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Jim Sullivan has spent twenty six years writing about music for the Boston Globe. His works also appeared in USA Today, Boston, Harold Trouser Press, The Boston Phoenix. I thought the Globe and the Phoenix were competitors, Jim Sullivan.
There they were. The Phoenix went down in the mid twenty fifteens, I think it was. I wrote for the Globe from seventy nine to two thousand and five. I left then and after that I did some freelancing for other outlets. So yes, I became a competitor of my old workplace.
Oh there was a joke that went around and if you well, did you read it, then the Phoenix will know it was in the Phoenix. That's why I didn't read it. It had been in the Globe, I would have read it. Maybe you've heard that bandid about.
I will say this, well, just quickly. One good thing about Phoenix was I think because they had some very good writers. I think it pushed us at the Globe to be better and to write more. Yeah, I mean and to cover more things that were off the beaten trent. And you know, it was a good competitive relationship there. As a matter of fact, even when I was with the Globe, I played with the Phoenix softball team, so you know there was a lot, a lot of a lot of camaraderie out there.
Well, Jim Sellivan's written a new book, and I love this kind of stuff. The backstage and beyond complete forty five years of rock chats and rants, and it is out now everywhere where you get books. You've put together all of these conversations you've had with many of these artists over the years, and I imagine it must have been difficult to narrow down.
Yeah, it was. I mean there's I think there's seventy two chapters all told in this ebook that just you know, out an expanded version of the first two volumes, and you know there are outtakes. I mean there's a Pink Floyd chapter that I didn't write yet, could have. There's an Ram chapter haven't done yet. And when I was thinking about adding things, it was sort of like, Okay,
who haven't I done that? I want to get in here. Well, Ringo was one of them the time I spent with him, Kiss Stevie Wonder, the Rascals, Judy Collins, Enya Rayuchi, Sakamoto suicide, you know, there were you know. So it was like once I got done the the first two, the hardcover books, it was like and we were doing the e book, my publisher, editor Ira Robins, said, you know, I do you want to add anything? And I was like, oh, yeah, we can do that, can't we? And I said, yeah,
let me do it. So yeah, I spent a month or so and you know, made those choices and there could be more to go.
Any of these people when you were sitting down to talk to them where they were reluctant to speak. You don't have to name names, but I mean I know what it's like to be on a press junket with with some of these people and they're like some of them are really into it and really understand the role that it plays, and some of them just could care less.
No, none of these really were press junkets. I mean, these are all one on one situations. And I think what happened was, I mean I did this for quite some time and with a lot of these people, established a connection maybe early on at a level of trust, and as you can see in the book, these things are more conversations than they are interviews, I guess. I mean there are interviews obviously, and they've done for a purpose, and they're transactional, no question about it. But we get
into things. I did so with Bowie, I did so with Bryan Ferry, Robert Fripp, you know, where I'd throw something out, they throw something back, and sometimes it would go off track in terms of not just talking about their music or their ways album or tour, but into
something very interesting that both of us would pursue. And I think that's one of the strengths of the book is that there are stories here that are not just what you would read in a maybe a standard kind of QA with a rock star, if you will.
Jim Sullivan's backstage and beyond complete forty five years of rock chats and so this is complete. Was there is this a more complete version than a previous version?
Well, it just means this. There were two books that came out last year, Volume one, Volume two roughly divided into eras, and this was the opportunity to add to it, basically, to give if you will, more value for money for the e book and uh, you know, I had more material. And for the reason I stopped the first time was, you know, I and I were talking about this and he said, my god, well you've written some great stuff here, but it's so big it's kind of like a doorstop.
So we broke it off into two books, and you know, at one point he said, okay, we probably got to stop now because it's getting, you know, getting to be big, and we did. And then it was because it's an e book here with the added chapters, you know, that's not a limitation how big it is. And I just said, well, I've got more great stuff. I'm going to go for it. I've got a Ringo star sitting here that we haven't
got into. And that was fun. I had done what was really a fairly brief interview with Ringo, but I expanded that to talk. I raised the question with Ringo a lot of For many years, people considered him the lucky beetle. He was only an average drummer, and Ringo's and never averaged him. No, not average, and I kind of asked a lot of other drummers about Ringo's talent
as a drummer. Chris Franz I know was in there from talking heads, and they were very good about explaining how good Ringo was with what he did, and that to me was fascinating. I mean it's, you know, the inner workings of what other musicians think about Ringo stuff.
And you have lots of other stories. Were a lot of these stories already electronically transformed. You have to go back to some of your notebooks.
Oh, I went back to notes previous stories. I reworked a lot of things that had shown up in certain other forms, you know, in brief maybe or just not yeah,
just not as complete as what you'd have here. And I think what I did too for these books is admittedly I put myself in the stories more than I would have as a journalist writing for a newspaper and magazine, because there were a lot of interpersonal relationships, and I think part of what I wanted to do was to show how those relationships developed, how the conversations worked, and how I made some of the choices I made to
ask or not ask things. I remember when I had dinner with Tina Turner and was doing a story about her life and what was ahead of her. You know, I made the conscious choice not to ask about the iconteena days because it had been covered so many times and so well, and I didn't want to drag her back into that. So that's an omission in the chapter. And it's fine. You can see you can read or
see plenty about that. And you know, that was just one of the you know, sort of writer's choices about things to do or not do, and that was what I did not do. Well.
I was about to say, a lot of these are no longer with us, and there may be words that they say in these conversations that nobody's heard before.
Yeah, exactly, there there are. I think I mean this, I think there's some pretty great insight into you know, it was a time, you know, when artists were more free about what they wanted to say. I think that's tightened up considerably over the years. I think artists have more handlers, they had more PRP. I was fortunate. I mean I got a lot of you know, backstage access and a lot of free wheeling back and forth, sometimes
with a glass of booze two for them for me. Uh. And you know there was a casualness to it that. I mean, it was professional certainly, I'm writing, you know, there's no question that this is not just a fan conversation. I mean I have a certain agenda. But you know it was it was not scripted, and it was not limited to time, and a lot of it happened sort of impromptu after the gig. Do you have time, Yeah, sure, come back. And you know some good things come out of.
That backstage and beyond. Jim Sullivan is the author and the book is out now. Everywhere you get to e books, it's electronic books and uh, lots and lots of writing. You must have had one hell of a warehouse to keep all these notebooks.
Uh. The basement is full of the note the computer, the computer. I mean, let's face it, a lot of them were bounced over to the computer, so that made life a little easier than ferreting through the basement notebooks. But they were used to and uh, you know, I kind of wish I'd been a little bit more orderly about what I kept and where I kept them. But I dug out what I needed to dig out.
Was there one? Was there?
One?
Was there? One? Big surprise? When you were putting all this together.
Trying to think, I guess talking to I don't know. I picked Motorhead for an example.
I guess no surprise exactly, but I've sort of forgotten about all exchanges we've had over the years, me and Lemmy, and you know, they were just you know, to kind of put them end to end and saying, yes, here, here we were at this situation, in that situation, and stringing them all together and putting you know, a complete package together what Motorhead and Leming mean to the world. Yeah,
so that was kind of fun to go. Yeah, we had some depth there, and you know, there may be the perception among Motorhead and Lemmy that he wasn't that right, and he was. He was terrific. He was sharp, he was witty, he was terrific. And you know, sometimes people think bands like Motorhead, heavy rock bands, whatever you want to call him, you know, not the brightest lights on the planet. But Lenny really was. He was a joy to be with and just funnyest.
Health And it will be a joy and funny as hell read for you, especially if you love this backstage stuff like I do. Jim Sullivan's Backstage and Beyond available everywhere you get your ebooks, and we thank you for joining us.
Jim, thank you. I appreciate the time.
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation