Randy Bachman (22 page)

As we arrive, to our surprise, the Bee Gees, the hosts that night, were there to meet us. We met them all and shook hands. Here we were, the Bachman brothers—Randy, Tim, and Robbie— meeting the Gibb brothers—Barry, Robin, and Maurice. So I asked them why they were here so early, and they told us that they thought our band was great and that we were also a brother band like them. We became good friends from that point on.

After Maurice died, the other two Gibb brothers kind of went into hibernation. But in recent years we started running into Robin Gibb in the U.K. He was coming out of his shell a lot more, and we'd see him at various songwriter events. At the twenty-fifth anniversary of
Saturday Night Fever
at the BBC, he came out and sang a few songs. And I recently heard that Robin and Barry were reuniting to do some live dates. If you get the chance, go see them. They're incredible. They're like the Beatles, having written hundreds of great songs.

DICK CLARK'S ROCKIN' NEW YEAR'S EVE

Here's another example of the “magic” of television. BTO got the call to play
Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve
in 1976. It was with Dick Clark himself as host, and disco diva Donna Summer was one of the guests along with us. Now, they don't actually film these things on New Year's Eve. They film it in September in Los Angeles at the old Copacabana club. They get all the kids from UCLA and get them to dress up as if it's a New Year's Eve ball in their ball gowns and suits. It's like a movie set, and the whole thing is filmed like a movie. Meanwhile outside it's hot and sunny and still summer. I used to watch it every year before that and never knew. On the show with us was the Miami Sound Machine with Gloria Estefan singing, KC and the Sunshine Band, and Donna Summer.

THE STRANGELOVES

Sometimes even the band itself can be a fake. I remember we played with this group called the Strangeloves once when we were touring the U.S. with the original Guess Who back in 1965. They were all hype. They claimed to be three brothers, Miles, Giles, and Niles Strange, who were sheep herders from the bushes of Australia and who played these big drums made of sheepskin. But they were just a bunch of guys from New York, songwriters/record producers Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein, and Richard Gottehrer, who used to be studio musicians. “I Want Candy,” “Cara-Lin,” and “Night Time” were great pop singles. The only problem was that there was no such band as the Strangeloves. These three guys had concocted the elaborate story about the band and put a hired group of musicians on the road as the Strangeloves. They would start by beating these giant drums on stage, then they'd play their hits. There's always an element of hype and myth in rock 'n' roll, and these guys were able to milk it for a while.

TROOPER

BTO's manager, Bruce Allen, and his partner, Sam Feldman, had a pet band they'd been working with in the local clubs around Vancouver by the name of Applejack. The band had a lot going for them: singer Ra Maguire and guitarist Brian Smith did the writing, and they were a great team. Sam Feldman asked me if I'd like to check them out to see if I might be able to help them. By this time BTO were so huge that I'd been given my own vanity record label. Applejack had reached a level where their next step was to record.

They were playing the Royal Arms Hotel in New Westminster a couple of blocks from my house. It was an easy stroll from my place, so I went and met the guys and liked what I heard. They already had some original material. I suggested they drop the Applejack name because I remembered a British Merseybeat group of the same name. So they came up with Trooper.

We got Trooper signed to MCA Records, and by that time they were ready to go into the studio. We had run through their original numbers so often I knew them backwards and forwards. I took them down to Kaye-Smith Studios in Seattle, where I knew everybody from recording there with BTO. We banged out the tracks over a week only to discover that the tape operator—the person who rolls the tape machines while you record, making sure the sound is captured on tape—had altered the tape heads. They were not aligned properly, so the recordings were unusable. That meant a week's worth of work was unusable. I was under the gun for time because I was due on tour with BTO, so the manager at Kaye-Smith gave us free time to complete the album. I said to the guys in Trooper, “Remember how you used to run through all your tunes back to back for me in rehearsals? Well, guess what? We're doing them all again on Monday.”

So on Monday we recorded all the songs again, the entire album. Tuesday we added overdubs and Wednesday I mixed the
tracks. We had their debut album ready to go by the end of the week. The album took off when it was released.

Trooper were a huge success across Canada because their singles were radio friendly and their albums and live shows really rocked. I was determined that they not be just a BTO clone. I wanted to make sure their sound was different. I think one of the reasons Trooper sounded different from BTO was the absence of a rhythm guitar. BTO always had a strong heavy rhythm sound that I took from early rock 'n' roll. I added chunky rhythm guitar to BTO tracks almost like the horn-section riffs in those old Fats Domino/Little Richard recordings. A song like “Gimme Your Money Please” simulates horn parts on the rhythm guitar using heavy-gauge strings. That was an essential ingredient in BTO that wasn't in Trooper. Trooper also had a more vocal sound than BTO.

Trooper represents Canadian 70s radio rock at its best and most rockin'. I admit I was a little bit prudish and didn't want them to record “Raise a Little Hell” on their first album. I actually tried to get them to change it to “Raise a Little Howl,” but Ra and Brian stuck to their guns, and they were right. “Raise a Little Hell” is the ultimate Canadian party song.

I produced five albums with Trooper, but after that the band changed and announced that they were now ready to produce themselves. It was an amicable parting. I still see Ra from time to time and we talk fondly about those days.

LITTLE RICHARD

We had recorded the
Head On
album and I was in L.A. mixing it when I realized that a couple of tracks could use some boogie woogie–type piano on them. So I told our manager, Bruce Allen, to see if he could get Elton John. Turned out Elton was unavailable.

“I need someone who can play rock 'n' roll piano like Little Richard,” I told Bruce.

“Why don't you ask Little Richard?” was his reply. “He
just played a club here in Vancouver. His brother Payton is his manager. I'll give him a call.”

Playing with Little Richard was like a dream come true. He was one of my first rock 'n' roll heroes. A couple of hours later Bruce called me back.

“Little Richard thinks BTO are great. He'll play on your album.”

So we set up the session for Monday at noon. I wanted Richard to play on two songs, “Take It Like a Man” and “Stay Alive.” The day before the session, Payton called me and asked what key the songs were in. So I told him they were both in the key of A. I could sense from him that there might be a problem. Then he said, “Can you change them to another key?” I told him the tracks were already recorded and all I was doing was adding Richard's piano as an overdub.

The next day it's two-thirty before Richard finally shows up. I'm sitting in the studio killing time playing guitar, so as Richard walks through the door, I started playing “Lucille.”

There he was, every inch Mr. Rock 'n' Roll, decked out in a white ermine coat over a cape and an orange jumpsuit with a silver R on it and carrying a travelling makeup case. He had on the eyeliner and mascara.

I played the tape of the first song for him in the control booth and told him the chord changes. It was a simple number. “What key's it in?” asked Richard. “A.” “Are you sure?”

“Yes. It's just A, D, A, E, and an F#m.”

As he's looking at me, Richard spaces out when I say F#m as if I'm speaking in another language. I had him try playing to the tape, but he couldn't do it. He couldn't follow a simple chord chart. Payton called me aside and said, “Richard's really embarrassed.” So I tried one more thing. I went into the studio with my guitar, plugged into a little Fender amp, and sat beside him at the piano.

“Let's warm up a bit and just jam.”

So I played some of his songs and he starts wailing away. They're all in G, C, or D. But the minute I said A or F#m, he was lost. I told my engineer, Mark Smith, to vary the speed of the tape, which slows it down and alters the pitch. Mark took a tuner and got the speed of the song a tone lower to G. “When I give you the signal, start rolling the tape,” I told him.

With Richard thinking he's only playing along with me on guitar, we tried “Take It Like a Man,” but now it's in G. I gave Mark the signal to roll tape and Richard takes off, totally rockin', pounding out 16th notes, 32nd notes, and 64th notes as I yell, “Play it, Richard!” You can actually hear that on the track. Afterwards Mark gives me the okay sign. He got it all on tape. So I said, “Richard, come into the control room and listen.”

“What are you talkin' about?”

Mark brought the song back up to normal speed and now Richard's looking at Payton.

“Who's that playing piano?”

“You are!”

“Really?! What key's it in?”

“A,” I tell him and he looks stunned.

“Hallelujah! Praise the Lord! I can play in A!” And he dropped to his knees.

We did the same thing with “Stay Alive,” and Richard nailed it on the slower speed. Here he was, one of the original rockers, and he only knew a few chords. He was the master of three-chord rock 'n' roll. The poor guy never knew about variable speed on tapes. When Little Richard came through Vancouver again a few months later, we all went to see him and presented him with a crown as the king of rock 'n' roll.

JOHNNY PAYCHECK

BTO often played down in the southern U.S. at festivals alongside country music acts. There wasn't much of a distinction between rock and the kind of rugged outlaw country music at these
festivals in the mid 70s. We had a promoter out of Nashville who booked us on several of these kinds of shows. He'd pair us up with country acts and it was cool. We played with Hank Williams Jr., Sawyer Brown, the Allman Brothers, Willie Nelson, Wet Willie.

We were booked at this one festival where Johnny Paycheck was also on the bill. I wanted to meet him and say hello for my friend Charlie Fach, head of Mercury Records, our label. Charlie told me I had to go meet Johnny because he's a cool guy. “Take This Job and Shove It” became a working man's anthem in the latter 70s and made Johnny Paycheck a star after years of paying his dues on the roadhouse circuit. Johnny joined the “Outlaw Country” movement that included Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, and Kris Kristofferson. So I figured I'd go introduce myself. I headed over to where all the tour buses were parked for all the acts and spotted Johnny Paycheck's bus. As I rounded the corner towards his bus, I heard this high-pitched growl and I stopped in my tracks. There, chained to the front of Johnny's bus, was an ocelot. Apparently his tour bus had been robbed not long before that, and while everyone else hired personal security or bought guard dogs to bring along on the road to protect their belongings while they were onstage performing, Johnny had bought an ocelot. They're like leopards. These are the most beautiful animals, sleek and gorgeous. But it growled again at me, so I left Johnny and his bus and his ocelot alone. I never did meet Johnny Paycheck.

CAT STEVENS

I first met Cat Stevens (born Steven Demetre Giorgiou) in England when we went there in early 1967. He was just a brand-new songwriter and scored a hit record by the Tremeloes with “Here Comes My Baby” not long after that. I didn't see him for about ten years. I was in L.A. recording a solo album,
Survivor,
and staying at a place in Beverley Hills called L'Hermitage. I used to go up to the pool on the top of the hotel, and I'd see Cat Stevens there and we'd talk about music and songwriting. He seemed like a normal guy.

A few weeks later, as I was finishing up the recording for the album, I was getting into the elevator at the hotel when the doors open and it's Cat Stevens. He's standing there and he had totally changed. He had cut his hair and was wearing robes. Apparently he'd been out surfing in Malibu, got caught in the riptide, and was dragged under. It's happened to me and it's a very scary sensation, as if you're being held under water by some unseen demons. Cat thought he was drowning, and while this was happening to him he made a promise to God that if he would help him out of this, save his life, he would dedicate the rest of his life to God. He was washed up on the beach, and true to his word, he devoted his life to serving God.

LAWRENCE WELK

Me and Lawrence Welk? Go figure.

Lawrence Welk, the schmaltz band leader with the bubble machine, owned a record label called Vanguard Records, and they had a publishing company. In the 70s I was invited to meet with their publishing company in L.A. because I had some songs and they wanted to hear them. So I go to their offices, a big multi-storey office building in downtown Santa Monica right near the ocean. I'm there at Lawrence Welk's office on the twelfth floor or so. He owns the whole building. I look outside the window and there's a balcony that goes all around the building. The Welk building occupies the entire city block. The balcony is enclosed in Plexiglas and the floor is covered in Astroturf, and on the Astroturf are little flags. Lawrence Welk had the whole balcony set out as a four-hole golf course so that he could go out there and play some golf, hitting the ball around the building. I'd never seen anything like it. We didn't do a deal, but I was impressed with his building.

THE POINTER SISTERS

In the late 70s I was in L.A. recording my solo album,
Survivor
. Burton Cummings was recording a solo album at the same time
and I was doing some recording with him. In the studio we were using the same backing guys, who later became Toto. They had started out as Boz Scaggs's recording and backing band and were on his big hit “Lowdown
.
” So they were hanging out at Richard Perry's recording studio, Studio 55, on Melrose Avenue. Richard was producing Burton's album as well as people like Eric Carmen, Ringo Starr, Cher, and the Pointer Sisters. I was recording either with Burton or on my album during the week.