← Behind The Song: Classic Rock Chronicles
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- [00:00]
Janda
97.1Fm the drive presents the behind the Song podcast, taking you deeper into classic rock's most timeless tunes. Here's your host, Janda this is the.
- [00:12]
Christian Lane
Story of how John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band, a bar band from Rhode island who were endlessly compared to a certain band from New Jersey, ended up recording the soundtrack for a rock and roll film that became a cult classic. There are spoilers ahead, so if by some chance you haven't seen the film Eddie and the Cruisers, you really should. And then come back and check out this episode. And don't forget to hit subscribe and give us a Like for those of us who have seen the movie, Eddie and the Cruisers is a film based on a novel of the same name by a writer named P F Kluge. It was a thriller. The story centers around the rise and fall of a fictional band, Eddie and the Cruisers, who came out of the clubs in New Jersey. Their first album was a big hit in the 60s, but the second album, titled A Season in Hell after work by the outsider poet Arthur Rimbaud, was rejected by their record label for being too dark and strange. Bitterly disappointed, the frontman, Eddie Wilson, played by Michael Pare, supposedly dies in a car crash shortly afterward, but his body was never found. Almost 20 years later, a reporter, played by Ellen Barkin, investigates his disappearance and a documentary about the band is made for tv. Along the way, she hunts for the original master tapes of that ill fated second album. It was discovered that they were hidden by one of the band members in a very kooky place called the palace of Depression because Eddie had spent time there when he needed a place to think. The palace of Depression, by the way, was a real life building made entirely of junk that became kind of an oddball tourist attraction located in Vineland, New Jersey, created by an eccentric gold miner who lost his fortune on Wall street back in the 20s. In a bizarre twist at the end of the film, the tapes are obtained by their manager who was obsessed with getting them, vowing that he would make sure the second album was finally released. And in the final shot, an older Eddie is seen alive and well, almost unrecognizable behind a beard, watching the documentary about his band from the street through the windows of an appliance store, hiding in plain sight all those years out of the limelight. The movie has its moments, and it could have been a star maker for Michael Pare, who had Brad Pitt level good looks and charisma, but without the music in the film, it absolutely would not be the Same the music for this body of work was critical. It had to not only be convincing from the perspective of the era, but it had to invoke that kind of Eastern Seaboard bar band feel that you think of when you hear Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band, for example. Eddie and the Cruisers in the film were a full band, including a sax player with an enigmatic frontman who rocked the house. The filmmaker Martin Davidson wrote the screenplay for Eddie and the Cruisers and he directed the film. Suffice to say, this was a passion project for him and the budget for the film wasn't exactly enormous. Interestingly, Rick Springfield actually lobbied for the role of Eddie, but Davids turned him down, saying he couldn't be convincing enough since he was already so popular. Michael Pare landed the lead as a brand new actor. He was only recently discovered while he was working in a restaurant in New York City. Tom Barringer and Joe Pantoliano, who played a band member and their manager respectively, weren't yet household names by any stretch, nor was Barkin. But Davidson did understand that the music was important and he made a key high for the film. Kenny Vance was brought on in a music producer role and it was Vance who connected the dots between the fictional Eddie and the Cruisers and John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band. Vance was a founding member of the band Jay and the Americans, a rock group from New York City who formed in the late 50s and opened for the Stones and the Beatles. They had a Billboard hit in the early 60s with a song called she Cried, which was later covered by Aerosm. Vance then got into session work and he began producing and managing bands, including the early nucleus of Walter Becker and Donald Fagan of Steely Dan. He became the musical director of Saturday Night Live in the early 80s, performing as well as booking the bands for the show. He was the perfect man for the job of finding the right music for this film, geographically and historically. Vance met director Martin Davidson at a party who told him about this film that he was working on and eventually invited him to listen to an early demo of the music for the film. To Vance, the music sounded horrible, like a jingle written for a commercial, or in his words, like a Broadway guy writing his version of what he thought it should be. He convinced Davidson to let him take the script home and spend some time with it and realized that he had actually seen the real life Eddie and the Cruisers about a year prior, when John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band had played a gig in New York City at a club called the Bitter END Vance didn't know anything about Cafferty's band other than that they rocked the house that night that he happened to see them. But he put in some calls and ended up in Rhode island, where they were from. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band got their start in Narragansett, Rhode island in the early 70s, naming themselves after a bucket of brown paint, a six piece white band that included an African American sax player. They were compared from the beginning to Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band. And they played in all the same clubs up and down the northeast corridor from their hometown to New York City to New Haven, Connecticut to the beach towns including Springsteen's own Asbury Park, New Jersey. They had a following and had even self released their own singles, including one called the Tender Years, which became the title of the fictional first album in the Eddie and the Cruisers movie. But they were ignored by the major record labels simply because of their incredible similarity to Springsteen and his band. But Kenny Vance knew they were perfect for this project. He gave Cafferty the script, who quickly wrote what turned out to be the hit song on the Dark side for the film. Vance convinced the director to give him a budget to produce an album by John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band for Eddie and the Cruisers. And Vance began recording songs with the band at the RCA Studios in New York. They had the gig of a lifetime, a gig that would change everything for the real life band that became the template for the one in the movie. And they were finally signed to a record deal too. On the Dark side is just 2 minutes and 40 seconds long, but it packs an undeniable punch. And the lyrics go like this. The dark side's coming now Nothing is real she'll never know just how I feel from out of the shadows she walks like a dream make me feel crazy make me feel so mean Ain't nothing's gonna save you from a love that's blind Slip through the dark side and cross that line on the dark side oh yeah the lyrics repeat and there's a killer sax solo played on the actual song and in the film itself by the only real life member of the Beaver Brown Band to actually appear in the film as part of the fictional band. Sax Player Michael tunes and tunes. The song feels both throwback and current, and there's an urgency in it that's so alive, so rock and roll. Of course, it became a hit. Back to the movie. I said earlier that this was a passion project for the director. Unfortunately, he let Embassy Pictures distribute the film because they gave him the most money to do so, and Embassy bungled the release. When Eddie and the Cruisers hit theaters, it was in September of 1983, which by failing to be a summer movie, missed the whole target audience of teenagers who by September had gone back to school. It was a box office flop and was pulled from theaters just three weeks later, but all was not lost thanks to Cable Television. About six months later, in the spring of 1984, Eddie and the Cruisers began airing on HBO in heavy rotation and found its audience in people's living rooms. As a result, on the Dark side began climbing the chart and the studio re released the Eddie and the Cruiser soundtrack. John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band's on the Dark side flew all the way up to number seven and the soundtrack made it to the top ten too, peaking at number nine. It has since gone triple platinum. John Cafferty said that they had to jump through hoops to get a record deal because of the comparisons to Springsteen, and that hoop was Eddie and the Cruisers. Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band released two more albums as well as music for the soundtrack for the terrible sequel to the film, which was not directed by Martin Davidson, who wanted nothing to do with it. The sequel, Eddie and the Cruisers 2 Eddie Lives came out in 1989 and again starred Michael Pare, but it was an even bigger flop than the first film's theatrical release and this time rightly so. Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band were eventually dropped from their deal with Scotty Brothers Records, but they've just continued on as a live band ever since. John Cafferty's solo song Hearts on Fire was included in the soundtrack for Rocky IV and he's had over 30 songs in major motion picture soundtracks since Eddie and the Cruisers. If you go back and watch the film, you'll see Kenny Vance, the mastermind who found the perfect real life band to provide the music and the energy for what would become Eddie and the Cruiser's On Film. He has a small part on screen playing the record company executive who refuses to accept the fictional band's dark and strange second album. A crucial event which drove the Eddie character to turn his back on the whole rock and roll circus. I hope you do go back and give Eddie and the Cruisers a look. It's an entertaining film for music fans with a real life backstory about the music that was created for the film that seems made up a Hollywood story with a heck of a soundtrack and one big hit for the bar band that brought the whole thing to life that may never have happened if they hadn't been spotted by the right guy at the right club at the right time. Rock and roll indeed. I'm Janda and this has been behind the song. Special thanks as always to Christian Lane for the music you hear on these podcast episodes. If you like it, give us a thumbs up and hit subscribe. And you can check us out on TikTok too. Find me on the air weekdays from 9 to 2 Central Time in Chicago at wdrv and wdrv.com and on the way, much more classic rock and roll.