Between a Heart and a Rock Place (8 page)

What made this sight all the more shocking was that back then there were few outlets for artist exposure. The television shows newer acts could get on were few and far between—
Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, The Midnight Special
. There was no video exposure, no cable entertainment shows. You had radio play and your live show. The only way we knew something was happening was that with each performance, the crowds got bigger and wilder. You could feel the excitement building, escalating even more after the release of the next single, Spyder's song “We Live for Love.”

That night in Virginia Beach, our hotel room faced the ocean and had a small balcony. After the show, we were standing on the balcony, admiring the view and looking at the cluster of bars down on the beach. The beach was covered in the gauzy haze of the various marquees, and
one of them said spyder's in black and yellow lights. At that point, we were really into giving everyone nicknames, partially because Spyder had always been a nickname guy. I thought he should have one of his own, so because yellow and black were his favorite colors, I started calling him Spyder James. It just had a way of sticking.

A few weeks later we were playing a club in Florida, and again the place was oversold and teeming with people. We'd just begun our set when our tour manager rushed up to the stage yelling something inaudible. Because we were extremely loud, I could barely make out his words beneath all the noise, but he seemed to be saying, “You have to get off!”

I looked at him in disbelief. What the hell was he doing? We were in the middle of performing. Get out of my face. But he was panicked.

Finally I heard him say, “You've got to stop, get off…” which was followed by something unintelligible that sounded a lot like “you're
bombing
.” I shot him a look like he was a mental patient. The audience was going nuts. They were hanging on every note.

“What!? Are you nuts?” I shouted back. “These people are going crazy!”

And that was when he grabbed me by my jacket lapels and screamed, “There's a bomb!” There was no mistaking those words.

It turned out that someone had called in a bomb threat and everyone had to vacate. Needless to say everyone filed out of the theater and stood in the street until the bomb squad gave the all-clear. Then everybody went back inside and we continued our show like nothing had ever happened.

That tour was all about having fun and enjoying the fact that we were actually getting paid money to do this every night. We couldn't believe our good fortune that we were getting to live out our dream and we pretty much celebrated that every day. Zel sometimes celebrated more than he should have.

Zel was definitely the colorful member of the band. At over six
feet tall, he was a huge Southern boy who loved women and drinking. He was a sweet soul, but he liked to get crazy from time to time. One night in particular, he partied a little too much, and as we were all going our separate ways for the night, he said he was going to take a shower and go to bed because we had a show the next day. The motel we were staying in was nothing fancy, and we all retired to our rooms ready to wake up and do it all over again.

In the morning, we were all going to have breakfast together before we got on the bus to go to the venue for sound check. We went to Zel's room and knocked on his door—no answer. We called out to him and knocked again—still nothing. But we knew he was in there because we heard the shower running. We called our tour manager, Chris Pollan, and told him we couldn't get Zel to answer the door, so he sent someone to us with a spare room key.

The instant the door opened a blast of steamy air smacked us in the face. The entire room looked and felt like a steam bath, and there was Zel, in bed, snoring away. He'd passed out and left the shower running the entire night. Everything was soaking wet, and because this wasn't the classiest joint in the world, he'd even managed to steam all the wallpaper off the walls. It was lying in colored piles all over the room.

The longer we played on the road the tighter our show became. By the time our tour made its way to New York, my family members were beside themselves. Everyone showed up at the Bottom Line in the Village for a big show in November of '79, and I can safely say that they were among the most enthusiastic members of the audience—no one more so than my mom. Both she and my father were ecstatic and proud, though he was so shy, he didn't show it as much. I was the first person in my family who had a job that didn't involve punching a time clock. And my cousins? They were roughly my age, so they were right there, screaming along with the other fans, jumping up and down, and yelling, “That's my cousin Patti!” The aunts and uncles shook their heads and said, “We knew she sang good, but…”

Of course having my mother at a show meant she'd get to see my act firsthand. Not surprisingly, she didn't really care about my outfit (after all, inside her conservative exterior beat the heart of the same wild woman who'd let my brother and me get a monkey). But she was horrified at my language onstage. She never swore, and saying the “F-word” was sacrilegious. For me it was like saying “the.”

Georgia Ruel got a kick out of it all—the success, the image, everything. She was as proud as my parents. At one point, someone asked her, “I thought Patti was going to be a sex ed teacher?”

“She is,” Georgia answered with a wry smile.

Truthfully, though it had only been a few weeks, I was already getting tired of the image. It was already becoming one-dimensional, a boring distraction and the focus of what we were doing. That was never my intention. The girl who'd hiked up her school skirt as high as possible and pissed off the Matron was long gone. In her place was a fiercely confident young woman who was only interested in making music on her terms. The image was mine; I made it up. Now I was done with it. It had served its purpose. I was ready to move on. The label was pushing the look so much that it was getting in the way of the music. The artist in me didn't like that at all. Neither did the woman who was in a loving relationship.

Phrases such as “seductive vamp” have legs, especially when they are included in press releases that get picked up by radio and by print journalists. But every time I talked to management or the record label and said I wanted the sex-kitten rhetoric toned down, my words fell on deaf ears. I was being sold as much for my image as for my music, and I was
not
happy about it.

 

W
E TOURED ALMOST NONSTOP
during that time and even took the show to Europe, where the crowds were just as big and just as passion
ate. I'd never traveled outside of America, and I was like a kid seeing Disneyland for the first time. We didn't have a moment to enjoy the success or rest on our laurels, though. The clock was ticking, and thanks to Chrysalis more recording sessions were just around the corner.

My contract had what's called a suspension clause in it, meaning that I had to do my next album in a certain time frame or they else could hold back royalties and delay payments. Any royalties or payments I was due would be frozen. That is a terrifying concept to a band just starting a big tour and dependant on any and all monies they can put together. Our recording schedule was at Chrysalis's discretion, and they wanted a record every nine months no matter what. It was unfathomable.

So while we were breaking our backs on tour promoting
In the Heat of the Night,
the label was already talking about a second album. Being the front woman for the band, I found this especially distressing. All the radio and print interviews fell to me. If we had two days off, it seemed like I was scheduled round the clock for publicity photo shoots and in-store events. I understood that press and publicity helped keep the buzz alive. But to even think about making another record in the middle of the craziness seemed impossible. No thought was given to my physical or mental well-being. I was treated like a machine built to serve the record company's whims.

Touring and promoting an album are counterproductive to creating new material, and I've never been able to write when I'm in performance mode. Complicating matters was the fact that Spyder and I were just starting to seriously write together. It worked fine when we were off the road and had our heads clear. But writing wasn't something we could do on the fly. Because I wasn't a seasoned writer at the time, I didn't care as much about having a lot of my own songs on the next album. However, that didn't mean I wanted to rush the writing process. From what I'd learned so far, I loved the process of writing, and I wanted more time to hone that skill. Meanwhile Spyder was al
ready an accomplished songwriter, but what he needed was to have his work heard.

I wanted this second record to be better than
In the Heat of the Night
. I wanted it to be more personal, more representative of us as a band and as individuals. We were determined that our next work would not suffer from sophomore syndrome. We would not be a band with a smashing debut album that can't follow it up. Neither of us thought in terms of writing a
hit
song. We wanted to write songs that had relevance to where we were in our lives. If a hit emerged, that was great, but we wouldn't focus on that. Back then, we looked to outside writers to provide the hits. It was my job to sift through the box-loads of song demos submitted by songwriters, since that wasn't something that Spyder enjoyed doing. He always insisted that we were capable of writing commercial songs without compromising our integrity as songwriters. He was right, of course.

While we were on a short break from touring and getting ready to record in Los Angeles again, Spyder and I decided to move to California. I'd dreamed of beautiful beaches and tropical climates ever since the days I was on the grade school slide, making up stories about what my life would be like. So in February of 1980 we rented a small house in Tarzana. Our next album would be recorded at Sound City, which is located in Van Nuys. (It was not exactly a tropical paradise, but it was California!)

As far as Chrysalis was concerned, Mike Chapman was the obvious choice for producer. It didn't matter to them that he hadn't actually produced much of the first album. Because his name had been on it, he was tied to its success. But although Chapman had a huge impact on the first record, I didn't think he would be the right choice for the next one. I hoped we'd record with Peter Coleman. After all, Chapman had turned the first record over to him when he'd left. Peter was never heavy-handed with us, providing the freedom we needed. Chrysalis didn't want Peter to produce the new album, and instead they hired
Keith Olsen. It seemed like a smart choice, because Olsen had an impressive background. He was an award-winning, platinum-record-selling, big-name producer who'd worked with bands like Fleetwood Mac and the Grateful Dead.

Despite the tight schedule, I was excited to get started and looking forward to working with Olsen. I was starting to write more, collaborating with Spyder and Zel, our bassist. Together, the three of us wrote one song I felt strongly about: “Hell Is for Children.” The idea came from an article in the
New York Times
. Until I read that article, I knew very little about violence against children. My childhood might have been a little crazy once in a while, but my parents were nonviolent. They barely raised their voices at us. Growing up, Andy and I seldom got spanked, and if we did it was just a little swat on the butt. I didn't know any kids who got knocked around either. I'd never known anyone who had to hide bruises or slap marks. Kids at school would have suspected if something bad was going on with one of our friends. At least I hope we would have, even as sheltered as we were. Reading that story, however, opened my eyes.

That morning, sitting at the kitchen table, it suddenly dawned on me that I'd been asleep for too long about this. Where had I been? How could I have been totally unaware that all this ugliness had been going on? I was crushed that anyone could harm children like that. Writing had become cathartic to me, so I started working on some thoughts, putting them down free-form. I wrote and wrote. When I started turning the thoughts into lyrics, Spyder was busy preparing the recording schedule, so I went to Zel, who by that point was the only person left who had been with me from the beginning. We'd written songs before, and I felt comfortable sharing these thoughts with him.

Zel started to write lyrics as well. Together the two of us refined it. I kept thinking that if we could put a message out there in song, maybe it would help raise awareness. Maybe it would inspire people to get involved. I didn't set out to be a crusader, but I did hope that people
would listen. I just wanted to reach people and using my voice seemed like the best way to do that. When we'd written most of the lyrics, I talked to Spyder.

“Take a look at what Zel and I have been working on. I don't know what to do with it, because it's got nothing to do with the music we've been making. But I feel strongly about it and want to do
something
. Can you make it into a song?”

Spyder agreed and wrote all of the music, taking our words and creating a chilling, wailing melody that turned all the pain and suffering in the lyrics into a searing rock anthem. In its original form, the song was about ten minutes long. We cut it back to five to fit it on the album. Of all the songs I've recorded, it's the song I'm most proud of. Over the years, we've received thousands of letters from people who were abused as children, saying how much it helped them and how happy they were that someone cared enough to write a song about them, a song that reminded them they were not forgotten. Even today, we play it at every concert we do, in a show of solidarity.

“Hell Is for Children” was the first song we cut when we got to Los Angeles. I went into the session hoping for the best, and coming off such an amazingly successful year, we could see we were on the ascent. We had a hit record, but we didn't want this just to be a remake of the first album. This needed to have a new approach, a fresh sound. We had spent over a year performing live, and the sound that had evolved was grittier, heavier. My voice began to settle and work together with the band, which had become a thunderous and raw wrecking machine. We wanted to capture that intensity on the new record. In terms of both sound and subject matter, “Hell Is for Children” would set the tone.