Now here's a highlight from Coast to Coast AM on iHeartRadio.
Mark lindsay, you have no idea what you mean to me?
Well, you have no idea what you mean to me.
No, I'm telling you. I was the very first album I ever owned. I mean, I had a very talented musician brother. We had lots of music, he had lots of albums. With the very first one of my own where I could walk around and hold on to it and say, this is mine was here they come. And I played the hell out of that. I played it
over and over. I had memorized, and that began a long fascination with not just an enjoyment of the group, but I was always it was inspiring actually to see the permutations that you all went through and you still hung together for a very long time, even though you would have gone solo a lot earlier than you did.
Would would wouldn't that have been the case for somebody that was already being featured as the main performer in the band that you could have broken off, you know after the first couple of hits.
Well that was actually the idea of the suits at CBS in in New York. They wanted I got a call and they went to New York and they said, look, we think you knew you need to go. You know, you could be a giant solo artist. And they played me some stuff they wanted me to cut, and I said, well, I gotta be honest with you, guys. I mean, I love I love singing all kinds of stuff, and I do, But I said, you want me to become like h Gary Pack, Gary.
Gary Puckett, very man alone, Yes, oh, very very Mandeloe.
Actually, okay, go ahead, And I said, I got a rock and roll guy, but can't I can't sell you. I can't. I just can't give that up. So and and you know, I probably would have had a few giant hits and then it would who knows where it would have gone, But but I would have wouldn't wouldn't have been as happy as I am today.
Speaking of suits, I'd love to confirm some stories about you or hear how you reflect on them. Anyway, There's one legend about Paul Revere and the Raiders.
You know which you.
Guys are come from. Uh some people say you come from Oregon, but you really came from Idaho, right there was the origin?
Yeah, well, the band was formed first in Idaho. I was born in Oregon but raised in Idaho. The band first formed in Idaho. Then after Revere got drafted, Uh, he had to he was a conscientious objector, and so he had to find a place to set out them. His service is two year service. So went on a tour and then we found this damaged state hospital in Oregon which is just near Portland, and that's where he
did his time. And that's where after about a year, hiatus I went to La to try to keep the the quacking the record records with a stick to see if they keep pushing, and finally I had to go back to Oregon. We started a new group there.
Yeah, okay, So it was both to the beginning, yeah, kind of both all right. But as the legend goes, you were signed by Mitch Miller of Columbia Records, but without his specific approval because he had been against signing any rock and roll acts, and so, as one version of that story goes, you were signed to Columbia kind of behind his back or like without full knowledge.
Anyway. That's that's too. He passed on on the Beatles, yeah done. Uh, the Beatles is trying to think of the best. There's there's too there's a long list of right, of a lot of people they did, but we were the first rock band signed the CVS, believe it or not, you.
Know, I That's what I'm getting at. So that's where it's It's always been said that you were the first rock band signed to Columbia to come out on the Columbia label, and that in doing so, though it was he was a force to be dealt with, obviously, Mitch Miller. He was a giant in the industry for various reasons. And that was before Dylan. That you paved the way for other famous Columbia acts that followed after you.
Except for one, Johnny Mathison over signed. Was he really? But he's he was a crooner, right, I mean Mr Guy?
Yeah, yeah he wasn't. I mean, God bless him, but I mean, chance is all is not exactly rock and roll.
It's a good song, but that's true. He didn't fit in the rock and roll category for sure, right good?
Oh, no, excellent RB great army singer. But all right, so those two things, now that the whole thing about the uniforms, the Paul Revere and the raider uniforms. I don't know, that's kind of not No one ever disputed that that was an intentional thing to sort of it's sort of a friendly thumb in the eye to the British invasion.
Right, Well, I'll give you a quick rundown if I can make it quick. Yeah. Vere and I at the time, we were wearing these colorless La Joya Blazers the band
in Oregon. And one day Revere and I are walking down the street in Sandy Boulevard in Portland to pick up our cleaning because we had a show at the lake as Lego Armory that night, and uh, we happened to walk past this costume shop and in the cost in this shop was with these mannequins in the window wearing brayious dress, and one of them was dressed in a total revolutionary regalia. I said, look, Paul, that's that's that's how the you know, that's that's how the guys
used to dress back in the day. We both of them looked at each other and went, huh. So we walked in and he made a deal to rent enough uniforms for that night. We went. We took them to the show. The first part of the show. We played in our colors blazers when we did the regular thing. Then we intermission we changed into these long coats, high boots, placed Dicky's the whole of three cornered hats, the whole
whole business, and finished the show. And it was like the most fun it had in years, because I thought, we've been costume and nobody really could know who who who I was, so I could do anything I wanted, and I did, so the whole band just kind of took on this this whole uh tenor of being just nuts. And then then we then we put him, you know, took him back to the costume shop, went on our way. The next time time we came back to like Osligo and we played and we said, well, where's your outfits?
And in the end we went looking, we looked at each other and we went, well, maybe we got something here. So we had them made and and the rest is history. As they say, those could not have been cheap, Well they were sure hot.
Yeah, yeah, I mean they looked at and it uh they just I mean the amount of embroidery and to do however many you did at the time that just that had that had that was an investment by somebody. I'm assuming by that point, you know, CBS had assigned somebody to to your your costuming.
Only I wish that was really it was out of a pocket, But was it really? Yeah? Wow, they didn't They didn't really get us. Then then they didn't. You know. First of all, Mitch Miller was just he was hoping, even even though we were signed and hoping, he was hoping that that rock and roll would run its course. And then he gave you get back to you know, Mitch Miller, right, right, And but it didn't work that way. It just kept kept going and refuse to die. Right.
So there's nothing wrong about the Great Old American Songbook, you know, there's nothing.
But those songs.
Were pretty played out at some point, you know. I mean, and the sing along with Mitch thing, that was as much a gimmick as anything else. So I mean, that's it worked for a while.
I did. That was cool.
I mean, I mean, I'm not it's like Liberaci or something. You know, there's always going to be a place for something like that. But but you all were and I want to go back to some of you had said, is that that what you had that wild man. That was kind of your mystique about you that you guys are kind of crazy, which was great because you were playing off of or you know, doing your own version of what had become that Hard Days Night kind of a vibe of the you know, the guys just you know,
in some it wasn't just a rock band. It was a clubhouse, and you guys were just you know, you were being unleashed on the world.
I missed the last part that It's okay.
I mean, it was like a little bit like you guys were in a clubhouse. It was like it was like your own you guys were just it was a fun thing. It was hard Day's night every time you were up on stage.
Well after we started doing that kind of thing, and I saw what what insanity did for the audience. Yeah, I made you with myself that I would do something different every night that we played. It was crazier, I hoped, than they'd done the night before. And it got for you thing for a while. But but we've developed a reputation and and you know, people came from miles around because they didn't know what we're gonna do.
Yeah, but I think that was that was part of why you had not you had not just a radio presence, but in some ways I mean by becoming the house band for where the action is is that the was that the show that I which I used to this Again, I'm totally geeking out here, but I remember coming home from school just to try to catch that show, and and because it was it was pretty innovative for an
afternoon show. And there was a lot of camera work and a lot of zooming in and out, and a lot of you know, a lot of uh, the sort of whip takes and whatever. And but part of it was just that you guys were more than just a band. You just you just exuded this. You expla loaded with energy and no matter where I went back to do kind of a deep dive on things I hadn't seen
you do or I didn't remember seeing like like that show. Uh, you were on a show called a Go Go which seemed like it had rotating hosts, but I don't know much about it. Do you remember being.
On that show Hollywood, Go Go, Hollywood and Go Go? Is that what it was? Yeah? Or ulla baloo? Well, I don't know it was.
Michael Landon hosted one episode and then Jerry Lewis and Gary Lewis hosted another one, and you were on both of those. That's but you're underneath these neon lights that said a go go and I just wasn't sure what that was. Okay, So that was on Hullabaloo and that was like, and the cool the cool thing about that it is not just the dancers and the crowd and everything.
But you all were Yeah, no, no.
Not just them.
You guys are playing live. Yeah, right, you weren't lip syncing. But that's like, I look it back and I think the sixties is the era where people would go on these shows and take the easy route and and you guys sounded just as good live on a show like that as you did on your records.
Well it was we remember it was pretty simple. We had guitar, bass and drums and yeah, but keyboard and that was it.
Yeah, But a lot of other bands did too, and they were still lip syncing along to a record, you know that awkward, weird fade out at the end where they tried to juice the audience to cover the fade.
Yeah, we were, we were live, except for there was a couple of times we did a lip sync, and we had a new a new record we just finished literally like probably the night before, and we had to do it on action, and I didn't know the song. They played the track and I had the I knew
the sound people. I had him open them my mic so I could sing live and and Dick Clark has gone now but if he heard this, if he's hearing this now, yeah, really he's going to pull my a FM card because his the price he had to pay for a live performance was way more than than lip sync. But the only I could I could get the you know, I mean if I if I lip sink, it would have really been a terrible lip sync. So I did it live and nobody ever knew it sounded just as
good as that whatever is it normally? Did you know?
Yeah, well, I think that's a tribute to you all too. That and the AAW brings me to another one of those myths I wanted to confirm was that with very I don't want to say this, don't don't kill the messenger on this, but with very few exceptions, you all were known as playing all of your own instruments. But there were a few occasions when members of the Wrecking crew came in and provided a backing track.
True or false, It's that's true. The Raiders we we we soldiered on to to to use using a time warn praise. But during that time in sixty seven, uh three of the guys left the group, the drummer, the.
Guitar player and the bass player. And so we replaced all three of those guys. But they were they were like pretty green and didn't have the vibe yet, so we you know, in this and they weren't really familiar with the studio at all. So we had the breaking crew in for for quite a few tracks and it went, you know, it went on, and when the Raiders were competent and I could use them, and I started producing about that time too, I could use them on the tracks.
I used the Raiders, and when when they they wanted it a little bit, I would use the guys for recon crew. And they were they they always came.
To listen to more Coast to Coast a m every weeknight at one a m. Eastern and go to Coast to coastam dot com for more