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Paul Rees, "Raised on Radio: Power Ballads, Cocaine and Payola - the AOR Glory Years 1976-1986" (De Capo, 2026)
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- [00:01]
A
Welcome to the New Books Network. Hi, this is Rebecca Buchanan, host at New Books Network. And today I'm here with Paul Reese, who's the author of Raised on Radio, Power Ballads, Cocaine and Payola. So Paul, can you start off by talking a little bit about why you wrote this book, why you wanted to put this book together?
- [00:23]
B
Yeah, I guess it's the same with all books. It's a confluence of things that made me want to do this one. I, I'd ghosted Steve L. Who's the guitarist singer with Toto. I'd ghosted his memoir quite a long time ago now. But one of the things that stuck with me was he talked about, you know, just how many records they'd sold, but also how little sort of recognition they'd had for that in the sort of mainstream. And from there I, I, that nagged at me. So I was just found myself as you do on Spotify one day and that was something that popped up in one of the algorithms. There was a Journey song or something like that and 1.7 billion downloads. And that sort of set me off on this route of how many records these people had sold. Probably the last time, one of the last times in history where so many people sold so many records in such huge quantities. And then the background story to an America at a different time, it was the music of heartland America where its influence had stretched and the fact that a lot of these people played on so many other records as well. So even though it's non fiction, I think the starting point is always is there a story? And there seemed to be a good story to tell and one that hadn't been overtold as well. So that, that in a rather large nutshell. Is it.
- [01:43]
A
No, I mean it was, is. I want to get into like some of that because when I was reading I was like, holy crap. These people did like they, everybody sort of just played with one another. So we can get to that. But so can you. For folks who don't know like this is about aor. Can you talk about what that is? Kind of why it's important, how it sort of fits into music. I don't know if all of music history. No, but you know, like, yeah, like it's position in music history.
- [02:11]
B
Well, the actual term, because it's, the term is adult. It was album oriented rock, it's been called adult as well, but it's album oriented. So it was initially a term that came out of FM radio. So radio in America in the 60s was very much top 40 oriented hit songs and singles. And they researched it and found that people were. As the album became more popular, people were listening more to tracks and to whole records. So AOR became this radio format for being able to play deep cuts on. Ironically, it was then attached itself. The first Boston album in 1976 is the sort of acknowledged start point of AOR as a musical form. And although there were records and great albums around that time, they're very much great singles and a single thing. So these bands became that all bracketed under amr. So I guess there's five big bands that if you're going to know anything about Air, you'll know Boston, Journey, Foreigner, Toto, reo, Speedwagon and then lots and lots of others. Um, why it's important commercially. It's important because it was, as I said it, it was huge in, in pop culture terms in America through the 70s and 80s. You know, records that sold Journey, records that sold 10, 11 million albums with each album. So they were huge commercially. They kind of defined the sound through the 70s, 80s of American rock music. That sort of very polished, the power ballad is. Is synonymous with aor. And then a lot of these people play, you know, Toto in particular, you know, it' Last time. People in such numbers gathered in recording studios and recorded to tape and then they went on because they were, they were really accomplished craftsman musicians. They went unplayed on lots of other records. So Steve Luke Thrillon at OTA probably played on over 1500 albums. And everybody from Neil diamond to Barbara Streison to Aretha Franklin, all these people, they were the house band on Thriller pretty much. So they, they've had a huge influence on the, on the Sound of Music then and it sort of carried on. So if you, if you think of the pop country now that the Nashville sound, from Shania Twain to Taylor Swift, that's not a million miles from what AOR sounded like then. It's basically records that were tailor made to sound great, played on a cast area.
- [04:35]
A
So you put this together, you put it together like an oral history. So it is just all quotes. So can you talk about that, the structure of the book a little and why you chose to kind of just. I mean you could have done many different things with putting this together. So why did you chose. Choose to just kind of tell it through the lens of the. The artist?
- [04:57]
B
Well, I guess because. Because initially obviously there's a lot of acts involved in it. I mean 30, 40, 50 bands minimum that fall within it. So if you're doing it as narrative to Try and weave that all in. It's a challenge, but it also risks becoming quite bitty and not really doing justice to certain parts of it and not covering other areas. I'd also read a couple of very, very good books. Meet Me in the Bathroom being one about the New York. The Strokes and the White Stripes and all that whole scene that came out of New York in the early 2000s. And then an Allman Brothers book, My Memory for Titles, and this is diabolical, so apologies in advance, but there was a really, really good Allman Brothers history. And then you think Back to Legs McNeil's, pleased to meet, you know, the punk history of that time. So oral history I like, or history, I think it works really well in being able to tell a story. And it seemed to suit this perfectly because through the voices of the characters, you could start with Boston and then introduce other people as you go through it. And it was a way of getting an awful lot of people and narrative in there without it becoming, you know, bitty, broken up narrative.
- [06:23]
A
So was part of this. I mean, some of it came from outside interviews, outside things. And then some of it, I'm guessing, came from interviews that you did. And, like, were those interviews you did with the idea that you were going to put this book together or were they. Did it sort of come together as you. Because you. I mean, you've been writing about music and rock and roll for a long time, right? So, yeah. So how did that come together? Deciding what to put in here?
- [06:50]
B
Yeah, I mean, the initial starting point was once you've decided to do the book and done all the background research to it, as you're doing that or as I was doing that, there's a long list starting of people I wanted to interview for the book or attempt to interview the book. So then that process is of trying to get in touch with all these people. It's made slightly more difficult by the fact obviously the book is not exclusively about them. Some of these people are quite reclusive now. So I. I got about. I think it's 55, 60 people who I. I spoke to for the book. There were. There was the odd thing that I'd done in the past interview. So I'd interviewed Bon Jovan a couple occasions. I'd interviewed Aerosmith on a couple occasions. So I was able to use quotes from that. But. But most of those, the original interviews were done specifically for the book. And then the people I couldn't get, people I wanted. You know, you generally had two, three, four hours with people so. And if there was things that were missing, I'd look back and find retrospective interviews and the people were missing. I. It's just research. It's. It's going back over libraries of interviews and magazine archives and things like that and dredging up what you can and what. What felt interesting and maybe revelatory, even though it was not original piece that wouldn't have been widely known.
- [08:12]
A
So I think one thing that's really interesting for me in reading this and thinking about oral history is that sometimes you get multiple stories about the same situation. Right. Like. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about that, thinking about that with this? Right. Because it is. Some people are a little more reflective about the experience or kind of saying, you know, I was an back. And some people not so much.
- [08:39]
B
But I think it's. I mean, that's. That's history is. I mean, history is in. In the. Is in the telling, isn't it? The person telling the story is setting the history. And I think it's fascinating that the Allman Brothers book I mentioned, what's fascinating about that, amusing about that, beguiling about that, is how many different perspectives there are of a single instant, time and time again. And it was the same with this. I mean, just for. For. For one example, the. The. The whole Foreigner story, John Kodner, he's the famous A and R guy, basically said, you know, when he was picking up bands, he always befriended the frontman and the lead guitarist, songwriter. Everybody else he wasn't really bothered with because they were the fulcrum of the bands. And obviously Foreigner was Mick Jones and, and Lou Graham. Their versions of the Foreigner story almost completely the way through differ in either slightly or dramatically in the telling of it. I mean, even down to the point that Mick Jones will tell you that he found when he listened to the tape of Lou Graham, they were looking for a singer. He'd listened to the tape of Lou Graham singing that he'd been given. And when he called the number, Lou Graham was on the building site carrying a hard upper flight of ladders, and he had to be called in to talk to him on the phone. Which is a great story. Lou Graham's version of that is completely different. It's that, you know, that Mick Jones called his father's address, and it's much less of a tall tale. So I was asked the other day, you know, do you feel like changing that or do you research it with that? I think you have to let those things stand because there's no. You could switch all four Members of Foreign. They would all have a different version. I think it's illustrative of both memory and also about ego and vying for supremacy and etc. It tells its own story, though, those sort of contradictions.
- [10:36]
A
Plus I always figure somewhere in between all of that is the real story, right? So you gotta hit it all and you'll figure it out. So you've broken this up into. Is it five parts? So I thought maybe we could talk just a little bit about kind of each part and what you were trying to sort of do in that. So you start with this idea, you call it New Frontier. And so can you talk about that? Like what's going on in that beginning where, you know, are there any certain, like sort of stories or things that you think are really important that came up during that. Yeah, yeah.
- [11:10]
B
I mean, I think the pivotal story in that is that the first Boston record, so that's 1976, Columbia Records. The story of the making of the album's intriguing. This guy, Tom Schultz, who was working for Polaroid and he'd come out of the Institute of Technology in Massachusetts, and basically in his spare time made this record in his basement playing virtually all the instruments himself. And over a period of years the record comes out and the artwork for the record, if you're familiar with it, is a spaceship shaped like a guitar, which is. Is it kind of apartment because it. It was a record that didn't sound like anything else at that moment in time. It was almost like if you'd imagine the Eagles, but with hard rock guitars. That's what it was. Any completely different. It's one of the first records to go platinum in America and was hugely influential in the sense that without permission of any critics or much mainstream coverage, this record took off. And so the first part of the book is really following that and the. The kind of. There were two or three artists already four artists in existence, Heart for a One Journey are going at that point in time. Aria Speedwagon sticks and how those bands kind of were pulled along in the slipstream Boston and changed by Boston and particularly Journey. They were. They were kind of a jam band at San Francisco. They'd been. Various members of Journey were in Santana's band and with their manager Herbie Herbert. Boston had that guy Brad Delp as the singer. So he's the archetypal AR singer, a guy with a multi octave voice, the high tenor singing. Every band after that, that was an AR band, wanted that kind of thing. And that's where Journey ended up with Steve Perry. The idea that they weren't going to be a jamman anymore. They were going to write songs for radio. So I think it's. The first part of the book is that it's the sowing of the seeds for what followed, what this huge commercial movement that came after it in the wake of that record.
- [13:14]
A
And I think also it's important for people to realize with Tom Schultz is like, he was doing this when it wasn't like anybody could just download itunes. It cost a small fortune for him to build. Right. I mean, that's the thing. When you think about it now, it's like, oh, anybody does that. It's like at this time. And when he did this, it was like labor and time and monetarily really expensive. Like, he was working for Polaroid. Was that it? Like, he had a job. But, like, what he did was kind of amazing during that time.
- [13:47]
B
And also. Yeah. Cause he, you know, he. Schultz says. And people that work with him said, you know, he'd reached a point because he would send the tapes off intermittently. He'd send them off to record companies, and they would be rejected out of hand. And he'd reached a point where he was gonna send one more tape because he'd spent literally all the saving. He was married. You know, he'd got an apartment or a house in Boston. And he'd reached the point where he said, you literally couldn't spend any more money on this. You know, it was. It was time to actually think about investing in, you know, his own life. Yeah. And the last tape he sent had more than a feeling on it. The rest is. The rest is history.
- [14:28]
A
So. So you start with this, and then your second part is Take it on the Run. So we have, you know, some title going. We have some nods to titles here, of course, as I say them. So. Yeah. So then what starts to go on? So. So Boston comes out. These bands are looking for singers that. Well, and, I mean, I might be biased, but I do think Steve Perry is probably, like, the best vocally of that sort of general. But they're looking for that voice, and we got that. So then what? Yeah. So then what do you get into?
- [15:02]
B
Well, then you get around to the general sense, like, all these things that there's a musical movement happening and its influence is permeating mainstream pop culture. So bands start. There's a sound that develops. There are people that come to the forefront as characters within this story. Perry, I'm in agreement with you. I think if there was one character who is the most Important character is the most naturally talented, gifted character in the book. I think it's Steve Perry. I think Steve Perry. Steve Perry is one of those things who's bigger than any particular music movement. Steve Perry would have been great in any genre of music, any year of music. But you get these. Yeah, all of these bands sort of come to the forefront. So they start selling records, they start having an imprint on the American consciousness. They start. The sound becomes important. In short order they changed the sound of American radio because this is. It is music that fits radio. There's a thing that I didn't know that. I mean obviously FM radio was hugely important at that point in time. But a lot of the recording studios would have an FM transmitter outside the studio. So bands would go in, record their rough mixes of tracks and then hop outside, tune their car radio to this, transmit and be able to hear exactly what their records would send on the radio. So these records made to sound good on radio and I think it charts all of that, you know, that suddenly car stereos became more. It was FM in car stereos rather than am, which is hugely important because then these records were literally tailor made to sound great on FM frequencies. And, and, and then FM and then MTV happens on the horizon and they didn't have a huge library of video. They had. These bands were making videos and filming videos. So they naturally gravitated on. I think Pat Benatar was the second or supposed to be the second act played on, on mtv. And then the rest of these bands have got videos and at that point it wasn't as important image. It became important like. Well, ironically it turned around and bit them in the end because it became more image oriented. But it gave them an instant exposure so that, that of it being on the run. It's as it, as it sort of comes out of a relatively small thing into. And mushrooms into a proper musical movement.
- [17:30]
A
Yeah, I thought that was in it kind of you, your next part is that. What is it? Jukebox Heroes. Right. But it bleeds at that. MTV was something I wanted to ask you about because you see these, these musicians who are very much like, we just played, we just went out there and then all of a sudden I had to like buy wigs or we had to like think about our clothing. Like Hart talks about like that, you know, how Pat Benatar even, you know, I think there's a quote in here where she's like, I was just in tights, they were comfortable. And then, you know, people are basically looking at her and how she's dressing. So yeah, can you talk a little and about like the big role with MTV and this sort of, this idea of the music video that was not in existence before like the early 1980s really. Yeah, yeah.
- [18:19]
B
It's, it's a. MTV is a real, it's a double edged sword in a lot of ways because the, the, the, the point it starts, you know, they, they. MTV didn't have a big library of videos that the only people making videos were the, the English bands, the, the sort of new romantic bands. Because it was part of, you know, top, Top of the Pops was a. You know, there were music oriented shows on British television and European shows that they would make videos for. And then these bands are making videos that they would either film like because they, you know, they look, they tended to have live arena shows so they would film live videos. They weren't really conceptual videos. So MTV played what it had got which, which immediately put these bands into you know, American homes. And it took a while for MTV to be more widely distributed. But, but at the point it does start 81, 82, you have albums like Foreigner 4 Journey, Escape, Properly massive commercial records and, and the ones sort of fuel the other. I think the, the argument is. And it. This validity to it is the, the longer empty Vet V went on, the less mystique. It sort of stripped away the mystique of the music. Because if, you know, when, when I was growing up I had absolutely no idea what Journey looked like. You know, you filled in the blanks and the same with Toto, you just didn't know what they looked like. By the time you got around to seeing the Africa video, which was total themselves. They weren't meant to make fit Pat Benatar. Yeah, Pat Ben and Matcar could make videos. Toto were not given over to make videos. So it's a very quick transition from being something that is there to use as your benefit to something that you're really uncomfortable within. And that's why by 86, one of the reasons why they sort of petered out and got replaced by something else.
- [20:16]
A
Well, and I think is it Billy Squire who talks about how he basically said like his video ruined his. And then like Martha Quinn is like. Like that's not necessary. Like you should have like embraced that. But yeah, but there is that like the make or break the. That, that, that kind of like it killed me. It ruined my career.
- [20:34]
B
Yeah. You know, it's. People have their own perspective on I think when it's. When it's a very personal perspective. It might be more dramatic than it seems, but. But believe Scott, Billy Squad did make one of the worst videos of all time and a career killer. If you look at it from the sense of view that he was off MTV's playlist ever after and never sold records in quite some. I mean, it was. I mean MTV was. It replaced radio as being all powerful. And the difference was, as we said, radio, it was all about the song. And after MTV it wasn't. It was about the song, the look, the fashion, the whole nine yards. My day kicks off with a refreshing Celsius energy drink. Then straight to the gym, pre K pickup back home to meal prep. Time for my fire station shift. One more Celsius. Gotta keep the lights on. When the three alarm hits. I'm ready Celsius live fit. Go grab a cold refreshing Celsius at your local retailer or locate now@celsius.com. well, the holidays have come and gone once again. But if you've forgotten to get that.
- [21:37]
A
Special someone in your life a gift.
- [21:39]
B
Well, Mint Mobile is exciting. Extending their holiday offer of half off unlimited wireless. So here's the idea. You get it now, you call it an early present for next year. What do you have to lose? Give it a try@mintmobile.com Switch limited time, 50 off regular price for new customers. Upfront payment required 45 for 3 months, 90 for 6 months or 180 for 12 month plan taxes and fees. Extra speeds may slow after 50 gigabytes per month when network is busy. See terms.
- [22:04]
A
Yeah. And it's interesting like because you move into. Once we get to that, we think about. You talk about to Springsteen. Not Springsteen, sorry, Springfield, like Rick Springfield, Jon Bon Jovi, even Brian Adams. Like these names that were also. They were. They're attractive men, right. They were people who. They could put on a screen and have that kind of power. So. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit more. Yeah. About that and some of these folks who came around during that time when MTV was a stepping stone.
- [22:40]
B
Yeah, I mean, I think it's probably best illustrated via. With Heart. I think, you know, because Hart had that whole period where huge in the 70s, then stopped making commercial records and Capital Records. Someone at Capitol Records took a look at them. And the other thing that came with it, this idea of song doctors or collaborative songwriters basically thought that you could glamorize Heart in. In a way that. I was gonna say for good or ill. Ill in a lot of ways. But you could glamorize, you know, objectify Nancy and Wilson and give Them sleeker, less clunky songs and. And they. And make them into pop stars. And that's exactly what happened. You know, Heart were a band remade and resurrected through videos and through songs that even there. They're not necessarily. No, I don't think either. I know Nancy Wilson are necessarily comfortable with some of the elements that went along with that musically and. And visually, but it. It was a different thing. It's. It's where we've led to today that, you know, these are the idea that they became product and it became packaged. It wasn't just the song, it was the look, it was the video. It was how you. What you said. It was everything. The whole whole thing, a brand. And that did. Just didn't exist at the. At the time MTV started it, it was sort of birthed and went along with the whole thing. And yeah, bands changed and artists change. You know, we've kind of fast forwarded, but by the time you get to 1985, 86, Bon Jovi, def Leppard, bands like that are musically within the realm of aor. Visually, that's something totally different going on. You know, they were. It's that whole hair metal, hair rock thing. They were. They were a totally different thing. And they took the musical cues from aoi, but they didn't take the visual cues.
- [24:42]
A
So you brought up Heart. And that's one thing I wanted to ask you about too, is this was a very masculine, kind of centered space. And so, I mean, I think Heart, Scandal, I was trying to think Starship, Pat Benatar, like, they come up. But yeah. When you were putting this together, when you were thinking about this, was it difficult to think about, like, beyond this? And it's sort of white masculine space too, like, thinking beyond or like. Yeah. Can you talk a little bit about that and how that kind of played a role in this music and sort of how it came to be? Yeah, yeah.
- [25:17]
B
I mean, in many ways, it's not dissimilar country music, the journey that country music's gone on, you know, very, very much. Why? In a lot of ways, conservative. And there's someone. I mean, it's. When you kind of look back and be retrospective of anything, there's uncomfortable elements to it. You know, if you read. I think one of my favorite interview that I did for the book was with Nancy Wilson. I think the notion of. Of who Nancy Wilson is and what Nancy Wilson stood for, you know, a female guitar player in a rock band at that time, that's not an easy thing to. To have been It's a rarity. And the things that. That the Wilson sisters and Pat Benatar had to endure and tolerate and put up with because it was a masculine industry from top to bottom. I'm not necessarily sure it's changed all that much in the press in the way it's presented. And they will talk about, in one way that, you know, I spoke to people who were male music executives at the time and asked that question, you know, if there was any guilt about the way what they perpetrated or what they did. And I'm not necessarily sure there is. I think that the view of it was very much, well, we put it out there for the market. The market consumes it. It's. I think any kind of music that you go back and look at from that, Lots and lots of music from that era is. It is littered with those, you know, you know, misogynistic lyrics of perpetrated through hip hop and everything else. That. That whole presentation of an objectifying women went into hip hop and heavy metal and hair metal. And I, you know, Riot Girl was probably, you'll know better than anybody, Riot Girl was. I mean, it was unbelievably refreshing. But sadly, it had such a small impact on that big mainstream culture. And I think that was one of the biggest disappointment I had with the book was that Pat Benatar, or Pat Benatar's mind declined to be interviewed for it. Because I think Pat Benatar is another strong, powerful character, a female character in the book. And that should be celebrated. And I'm full of admiration for what Benatar, the Wilson sisters, Patti Smith stood up for and did.
- [27:45]
A
Yeah, I will just say that it made me happy. I mean, I think that Anne and Nancy Wilson do not get enough credit a lot of times. I think they deserve a large place in music history for many reasons. And so I was happy that they did play, you know, a larger role in this, but as large a role you can have in a book where you have like, how many, you know, like you said, what, 50 or 60 interviews with people. But I think they're really important in general in music history. So. So you have this. So you move into this kind of no breaks. I think one thing for me is like the 80s was this kind of time of excess. And so. Right. And so we see this. So we see this idea of like. And these bands were also kind being pushed to just keep recording and keep touring, where a lot of them finally say, we should have just stopped. Like, we shouldn't have kept Going and going. So can you talk a little bit about like, you know, what starts to happen with these bands? Some of them deciding they should go solo or. Yeah, yeah, coming, sort of coming apart, I guess like Kilroy was here and the like destroying of sticks and all of that.
- [28:58]
B
Yeah, it's that. It's the well worn story, isn't it, about music and success, especially within bands and groups of people, artistic endeavors. But the start, like 1981 is a year where you had Journey, Escape, Foreigner 4, Toto 4 comes shortly afterwards. Reo speedlogging, high infidelity is just slightly before that. But you had enormous records, massive record. The music industry itself through the 80s is awash with money. Obviously the advent of the CD meant that record company people are not, you know, they're not averse to being mercenary. So CD allowed them to prepackage records that already sold and sell them to people again. So there's a massive amount of money going around and you put money, cocaine and huge success together with ego and it's a recipe for disaster. So on the one hand, yeah, bands were driven to keep making, you know, that they're on a treadmill. So you have to keep putting out a record every 12 months, 18 months and stay out touring sticks are a pretty good example of the fact that, you know, it was a band, but all bands are equal. But some are more equal than others and. And the hits were written by Dennis De Jong and the others can deny that, can, can, you know, talk about what they've done. But Dennis DeYoung wrote the hits and they didn't like that. And Dennis DeYoung came up with concepts they didn't like that. And so they make this record. Kilroy was here and particularly the single Mr. Roboto, which the rest of the band dislike intensely. It didn't do. All the perception of it is that it didn't do that well and it. It killed their career and he's to blame for it. The single actually went, I think it was number two, number one. And the album went platinum. You know, it wasn't a commerc disaster, but it, by that point it fractures the band. The band all got in a separate directions. Steve Perry of Journey would be a man who. The other. One of the things of it, you know, those high tenor voices are. It's like running a marathon every night and then being asked to do it again if you're singing live. And. And Perry, I think, spent his whole career, I think he says in the book, you know, waking up every morning not knowing if the Voice was going to be there that night. And that did a degree of psychological damage to him. And he was in the end worn down by the whole thing. You know, he had a. His mother died, I think during the final Journey tour and he just didn't want to do it anymore. He just had enough of it. And then bands like Cut the Cars who were by Heartbeat City album, they've got Robert. Robert Mutlang as the producer who's. Who's one of the architects of the. The 80s sound. They've moved into that sphere and they've got Rick Okasek who writes the songs and Ben or who sings the songs that have been the hits. So there's the clash between those guys. It's. And what happens is inevitable. You make people keep working in close proximity with each other without going away and taking a break from each other and they eventually fall out. You know, conflict is inevitable and a lot of the bands and the individuals are damaged by that. So bands split up. Reo Speed wouldn't be the other one. Gary Rich Rathy was the guitar player when Aria Speed were a rock band. Gary Rich Bath was the main songwriter when they needed a hit single. Kevin Cronin wrote the palette power ballad Keep On Loving you and thereafter wrote the hits. And that fractures that bang as well. So it's, you know, it's the time honored story, isn't it? Successful, Be careful what you wish for.
- [32:44]
A
And you know, I thought it was interesting. There are. I mean, famously, I think of U2 as one band who, all four of them take equal credit for everything. Right? They split everything equally. This was not going on during this time. Right. Like you were the lead singer and you were usual, you know, and usually the, you know, lead guitar player, like you said. But there's like one or maybe two people and so the band members. There's one, I don't know which band. There's a story of them arguing about 60%, 40% who. Right. You know, like this is something that adds to, I think this. This sort of excess and. And this kind of frustration with one maybe that's a nice way to say it. Frustrate. Because some of them, I mean, there's a talk in here about Van Halen's dad coming and making them go to blows with each other. Right. So, yeah, I think that adds to it too.
- [33:32]
B
Yeah, I think that there's nothing so strange as people, is there? And particularly people. People in high school, precious situations. I've always thought, you know, the U2 thing it seems to me from a distance, just plain common sense. There's four of you. You all contribute in one way or another. If it's split equally, there's going to be no grounds to fall out. But it never. It so rarely works. There's a reason why you two have been together for all that time. The Foreigner thing is, I mean, it. It's fascinating that because Mick Jones and Lou Graham, that was their agreement, they would sit down at the end of each song and decide what percentage one or the other would have written of the song, and they would split the royalties that way. It was formalized like that. That was how it was formalized. So it was. I want to know what love is, I think, which is the straw that broke the camel's back. So Lou Graham wrote down his figure. I think Lou Graham wrote down 40%. And Mick Jones wrote 95. 5%. And you, you can imagine that. And, and that's what prevailed the McJones percentages. So you can imagine how much money Lou Graham feels that he was deprived of by losing that 35% of I want to know what Love it. And, and, and yeah, he goes on. And ironically, the. The Van Halen story is related by Mick Jones because he goes on to produce Van Allen's 5150 album. And, and, and he will, he, he will sit and he's a very, you know, you, you. He's a very erudite man, Mick Jones. He'll. He'll sit and tell you with a raised quizzical eyebrow how he would. Sat in a room with the two Van Halen brothers and their dad, goading them to, to basically argue with him, playing one side off against the other. So it, it's, it's interesting that someone who's in the middle of one situation you think is plainly ridiculous, can see the absurdity in another, but even now will not turn around and go, well, no, that was absolutely bonkers. What we did with. I want to know. He will defend his corner on that rigidly.
- [35:38]
A
So, you know, you end this sort of within your final part is this don't stop believing. And what I thought, one of the things I loved that multiple people talked about how great it was. They wanted their songs to sort of outlive themselves and how great it was to, like, hear themselves in the elevator or in the grocery store. Right. Like, it's one of these things where, you know, if you ask them in the 70s, like, how are you going to. They'd be like, no, no. Right. So can you talk about this kind of legacy for this music, which I will say, you made me drive around in my car with a playlist because I was like, yes, this is the best way to listen to any of this.
- [36:18]
B
I think. I mean, that's a lovely. I mean, if that's the case, the books worked better than I could possibly hope for. But I think exactly what you've just said there, that there is this sort of childish glee. I think it's. Nancy Wilson said all. I would have measured success by walking into my local grocery store and hearing myself. And virtually every one of the people you spoke to being played on the radio for the first time is the pivotal moment in their professional life. You know, people pulling over in cars and leaping out and dancing on the side of the road or running around the house. And you think that was what they all did it for. That childish sense of glee, whatever you call it, that it's achievement, it's recognition or whatever. None of them actually did it to make lots of money. It's a nice byproduct. But the root cause of why they played in bands and what they were looking for was a more innocent thing than that. It's that validation and that being able to do what you did with the Beatles. Virtually all of them remember the Beatles on Ed Sulliv. And it's that thing that you've got that your record is played. And I guess that the arc of the story is the loss of that innocence. In one way, that. That's what happens. You start from that point and kind of forget what it's all about. And with these bands, I think in some part they've rediscovered that thing because they spend an awful lot of time out in the wilderness in terms of popular culture. And now they're back. You know, the. The records are part of TV movie game soundtracks. They're back within the ether. So I think in. In. In some ways there's a. A rediscovery of all that. Not in Journey's case, because obviously they. They are. Neil, Sean and Jonathan Caine is suing each other. So they. They haven't. They haven't remembered how to make nice. But I think that's. That's the arc of it. That thing that. What a lot of them have come back to, what. What the essence of it all was, which was making music.
- [38:28]
A
Well, in Journey, I mean, you mentioned them, but they have the most downloaded song of all time, right? Like, of all time. And I think there was somewhere at the end, like, somebody also talked about, like, even if you haven't downloaded it. You're going to. Somebody's heard it somewhere. You hear it walking in the street. You hear it, you know, like, you know, at the. Wherever you are, at a sporting event, in a bar, somebody singing it in karaoke. It's there, right?
- [38:54]
B
Yeah. And I think that that song is probably. It's symptomatic how this music was perceived and treated in this. This was a Don't Stop Believing, obviously. Been. It was in the film Monster, wasn't it on the center to Monster? And then it went into the Sopranos. And you know, obviously the famous last. In the Sopranos. There was a. A newspaper article did in Britain that was summing all this up and then put at the end of it. It was still a terrible song. And it's like. But it isn't. You know, everything's objective. But Don't Believe Me is a great song. It's. You might not like Journey. That is unobjectively a great. A great song. And I think that's the. The thing with the. The thing that Steve Luke there is a guy who. Who gets unbelievably bent out of shape and said, look, we could play. We could write records. You might not like the records, but you can't. You can't damn the way in which they were made and the quality of which they're made with. And I think the thing with Don't Stop Believing is I. I remember as a kid buying Escape on cassette, didn't really know who they were or what they're about. I'd read a little piece on them in the magazine called Crown, and they sounded interesting. And I can still, you know, Don't Stop Believing then and now was extraordinary because it's not, you know, the other thing these things were. The bands. They were. A lot of them were dismissed as corporate rock. It became this thing as if they were, you know, computer generated, as if they were AI constructs even before such a thing existed. And that it was a sort of cynical way of making record. What you get from talking to a lot of the guys in the. You know, the prime movers in this is how so much of it happened. By happy accent, accident or circumstance, or just being in a room with someone and hearing them play a snatch of something. And Don't Stop Believing is literally Steve Perry walking into studio going, I've always wanted to start a song with a piano. And Jonathan Gaines got a piano part. And it starts from there. And then the chorus doesn't happen until the end of the record. It's not conventional in any way, shape or form. But that's why, that's what makes things great, isn't it?
- [41:08]
A
Yeah. I mean, and it is like I think Kansas's wayward son carry on. My wayward son comes up. I'm a big Supernatural fan. So like it's great seeing like they talk about like seeing these bands and seeing this music continue today and getting new audiences and then introducing those audiences. And like you said, you don't have to love everything they do, but you have to give them credit. I mean they're great musicians and like I said, and I keep saying it, you cannot tell me that Steve Perry's voice is not like, yes, the most, one of the most spectacular things in rock and roll. Right.
- [41:44]
B
So yeah, I mean I've always, I always believe that music is, I mean how you respond to. It's been entirely personal thing. But I think it's good and bad. You know, I genuinely don't see any difference or any, anything jarring about the fact that I can quite happily sit down and listen to Pekaban L7 on one morning and feel like I'd listen to Toto or Rush in the afternoon and then go off and listen to Otis Rednoy James. It's all. You respond to songs and performers and I think that's when I think that's the. You know, you asked me right at the start about writing the book that there is that sense of here's an entire genre of music that's almost been brow beaten and, and hammered for years. And it's. There are actually, like you said, I, I actually made a playlist when I was thinking about doing the book. I did one of those. It's. I think it's now running to four hours but. So it's, it's ridiculously overblown. And then you start listening to it and think there are so many great songs, so many really, really good songs that have stood the test of time and that's, that's all that really matter. Doesn't matter what, who. It's all about the songs and how you respond to the songs. And these were perfectly put together pop songs.
- [43:03]
A
So I mean we could probably talk about this forever, but we won't. So the book comes out at the end of February. So self promotion. Anything with this book, anything else you're working on, like what do you want people to kind of know about your book?
- [43:21]
B
Well, I think, I think that it's, it's a, I think all these, it's a piece of social history. I think. And if you've, if you're interested in music and how music was made and the history, music, this is a big chunk of history that's not, it's not an overtold tale. You know, there's some, there's some really important records in there. There's some great stories behind the making. I think, like all stories. This, there's some fun in it, there's some outlandish tales in it, there's some ridiculous behavior in it. But. But ultimately, if you're interested in music, it's a story. They're making some great records and the stories behind those records. And I think that that's always intrigued me. You know, I, I have literally zero musical talent, so I'm eternally fascinated by how people make records and how people are blessed to make records. And, and there's a. There's a lot of that in there as well. So I u. People take that from it. But most of all, what. What you took from it, you know, the people go back and want to listen to these records because that's job done if that's the case.
- [44:30]
A
Well, Paul Reese, thank you for talking with me about Raised on Radio on New Books Network.
- [44:35]
B
Thank you for having me, Rebecca. It's been a pleasure.