustle. Taking packages here and there, going to studio sessions, vibing with friends, you know? Anything. Anything.

I'm a Pisces, so I don't like the business parts. You know, dealing with the organizing of the paperwork and all that-I can't stand that s.h.i.+t. I dislike trying to get the band together and pay for a rehearsal s.p.a.ce and worrying they don't show up on time. That's why I have an a.s.sistant. Or when there's figures to get together and papers to shuffle, that's why I have my business manager and my attorney.

Performances, whew! Performance is like, that's an all-day thing for me. Because you have to call people to tell them about the performance-and I have a huge phone list. And then make sure that everybody knows the color scheme-natural tones, black and white- so that everyone onstage is wearing more or less the same colors. You have to make sure everyone has a ride to get to the sound check. Then there's the sound check. And then there's getting ready after the sound check. And then there's being there early enough so you can see the other people perform, so you can support. It becomes a full day. Without a doubt.

I'm playing now at least three times a week, mostly in Los Angeles. I produce my music, also. And I do arranging, I do composing. I'm a producer for hire as well. I've done-like right now I'm working with Fishbone on their stuff. I'm doing some stuff with B-Real from Cypress Hill. I just came back from Atlanta where I was doing some stuff with Organized Noize. A crew called Mad Men. And things that have been on soundtracks like Gridlock'd. You know? I do as much as I can. If it's creative and it pops in my mind and I feel like I can achieve it, I do it.

I'm making a living, I'm paying the rent. But I need a label. I'm still looking to get signed. With all the energy right now, it's probably going to happen. I'm probably going to get signed. I've talked with the labels. Typically, the question is, "Are you a singer or a rapper? Can we get some mainstream songs from you? You speak so seriously, do you have anything that's a little less threatening?"

Those aren't bad questions to ask. But why can't they see that it could be mainstream already? If you're into the music and you've dealt with artists and you've dealt with the business, how do you not see that my music can be mainstream? How is that? They should be able to go, "You know what? We need to get this sister with such-and-such producer, like Dre or whoever." I'm like, why don't you stretch your mind to grasp something like that? Instead you want me to come with something that's already mainstream? I'm like, ugh! But not for much longer, I hope.

Right now, to make money, I do different projects-I sell tapes, I do shows. So even if a show only pays five hundred dollars, I can sell another five hundred dollars' worth of tapes easy. And as many shows as I do, by the end of the month, trust me, I have my rent. I have a lot of blessings in my life. A lot of angels around me.

I get to meet new and wonderful people all the time. Typically I meet people that want to do new gigs. And yeah, there are definitely groupies. People call and just leave anonymous messages on the hotline. "You're the s.h.i.+t! We love you! Ahhhh!" I get a lot of calls like that from different people.

I wish I could say that money was the s.h.i.+t. But right now, it's not. Money is just like my survival. You know what I mean? But so what? Because like the people, performing, when I'm up there, man, it's almost like no o.r.g.a.s.m that can compare to that. It's so incredible to feel that much love from so many different individuals-different walks of life. And then talking to them afterwards and really getting their response and seeing the truth and the honesty in their face. I feel like even when I do, like people say, "Make it big," I think I will always be the one to go out in the audience and like really feel people, you know what I mean? Because I've seen some like major m.u.t.h.af.u.c.kas that I really respect, and they'll finish performing and run offstage with this group of bodyguards, and you're like, "I love you!" And they're not even looking at you or they'll push you away, or they're like, "Get me out of here!" or that kind of att.i.tude. I'm like, "d.a.m.n, man! These people love you, dude." You know what I mean? Give them a little something.

That's success right there. That is success. The love. To be successful in a financial sense is something entirely different. I think success for me would be to reach the ma.s.ses with my message, and with the love that I have to give with my art. You know? That's success. Even if it doesn't make me whatever millions and billions that other people do-you know I would hope that follows suit-but if I could just reach them, that's success.

I did it because I loved it. And, in

addition, I got special perks and

privileges, such as lots of drugs.

HEAVY METAL ROADIE.

Thomas B..

I set up my own production company when I was seventeen, promoting rock shows at my parents' theater in Port Jervis, New York. It was an old movie theater that my parents owned with some other people and Metallica was one of the first bands that I booked. This was 1981 or '82, and we booked them for a thousand bucks and two cases of beer. And fried chicken with the catering. Two cases of beer, a quart of Absolut, and Kentucky Fried Chicken.

John Zazoula at Mega-Force Records was Metallica's manager at the time. I booked a few of his other acts as well-Anthrax, Overkill, Anvil, Exciters-stuff like that. I got to know John pretty well and all his acts. None of them were a big deal yet, and they all needed road people. I had no training, but I was willing to work cheap. So I started as a roadie for Anthrax and SOD-Stormtroopers Of Death-and I found out that I was very good at road stuff. Some people in the music business are great in the studio, but not everybody can do the road. I was very good at the road. When I was nineteen, I started working as what's called a "guitarist technician" for Metallica. Over the next six years, I did most of Metallica's tours and I also worked for a lot of other bands and I did some production stuff-tour managing type stuff-as well. And I came home when I was twenty-three because I was addicted to heroin and alcohol.

In the beginning, it was so low-budget. The original Metallica tours were in Ryder trucks. I drove those trucks and did pretty much everything else too. A typical day was, like, you stayed at a bad hotel, you got up, you had breakfast, you drove to the next show 'cause you were too drunk to drive the night before, so you drove that day to the next show. Mostly it was theaters and big clubs, no stadiums or any of that s.h.i.+t yet. Then you loaded in and set up. The lights get set up first, then the PA, and then the band. Then you did the show.

During the shows, I had a specific job to do with the guitars. I was Kirk's guy in Metallica, which meant that I handled his guitars. I was Cary King's guy in Slayer, and Danny Spitz's guy in Anthrax, and Scott's guy in Stormtroopers Of Death. I set up their guitars, stringing and tuning and cleaning them. Everything like that. And then I'd baby-sit them while they're onstage. You see, you're responsible for his equipment and him. You're responsible for him onstage. You have to watch every show from the wings, backstage. You sit right there, all the time, through the whole show every show. Then, when it's over, you tear everything down and go straight to a hotel for the night 'cause you were usually too drunk to drive.

Most times, I was drunk by the time the show ended. You weren't supposed to be. You weren't supposed to be trashed, but you did drink throughout the day. Metallica was the drinking band. They were not big drug guys, but they drank an unbelievable amount of alcohol. As soon as we got to the motels or wherever, it was drinking. Lots of drinking. [Laughs]

Metallica was not the biggest tour for women, although there was always local talent. I mean "groupies," to use the proper word. These groupies, these women, would be there before the show, usually in the afternoon, before the sound checks. And we, you know, the roadies, we were looking for these chicks twenty-four hours a day, every waking moment. It was every man for himself, but most of them were more than willing to do more than one guy. The most memorable were the Chicken Sisters-Debbie and Beth Sh.e.l.l-from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. They were the most memorable of all. They would do everybody. Gladly. Both gorgeous, cute little blondes. Strippers. Underage. They worked p.o.r.no shows in Philadelphia and stripped. Gorgeous. Eighteen years old.

Strippers love rock and roll. They love rock and roll people. That's what I learned in rock and roll. There were always girls around who wanted to just meet and f.u.c.k. I was surprised at how many girls just want to do that with rock and roll guys. I could never believe it. It changed my perception of women. I mean, the willingness. [Laughs] I grew up in a small town.

You see, if I went to a show tonight and had nothing to do with the band-if I just bought a ticket and went to see Metallica tonight- these women would have nothing to do with me. But a little piece of plastic will get you everywhere. A laminate around your neck-an ID card that says you are with the band-and a jacket, that's all you need.

We had these smiley pa.s.ses. They were backstage pa.s.ses that had a little face with a smile on it. When a girl got one of those, that meant she sucked d.i.c.k. I mean that's officially what it meant. For each show, we had these little laminated pa.s.ses printed up with peeloff backs. We'd give them to the press, to people from the city, guests of the band, the crew, and record company people. And then, specifically, we had pink pa.s.ses that had a smiley face on them. Those were for the girls who would suck d.i.c.k. They got a smiley pa.s.s. The production manager and the tour manager were in charge of the box that had these pa.s.ses. And I had a key to the box, so you know, I took part in this.

I was called "The Fisherman." I got thanked on two Metallica records for this. They called me, "The Father of Filth," and then just, "The Fisherman." And then there's an Overkill record that says, "Special thanks to Thomas 'Root Cheese,' Father of Filth."

Now, this was just the accepted practice in rock and roll at the time. It was all said in plain English-it was all explicit. The girls would hang out at the back doors and stuff, or at the loading docks. And these girls all knew what they were getting the pa.s.ses for. There was no beating around the bush.

On a big tour, there's a crew bus and band bus, but on the first couple of tours Metallica did in buses, after we got out of the Ryder trucks, it was band and crew on one bus. There was a girl who smelled like fish on one of those tours. She'd gotten divorced like a month before. She was memorable. She let us videotape her f.u.c.king and giving b.l.o.w.j.o.bs to a few guys on the bus. We had a guy, Kevin, who was so ugly girls wouldn't do him. But she did almost everybody else. And this was not unusual. Florida Custom Coaches' buses have like couches, lounges in the front, a set of bunks, and then a lounge in the back. Most of the s.e.x happened in the lounge in the back. [Laughs] Of course, every once in a while, somebody's girlfriend would come along, so then it all gets, like, different and we'd sort of have to behave.

But mostly, it was just very f.u.c.ked up. We bought a photo alb.u.m in some Wal-Mart in the South-you know, one of those ones where you peel back the plastic and put the pictures in. This was on a tour for W.A.S.P. and Slayer. We bought this photo alb.u.m because we were getting so many b.l.o.w.j.o.bs and f.u.c.king so many women that we had to, like, doc.u.ment it, so we went and bought a photo alb.u.m, bought Polaroids and a video camera, and started to do, like, profiles. We would take a Polaroid of the girl before-clothed-a Polaroid of the girl in action and, you know, a.s.sorted Polaroids.

The worst thing was what they did to this fifteen-year-old virgin. And this is the actual truth. They stuck the receiver end of a telephone, you know, the end you hear with, they stuck it into her p.u.s.s.y, and went into the next room, and called up and let it ring, then yelled and went, "Whaaa... Whaaa..." They were yelling into the phone while it was in her p.u.s.s.y. This was after this girl did like ten guys. And this was the first night that she lost her virginity. I tried to f.u.c.k her first, but I couldn't get it in, 'cause I'm kinda large, so Bob Deluca did it. That was at the Belleview Hotel, in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. A great rock and roll hotel. The next time we saw her was a year and a half later and she was a changed girl. She was a nice girl when we met her.

I'm sorry, I don't know how to explain this without being as vulgar and as crude as it was. And it was very, very f.u.c.king crude a lot of the time. I think the job totally changed my sense of the world because of this. I mean, I saw ego inflation like you couldn't believe. I saw a sense of privilege that you couldn't believe. When you get a little plastic thing around your neck, you get bodyguards, you go to the best hotels and you don't pay for anything, you get custom buses, private Learjets. Drugs and cocaine are thrown at you. p.u.s.s.y is thrown at you like you couldn't believe-twin blond sisters in a boardroom in a Hyatt. Talk about ego trips.

At the start, I got paid very little for this kind of stuff. Three hundred a week. That's not much. I was doing it because I liked it. I was living a dream. One of the biggest thrills in the world for me was playing Madison Square Garden for the first time. It's just such a thrill to walk down that back hallway, you know, "Get Yer Ya Ya's Out," and actually stand on that stage. I loved Keith Richards. I wanted to be Keith. The Rolling Stones are what hooked me into rock and roll, really, ever since I was a kid.

In the end, I was making six hundred and seventy-five dollars a week, three hundred and fifty a week per diem, and they paid for everything. But still, I did it because I loved it. And, in addition, I got special perks and privileges, such as lots of drugs. Lots of alcohol. Lots of ego inflation. And you know what? I traveled everywhere and I never paid a dime. I saw every city in the United States, every city in Europe. And I never paid a dime.

Of course, I'd get tired of seeing the same show again and again. I heard "Angel of Death," like, seventy-three nights in a row. It's a Slayer song. Seventy-three nights. On both continents. After a while, it was just a job. Probably like hookers. Same for the band-it was a job for them, too. Of course, they were also drunk constantly. But they got jaded, too, I guess. I mean, you gotta remember, you play places like Salt Lake City and Cleveland. And there's great times- like when you get to California, it's heaven. Or Seattle, that's really nice. But when it's January and you're in like Detroit or Minneapolis or Milwaukee, it sucks. We played the Eagle Ballroom in Milwaukee. It sucked. It smells like yeast. Milwaukee sucks.

The hardest thing about it was being away from home. I missed my cats. I missed my cats horribly. I was never home for more than a couple of weeks at a time and I always spent the holidays on the road. During downtime, I did my laundry. That was the big rock and roll thing. Anytime you had free time, you did laundry. You did laundry, you read, you called your girlfriend or your mom. Or you tried to take a nap, or get pot in strange towns. Or other drugs. I got a nice little heroin habit in Europe. When I came back, I was in and out of rehab for like two years and drugs and alcohol are gonna be a problem-an issue-for me for the rest of my life. Maybe. I may have other permanent problems too, like women. [Laughs] But I don't know, you ought to ask my girlfriends about that. [Laughs] I'm not unhappy, though. And you know, if I could avoid drugs and alcohol, I'd do it again. In a second. Although, maybe I wouldn't. Part of me says no, because it was a real spurt of youth and now I just want to buy a house, have a girlfriend, and hang out with my cats. I'm a grown-up now.

The music industry is dying.

A&R EXECUTIVE.

"b.u.mblebee"

I am not going to tell you my real name. [Laughs] I'm an A&R exec at a major record company. What I do is go out and see bands or listen to their tapes, and if I like them enough, I sign them, and then as long as they're with the company, I kind of work with them on all aspects of their career. I'm not a manager, but I'm like a manager-so I'll make suggestions about songs, alb.u.ms, videos, everything. All of that stuff. It's a weird job. There's probably like only a hundred people in the country who do this in a real way. So that's, you know-a hundred people picking the bands that, what?-the untold billions listen to, right? It's not as glamorous as it sounds-not anymore, anyway-but it's a weird thing to do.

The t.i.tle, A&R, stands for "Artists and Repertoire," which is antiquated. Because, in the olden days, you were out looking for both songs and singers and the repertoire part of it was critical. In the fifties and sixties, you know, singers weren't required to have any sort of writing or musicians.h.i.+p apart from their voice. So there was this like casting thing that was going on, where you were matching songs with singers. Now that's basically gone, and the repertoire part of my t.i.tle is really kind of pointless. You talk with an artist about their own songs, and they tell you to go to h.e.l.l when they don't like something. The repertoire part is history and it's just artists. But the name has lived on, so A&R is what it's called.

I'm from a small town originally, from the Midwest. And I always liked music. I've always been really into it, especially rock, and I guess what's become kind of stupidly famous as "alternative rock," but like, when you're in high school and they ask what you want to be when you grow up, this is not the kind of job you'd pick, no matter how many records you own, you know? I mean, I didn't know that a job like this existed. [Laughs]

I just kind of staggered into it in a circuitous, a.s.s-backward way. When I was in college, I wrote about music for the college paper, and I played in a band for a while, and I worked in a record store for a few years. Out of that, I eventually got a job at a little record company being a publicist, and because it was so small and there were like six people in the whole company, one day I was a publicist and the next day I was helping bands make records. You know? No training at all for it, but what kind of training do you need to help somebody make a two-thousand-dollar record? It's like turn on the mic, you know, roll tape. [Laughs] Go get coffee. Go get beer.

I did that for seven years. Then I ended up running this little company for a while, and managing some of the bands, too, and that led me to the corporate stream I'm in now. [Laughs] I got approached by this label that was undergoing a major change and wanted to become a much more artist-friendly company. That was the pitch. I'd always seen the big record companies as, you know, the forces of evil. But I trusted the guy who was running this one for a number of personal reasons as well as professional reasons. And so I decided, well, now is the time to try this, because I was like approaching forty years old and thinking, well, I'm not making any real money and I don't have any personal life because I'm spending all my time either working on my clients or trying to make ends meet, so maybe I should do something where, like, you know, there's an inst.i.tutionalized stability and the regular paycheck and the retirement plan. That was six and a half years ago and I still don't have a personal life, but whatever. [Laughs] My retirement's all set.

When I came in, this company was an established old company that had gone through tough times, like they all do. We'd been through a number of different presidents, et cetera. But one of the appealing things to me was that the roster had been seriously cut down. Like eighty percent of the bands had been dropped or were about to get dropped, so there was like this big, giant record company with no artists. And the notion was that my background-having been on the independent, so-called "artist side" of the business-was going to be, you know, an advantage for the company in trying to attract new talent. So I had, to some extent, the opportunity to come in and sort of build a roster from scratch. That was really exciting. The job has changed a lot over my time here, because the industry has changed so much, but the biggest thing I do is still signing the bands. And it still works kind of the same way-you know, you go out and hear stuff and decide what you like.

People send loads of tapes. My drawers are full of them. Stuff comes from every different direction. My mom sends me tapes. The woman at the hotel in Texas that worked on my neck sent me a tape. They come from everywhere. Of course, there has to be some reason for a tape in that pile to raise its hand. Either it has to come from, like, my boss who tells me to listen to it. Or it comes from somebody that I trust. [Laughs] Possibly including my mom. [Laughs] Or it's been sitting there for a while and the manager calls and says, "Hey, I sent you a tape a few weeks ago and my band just played with your band so-and-so last night in Seattle." So I'll call the band that I work with and say, "What did you think?" And they'll say, "Oh, they're amazing." Then I'll give it a listen.

I almost never put on a tape for no reason just because it came into the office. It would be impossible. It would be like opening an infinite number of doors randomly. You know what I mean? It's like- I would grow old.

But so, anyway, a tape shows up or somebody calls me and says, "You should really hear this tape." Or, "You should see this band," which is even more common. You see a million shows. And that's how it starts. You fly some place you've never been before, and you find yourself in Birmingham, Alabama or Athens, Georgia or wherever, and you stay at the little hotel there by the airport because you can get out of town the first flight in the morning. You don't know where to eat. And if the band's lawyer or manager have really been working, and you don't have like a terribly intimate relations.h.i.+p with either of those people, what they've probably done is taken your interest in flying out to see their group as the kind of currency that they can use to pick up the phone and call all of your compet.i.tors and say, "So-and-so from this company is flying in on Friday." So, you know, you get to the show in this town in the middle of nowhere, relatively speaking, and [laughs] you look around the room and there's like six other people there who you see all the time in New York or Los Angeles. There's Geffen, there's Polyglut. [Laughs] I've been in circ.u.mstances where I've wound up taking the group to dinner. [Laughs]

Then you go through this whole weird beauty pageant part together. Where the contestants are the people that do what I do and the judges are [laughs] kids with their guitars and whatever. Because this is when the role is reversed. I mean, all the bands out there are fighting for attention, but as soon as one has attention and more than one person is interested, there's twenty people interested, you know? n.o.body wants to miss out on something that can be successful.

Everyone wants to, like, at least have an opinion. So they'll fly wherever they need to fly. And then they'll fly the group out to their home office. Take them to really nice restaurants and parade them through the company. Make the band sit through a number of speeches by people that are never going to want to talk to them again who are going to pretend to know the music on the tape when they've actually listened to maybe half of a song once. You know? But they'll throw a few song t.i.tles around. And these things will really impress the group. Sadly. [Laughs] Because, having been on the other side- having been a band manager-I know very well that groups will decide which label, manager, lawyer, or whoever they're in the process of hiring-they'll decide which one to go based on who knows the t.i.tle of more of their songs. That more often than not is the biggest criteria for who they want to work with. You know? And on that, they base a relations.h.i.+p that is usually six or seven records, which has the potential to run from twelve to fifteen years. Millions and millions of dollars will be spent. And if it doesn't work out-it's that band's whole career because, typically, if you're dropped by your label, you're damaged goods and it's hard to get another deal. So some very ephemeral criteria is often used. It's basically just put the bullet in the gun and put it to your head.

But that's the way it is. And really, despite the mountain of tapes in my office and this kind of public perception that I'm the guy whose attention you've gotta get, it's not the artists campaigning to gain the interest of the companies, it's the opposite-the companies are campaigning to win the favor of the artist. And it gets really absurd. You know, gifts are sent. It starts innocently enough with, "Here are a few chestnuts from our catalogue." And you represent the history of your company by sending a few records from its catalogue. Oftentimes judgments are made about how well the label will understand the group by what records does the A&R guy pick to send. It's like some groups don't want the Queen record and some groups all they want is Queen, you know? [Laughs] You can get into some trouble there. And then it kind of escalates. It goes to, "Janet Jackson's coming through town, do you want to go to the show?" Now, if you call the wrong person with that invitation you could be out of the running right there. But if you call and say, "Janet Jackson's coming through town, does your little sister want to go?" If you've paid attention to know that the singer has a little sister, that's a call-I mean, that's a great call to make.

You go through all these hurdles. It's silly. Because, finally, what happens is the group winds up saying, "Well, on balance, we like you the best. So if you're willing to pay us more money than everybody else is we'll [laughs] work with you." I mean, that's what you end up winning. If you go through all of these things right and if you take them to dinner a number of times and if you send them the right things and you develop a relations.h.i.+p that has got some sort of trust and some sort of back and forth that is meaningful to both sides, you'll have the opportunity to outbid everybody else. That's basically how it works. If they decide that they want to work with you, you're the first person that gets to make an offer. And you're told what the offer needs to be. So then you make that offer and if you come close enough to what the absurd numbers were, you know, with all of the attending elements, then they won't take any other offers. Or they will and then you have to increase your bid. That's how it goes.

I've been doing it a while and I've been pretty successful at it. I'd guess four out of five of the things that I'll chase, I'll have that opportunity to outbid my [laughs] compet.i.tor at the end.

After I've signed a band, the next thing is to help them make a record. I don't spend a lot of time in the studio-that's basically the producer's domain-but I give a lot of advice to everybody and if there's any kind of problem, I'm like the liaison between the band and the company. So, you know, I have some input into pretty much everything.

The hardest record for people to make is usually their first one. Almost every time they drive into the same potholes. You watch artist after artist after artist, and no matter how smart they are, they f.u.c.k up their first alb.u.m. And I happen to be somebody who's really attracted to people who are smart. Which makes my life a lot more difficult. Because if you get people who are not that smart they're much more easily, like, [laughs] led. But if you get people who are really smart and are full of themselves a bit, which is a good sign of somebody who has the potential to be a star in a lot of ways, they're really headstrong. And I learned a while ago that rather than put myself on the line and put my relations.h.i.+p in the trash by fighting over things I'm going to lose anyway, I should just let them go ahead and drive in the ditch. [Laughs] You know?