Going Through the Roof

For some inexplicable reason, we were touring Europe with Kiss in 1996. This was a major tour for us; an opportunity to travel the world and prove to the masses that we were a legitimate rock band, first and foremost. The Kiss crowds were not particularly polite to us, but it was the first time the band was able to travel on this sort of scale. Catering, massages, anything you may want was provided. There was to be no sightseeing due to the location of the venues, and the frequencies of the show, and had I not spent 2 years living in Europe during a stint with the US Army, I may have been disappointed by this.

While in Europe, I heard the first mix of The Freshmen. I remember thinking, “I don’t know, I don’t know…” It was so vastly different from the Jerry Harrison version, that it was hard to hear it as its own entity, without comparisons to the aforementioned version.

We met Mark Neale in a hotel lobby in London. Mark was a video director. He was funny and charming, and we all liked him instantly. He was the one who would direct the video for The Freshmen. It was a few short days later that we were in his studio looking at video tapes and photos of potential girls to play the heroine in the video. After some discussion, we decided it best to leave it in Mark’s hands, and he chose Sarah Toogood, a lovely Brit with a beautiful smile and eyes that were sparkling. I would have no problem playing the role with her, albeit for a few short moments.

We were to shoot the video in 2 days in a London warehouse. I had no idea how important these moments were to be, sitting there with my fancy new haircut and tight v-neck. There were numerous takes, but it felt good each time. Mark had a way of making everyone feel comfortable, even the “blurry” guys in the background (my bandmates). Jack Rovner, VP at RCA, was on hand, and wanted to be sure that we cut an alternative version of the video to fit the Jerry Harrison sleepy version of the song. In hindsight, it was probably a smart move on his part. Back then, it was very annoying. It seemed no one at RCA could make a decision and stick with it.

After we completed the video, we went on to finish the tour with Kiss, and then back to the states to re-group and start up another stateside tour.

I was living in the offices of LMNOPOP, our company, at the time. It was hardly an office building, in fact it was a house near the campus of Michigan State University. I had a room, and in that room I had a crappy stereo and an equally crappy mattress on the floor. The room was always a mess.

I heard Jay and Mac yelling at me one day to come and check something out. There on the screen was the Freshmen video. I had seen it already of course, but this time it felt legitimate. It was not only on MTV, but it also carried those most sought after words. “Buzz Clip”.

Once MTV started playing it, VH1 started playing it. Album sales went through the roof. We had the good fortune of doing yet another version of the video for The Jenny McCarthy Show. Even that version was played all to hell. We played Letterman and Leno. We were rock stars. And for some reason, I was so annoyed by it all.

I couldn’t enjoy this time at all. As much as I wanted to relax and enjoy the ride, I felt like we had to get back into the studio right away and prove that it wasn’t a fluke. ‘I’ll be damned if I’m going to be a one hit wonder’ is all I could think about, even though Photograph went high enough on the charts to dismiss this notion.

The song had been on the air for about 6 months, and it tapered off. The next single was Villains, probably a poor choice. That was my mistake. The label wanted Penny Is Poison. I did not want to follow up The Freshmen with another ballad.

Radio stations wouldn’t add Villains to their playlist because they were still playing The Freshmen. Once, driving through Michigan, I heard it on three different stations at the same time. We were all sick of hearing it, sick of playing it, and most of all, sick of having to explain what it was about. (It wasn’t until years later, when I started to play house concerts and was able to knock down that wall between artist and fan, and actually communicate with people, that I realized how much it affected them. Now, I find joy in playing it, knowing that people are so affected by it.)

We tried everything to get MTV to play the Villains video that we shot with Dean Karr. Dean is a little disturbed in all of the right ways. His idea of taking photos from a crime scene book and recreating them for a video was brilliant. Conceptually, the video was perfect for the song. Edgy, black and white, with a great story. We even looked into getting Don Knotts to be the killer, revealed in the end. Don actually agreed to it, but with a 25k price tag.

As great as that video was, it wasn’t given much of a chance, due to the stalling of the single at radio. If the song doesn’t have legs at radio, chances are, it won’t have legs on MTV. After 5 weeks of pounding on radio stations doors to add the song, KROQ in Los Angeles said that they would add it. We were all excited, until the terms were known to us. It would be in a very limited schedule. I think 2 to 6 am comes to mind. 7 times a week. It really had no chance.

So, I took the hit for that one. It was my insistence that kept Penny Is Poison from being the next single. But I still feel like Penny would have stalled as well. Just not as quickly.

So, 2 full years and some change, touring on the strength of Photograph and The Freshmen. It was a rollicking time for the band. Play a show, party after for an hour or two, get on the bus, have a piece of pizza, drink some more. Get in your bunk for some sleep during the long drive to the next town. Wake up at noon, do some interviews, have a sound check, take a nap, do another show. This was the routine, and it worked. We stayed busy and somewhat focused. We covered most of the U.S. and much of Europe. During these days, I was always writing songs, demoing them in the back lounge of the bus during the day. I was prepared to go into the studio for the follow-up record. But nothing could have prepared us for the Sophomore effort. It would prove to be our most non-creative, difficult time. We were the rock cliche during this period, and like any band that ends up a cliche, we couldn’t see it coming.

A Cup of Tea?

Four months into the release of Photograph, we found ourselves in a predicament. RCA would slap us on the back and say, “It’s a nice position to be in, having too many songs to choose from for the next single!” Indeed, I thought. We certainly delivered one hell of a record, I thought, having written 90% of it. “Could we release every song on the record as a single?” I asked once. “Why not?!?” was the reply that I got from Ron Poore, head of the alternative division. I remember he even offered up a high-five, to which I left him hanging, as the band often did.

I started to believe the hype of Ron Poore. Though I knew that twelve singles was laughably impossible, I did believe that we may have had a Huey Lewis Sports on our hands. This thing could go on forever.

The question was, Cup Of Tea, hard rock anthem, driven by a guitar riff that was like trumpets, signaling the arrival of the king (Scary, but I really thought this…), or Villains, a heavy rock song, more reminiscent of what was on the radio that day. The band chose Cup Of Tea, and geared up for what we believed would be another 6 months of touring on the new single.

After the choice of song had been made, we chose video director Nigel Dick, to write a treatment. He did, and I remember it being interesting enough. But something was different this time out. Revised treatments started showing up. It was clear that the powers that be at RCA were questioning the video’s direction. The idea was: Five band members all work on a individual piece of art work, then, in the end, we pick up our pieces, walk towards each other, turn, and each individual piece of art work joins together to make one massive, amazing piece of art. What no one realized was that none of us could draw, paint, or even discuss art, and what we ended up creating was one massive, amazing piece of shit.

We had just spent $250,000 + on a video that not only had nothing to do with the song, but was really unusable. In an effort to salvage it, I went to the editing bay with our manager, and tried to re-edit the video. I knew as much about editing as I did about art, and it turned out to be the most boring, under lit video that MTV would ever play. Enter RCA’s Vice President Jack Rovner, who wanted effects, and suddenly, his will be done, there were visual effects in the form of split screens, video trails, sped up frames, you name it. And in order to make it interesting, there were over 400 edits.

I watched the video on MTV’s 120 minutes, and wondered what happened. I was surprised that they even played it. As the video went on and on and I became more and more depressed. I was excited that at the end, when Nigel Dick’s name appeared as the director, that people would think that this may be where videos were heading. Nigel was a premier director, and taste maker, and perhaps people would see this as a a video ahead of its time. My optimistic thoughts were deflated, as I saw on the bottom of the credits that the director was actually “Mojo Wurken.” Nigel was clearly so disgusted by the video, the process of working with RCA and the band, that he had taken his name off of it. Good for him.

Cup of Tea, the single, hit the ground at a slow trot, then stalled completely, along with album sales. I remember checking Soundscan, a service that provides sales information every week, and watching the number of sales fall. No worries, though. We were promised by RCA that there were going to be a minimum of at least 5 singles on this record. So, we’ll dust ourselves off, and start the process again.

Reverend Girl was the next choice. The song was a power ballad in 6/8 time, that Kevin Weatherlee of KROQ loved, and thought was the strongest single on the album. We couldn’t go wrong with that one. KROQ would add the song, and all of the other radio stations across the country would be forced to add it as well. Artwork for the single was complete, video directors submitted treatments, and we continued touring, playing for a 300 to 500 hundred people every night. But then, word came down from above, that RCA was nervous again, and that they felt like we should should jump directly to our song, The Freshmen. It was posed as a question to us, though the answer had already been given. In fact, the answer was this: If the next single fails, the album is finished. You’ll go home and start writing a followup record. No Freshmen, no Villains, no Penny Is Poison. I wanted to fight it, but realized that if The Freshmen was not a single, my days as a rock star would soon be over.

I threw up my hands, and let RCA lead the way, not realizing at the time that they were always leading the way. Our input rarely mattered. That was most evident when we were told that we had a meeting with a man I had never even heard of, and he was going to produce another version of The Freshmen, one that was more conducive to alternative radio. “They’re completely insane,” I thought. “The version that is on the album is the hit song!” That version was over 5 minutes long, with a sleepy feel that I hoped would send the masses sleepwalking to the record store to purchase it. “”What about the 200,000 people who already have the album and know that version?” RCA’s answer was “Screw ‘em.” We were going to go into the studio, re-record the song, and strip it into a new pressing. “Ridiculous!” I screamed to no one. Our hands were tied however. We knew that this would be it. The promises of “5 singles, no matter what” were empty at best. We agreed to meet with this “producer” and see what he had to offer.

Jack Joseph Puig had produced Jellyfish, one of our drummer’s favorite bands. Jellyfish was nothing like us. Didn’t sound like us, didn’t look like us, and certainly weren’t mainstream like us. How could this be the right choice for us?

I remember the meeting well. I liked Jack’s honesty and knowledge of music, and most importantly the names of those that he had known in the business. He used words like organic and natural, and described how he wanted to hear the distortion pedal being pressed down in the recording. We were going to sit in a studio and play together as a band live. No building the song from the drums up, like most recordings. If someone sneezed during a take, then dammit, that sneeze would soon be heard on the radio. Ironically, it was a new approach to us. Imagine! We all sit and play as a band and record the song the way it used to be done. No sitting and waiting for the drums to be recorded, then the bass, then all the guitars, then the keys..etc. What was played live together was going to be what ended up on the record. I loved the idea, but was cautious. We’ll see, I thought.

A few weeks, and a canceled leg of the tour later, we were in a Los Angeles studio with Jack Joseph Puig. The studio, Oceanway, was decked out with oriental rugs, hundreds of candles and all kinds of different instruments for us to play around with.

The first 2 days were dedicated to getting the right sound on the drums and guitars and bass. The 3rd day, we all sat in a circle and played the song about 16 times. The 17th time was the take to use. No one minded playing the song so much because this was a unique way for the band to play together. We had gotten away from it. All of us left our egos and agendas at the door, and just played, hoping to capture some magic. And as it turns out, we did.

Diving In

Once Villains was released, the playing field changed dramatically. Gone were the days of driving the van, partying after the shows, and crappy equipment. We now had a tour bus, a crew, and brand new instruments, which were written into the recording budget.

As we played across the country to drum up support for our major label release, the people at RCA records worked on getting the radio stations to “add” the first single, Photograph. It proved to be a long process, months of preparation. It seemed to me that the album was done, why wait for 3 months to put it on the shelves? We were impatient, but waiting turned out to be the right thing to do. Photograph was the most added record when it was released to radio.

I heard it for the first time on the air while driving in Florida. I had a girlfriend at the time, who was coming down to hang out me while we were on a semi successful tour with Seven Mary Three, who’s song Cumbersome was climbing the charts. I had rented a convertible, and felt a pang of guilt as I went to the rental car lot to pick up the car- a silver Mustang. I was embarrassed to drive it, and considered driving around the block and returning it minutes later. Something inside kept me from enjoying little luxuries such as this, limo rides included. (I would soon get over that guilt.) I decided to keep the car and drove down the east coast to reconnect with the band. It was on that coastal highway that I heard Photograph for the first time. Every cliche in the book came true. The song was being played on a station miles from my location, and so it was peppered with static throughout. Another cliche: I actually pulled over on the side of the highway to listen to it. As the static kept interrupting its play, I pulled forward a few feet at a time, and stopped suddenly when the song was clean. Then more static, and I would jerk the car forward a bit. I must have looked ridiculous to passers-by who pitied that poor young man with yellow bleached hair, crying over his bad transmission problem in the car that he certainly did not deserve to be driving (They were tears of joy).

I felt like I had arrived. After the song was finished, I pulled back onto the highway, and oddly, I didn’t feel guilty about that car - in fact, I was quite proud to be driving it. I felt like a real rockstar for the first time ever. I was far away from Michigan, from the hometown fans, and I had just heard my song on the radio.

Photograph did pretty well at first, but really took off when K-ROCK in Los Angeles picked it up. I had no idea how significant it was to have them play it. We got the word when we were visiting the RCA offices in New York City. People were dancing around, high-fiving each other. It seemed to be an overreaction to one radio station adding a song, but I went along with the celebration. Little did I know that K-ROCK adding your record was imperative to the single’s success on a national level. If K-ROCK added your record, then you could count on 50 more stations adding it across the country. Programmers around the country were lazy, and did as the trends told them, and K-ROCK knew the trends, and set a few.

Over the next 4 years, I would chase that drug of a K-ROCK add, but for now, I would shrug it off, ignorant of its importance.

We made the video for Photograph with Lawrence Carroll, Samuel Bayer’s art director for such videos as Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit and The Cranberries Zombie. Lawrence’s set designs were brilliant, and when I first arrived at the warehouse in Los Angeles where it was to be filmed, I was completely blown away at the magnitude of it all. It was surreal- This silly little song that I wrote at my kitchen table a year earlier was now being interpreted by a major artist at a major cost.

I found my way up to the dressing room, and there on the table with assorted snacks was the beverage of choice for the band- Jack Daniels. The day was a long one, and I would pull from the bottle many times, to the point of being buzzed enough to fear for my life a bit, standing on the edge of a diving board that was positioned 15 feet in the air, above a few mattresses below. I made it through that, reveling in the attention.

The woman who had done my hair the day before, Anne Morgan, showed up with none other than Cameron Diaz. I chatted with them both, trying to act as casual as I could. Cameron was a sweetheart. She was very funny, silly, and really good taste in bad metal rock from the 80’s. She would break into Round And Round by Ratt, singing at the top of her lungs, to no one, really. Just enjoying herself. I found it very endearing.

Once the video was complete, the next step was to get it added to MTV. It was featured on 120 Minutes, MTV’s alternative video show. Once it was played, sales of the album doubled, then tripled. Pretty soon, we had sold 200,000 albums. But it stalled there. We were in a battle with each other over which song would be the next single. The choice ended up being Cup Of Tea. The experience soon proved to be quite different for that single. Reluctant adds to radio, a lame video, and stalled record sales took its toll on the band. RCA were going back on their promise to release 5 singles. In fact, they threatened that if the next single, Revered Girl, did not do well, that the album would be over.

Sleeping in Sausalito

We first met Jerry Harrison at a club on the lower east side of Manhattan. He showed up at one of our gigs with his wife Carol in tow. Jerry wore a top hat that was far too small for him, while Carol wore a baby doll shirt; again, too small for her. They looked a bit ridiculous, as I reflect on it now. However at the time, I’m sure I thought that they fit in perfectly with the hip crowd. Hell, I was still wearing stone washed jeans and a baseball cap (backwards) at that point.

Steven Van Zandt was at the show as well - I remember being more impressed with that fact. I watched him as he watched us on the stage. He stood alone, hunched over his drink in the middle of the dance floor, bandana and all. I was a huge Springsteen fan, and found it very difficult to approach him. It was intimidating to me to have him watch us. He was clearly a fan; this was the third time I had spotted him at a show.

Meanwhile, Jerry was to produce the first major release by The Verve Pipe. I remember having a conversation with him after that first show in NYC, and feeling confident that he was the right man for the job. He had produced two very successful records with the band Live and one by Crash Test Dummies. We fit in the same mold as them.

A few more conversations, and we were set to record in San Francisco. I was excited with the opportunity, and decided to re-record all of my demos in a fashion that would be very simple for Jerry to understand. I wanted the band to sound like we did live. 2 guitars, bass, drums, keys and vocals. A few harmonies here and there as well. Not too much ear candy. Not a lot of reverb or effects on the guitars. Raw, muscular pop music.

Once we made it out to Sausalito, we were split up into two groups. Brad and I were in one group, and shared a houseboat, docked in the San Francisco bay. Donny, A.J. and Dougie shared the other. This configuration set the tone for the future of The Verve Pipe. Brad and I sided with each other on most days, while the three of them stood firm on their end. The problem was, and would always be: 3 vs. 2. “Democracy” would send me off into my living quarters for hours, stewing about how the vote always seemed to go.

Over the course of the next three months, we recorded Villains. Our midwestern work ethic was not welcomed by Jerry Harrison, it was soon apparent. He believed in recording at a slow pace. Let the album feel its way, and become what the universe intended. It was frustrating for all of us. We didn’t want to take the day off to go sailing in the bay, and yet, we had to. Many days, Jerry took long naps on the couch in the studio, or spent a few hours at his kid’s soccer games. It was infuriating. I remember the first time we played him “The Freshmen” in pre-production, he actually fell asleep. We all politely walked out of the rehearsal studio and played a game of hacky sack.

Having the opportunity to work with an icon was worth the inconvenience of forking over petty cash for him to get across the bridge (he never carried any), and occasionally watching his kids for him. I felt like a child, myself, in his presence. Like he was the father that I needed to please. I sacrificed much of the relationship with my band mates in an effort to keep Jerry happy.

There were moments where he was great, mostly with arrangement suggestions, but those moments were offset with negative experiences, like profanity-laced rants at family restaurants, with toddlers within earshot.

RCA had asked the band to make a promo video, introducing ourselves to the label. It was supposed to be standard stuff: “Hi, we’re The Verve Pipe. We’re grateful that you have signed us, and we can’t wait to get out there and work our butts off for you.” But we NEVER did anything the easy way. We made the video our way. Each band member was given about 10 seconds of screen time. Donny was shown missing a drum fill in the studio and going on a profanity-laced rant of his own. Brad was shown saying that I had a pussy. A.J. Was shown playing guitar and smoking at the same time, with edits from various films- Woody Allen trying to inhale smoke, etc. Gerry was given 10 seconds of his own and of course, the 10 seconds that Jerry had were of him sleeping on the couch in the studio, as we were listening to a mix of “Photograph.” It was intended to be funny, and it was to us. But when RCA got the video, and also heard of some problems in the studio (unrelated to Jerry), they flipped out and nearly fired him for sleeping while we were working.

I was invited to Jerry’s beautiful home in the hills, overlooking the ocean. We were going to have a Sunday brunch. I arrived with a friend at 11 a.m. as instructed, and I saw him in the house reading a book. He was a bit disheveled, and for a moment I thought that I may have had the date wrong. He answered the door and immediately lit into me.

“What the hell are you thinking sending a tape of me sleeping in the studio? ” This was the first time I had heard that RCA had seen it, and that they were upset.

“I…ah…it was a joke…” I replied, sheepishly.
“Really funny. They are talking about firing my ass.” He walked away, and left my date and standing in the doorway. “Do we go in? Do we just leave?”

I decided to stay, and try to make things right. I apologized. He dismissed it, and we ate an uncomfortable brunch.

To this day, I regret not calling him out. It was clear that he wanted to record the album close to his home to spend more time with his family. Admirable, yes. But the lack of sleep he was getting at home kept him napping in the studio. Thank god for Karl Derfler, the engineer on the project, who, in my opinion, did the real producing of the record. He and the mixer, Tom Lord-Alge, made that record happen.

A few years later, and I was sitting at the Whiskey Bar in New York with a group of friends. Someone came up and said that Jerry was there, and asked me to come over. I ignored the invitation. That was my lame attempt to make a statement.

As much as I wanted to tell him off all of those times, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. It would be the beginning of a long line of working with producers that would be distracted from our project, and me gutless to speak in defense of the band. I was enamored with the “genius” of these big time record producers.

Turns out, the Jerry Harrison experience was a finger prick compared to the hemorrhage of an experience that we had with the producer of our follow-up album. Michael Beinhorn would soon bring us all to our knees, begging him to stop the bleeding.

The U.S. on $10 a Day

It was an entirely different world now that The Verve Pipe was signed to RCA. We went from the top of the local ladder to the bottom rung on the national. Big fish in the little pond to minnows in the ocean.

The first step was to get in the van and start to create a buzz on the national scene. We jammed the 5 band members into a 15 passenger van, along with a tour manager (Bill Theis), an assistant tour manager (Jason Rio) and our sound engineer (Boo).


Bill Theis was a large man at 6 foot 2 inches and a couple hundred pounds. He smoked cigars and name-dropped. His self-importance seemed more important then actually getting the job done. I imagined that he saw himself as Colonel Parker, Elvis’s puppet master, though he lacked business skills and work ethic.

Jason Rio was fresh out of college, aggressive, had a dark sense of humor, and good taste in music. We took an instant liking to him, mostly because he got the job done, and remained the voice of reason on the tour.

Boo had been our sound man for a few years. He was a teddy bear of a man. When you see the cliche-ridden rock and roll movies where there was one person that knew everything, from how to fix your headphones to how to re-wire the club’s sound system, he was the guy. He lacked coolness, was not particularly popular with the ladies, and had a simple vocabulary outside of tech-speak. He was the best sound man, truck driver, band supporter and promoter that the band could have had. After a long drive on the way to California and a hook up with another touring band called The Imposters, Boo had unloaded the bags, parked the trailer on a slight hill near the hotel and unhitched the van from it, so that we could tool around town, unencumbered. For some reason, the brake on the trailer failed, and it started rolling down that slight hill, straight toward the traffic of the busy street. As it gained speed, full of our guitars, amps and drums, he jumped on to the front of the trailer hitch, riding it like Slim Pickens rode that atom bomb to the ground in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove. With all of his might and weight, he steered hitch wheel of that trailer just enough to send it up onto the curb, safe from the busy street. It threw him off. He got up, smiled a bit and said “That was a close one.” We cheered him, and he acted like it was just part of his job. (Years later, after Boo had left the band to do sound for bigger acts, he had another heroic moment. He was 40 feet up in the catwalk of a theater when a 500 lb. cable broke loose, and was going to crash onto the stage. Boo tried to stop it, grabbing on. It pulled him off the catwalk and sent him down with it. Fortunately, a stagehand was below to help break his fall. He was sent to the hospital for a few weeks with a major break to his pelvic bone. After months and months of rehabilitation, he’s back doing sound. Last I heard, he was out with none other than Bruce Springsteen.)

The Imposters were an L.A. based act. They were to join us for a tour of the U.S., sponsored by Insider Magazine. I remember that they had decent enough songs, but the guys were whiners. They complained constantly, it seemed. Or they were sick, or just tired. I’m not sure what they expected from this tour. We crossed the country with them, playing shows, trying to steal each other’s spotlight. I was confident that most people walked away from the night remembering our show instead of theirs.

Not many people showed up for these shows, outside of the midwest. One promoter refused to put the name of the bands on the marquee. he insisted that there was no point. It would be better to just put up “Tonight: National Act” because no one would recognize our name anyway, he thought. “I should punch this guy in the face” was mine.

By the time we played in Michigan with The Imposters at the end of the tour, we were at our best as performers. We ended the tour on a high note- a show at the State Theater in Kalamazoo. The Imposters got a lukewarm response. Morty, their lead singer, insulted our crowd by telling them that after the show, they (the Imposters) got to leave Kalamazoo, but the crowd was stuck here. We heard the boos all the way in the basement.

We rocked them that night. We played new songs, most of which we would record in San Francisco in the next few months. The crowd ate up “Penny Is Poison”, “Ominous Man” and “Veneer”. We were at our best as performers and songwriters. The question was, would any of this translate onto a recording for a major record label? The answer would be known soon enough.

Becoming a Priority

The Rise and Fall of The Verve Pipe Part Four

The first A&R men to visit the band were less than enthusiastic. In fact, they seemed more intent on name dropping to impress the midwestern boys who had never seen NYC south of 42nd street. Capital Records, RCA Records, and Atlantic Records all sent reps to Michigan to see a show. I don’t remember one bad show in the bunch, and still, each of them passed. As the buzz about the band grew a little louder in 1993 and 1994, a few of them returned, this time with different reps.


Brian Malouf from RCA showed up at Club Soda, in Kalamazoo, MI. He was the second rep from RCA that came to see us. Club Soda was a dive bar, great for cheap drinks and a variety of music every night. We had established one hell of a following in Kalamazoo, having already played the State Theater a few times. We booked this night in a addition to a sold out night at the theater.

I could have cared less about Brian Malouf. He was just another rep that was coming out to name drop, then pass on us. I was more determined to continue selling albums on our own. We were running a very successful business, and I didn’t feel like we needed a record label to tell us what to record, and how to record it.

So Brian came out and introduced himself before the show. He was dressed immaculately, casual and cool. He held his cards close to his chest, I thought. He wasn’t dropping names. He just wanted to say hello, and we figured that he would slip out after the show (or during), and we would never see him again.

After a rollicking set, we went backstage to find him there, waiting. He immediately went over the “setlist” he had made. Not knowing the names of the songs, he guessed the correct titles, and scratched them onto a napkin.

“Penny Is Poison is a great song, but I think you need a bridge for that. I didn’t care for the middle section of Drive You Wild (Mild), but I thought that it was hooky none-the-less.” He continued with his notes. I was more interested in meeting some girls before they were all kicked out of the club. I left Brian with Donny and the rest of the boys, got a drink and mingled.

Donny gave Brian our latest cassette, a demo of 4 songs that we had recorded up in Milwaukee.

Three days later, Brian Malouf called me, and said that there was something magic in the song Photograph. “There’s something there. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s worth looking into.” And that was about it. That would turn out to be the beginning of a relationship with RCA. Brian came out to see the band one more time with his boss, and the deal seemed done.

Once Atlantic Records got wind that Brian was interested, they became interested. Atlantic had just started up an alternative label called Lava Records, and were interested in having us joining the ranks of numerous unknown bands, including Matchbox Twenty. The president himself got my home number and called to warn me not to sign with RCA. “They don’t have any acts to speak of. ZZ Top. That’s it. You’ll be making a mistake. We’ll make you a priority.” I wasn’t that interested on Atlantic. They had come to see us twice and passed both times. However, Atlantic getting involved now was the best thing that could happen. There is fierce competition in the record business, and once Brian Malouf caught wind of Atlantic sniffing around, there was an urgency to get us signed. Knowing this, our price went up. We were now involved in a bidding war. It was a win-win situation for our band.

We signed the deal in early 1995. It was very lucrative. We all quit our day jobs. We had no idea what to expect. We had no idea what it meant to be a priority. We feared that RCA had no one else on their label, other than a no-named act called Dave Matthews, popular with the jam band crowd. Those people weren’t our people. We were a rock band. How could we succeed on a label who’s only other rock act was ZZ Top? As it turned out, being one of the first alternative bands to sign with RCA was the best thing that could ever happen to us. We were it. The one and only. We were going to be given top priority. We were going to record with the “great” Jerry Harrison, of The Talking Heads. We were going to record the album in San Francisco. The album would have 5 singles on it. All I had to do was relax, and let things happen. The machine was in place.

Skylarking

The Rise and Fall of The Verve Pipe Part Three

The success of the follow-up to The Verve Pipe’s I’ve Suffered A head Injury depended upon the music, as it should. “The Freshmen” (acoustic version) was a cult fan favorite, and something on the new album would have to touch people in a similar way.

I was listening to a lot of XTC back then. I was playing catch up to the rest of the band, who were absolute freaks about them. Everyone felt like XTC was the Beatles, if they had stayed together. “Dear God” was the first song that I had heard by them:

Dear God, Hope you got the letter, and I pray you can make it better down here.
I don’t mean a big reduction in the price of beer, but all the people that you made in your image,
See them starving on their feet, ’cause they don’t get enough to eat
From God

Dear God, sorry to disturb you, but I feel that I should be heard loud and clear.
We all need a big reduction in amount of tears, And all the people that you made in your image,
See them fighting in the street, ’cause they can’t make opinions meet,
About God,
I can’t believe in you

Did you make disease, and the diamond blue?
Did you make mankind after we made you?
And the devil too!

Dear God, don’t know if you noticed, but your name is on a lot of quotes in this book.
Us crazy humans wrote it, you should take a look, and all the people that you made in your image,
Still believing that junk is true. Well I know it ain’t and so do you,
Dear God

I won’t believe in heaven and hell. No saints, no sinners,
No Devil as well. No pearly gates, no thorny crown.
You’re always letting us humans down.
The wars you bring, the babes you drown. Those lost at sea and never found,
And it’s the same the whole world ’round. The hurt I see helps to compound,
that the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Is just somebody’s unholy hoax,
And if you’re up there you’ll perceive, That my heart’s here upon my sleeve.
If there’s one thing I don’t believe in…It’s you,
Dear God.

- By Andy Partridge, From the XTC album Skylarking

That was it for me - I was hooked. I was thrilled to know that there was an entire back catalog of XTC songs to discover. I spent 1992 and 1993 listening to these albums obsessively. Skylarking was the album that had the most impact, I think. the segues from song to song, biting lyrics and harmonies had the most influence on what would be The Verve Pipe’s follow-up album, Pop Smear.

Brian Stout had to be let go, mostly for lack of work ethic. We had to work hard to get to the next level, and we needed all hands on deck to do so. Brian was a great guitarist, a fly-by-the-seat-of-his-pants soloist, but not very productive on the business side. He would say things like, “Me listening to CDs to learn more about music is just as important as you guys hanging up fliers for the shows.”

Enter A.J. Dunning, who’s work ethic may not have been that much stronger than Brian’s. His playing, however, was far superior. We felt it the first time that we rehearsed with him. He contributed great moments on Pop Smear, and live, people were amazed at his soloing ability, and the fact that he would smoke cigarettes on stage while playing, taking a drag between beats. It was all coming together. Great harmonies, great musicianship and top-notch writing.

At the album release party for Pop Smear, we made an ambitious move, and booked the State Theater in Kalamazoo, MI. 1500 seats would prove to be too many to fill, but even at 600 or 700 people, it looked full, and we sold an unbelievable 500 CDs. It was a terrific show, one of our best. We had a small string section and horns. We played for 2 hours, and gave everyone something to remember that night. We closed it with a crowd sing along to “The Freshmen.” This was our moment, I felt. The moment where we left the local scene behind, and were about to do great things. Finding a record label to take us to the next level was the next step. Frustratingly, It proved to be much harder than any of us had anticipated.

To Check out XTC: Dear God Video

TVP: FIrst Gigs and Recordings

The first handful of shows that The Verve Pipe played were not booked as The Verve Pipe. Johnny With An Eye had a few gigs already booked, as did Water For The Pool. So we played each gig that was already booked, under the name of the band for which it was booked. We traveled north to Mackinaw Island to a place called The Water's Meet, a popular tourist's hotel. They had booked Johnny With An Eye for a repeat performance, despite the fact that the manager physically grabbed a drumstick out of Brad's hand to stop his banging, which apparently was disturbing the hotel residents above the club. The Verve Pipe played that weekend booked as Johnny With An Eye. No one seemed to notice, or cared really. Most of the people there for the first set were dining.

Other early gigs included Parrot's in Holland, MI and The Hidden Shamrock in Chicago. Parrot's was a Hope College bar, with no stage. The first gig there was a good one, although I almost got into a fistfight with a couple of Water For The Pool fans who were upset that I was singing on Brian Stout's song. Donny almost fought that night as well with 2 students who had laid a plastic ketchup bottle on it's side and squirted him during the set. The Hidden Shamrock was an MSU alumni bar. We were booked as the MSU-based Water For The Pool. I played the harmonica on a few songs, at the insistence of Donny. I didn't like the harmonica, and played terribly, but the crowd always seems to like to see something different happening on the stage. The "stage" by the way, had holes in it, and even worse, held the juke box, which a woman actually put a dollar in and chose 4 songs to play during our set. It was in the middle of one of our original songs. Donny reached down and unplugged it, before the first chorus of "Don't Stop Believin'" kicked in.

We were making a little bit of money, enough to finish the first Verve Pipe album, already entitled "I've Suffered A Head Injury". For the most part, this was a Johnny With An Eye record. Donny merely replayed the drums, and we added Brian Stout's guitars to it. We re-recorded "Oceanside", Donny's lone track, and Brian Stout's "Monterey" and "Brian's Song". We tagged the original version of "The Freshmen" on the end, although the song was recorded at a different studio, long before.

I remember a few moments during the recording of the first album that may have been red flags. Donny spent hours on mixes, having Jon Frazer, our engineer, "ride" the drum fills at different points. "Boost the low tom here, and lower the snare here" he'd say. Making moves in the mix that no one would really notice, other than himself. Brian Stout was always sleeping on the couch. He would wake up on occasion, sleep still in his eyes, and say something like 'Yeah, that sounds like poop, there. We need to figure that bit out..." and then he would lay his head back down for a well deserved rest.

My shortcomings in the studio at that time included apathy towards songs that I had grown tired of. I wanted the album to be done as fast as possible, so I could get to writing some new material. These songs were old to me, at least a year old, and that made the recording of them tedious. Rush, rush, rush. "Who's up next? Where's Brad? Jesus, let's go. Donny's still in there? What the bleep?" etc...

Though there were these moments, for the most part, I look back at these recordings fondly. Because the songs were already written before the band had taken shape, there was no arguing over which instrumentation would be best, or which songs were best to record, for that matter. We recorded I've Suffered A Head Injury out of necessity. We were a weekend warrior band, working day jobs during the week, and taking gigs where we could on the weekends. The extra income that this debut album would bring in would be beneficial in recording the band's true debut album, Pop Smear. That was the album where we all took the influences that we had grown up with, and created something organic. Brian Stout would be replaced by AJ Dunning, and Doug Corella, a percussionist and keyboardist, would be asked to join. Donny and I would collaborate on the songwriting for the first time, and the band would soon go on to gain national and international attention.

Two Bands Meeting

On the night of July 27, 1992, I sat with Donny Brown and Brian Stout, both musicians from a very popular band called Water For The Pool, at a Wendy's in East Lansing, Michigan, and formed The Verve Pipe.

Both of our bands had just played a double bill at the Music On The Mall concert in Kalamazoo a few days earlier. We had flipped a coin that night to see who's band was to go on first. We had lost the toss, meaning Water For The Pool would get to pose as the headliner for the evening. My band, Johnny With An Eye, rocked the crowd for 45 minutes. We pulled out all the stops that night, at one point inviting a mop-headed Rastafarian local hero named Zuke come up and rap The Beastie Boys "Whatcha Want".

The crowd went crazy for us. Water For The Pool followed our set with some medium tempo-ed songs that weren't quite going over. There was an argument on stage at one point. I remember my brother Brad, our bass player, and I sharing a laugh over this unfortunate set. But Donny Brown was a great drummer, and ours was not. I remember listening to their set, and making the decision to call him the next day to combine forces. Both of our bands were at the top of the local ladder,and fighting for the best nights at the best clubs. Combining the two bands made sense.

So here it is a couple of days later and we're sitting across from each other, over our baked potatoes loaded with butter and sour cream, sipping on the straws of our huge fountain Diet Cokes, going over what songs we will play. Donny and I had both brought a notebook with our current set-lists written on it. Brian Stout was not one for taking notes. He was a lead guitarist, and "felt" his way through life, like guitarists "feel" the guitar solo before they play it. (This sounded good to me at the time, but soon I realized that Brian tries to "feel" his way out of most circumstances that may involve work outside of making music. No dead legendary guitarist was using him as a medium for hanging posters for the gig, or getting to a rehearsal on time.)

Both of our bands were cover bands, each performing only a handful of original songs. Mostly, we played songs that were favorites among the college students at Michigan State University. Songs by The Violent Femmes, REM and U2 all made regular appearances in our playlists. We sat there for about two hours, voting on which songs would make it into this new, yet to be named, super group's set list. In the end, we had a pretty good mix of originals that each band had written, and a handful of crowd pleasing cover tunes.

I was determined to make it to the top of the regional level, nothing more. I had already made a commitment to quitting the whole music thing by the time I was 30. I had two years left on the that promise to myself. I was deep in debt, having funded this hobby of mine for the last 5 years. I worked a few retail jobs. At this time, I was working for a sporting goods chain called MC Sports. I was stringing tennis rackets, mostly, to avoid having to deal with customers. I would string a racket, and sing melodies to myself, occasionally dipping into the back room to write a lyric or two.

So, this was going to be it for me. These were to be the last two years that I would pursue it.

Rambling 101: Respectful, But Practical or Making Your Own Music, or Etc. Etc..

I've always had a respect for religion - out of the fear that I may one day end up in the "Hell" that I was brought up to believe in. Pitchforks and fire, little demons chasing you, all of your worst nightmares multiplied by 1000. So, I rarely laughed at jokes that I thought were blasphemous, and even stopped a band mate from tearing the last page out of The Bible to use it as rolling papers for his pot. "It's natural, man! Practical! It's made of rice paper. That's why they made it out of rice paper. What Would Jesus Do? You think Jesus didn't smoke it?!!?" I told him if Jesus did smoke he wouldn't rip a page from the Bible. And if, by chance, he did smoke and did rip a page from the Bible to do so, then he would have gone to his own room to do it.

I respect spirituality more than religion. Spirituality means much more to me. It's much more powerful because it's self-empowerment. When someone says that they diet "religiously" or watch hockey "religiously" - what does that mean? Obsessive, I think. Self absorbed, in a less empowered way. Now if someone were to say that they dieted spiritually, then it means an entirely different thing. (Of course, if someone said they watched hockey spiritually, I would smile politely and walk away slowly, mindful of any sudden movements.)

Today's "conventional" church is one giant fraternity or sorority. You move into a town, and you want to join a club where everyone else is kind of like you. You have instant friends! Instant support! Instant advice on who to stay away from, and who to befriend. Who's cheating on who. Who makes the most money, etc. etc.

Joining a church seems lazy to me. It sounds like the freshman in college who doesn't want to have to go out and find his own friends so he joins a fraternity. He lets the fraternity that is steeped in history and money funded by alumni, do all of the choosing for him.

Musicians are the same way. We go along with the traditions. We look for the big label deals and play the places we are "supposed" to play. Those places have a tradition to them. So what if the sound sucks and the toilet is broken in half? So what if the it's smoky, and everyone is too cool to show any enthusiasm for your efforts? You get to play the "in" place! Word will get out, and you'll soon be packing them in.

Bullshit. You are just like every other band out there, trying to make it the easy way. I say easy way, because those before you have paid their dues for you.
Just like Jesus. Jesus paid his dues. He already rocked that club, and moved on up the local ladder to the national ladder. He's rocking with Jimi and Janice now! They are all gathered 'round the heavenly keg, sipping beer from a plastic cup!

I believe everyone can make your own "music" whatever their "music" happens to be. And they should approach it not religiously, but spiritually.

It seems more and more that secular artists have turned to spirituality lately. Or have they always been spiritual? Who knows? No one but them. As it should be. Spirituality isn't yelled from a corner in Times Square. It isn't preached as an alternative to hellfire.

The alternative band The Violent Femmes were a huge college/fraternity favorite. They found success there. I've covered their music in bands over the years as well. Brian Tairaku Ritchie, the bass player of the Violent Femmes, is a practicing Buddhist, who uses music as a form of meditation. He played those nasty clubs, moved up and got out to the bigger venues, and ended up finding himself. Imagine! Writing and performing music as a form of relaxation! If more musicians followed that lead, perhaps the world would not only be more musical and spiritual, but a little more...relaxed. (You can check him out here.)

I'm not sure that I've ever heard a "conventional" Christian say the word "relax". It's always, "Be hot or cold!" That would be exhausting.

Natural or not, I think that I could ever smoke a page from The Bible. It think it's doubtful that Jesus would have. And most likely, had he smoked, he wouldn't have "bogarted" as much as my band mate did.

I'm Sure That Jesus Knew At Least One Knock-Knock Joke

I was commuting from Grand Rapids to Detroit yesterday, listening to AM radio. During the drive, I realized that I was once again drawn to conservative talk shows. Maybe "drawn to" isn't the right phrase. "Geographically forced to listen to" is more like it.

Glenn Beck gets my attention because he is funny. I don't agree with him nearly 90% of the time (91% is my cut-off and I'm forced to turn the radio off.) But most times he's very funny, unless he's sounding the alarm that it's the end of the free world as we know it, and we need to stockpile on guns and ammo while we still can. But even THAT's a little funny. Bill O'Reilly is not funny. Most talk radio personalities can be a little funny. Rush, Dr. Laura, Michael Savage all have a moment or two, but not Bill. I've never heard him say anything remotely funny. (I take that back about Dr. Laura. She's not intentionally funny. I find it funny when she yells at her callers, which happens to ....every caller.

So, listening to Glenn Beck, I realized that if someone with a completely different view point then myself punctuates their agenda with a funny remark, or delivers a message with a dollop of humor, I'll keep listening. Realizing this, I wondered who may have influenced me over the years, personally, politically and religiously. Clearly, I'm drawn to humor, so most likely I would have been influenced by those who are funny.

I grew up with the likes of Steve Martin, M*A*S*H*, and Cheech and Chong. "The Jerk" and M*A*S*H* still crack me up, but I'll be damned, Cheech and Chong are no longer funny to me. Rodney Dangerfield was really funny to me, Robin Williams was not. SNL in the 70's was funny. I'm sure that it had some influence on me. I can't think of one funny thing about the 80's, except Chicago Bears quarterback Jim McMahon and those ridiculous headbands, which wasn't funny then, but is really kind of a pathetic funny now.

In the 90's, Howard Stern was very funny. He may have influenced me. Though, now that he's on satellite radio, he's surprisingly unfunny, or just so much more sophomoric. Had he been on the air when I was a sophomore, he would have been my king of comedy. Joan Rivers was funny before her third face lift. Though I find it very funny that she looks almost exactly like the dummy named "Madame", from the ventriloquist comedy team, Waylon and Madame.

Ironically enough, I never found many comedians that were funny, and I still don't. Up on the stage with their "jokey" jokes... yet, If I see them live, I'll laugh for fear of getting singled out and picked on.

Bullies weren't funny, as I remember them. Although they WERE funny to their cronies. The kids that they picked on were funny; most of us being forced into a Woody Allen impression.

Most handsome men are not funny. I can't really think of any. I suppose that Jerry Seinfeld became more handsome as he progressed into the 90's. So, clearly, if someone is not good looking in the traditional way, but is funny, they may do better with women.

Me thinking about handsome men or how handsome a man is, is not that funny.

Historically speaking, many leaders were not funny. Socrates was not really funny, but Buddha had a moment. Julius Caesar was not funny, though the movie "Caligula" was hilarious! Jesus was not funny as far as the records show. I'm sure that even HE had the ability to share a knock knock joke, but apparently kept it to himself. Just imagine how much more influence he would have had on the world, had he been a little more self-deprecating. But that would have been blasphemous.

God was really funny in "Oh, God" but not so funny in "Oh, God Book II". He lost his edge in that one, and some movie goers as well.

George Washington was not funny, in fact, he was downright unfunny. Abe Lincoln was a real cut-up. I always feel like Kennedy was in on a joke that Nixon never really got. George Bush Sr.? Kind of funny. Jr? No.

Al Capone was funny, at least in "The Untouchables". "Bugsy" Malone, not so much. Bonnie and Clyde were pretty funny, records show. Shields and Yarnell, never funny.

One of my best friends, Lee George, is probably the funniest guy I know, though he rarely even has to say anything remotely funny anymore. We just crack up to tears almost anytime we get together, for no apparent reason, other than the long history we have together as friends.

My Dad is VERY funny, but sometimes at the expense of others. Well, it used to be that way. Over the years, he's mellowed out, and has been much more self-deprecating, making himself the butt of the jokes. My Mom's not really that funny, and has a hard time telling jokes properly, but she has a GREAT, gutteral laugh when she finds something funny that she probably shouldn't.

My wife is very funny, but fails to see any humor in the neurotic ramblings of Larry David, Albert Brooks, and me.

After all of that, it's hard to say who has truly influenced me over the years. I would say the combination of all of the funny people I've listed above, and maybe those were profoundly unfunny, have swayed me in the directions I have gone in life. And it continues with every new episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm or Jim Gaffigan monologue.

I'll continue to live my life channel surfing, inevitably swapping a few unfunny friends for some funny ones, and going to movies, trying to find some humor where ever I can. And in the end, on my deathbed, I'll lie there, secretly hoping that God has a better sense of humor then he did in "Oh God, You Devil".

Introduction

I killed a puppy when I was four years old.

Most analysts will tell you that killing an animal is a sign of a mental health disorder, but I dismiss that. I didn't kill the puppy acting on an impulse to get back at my parents, or to play God, or just to to see what it felt like. I suppose in a metaphoric way, I killed the puppy the way that I killed most relationships, years later, with lovers, friends, and business partners. I killed the puppy trying to give it pleasure that it did not ask for or need.

It was July or August in the town of Plainwell, MI, and I was in the small, enclosed backyard, playing on the swing set that I shared with my three siblings. Since I was alone and there was no need to take turns, I slid down the slide many times, one trip after the other. As soon as I hit the bottom I would jump up, run around and climb the ladder for another turn. I'm sure that it was an exhausting way to enjoy it, but I may have wanted to get in as many as I could in the short period of time that I was left alone by my older brothers and younger sister. I'd also like to think that I was smart enough to know, even back then, that any time spent off the slide meant that the sun was going to beat down on the metal, rendering it too hot for use, thus cutting short my solitary day in my very own amusement park.

Our dog, I've forgotten her name, had had puppies a couple of weeks earlier, and was tucked in one half of a banana box with them, some nursing and some sleeping. The box was in the front corner of the garage, just barely in the shade. I went to it to check on my favorite, the blackest one, the one with the white nose, the one that I was convinced that mom would let me keep. It was asleep. It always seemed to be asleep. I picked him up anyway and tucked him under my chin to pet him. The puppy was squirming a bit, so I knew he was waking, and that's when I had the idea: I love the slide. The puppy will love the slide.

I took the puppy, still waking up, with me into the back yard. I started toward the slide at a careful pace, but I'm sure that I was so consumed with the idea of pleasing this little puppy, of being there when it discovered how FUN life is going to be for him to live in a world where things like slides existed.

When I reached the ladder, the puppy was wide awake. I held him with one little hand as the other grabbed for the rail, hoisting myself up step by step. No more than five steps high, I'm sure that it seemed like Everest, and took a lifetime to reach the top.

I remember setting the puppy on the platform at the top of the slide, then, realizing that he would probably not just walk off of the platform onto the slide by himself, I picked him up. I set him down on the hot metal. He squirmed a bit, out of nervousness, I imagined, but soon he would be convinced at how much fun it was going to be, having the breeze blow his little puppy ears back, and his tongue wagging in the open air. He would certainly want to do it again and again.

I'm not sure what actually killed the puppy. The hot metal that had beaten by the sun for the last 10 minutes, or the fact that he was sticking to the slide, and needed a few little nudges to get him on his way. I pushed him a few times, until he finally rolled over and over down the slide, and onto the sand pit below. I followed him down, and realized that the slide was hot, and thought to myself, that's what I get for not keeping up the pace! Not once did I consider the heat in the regards to the puppy.

What I did realize was that when I reached the bottom, that the puppy was not moving as he should be. He lay on his side, his neck craning like a baby bird. Then, nothing.

"Oh, man," I said to myself. It was a popular phrase in our house when something didn't go as planned. I picked up the puppy and ran him back to the garage, to his mama, and laid him down on the plaid blanket. I may have even tried to hide him under her just a bit. The mama didn't really acknowledge him, just lay there panting in the summer heat, while her babies squirmed and slept.

I don't remember if I thought that the mama was going to nurse her broken baby back to health, or if I was hiding the crime, but I do remember thinking that I had gotten away with something that I did that was terribly wrong. I ran back inside the house, to watch television. Television, then and years later, was the most common way for me to avoid reality.

It was a few hours later at dinner, that my own mother announced that another one of the puppies had died. Apparently, not all puppies were expected to live past a few days. I shrugged. We all shrugged.

"It was the black one," she added.

That's how I killed my first animal. Out of love for him, and a want to bring joy into his life. To entertain him, when he probably wanted to be left alone. It was the beginning of what would be a life of chasing that drug of being admired. The puppy, and anyone else in my vicinity was going to have a great time ALL of the time, and admire me for showing them how to enjoy life. No one was going to be disappointed, and I was going to be the center of attention, because I would ensure that everyone, including puppies, could put their trust in me that if they would hang out with me for awhile, I would make sure that they were going to have FUN.

In doing so, I killed an animal, and didn't feel remorse until years later. I killed an animal and I didn't become a knife wielding psychopath, or an arsonist, or a pedophile or any of the 'ists' or 'philes' associated with unstable mental health. I didn't become a murderer, a rapist, or a thief.

I did become , somewhere along the way, an ego maniac with an overwhelming sense of self-importance garnished with a dangerous need to control everyone and everything. I became a shadow to my inner child, and did whatever that child wanted to do or didn't want to do but was encouraged to do by those around them, all for the sake of entertainment.

I became a rock star.