by Paul Zollo
A lot of songwriters, when they have that kind of immense success, aren’t able to deal with the pressure to follow it up.
I can see why. It’s really intimidating. Because you never thought about it until then, and then it’s like, ‘Oh shit, I have to do it again. What if I can’t do it?’
How did you deal with that?
It was a lot of pressure. I worked really hard, is what I did. We got to a point where I said, ‘Okay, we’re not going to tour now. I’m going to bear down really hard and try to write some songs.’ I think a lot of people don’t do that. The lure of the money is so big. But I was at least smart enough to know that wasn’t going to go away. That’s going to be there. So what we have to do is stop the touring, and work really hard on the songs. And we’ll get the songs good enough. And everything else will fall into place.
Did your management and record company agree with that?
The funny thing is, when that kind of success comes, everybody agrees with whatever you want to do, all the time. [Laughs] Suddenly people treated us differently. It’s like the old saying goes: You don’t change, but everything around you does. Everybody does. But you don’t. You’re still the same person. But everybody treats you differently. And they’ve changed. Their perception of you has changed. So there’s not much that you want to do that everybody doesn’t go along with.
But at least Tony [Dimitriades] remained objective, and he never became a yes-man. He knew that would be to no one’s best interest. The trick to living your life from this point is being able to tell yourself how much is too much. ‘Cause now you’re on your own, brother.
changing horses chapter five
You were on Shelter Records and then you switched over to MCA/Backstreet. Why did that switch occur?
tp: That switch occurred because when our first two albums came out, Shelter was distributed by ABC Records. And then suddenly, with no word to us, our contract was sold to MCA Records, when they changed distributors back to MCA. So this stunned us a little bit, and frightened us, that we were just gonna be handed around to people we didn’t know, and didn’t have any relationship to. Plus we really had a bad record deal. We were on the same deal that Mudcrutch had. It was really a terrible deal. And we felt that we’d had a little bit of good luck with the first two records, and we deserved a better deal. They didn’t see it that way, of course, so I had to dig my heels in and refuse to work if they wouldn’t make me a better deal.
They also owned all my publishing, which I didn’t think was fair either because when the deal was made, I didn’t even know what publishing was. So a fast one had been pulled on me, and I wanted it made right. But it turned into a standoff there, and it was only solved when a guy named Danny Bramson came on the scene. He was involved with MCA. He had been working the Universal Amphitheater, which they owned. And he had turned it into quite a profitable venture. He had the ear of the top guys at MCA. And Danny’s solution was to ask them if he could form his own label there at MCA. They made me a new deal. And I would stay at MCA, but under the banner of Backstreet Records, where I would have complete creative control. My publishing would be returned to me. And I could pretty much operate without having to report to anyone besides Danny Bramson. So this pretty much solved the problem, even though I remained at MCA, I felt better about it because I was with a guy I knew and trusted, and he gave me complete creative freedom. That probably took five or six months of digging my heels in, kind of a Mexican stand-off. We even did a tour that we called “Why MCA.” [Laughs] Because they sued me, and it went on for a while. But in the end it worked out. It’s nothing I don’t think that most groups go through. When they start to sell a few records, they usually go in and try to get a better deal.
And so Damn The Torpedoes, our next album, was released on Backstreet Records.
Even with the new deal, in 1981 MCA wanted to raise the price of your fourth album, Hard Promises, to $9.98 and you wanted to keep it at $8.98. Was that a struggle for you?
That was quite a struggle. That caused me quite a lot of pain. Because I didn’t have a line of artists backing me up. It seems to me today that maybe if they listened to me then, things wouldn’t have been as bad as they became. I could see then that you can’t price this music out of the reach of the common person. That’s who your audience is. I really didn’t want it hung on me.
How it started is that I knew this was going to happen, that [MCA] was going to raise their prices across the board. But the way they were going to do it was with me first. Because they knew that I had a really anticipated record and they were going to lay it on me to be the first $9.98 album. And I said, ‘Oh, no you don’t. You’re not laying that on me.’ So that’s when I stood up and said, publicly, ‘I’m not going to do it. I’m not going to allow it to be done.’
And the strange thing is, I not only got away with it somehow, but it really did hold prices down for years. Which I was really proud of. It was years before they could really do it. before they could get away with it. Mick Jagger told me, at the time, that it held down the price of their record. They were going to do it to them, and then I came out on the cover of the Rolling Stone [March 19, 1981] tearing a dollar in half. And he said they actually threw that down on the table in a meeting. And they said, ‘No way we can do it. No way we can bring the price up.’
I was proud that I pulled it off, but what I was not happy with was that I had just been through all that legal trouble with Damn The Torpedoes, and I found myself right back in a record-company conflict. I think it wore on me pretty bad that time.
At that same time in the Fall of 1981, you suffered from tonsillitis, and had to have your tonsils taken out.
That was no fun either. I was on the road with tonsillitis, and I had to cancel gigs and sit in the hotel room, trying to get better. Because nobody understood that it was a chronic tonsillitis. They kept thinking I’d get better. I’d go onstage and not be able to really sing very well. And that really affected me mentally for years. It just terrified me, the idea of going onstage and not being able to sing. I still deal with it, to some degree. It traumatized me. And so, yeah, I was actually put in the hospital and had my tonsils removed in the midst of a tour.
And that, with the price thing, is when I really realized that being famous can be hard. It’s one thing to read about something somebody’s doing in the press, or something they’re going through, but when it’s you, it’s like shit, you know, [Laughs] It’s really me, and I’m going through this. It’s not some newspaper story, it’s my life. It’s becoming sensationalized and being used to sell magazines.’ So it wore on me quite a bit. I think I came out of that not wanting much controversy in my life at all. I just didn’t want it. I was really tired. All I wanted was to put out my record.
Yet the songwriter in you was never stifled. Despite the legal problems and the health problems, you continued to write great songs.
It’s always been my sanctuary. I could always withdraw into that music. I think that goes back to my childhood. I withdrew into music. I went into that world. And it was this nice, safe, wonderful world. And so, I think it shaped my personality for life, that I can always go into that. It’s like slipping on a suit of clothes. You can go into that world of writing, and it’s soothing and rewarding at the same time.
I think Hard Promises is when this became a job as well. It became a job, it had to be done. [Laughs] Which is the first time that it really hit me that way. That this has to be done, and it has to be good, and it has to be successful. Which really ain’t the way to go about it. So it wasn’t as much fun, that record, as the one before it.
Which was Damn The Torpedoes, which wasn’t much fun itself.
Well, it was hard, but we were still having fun. But by Hard Promises, it had become real serious. And we were taking it very seriously. But I just withdrew into the writing. And I spent a long time alone. It’s a lonely job, you know? [Laughs] And I kind of made myself work on a schedule. Get up every day, have some lunch, g
o into the music room, and stay there sometimes till midnight. Just working and working and working. But it worked, and it paid off.
You wrote great songs.
I was lucky.
You got lucky.
I got lucky
In July 1981, your duet with Stevie Nicks on “Stop Draggin’ My Heart Around” was released. Which a lot of people assumed you crafted to be a hit single for the two of you.
The song wasn’t crafted for Stevie. If you hear the original on the boxed set, all they did was take that track and overdub Stevie onto it.
Which is surprising because it seems like she is singing the melody but she is really singing harmony and you are singing the melody, right?
Yes, on the choruses I am. They put her in singing the verses. But in the choruses I’m really singing the melody and she is singing harmony.
Stevie came to me around ‘78. And she was this absolutely stoned-gone huge fan. And it was her mission in life that I should write her a song. And we were a little wary of Stevie. We didn’t quite know whether to like Stevie or not, because we kind of saw this big corporate rock band, Fleetwood Mac, which was wrong, they were actually artistic people. But in those days, nobody trusted that sort of thing and we just kept thinking, ‘What does she want from us?’ And then, of course, she turned into one of my great, great friends forever. But Stevie was really adamant about me writing her a song.
And so I think that around late ‘78, she approached me about producing her first solo record. Now Stevie, there’s a Cecil B. DeMille movie. This is a person that’s larger than life in a hundred ways. And I loved her voice. I thought she sang great. And I said okay and I went down to the session to produce a record for her. I went down and I did one track and it was a completely different world from anything I had seen. Dealing with girls was a whole different thing and Stevie was in a whole different place than we were.
Emotionally?
[Laughs] Every kind of way. She was very sweet and we liked her. But she had just a whole different kind of work ethic than we had, and there were a lot of people, a lot of hangers-on. The whole Elvis kind of theme of a big entourage. We’d never been a very big fan of that. And so after a track I went, ‘Look I can’t do this. I don’t have the time. I’m too busy and I don’t think that I’m going to be a big help to you. But I know a guy who might be good for you named Jimmy Iovine.’ And so, as time went by, and we hung out a bit, we got to know her more and more, she would come over to my house and just hang out and play records or whatever. And we’d sing a bit. We used to sit around and play the guitar and sing.
Sing harmony?
Yeah, just anything.
She’s a great harmony singer.
She’s incredible. We could make a pretty good sound, singing with the acoustic guitar. And so finally I wrote her this song called “Insider” and I brought it down and Jimmy just flipped over the song. He thought it was incredible. Really great, and I really liked it. I was really proud of it.
Had you ever written a song for someone else?
No.
Did you write it with her voice in mind?
Yeah. And I loved it. I thought it was one of my best songs to that point and I cut it there, just me and my guitar. And then Stevie sang it with me. And then we put the band on after. And by the time the track was coming to fruition with the band and everything, I was getting a little depressed about giving away this song. [Laughs]
And I understand that you felt your single of “A Woman In Love” would have done better if not for the duet with Stevie?
I’m sure of it. ‘Cause they came out roughly the same time, and Stevie’s record was huge. And so it was an awkward position for us because it was billed as “Stevie Nicks with Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers” and a lot of the radio programmers didn’t want to have two Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers songs around the same period. Especially while one was getting this extreme amount of airplay. So it was a little awkward for us.
When exactly did Ron Blair leave the band?
It was between Hard Promises [1981] and Long After Dark [1982]. After the tour of Hard Promises. It was quite a long tour. I think that’s when he started to drift. I remember him saying, “This is bigger than I wanted to get into. This is more than I signed on for.’ [Laughs] And now he’s right back in it.
He was very sincere. He quit the music business completely. Something had popped, and he didn’t play music at all. Maybe it was the traveling. Or maybe he wasn’t happy in the band, I don’t know. He got married, and he bought a bikini store on Ventura Boulevard, and he just sat in the store and watched girls try on bikinis. [Laughs] And I don’t know how well that went, because he later divorced. And I don’t know what he really did. But I’d see him from time to time, because he stayed friendly with Mike. And he’d drop by rehearsals occasionally.
Howie Epstein, who replaced Ron, was playing bass with Del Shannon of “Runaway” fame. How did you first hear Howie?
Del Shannon told me about him. When I was producing Del’s album [Drop Down and Get Me, on which The Heartbreakers played] after Hard Promises, we didn’t have a bass player. That we could count on, anyway. And Del Shannon told me, ‘I’ve got this kid who is really good on the bass. He’s a good singer, too. I think we should have him down.’
I said, ‘Fine.’
And then in walked Howie. And I really remember vividly him coming in to the room. Because he had a kind of striking appearance. He had Cuban-heel boots and a big pompadour, and a big gold earring. And he played the bass really well on the track. And then what really caught my interest was when he sang. He did some backgrounds with Del. And I went, ‘This is it.’ The guy had a really good high harmony voice. And that was my dream for The Heartbreakers. I felt if anything was needed, we needed somebody who could sing those tenor parts.
So I basically just stole him. I went to a rehearsal of Del’s, where they were playing live. They were playing in Phoenix, Arizona. And [Del] wanted me to sit in with the band. So I went down and saw the rehearsal. And then I was really knocked out with [Howie] because I saw him go through the whole set. And it was stunning, the way he sang. So I tried to get to know him a little bit. He was not an easy person to get to know. ‘Cause he was kind of quiet and shy. So I hung out with him, and then went to Phoenix and played with him there. And it was in Phoenix where I cornered him in this hotel.
And I said, ‘How would you like to join The Heartbreakers?’
He said, ‘I’d really like that, because I’m really a fan of The Heartbreakers. I’ve actually bought your records, and I really like the group. And I wasn’t intending to do this forever—to play with Del Shannon. Yeah, I would really like to join.’
So I had to go back and tell the band about him. And I think they weren’t sure of him at first, because he was more of a guitarist who had picked up the bass for a gig. But he was a really good bass player. But I was more interested in his singing. I knew that he could cover the bass. But he had this voice that was really great, and it really blended with mine in a particular way.
These little movies come into your mind. I remember somewhere we were changing planes, and we were walking through an airport, and here comes the Del Shannon band walking the other way. And Howie was there. And we all started to talk. And I said to him, ‘You’re coming in, right?’
And he said, ‘Yeah, I’m coming in.’
Del called me one night really angry. And he said, ‘Listen, you can’t take Howie.’ And I felt bad. He said, ‘Listen, you can’t take Howie. He’s my right-hand guy. I’ve got a tour lined up, and you can get anybody that you want, and you just can’t take Howie.’
And I said, ‘Del, I love you. I’m taking Howie.’ And that’s the way that went.
Did Del ever forgive you?
Eventually. Yeah, he forgave me, and we were friends the rest of his life. But I don’t think he was too happy with me there for a while.
Actually, I saw quite a bit of him in the last year of his life.
One night George [Harrison] and Jeff [Lynne] and I went down and sang on a track he was doing. And he would come around from time to time. Jeff and I wrote a song for him, and Jeff was producing it. We made a deal—I started a little label called Gone Gator Records and the first release was gonna be Del Shannon’s record. And Mike was producing the rest of the album—Jeff was doing the single and Mike was doing the rest of the album.
And I remember we were on the road. We were going through the night on buses. I had been sleeping, and we pulled in to some town like Akron, Ohio or Toledo, and we got off the bus and I remember standing in the cold out there, and Mike came up to me and said, ‘I’ve been trying to radio your bus. Del’s dead. Del shot himself. He’s dead. I heard it on the radio.’
I said, ‘No, that’s a rumor, it can’t be true.’ And I went into my room and put on CNN, and sure enough, he had shot himself and he was dead. And that really took the shimmer off of making a record company. I did put the record out, but I didn’t feel good about it anymore. And I still don’t understand why he would kill himself at that point, but I guess there was a lot more to his life than I was seeing. He was a very talented man, and I knew him for many years, and I still miss him. [Shannon passed away on February 8, 1990.]
But as far as taking Howie, I think he forgave that.
The Heartbreakers have always been such a close-knit group. When Howie came into the band, did the band accept him?
The band embraced him. He was very cool. One thing that really impressed me about him was that he had no interest at all in fame. None. He gave very few interviews in his life. The press were always in his face then. He didn’t want to talk. He didn’t want any part of that. He wanted to be a musician. And I really liked that about him. And God he could sing. He had that beautiful voice. I still miss it to this day. And it really expanded our harmony singing. We could do so much more, having Stan and Howie. And then later on we had Scott Thurston and Howie. Man, it was great. We could really sing. We could do a lot of singing That’s what I always hoped we could do. Howie was a real natural. He sang right on pitch, and he sang with a lot of tone. And could really stay with me; he could really capture my phrasing. He was just great. He really covered the bases well.
