Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio.
Ladies and Gentlemen.
This is a special Quest Love Supreme, your host Quest Love here with Sugar Steve. I'll say that our guest today are the founding Trailblazers and New York legends. Along with drummer Clin Burke, bassist Lee Fox, guitarist Tommy Kessler, and keyboardist Matt Kat's Bohen, they ushered in be very influential punk slash dew wait movement. I know musicians hate when things get a title. I often cringe when I
hear the neo soul title. But you know this is too legendary to casually not spot spot on describe what they represent in the world of music. They to me are the epitome of cool and the epitome of style and practically dipping their toe into every genre of music that defined a movement and a city pop, rock, punk, disco, reggae. And they're especially noted for being one of the early, early, early,
early co signers of the burgeoning hip hop movement. You know, there was a period where the first five, depending on who you ask and how conservative they are, ten maybe twenty years in which hip hop was hopefully going to be like a fad that went away, like a flu
that influenza that goes away eventually. But they were one of the very first to co sign the movement and really brought it to a wider audience, going as far as to use the cachet to bring the light projects like the iconic score to Charlie Ahern's Hip Hop Classic Wild Style, and also being one of the first people to introduce hip hop to a worldwide audience. Of course, the legendary Saturday Night Live episode with the Funky four plus one that they literally just put their money where
their mouth is. And you know, it's one thing to just say you're down with a movement, but to really use your your power, you know, to do so is another. They're currently celebrating the release of their Mammoth Against the Odds box set, which basically celebrates the hits, the demos, and the remixes of their illustrious career over one hundred and twenty four songs. In awe, this is an honor to say, please welcome to Quest Left Supreme Chris Stein and Debriye Harvey of Blondie.
Thank you.
I'm the only one clapping the day, So just pretend it's like fifty two billion people.
That was very very generous.
Thank you, No, you know, it's it's I've been a massive fan of you guys, you know, and so likewise, and I have to say, Debbie, thank you very much for my note. You happen to come on the show. Oh I'm talking with the tonight show, in which I was hoping to holler at you for a second before I went on stage, but I had to do something, and then by the time I got off stage, you'd already left, because it's like a very long show that
we shot that day. But I saw the beautiful note that you left in my dressing room, and I really appreciate that thing.
Oh, thank you much.
I meant every word of it, even though there were some misspellings and scribbles.
No, I appreciate it. I appreciate that acknowledgement.
I want to thank christ for your nice notes that you left me on my recording console.
Whatever.
Steve, you know, I personally, I want to know, first of all, I really do love the box set, and as a person that's just starting to think about looking under the hood of my own career in terms of you know, looking at artifacts and going through storage units and all those things. You know, oftentimes you're so present in the moment you don't realize that the most minuscule thing you have is going to wind up being history ten years later.
You know.
So in terms of just getting all these artifacts together and keeping those demos and keeping those tapes and all that stuff, how what was the process, like how painstaking was the process and putting this all together?
Well, it went on over a pretty long period. I just had all this stuff, you know, when we first started making money. You know, I always say the model for the rock star was different back then, or at least for me, right and Debbie was. We didn't think about buying Rolexes and Bentley's and shit we wanted to. We just I bought recording equipment, so I bought guitars, so I bought I had my own old MCI set up, you know, the automation whole thing. And I got around
to a bunch of different apartments. We lived in different spaces, and tapes accumulated along with that, and eventually that stuff all died and I gave it all the way and stuff, and I wound up with a garage full of tapes of State New York, which was where we did the assault on the tapes.
Okay, so like what kind of tape like two inch tapes or everything?
Everything? Everything? No? No, what? Uh had a lot of half inch, A lot of two inch, Yeah, a lot of two inches. I mean I had I wound up with a complete copy of the Cuckoo record that we did with Nile and Bernard and now got the whole thing on like just like two or three tapes because he was running at seven and a half. You know, oh really yeah, it was it was economical.
I was going to say that at the time, like when did you realize I mean, most artists I know are not sentimental at all.
There's a story.
Well, I mean he's not a musician, but you know, I consider a historian Don Cornelius in order to save maybe hundreds hundreds of dollars, would I mean, you know, when it came time to look through the Soul Training archives, you know, the staff there was stat to announce to me that, you know, Don wasn't too sentimental. So you know this the stage and the lights and the all the designs of the shows, of the Soul Train show within you know, the forty year history of it.
He just had it all destroyed and crushed, crushed and thrown away.
And I was like, none of you at all were like, you know this will be historical one day, like we.
Should save this stuff.
And you know, at the time, Don was just thinking like uh uh, storage, storage space is too expensive and I can't afford it. So I mean oftentimes, you know, I'll tell new artists now like don't throw away that concert poster, don't throw away your itinerary, don't throw away I mean even Prince, Like when Prince passed away, Like literally anything he wrote on is almost damn near like five figure worthy in auctions now, like even directions to the house or or you know, Prince was world famous
for writing. Whoever, the lady of the moment was like poetry and stuff like you know, thing revealing too much. But what I'm basically saying is, did you guys realize in the beginning, like I should save everything, like even with besides the music, Like are you saving the outfits and the wardrobes and old posters or ticket stubs or itineraries.
I got a lot of junk left still, But you know, I mean you hoard totally. My wife is like, I can't go in there because it's like freaks me out. It's so hoarded out the room in the you know, in the basement where we are. Uh but uh, you know, there's so many stuff fell by the wayside. I sold so many damn guitars that I could retire now on what those things are worth in today's market. You know, it's just really yeah, it's just crazy.
I would like to know.
Well, I asked the both of you'll start with wri what was your first musical memory.
Oh wow, I know.
Oh that's it really goes back, doesn't it. I had, you know, children's records back back then. I had a Victrola, at least that's what my dad called a Victrola. And it was in a box, you know, a little suitcase, and it had a speaker that was attached to the arm where the you know, where the needle was and you would just drop it down onto the record. And so that those were my earliest things. And I think one of my one of my favorites was a thing, oddly enough called Little Toot.
Yeah, was that a Disney record or enough?
It was a Disney record.
It might have been.
It might have been, but it was a really great little song that went through a lot of different emotional interpretations because it told a story of this little tougueboat and you know, the worthlessness of this little and little togueboat and how the big togboats always you know, pushed it around. But then little little too became like the hero of the day and uh.
So, basically off the ret nose Reindeer. Where were you born.
I was born actually in Miami, but I grew up in Hawthorne, New Jersey, which is just outside of Patterson, New Jersey. Well, my parents and all my grandparents lived in Patterson.
Okay, Chris, what was your first musical memory.
Well, I don't really remember locking onto any little kid music. My first affinity for music started when I was like, I guess, you know, around ten or eleven, with movie scores, which was and man, some of those novelty songs, you know, like the Chipmunks and Purple People Eater and stuff. But I you know, I don't know how much that moved me, that stuff. But then I started, you know, like Lawrence of Arabia's West Side Story. I mean, I I it's very hard for me to explain to younger people what
a huge cultural touchstone West Side Story was. West Side Story was as big as the damn Beatles, There's no question about it. I don't think people people have at that the nowadays.
My oh god, my mother got so mad at me because I took my sister, who is seven years younger than me to see West Side Story and she almost had a heart.
Oh no, you took her.
You took her to see that?
Oh no, how could you? But it was fabulous. It was so wonderful. And you know, Leonard Bernstein was never better.
Really, I was going to say that, I'm currently reading Little Stephen Stephen van Zant's autobiography, and he too has an immense obsession with West Side Story and pretty much described it as the way that you guys did like when it came out.
It was.
Such a huge deal, I know. I mean, you're probably on your soundtracks that I was praying more obsessed with Lawrence Arabia soundtrack, MAURICEI alre, you know, great story.
And the other thing that I listened to a lot was like the Cowboys Singers, which is you know, Western, not even country western, it was really Western music and those were those were great, you know, great songs and people like Burl Lives and stuff.
Burl Lives. Yeah, we know she is.
Okay, So now that you you know, declared your love for Lawrence of Varibia, I gotta ask. You know, it's important because the very first okay, So, I grew up in the household with an older sibling who you know, because of my sisters, because of her school situation. You know, she was fitting in with her girlfriends what they were listening to at the time. So you know, she's bringing in a lot of you know, the classic new wave
and punk stuff or whatever. But the one album that I remember, even though she had like you know, each of the and all that stuff, like I remember the day that she brought Auto American.
Okay, okay, okay, okay. So now on the orchestral session, there was a bag one of the bass players played on the Lawrence of Arabia soundtrack and that so that.
I was gonna ask, is your obsession because you know the way that you open up Auto American with the Europa score.
Yeah, I mean, you know you know that by then I was at Adito Roda very deep and all this other stuff, you know, I always had a thing for soundtracks. I think soundtracks nowadays, that's a whole other topic, are way over used. Uh They're becoming like laugh tracks, you know, where they steer your emotions in the direction right of where whoever, whoever, the committee that wrote the thing, they
think you should be feeling, you know. And then, you know, gradually I started assimilating the pop music that was around me, like the locomotion. Everybody loved the locomotion, no matter what, you know. And you know, this stuff like the Shambra Laws, I didn't really appreciate till a little later when we were doing the band. I was kind of like commercial to me at the time.
You know, well, I'm older than Chris, and I remember this thing. I used to listen to radio a lot. I had a little radio and I always had my ear right next to the speaker. The speaker was only at this big and they had a radio thing called the Hit Parade. Yeah, and all those like crooners and you know, band singers and stuff like that. There was a lot of that. It was kind of great, yeah before yeah, and.
Then it was And then I went into folk music of course, you know, because I was fifteen and sixty five, and by that time I've been playing I've been playing guitar for since I was twelve, and folk music was it, and I remember learning how to play house at the Rising Sun was such a big deal to me, you know.
So can you describe to me what the New York nightclub scene was in terms of like the pre punk, the pre New wave movement, Like if it's seventy four, if it's seventy three or seventy four, you know, where are you playing or like where are you hanging out?
At least well, we met Debbie was doing a show in a bar, so I don't even I hadn't didn't go out to many clubs before I was in the band situation. I mean, Maxis was kind of the first thing I was going to regularly.
Mostly it was bars, you know, people just setting up blah on the floor and bars and stuff. And then a little bit later on they became officially became clubs, but initially they were bars, Okay, I.
Mean, well, the stuff that we were involved with was like Martin Mercer Arts Center came out of the art scene. I mean Maxis was an art bar, you know, all those all those guys all those people went on to be famous, and the art world had tabs Maxes.
You know, the post Warhol movement or were Andy.
We know he was always in the middle of everything for us anyway, for you know, he was just there. He was a staple.
I wanted to know.
Well, they mentioned Maxis Kansas City, and it's hardy not to think of the Velvet Underground.
Did you guys see the Velvet Underground play live there?
I opened up for the Velovet thats when I was seventeen.
What was that like?
It was amazing and it was a pivotal moment in my musical life. It was they were playing in a place up town called the Gymnasium, which was Andy had connections to the like these Polish hall people you know who were in these old world halls, and his place was was the Gymnasium and also did show this. This was nineteen sixty seven. I me and my friends all knew who the Velvets were at that point. And I had a really close friend who a guy I grew up with known for fifty years who was working for
Andy at the time. His name Joey Freeman, still my buddy, and he showed up my house in Brooklyn one afternoon and he said, listen to the opening band for the Velvets didn't show up. Do you guys want to do it? So we took our guitars on the subway and we
went down. It was like up in the West Side, somewhere in the seventies or so sixties or seventies, and developers let us use their amps, and Marine took her let us put her bass from upright, you know, because she only played it like like a temporary you know, on its side right. And they were nice and we played our blues rock set. You know, I don't remember.
I only remember we did you can't judge but book by its cover, But I don't remember much of the other stuff, you know, like Rude sixty six, that kind of joke we were doing. And we were really daunted because his place was big and echoey and it was like not there weren't too many people there. But then the Velvets came on and they took advantage of the echo. And that was also a life lesson for me, because you know, the place you're playing in becomes a part
of your sound stem. You know that, you know, unless you're doing this all the time, and they were awesome and filled the room and Andy was there. We never saw him, and somebody came over and said, oh, any thinks you're great. That was terrific. That was That was the event, but it was a really wonderful thing.
I saw them at this place called the Balloon Farm on Saint Mark's Place and Andy was doing the lights and Nico was with them that night and it was beautiful. It was just I mean beautiful visually and in sound wise, and everything about it was beautiful.
Like I know that you were in separate bands or can you tell us how the band came to be as far as you know the official start of Blunde.
Well, the scene was very incestuous and we all had mutual friends, though the two of us never met. We think we both were at Woodstock, but we didn't meet there. Debbie had a job working for the first head shop in New York, which was called the head Shop, which was on East ninth Street, and I remember going in there the day before shop. It's called the Headshop.
What is a headshop is a headshot?
They sell, yeah, bonds and posters and rolling papers and we'd supply you know, but it was it was where you've been, you.
Know, dog, I'm I'm sorry, I'm the forty.
And you know it was it was a little more clandestine and it wasn't like it was kind of understated that it was all based on weed consumption.
I never knew that it was called a headshop.
Headshop, Yeah, sure, hedshop.
Well, because where weed where I grew up, it was always the you know you always uh at the mom and pop rec good store.
Yeah right, Yeah.
I would assume that the guy also sold we because you know, just the smell of the record store mixed with you know, lisol and incense like to try to.
Well, he wouldn't head hups wouldn't back then in the sixties wouldn't sell weed. They because they were they were too big a target, you know, they would just sell the the stuff.
I got it.
Yeah, so I was. I was in the headgshop the day before it opened talking to a girl and well, I know that was us, and we talked to each other. But three years later, four years later, I guess that was like sixty nine or sixty or seventy or something like that. Then you know, everybody knew each other and I had friends and one of my friends. You know, a very long story, but a mutual friend said, I heard about this band is playing called the Stilettos Girls singers,
go see them. And that was Debbie and two other girls. So that was it.
Did that band have any any kind of startup or success? Debbie, you and the other two girls?
Well yeah, I mean we had a small amount of notoriety. I suppose an interest. I don't think there was any real reality as far as you know, a professional career or you know, recording or anything like that. Everything we did.
Was some stuff with the dolls. We did stuff with the dolls. Remember later on yeah you guys, you guys sang back up in a couple of dolls shows.
So yeah, all right, it was that.
Eighty two, Yeah, baby, or I think there's a picture.
Of us at eighty two. Eighty two was another club that existed sort of in a even darker way than Max's or CBGB's. It was an old transvestite club from the nineteen forties.
Yeah, it was very gangster.
It was.
It was number eighty to the east third Street, I guess, or something like that something the second first Street, all the way east and it was in the basement. It was. That was a great scene. A lot of bands played there, but we went there. All this stuff went on there, there's not a lot of okay.
So one of my favorite kind of underground New York labels was Private Stock. Well, no, a lot of legendary records are on there, and especially for hip hoppers, there's like incredible breakbeats on there. But I gotta know, like, how did what was it like dealing with Larry Utel.
Larry had come out of like the brill building scene. He had been He had been a part of Bell Records with I think Seymour and yeah, they were all play partners at one point and then they spliped went through different ways. Marty Marty foul you know, managed the Dolls all through their earn hey Day and the first records and all that stuff before before McLaren picked up on him, and uh, Larry was you know, it was
kind of a vanity project for him. I mean, I think his daughter Jody, who was like the press person, had a better idea what was going on in the reality of the street and music you know that was coming out of the streets. Larry was like, you know, Larry was you know, guy with the open shirt and the big gold chainer on his back.
He liked he was friends with you know that that one Valley.
Yeah, Frankie Valley was on the label, right, Yeah, that was their big act. And Peter Lemon Jello, man, you know, Peter Lemon Jell. Peter Lemon Jello was like this m R M O R singer, but the girls liked him because he was like sexy, you know, thing that helps. And then then they had also on the label.
Which is yeah Walter, Walter h.
It was an odd place to be for us. It was very odd and uh, which tried.
You know, we we live in the time now, which you know, literally you can create a fully produced and realized album on your laptop, But what what is the process of getting a demo? Like, Okay, you're going to start a band now, I mean at any point are you guys like, hey, we're just hanging around doing the scene, or you guys like actively like we were trying to get a record deal.
Yeah, I mean that was the goal was to get the music out. Everybody knew. I mean, we all grew up with records and records being very important to us, so that was of course a goal, but in New York, so there was I don't know, one hundred bands instead of one hundred thousand bands the way it is now, you know, so that that made a big difference.
I always wanted to know this, and I know it's a captain obvious question, but what was what was the actual reason why you guys settled on the name Blondie.
We had been trying to pick out a name, and uh, I mean, you know, you search for a name, and we called ourselves the Angel and the Snake for a few months, and that that was sort of a you know, it wasn't really it would have been a good name for nowadays, but at that.
Point for a metal band, yeah maybe, you know.
Yeah, well we wanted to be a metal band.
But I don't know if we even had that much of it. I don't know what we what we wanted to be anything.
Well, I was working as a beautician. I was working in New Jersey as a beautician, and you know, during a slow hours, you know, we would do each other's hair, and so one day they did me and I was, you know, had blonde hair and walking to Chris's house, you know, it was getting you know, some street noise, Hey, Blondie, Blondie, and I just said, oh, okay, well that will work. And that was that.
Okay. I always thought it was a blondie deck would reference.
Well it became that.
Yeah, we were aware of that, and you know, and those guys never bothered us for all all the time. They never It was never a.
Tough yo like.
No.
I mean, there was never any complaints about us commandeering the name or anything from the comic people.
You mean that, I thought you meant just. I thought you meant just in New York. No, everybody, I.
Forget about that ship. We got bothered a lot in New York.
To be fair, I did say to the guys, you know, when when we started getting you know, official attention, that they should all bleach their hair, you know, and be like wrestlers, you know, and the guys should all have blonde hair, and we'd all have blonde hair. But nobody wanted to do it.
Just while we're on the name Blondie.
So by now, of course we all know your name is Debbie Harry. But people must have been calling you personally Blondie this whole time. Is that the longest bother you or is that something that you'd just gotten used to, or do you say, hey, my name is Debbie, you know what the band is?
Blondie.
Well, I think there was that, you know, kind of the definition thing. For a while. I didn't mind, especially being cold Blondie because I had the blonde hair and you know, basically, you know, I guess little boys get called that too, you know, hey Blondie, but usually you know, little girls with my coloring, you know, are cold Blondie very often. So it didn't really bother me. It did bother me, you know that we had to sort of
identify ourselves constantly. But I think that you know, you know, I guess it's something that you you know, you learn, right, you learn that you have to identify yourself well.
As I said at the top of the show, people will often lump you guys in with the punk movement or the new wave movement. You know, it's kind of like I didn't necessarily think that you were either, because for me, at least with the first the first three records, like from the self titled record to Parallel Lines, you know, there's there's a heavy sort of post I guess you could say wall of sound feel in there like in terms of like a very updated, like an updated kind
of specters thing going on. So for you, was it always an eye rolling thing? If you know, critics that obviously weren't on the scene that were like hanging around to see, Like, was it weird to get type cast to be part of a movement that really I don't know, I think between you guys and the police, like even though you're you're lumped in with this movement, you guys really weren't that level of punk to me, Like, you guys were more of a stylish at least my my, how it.
Looked to me when I was like nine or ten years old.
I think, I think, I think the punk form is much more defined nowadays. And you know, in twenty twenty onward, you know, you got all these fands, you know, Surpoort and Amal and the Sniffers and all these guys are very defined in their punkness, you know. Back I mean when you think about you know, ustin television and talking heads and Patty, it was very diverse. That kind of
sounded and it wasn't so. I mean, the Moons were very much in their own groove of the thing, but they were they were specifically.
Them, you know, yeah, I mean there was a rockabillity there, you know, was the sort of art rock, you.
Know, blues.
It was all a punk scene and and incorporated a lot of different styles of music which you know, we were actually experimenting with, you know, and trying to pull in, you know, references that you know sort of befitted a girl singer and you know, a rock band and and with you know, attitude. You know, I think for me, I wanted to be a punk. I felt like I had enough attitude.
But the punk definition was very much like a lifestyle thing way the way a hippie was, you know, it was, you know, it's like relistic and about do it yourself, very much about do it yourself too, and you know, and then there was, uh it was a backlash against all the real heavy m R stuff that was happening in the mid seventies there, and that was you know, above ground you know whatever. You know, these went to rost pretty you know sedation for us.
You know at that time.
Socially, who were your peers of that movement? Like were you friendly with the Ramones and the New York zones?
We were very close to the Ramones, and the Dolls. There was kind of there were kind of two camps at CBS of the art rock people and the pop rock people, and we were kind of on the pop rock side, you know. And it was a band called Miami's. It was band called Fast you know those people. Yeah, Johnny Heartbreakers were great, bad all that stuff. You know.
I believe that my band was the third, the second or the third to last act to play at CBGB's. I got a note was that nice bathroom always filthy bathroom.
The bathroom used to be upstairs, and the stage used to be on the on the left facing facing the stage, and then it moved to the right, and the bathroom moved downstairs and got it even worse. It wasn't It was probably a little less gross when it was upstairs.
Yeah, I see any any fond memories there. I hate I hate being that person that's like like salivating over like again, these folklore stories of clubs of your and you guys are just like whatever.
We showed up and we played.
But you know, at any point during that period, did you know that this was like the zegeist of the scene, or again, was it just a hey, Thursday night, We're playing.
Yeah, no, we were pretty much in the moment, you know. And what I always I also say, is everybody, every single person I knew, would say, this is New York is so horrible. I just got to get out of here. I can't stand it anymore. But nobody left. And there's this great mood Red monologue where he talks about how awful it is in New York for him, but how much more uncomfortable he is everywhere else. So that that
was that pretty much. But yeah, I mean lots of crazy shit went down at Steevie's all the time, accidents too.
It was you know, well it went through stages, you know, stages of development because it wasn't like a full on, you know, big club scene from the start. You know, it was a bike of bar with you know, some you know Bowery guys, you know Alki's and stuff that
hung out at this bar. And then for some reason Hilly you know, started having music, and you know, I have suspicions about you know, there used to be a club, a club restaurant on Ninth Street, right off of Sixth Avenue between fifth and sixth, and it was called Hilly's. I somehow think that Hilly was involved with that, and he had.
A couple of bars. Yeah, I think he had one that was like downstairs from Trudy Heller's too at one point.
Oh really yeah wow.
Yeah, yeah, he had a couple of bars around town and he and he was a single role, so he had he had a country single on the jukebox in CB that I don't really hear people talking about too much. I don't remember what it was, but it was there.
New York is.
Great for clubs, you know, I mean it's always been that way. It's great.
How often is the rotation?
I know that for me in Philadelphia there's really only at least for the roots, like maybe if you're lucky, there's like six clubs to play, because we also had like you know, five or six major colleges there, so you know where you play at University of Penn, play at Temple play. You know, you would just go to where the colleges were. But as far as rotation is concerned.
Well, there was a there was a thing where if you played at Max's, you shouldn't play at Seb's the next weekend. Yeah, that's to like wait a week. But there were other little bars. It was like Rudby Charlie's and a place called the Mushroom and that Monty Python Bar and all these little things. With my mother's my others. Was a tourney right across from the Chelsea there was my father's place was up in Long Island City that you know, stuff would come and go.
I would assume that, you know, by the time, at least by the time you guys get to Chrysalis that you know, you're not you're no longer a like a local rock band, and you're also doing national and yeah, going out of state and whatnot.
So yeah, all that stuff went on, but it was still the you know. The other thing people may not get nowadays is what a goddamn wild West show the music industry was the touring touring in those days. It was now it's so slick, you know, your live nation all this stuff, you know, boom you go there.
I was gonna say, yeah, was there something as a rider like okay, okay, because I ask each act to do this for me because I truly want to know,
you know. And the thing you mentioned at the top about the rolexes and all that stuff, Yes, I'm in I'm in the hip hop generation, especially the first generation of like post hype William videos where around ninety four, I would say that, yes, like even coming into the game, like we came into the game with two tour buses and a really good rider and Musilix and like, you know, like where's my where's the you know, the where's the manicurist at like that sort of.
So fucking we were in a fucking we did a tour in Australia. We were we were in like a school bus man that was like a let me know, old school with like it was filled with dust. You know. We had we and we had like a an America. When we went on the tour with Iggy and Bowie, we were in an r V, which is like really crappy and falling apart. I remember too, So all that kind of stuff was was yeah.
All right, so let's skip to skip the parallel lines.
Can you walk me through the process, Like okay, so the idea of like tour buses and good hotel lodging, like at what at what point does that even happen or is that something that was just invented in the nineties, Like.
Yeah, I'm gonna go with nineties because we had some man. It was you know, it was a lot of.
We briefly, we we lived for these nerds.
Story says, don't don't think you're like sparing us by, like you don't want to hear about the time when but we store store our lunch meat or something.
We never had. We never flew private. There was just no such thing. But briefly, I remember there was like ten minutes when we was Chip Gordon. There was like in Europe. We had a little four seater jet for a couple of publicity dates. But that was like you know, two flights or something like that. We went on the Concord. We were on the We were on the Concord a bunch of times.
That was.
That was nice.
Yeah.
I was going to say, Shepp is one of my closest friends, and what time does he enter managing the band.
Like the late seventies early eighties.
Yeah, yeah, so he was there for Parallel Lines.
No, no, no, that was that was each of the beat.
It was the very end. Yeah.
Well Auto American, I know he was there.
For An American and the Hunter, which was you know successful.
Yeah, the Auto American platinum plaque is hanging up above the guest bedroom. So nice you guys Teddy Pendergrass and Luther Vandro's records.
Like, uh.
When I stay at his house and his guest room.
So with with parallel lines at least, which you know many consider that to be like you're your your your super breakthrough with it. Can you talk about the making of Harder Class AKA once I had a love and bringing that forth?
Well, it was it was all about the getting the rolling rhythm machine hooked up with this, the rolling whatever that held. I can't remember I should.
Know this, but was there mid back in the day.
No, it was. It was all voltage, voltage controlled, you know. Okay, so it was pre MIDI and that was such a huge deal. That's where the whole the whole song was built up on the synth being to the rhythm machine and everything was built around that. You know. We had the we had the cords, some stuff in the structure somewhat you know, very.
Time consuming, very time consumer.
Yes, I mean going in with Chapman was great. I mean Chapman was a master and he was at the peak of his game, and we were also at the peak of analog too. It was the high point of fucking analog you know he had he had the one the digital REAVERB. I guess it's not don't know, even Tide or whatever it is. He had that one unit. But everything else was just like that. And I'm glad we got to be there at that moment too. But Chapman was great. He was like going in with George Martin.
For us, it was like a whole you know, he was like the extra member of the band. It was just it was fantastic and we all, you know, he beat the heck out of us. But it was great.
I was going to ask with because the thing is is that, you know, Heart of Glass was even more than even more than Miss You. I feel like hearder Glass is like the perfect, perfect dance song that's not blatantly a disco song. And not to say that Miss You by the Rolling Stones was a blatant Yeah, people seem to consider anything with four on the floor to be disco, but always wanted to know obviously there there had to been some sort of conscious decision like okay, let's make something accessible.
We always had like graph for work. We were referencing graph work.
Oh okay, that was it.
Not so much disco music.
But I always wanted to know the like for such a song that that has such a steady four in the fourth pace. Why was there a decision to make the last bridge into seven to eight meter which I don't know.
If that was an accident or not. I mean, Chapman would Chapman would edit fucking slice the two inch tape with a fucking razor, which is kind of unheard of.
No, you guys were playing, which one is that one little section?
I can't, I can't. I mean, I'm sure if you asked everybody, everybody will have a different opinion. Why that came about, Whether it was accidental or not, I don't know.
You know, hearder Glass seems very accessible to play at a jam session. But there's always that moment right after the last There's always that moment right on the course where I'm looking at the people like, wait, are we are we about to do to the level.
We're going to do the seventy part.
We're just going to act like the beginning, the beginning, and then it's always a car crash.
That's very gratifying.
It made it worthwhile.
The drums are all the drums are all pieced together the way a disco record, the bass drums recorded by itself? Uh you know the kid? Yeah yeah, recorded by itself, you know, yeah, it was that. That was the only song like that. That was the only one who was done like that.
What was the logic behind that? A better mixed to it?
Mike had done some kind of disco music again, maybe be able to bring out the kick a little more. I don't know.
Oh, okay, okay, I see that.
I think it was his ears, you know, I mean that's he had. He had those ears.
You know what studio was this? Parallel lines?
Uh?
Power station?
Right?
Power station? Or or plant? Record plant? Record plant or power station.
Yeah, at the time of Parallel Lines. And and now I guess also do you do you which do you enjoy more?
Playing live? We're making records.
I like recording. I'm a recording guy always. I'm not I'm not doing a tour, but that's mostly because of health stuff. But you know, they got to replacement for me lately. But I think Debbie probably both maybe I don't. She gets off on doing the shows a lot. I mean, I like to doing the shows. I always love doing
the shows. But I just I've been doing recording ever since I was a little kid man, I was screwing around with you know, old wall and sack reel to real recorders and stuff like that, and I would always have a TA four track that if I could beg borrow or steal. So, I mean, that was just part of my life, is doing recording. I love the laptop, digital stuff, go sit in logic for hours and tweaking stuff.
Does the music creative decisions start with the two of you? Or is it an actual democracy in which it's it's the six of you?
Sort of?
You know, it's a monarchic democracy.
So aggressive, Yeah, I mean, what do you guys think? Okay, this is what we're gonna do.
So yeah, I mean I always managed to get up a lot of by that time we had been I mean I okay, So the only song that we before we recorded it, I knew it was going to be a hit as tight as High, I mean the other ones, I really didn't. I wasn't sure, but I knew if we could pull up a decent recording of Titus High that it was, it would be successful.
Were you a fan of the Paragon's original or.
Yeah, the original? Yes, the originalist Godhead and probably the only reggae song I ever heard that as a violin in it from that period, which is amat so the horn lines are based on the violin line.
This is we have to figure out.
There's about nine mammoth songs in E minor that that come out in uh you know the first the first half of nineteen eighty nine Mammoth Dance Floor of Rockers in in E minor. I will ask this much, was was good Times that much of an influential song that
it's almost like was it unavoidable? Because you know, when I asked some of these people, when I when I ask you know, the other artists question, someone will say, like, you know, like sometimes you just so consciously go there without purposely trying to go there, whereas like you know, Brian may may confirm or may not confirm that another one by the Dust was exactly what's our version of good Times?
Yeah, No, rapture was totally homage to shake, Okay, No, I just wanted to know there no question about it. I was totally thinking of that the whole The baselines is the first thing that came up.
Yeah, that was that was an extremely that was an extreme radical thing to do, like you know, of all the songs in your catalog.
That was super super risky. Could you just talk about how does hip hop reach you as a New Yorker, Like, were you aware of what was happening in the Bronx or yeah?
We No, I really wasn't that aware. We'd heard rappers to lie, you know, on the radio, a couple of things. But then we hooked up with Freddy and Freddie I guess it was seventy seven took us up to this event at a police athletic league up in the Bronx, and that was that was like just this eye opening experience.
You know, it was wait, what year did you meet? Five? Five? Freddy?
Probably seventy six or seven?
Oh damn, okay, long time ago.
Yeah, I mean I've gone over the date with him trying to figure out what did what day, what year that was, and he thinks seventy seventh was who When we went up to this thing.
One of my all time well, I won't say great punishment stories. Was kind of like a fistfight that almost got into with my cousin because you know, at this point it's it's, uh, the summer of nineteen eighty one and he's singing like, we're we're I don't know where we're coming from. We were coming from like my grandmom's house, us walking from the corner store and going back home.
And he's singing to himself and he's like, you know.
Any in my mother, fast as fast, fast as fast, fast as fast, that's as cool.
And I was like, wait, why do you repeat that three times?
And he's like, because that's how the song goes, flashes fast, flashes, fast, flashes fast.
I said, no, it doesn't, she says.
And so basically, my cousin never heard of Rapture, and I never heard of the Adventures of Grandmaster Flash on the Wheels of Steel, which, for hip hop historians is basically the first time that the world is hearing what cutting and scratching is. Like, you know, Grandmaster Flash goes in the studio and he does his seven minute open format demonstration of the records of the day, you know, takes Cheeks, good Times and Apache and and Rapture and you know, just just the part songs of the moment
and does a demonstration of what scratching is. You know, because for most hip hop records, you know, you'd have to get a band get keithleb Blanc or whatever to redo the breaks and whatnot because technology wasn't there yet, and so you know, of course I'm my level of
know it all snobbery, you know, I'm so angered. Like he then knew he could get my goat, so he would just sing it like anytime he just want to fuck with me, he'd just be like fastest, fast flashest, fast flashes, fast, flash and flash, and then.
We just you know, and then you know, we got put on punishment.
So you know at the time, like for you, were you shocked at the reception? Were you nervous about it? Or for you was it just like this might be filler on the album, or like, yo, this shit's gonna go to number one.
Frankie Kroch or was it ma major components in that.
I forgot that's it.
It goes to Paradise Garage, it's going to Frankie Crocker, then it's going to the world.
Okay, he was.
He was a big supporter, and then we were eternally grateful.
Yeah, man, at that moment, did you realize you were seeing a revolution at the time or was it just like no, because.
You know, it's funny what you said earlier about being a fan, because I talked I was up there with all these record company guys and people on the inside of the industry, and nine percent of them all said, Oh, it's it's a fad, it's going to go away.
Said they said that. They said that about punk too, you know, that was their favorite thing to say, you know. And and the other thing was, so you know when kissed, when every time that there was a technological advancement or you know update, you know, say ah, you know, it's not going to last. It was that was a big thing to say, it's not going to last.
One of the first thing I did when I started working here at at thirty Rock, which, of course you know where the Tonight Show is and SNL and all these like legendary shows. There's a giant database system that's hooked up to all of our computers. So any episode of SNL I want to watch, what like, you can't get it on YouTube, but I can sit here for days go through the archives. How hard was it for you guys to actually broker that deal so that the Funky four plus one gets on.
The real hard aspect of the Funkies being on the show, was trying to get them.
To scratch and yeah, I was going to say.
I couldn't get it done. And even it was a moment when they even got a limousine and sent through them uptown to get a cable. You know, that didn't work. They just couldn't get it done. They went onto a tape and then they also went on the crawl at the end of the sh oh you know under the credits right it still but you know, I'm a sure Rock is still by many considered the first female rapper, you know.
So yeah, well now that that that to me was a credible co sign because you know, they were, to me like the epitome. And you know, the fact that you didn't see female mcs that much and and and they could have been like, hey, go with someone to go with flashing them or go with the sugar Hill Gang.
And the fact that you guys saw that.
We were buddies with those guys. I hung out with Rodney for many years, you.
Know, legnend Darry Rodney.
Yeah, so get into it. So, how how did you meet with Charlie Ahern and uh, your involvement with Wild Style. Are you shocked at all? That suddenly not even suddenly, well I'll say that a good fifteen years after you create these tracks, that suddenly, like they they do become sort of like a staple of hip hop culture at least, like us using those breaks for real, not just for the purpose of Yeah no.
No, no, no, I'm shocked. I mean I I what I what I did was aware of when I told Charlie at the time was you know, as soon as this thing comes out, there's gonna be one hundred Hollywood movies like this, and like Beets Street was like immediately there after, like a bigger budget version, you know, but uh now it was. It was great. It was just all people that we worked with. It was part of the TV
Party emailue, that whole thing, you know. I mean think I think Lenny plays drums on some of that stuff. He was in the TV Party orchestra.
Yeah.
I was gonna say, who's who's the other the Blondie guys are not playing on that.
Right, No, it's no, It's just I came into the studio with my old Roland synth guitar and put tracks on top of what was already had been recorded, which was space and drums and then Freddie did like those sound effects of like like razors and all kinds of weird stuff that he did. So the drums I might be lending. I'm not sure. You got to ask Charlie on this. I never you know, I never got together
with I did that. I did those tracks with Kaz, and I only met Kaz like three years ago for the first time, you know, really yeah, yeah, oh wow. And that one track that I did with Kaz, I tried to sink synthesizers up to the scratching by just taking the line out of the one of the out of the out of the scratching track and hitting the putting it into the voltage controlled input of the SIN. So that actually is happening on I don't even know if that's been done sin. It's a little chaotic.
Yeah, I was about to say, that's very primitive level of uh yeah.
Of making that stuff. Who who has the master tapes to those sessions, Charlie.
I guess he's in control that whole thing. I might have. I might have copies up in the tapes. I'm not sure.
Yeah, I was about to say, down by law, it might be like one all time.
Everybody, everybody gravitated towards that, and it was so smart that they pressed up vinyls and gave them out to the people who were doing the shows that were being filmed, right, they all gravitated towards that one track too.
I was going to say, like, how many copies of those instrumentals were made initially?
I don't know, twenty to fifty.
Maybe, oh, okay, okay.
So then you know it's been repressed and be released on like a white label thing that's like simulates the I mean, I had guys I would go to the UK, I would go I had guys come up to me and beg me for copies the originally.
Yeah, you know, I think like they reprinted them at least the instrumentals, like uh, you know, around like nine four. So yeah, but for the longest, you know, I couldn't find any of those things.
And it was the basketball throwdown sequence is like the greatest goddamn thing to this. It's it's so it's never been done since, you know, and they did a lot of takes to get that, but it's you know, you can find it on YouTube. It's just awesome.
Hey, uh, dev I wanted to ask about your your first solo Alley Uh working with now.
You did? Uh backfired and cuckoo cuckoo. Yes.
Could you talk about the process of making it, like had you always wanted to do your own solo stuff?
Or oh, well, I think it became apparent. You know that we, you know, I guess, had divergent interests, you know, with the blondie format and as you know in the record industry, as you well probably know that, you know a lot of times the labels reject you know, you're changing. And you know, Chris and I were, you know, we liked a lot of different things, and we especially liked Chic you know, we liked Nile and Bernard and uh Donna Summer. So you know, I guess we just got
to know. I got to know Nile a little bit. Bernard was a little more quiet. Nile was I was out there, you know, he was very social and yeah. Yeah, So one.
Of the first times we met him, he was going on about how much he loved EVO, which was you know, and he said to this day he says he was didn't know much about rap music and that we were the ones who introduced him. So I that seems strange to me.
That he's the proprietor of right.
Yeah, yeah, I mean there's there's that's that's a common story where you know, when he was alive, I'd always tease Prince about the fact that, you know, Prince Prince is very is a very famous uh lurker on the internet.
You know, would often kind of irol proverbial irol whenever I talked about, you know, his diamonds and pearls gangster rap period, you know, with the gun mic and all that stuff, and you know, I would tell him all the time that you were actually more hip hop when before you were wrapping on purpose, you know what I mean, because everything about him was you know, was that it was you know, he's drum programming, he was ghost writing, you know, he was making up his own groups and
had aliases like everything that was hip hop, even down to like the women that he chose and marketed, like all that was that was the blueprint that hip hop built itself upon, you know what I'm saying. And so oftentimes I just find it weird that the second that he becomes aware of hip hop, then that's sort of like that's where it got weird. But he was to me on hip hop before he sort of became aware
of it. So you're telling the story of now rogers like really not being into it even though the irony of the good times thing? Can you speak upon like the circumstances after eighty two and the band wanting to take a break. Was it just because you guys were just on a ten year stretch by that point you just needed.
Up on drugs. I got really sick. I had this lung protracted illness, just all kinds of crap. What's going on? You know, our finances went to shit. We've got you know, we were got victimized in a lot of places. You found out this account we had the two years we made the most money, didn't pay our taxes, just trying to get us at the tax shelters. So ke, Yeah, it's just a standard show business bullshit, you know.
You know at this point when you're celebrating, uh, your entire history, Like for you, what's the what's the biggest lesson that you've learned?
Oh geez, well there's a lot, you know, just relax for yourself, don't trust anybody, you know, just the basic stuff. And it's all gonna sound so cliche.
We we love cliches on the show, like because to me, it's about the creative process, but it's also about you know what, what have you learned in hindsight?
You know?
I mean, I just love the fact that you saved all those demos. Yeah, I for one wasn't too sentimental with the demo. I was smart enough to not throw them away. But now it's I'm going through the painstaking process of just going through trash bin after trash beIN after it because I know, like in ten years, I'm gonna have to, yeah, make some make some sort of sense of it. So can you just talk about the process of finding these things?
And that was long and arduous, you know. I just we did the the last Blendy album we had at the Magic Shop and Steve There, you know the place where Bowie did Black Star, you know, his last He did his last two records there, and phenomenal amount of stuff came out of that place, and so we really liked the last band to record there. And Steve there has the record tape salvaging company also, you know, he bakes the tapes and all that stuff, so that that was easy. We just I just I turned it over
to him. And our manager Tommy over other thing. And you know, I would get these millions of little fragments on dropbox and listens of stuff and go, yeah, it's school whatever, et cetera.
So, Chris, what was like the coolest thing that you found in the archives person you know, like personally to you, where you were, where you were excited about what you found.
Did we have a version of the of Moonlight Drive by the Doors that we recorded in the studio while we were doing either the first or second album, which is really great, But they whoever was sitting in the control room didn't hit record at the top of the song, so they they did a job. They did a good job coming in afters after the first movement. But and it's you know that I don't know that I was aware that that existed even but that's out there.
Well, and that's on the box set.
Yeah, that's on the box. Yeah, it's a very cool thing.
Did you fade it in on the box set or did you just started?
It starts? It starts with some drums, but you know, it misses the whole little intro section, first first verse. Yeah, yeah, fired him.
It's cool though, Yo, could you briefly talk about so one point, you guys were gonna work with Georgio Moroder.
Yeah, well, Georgio didn't want to put up with the band bullshit and all the ego mania and us having to play things one hundred times to get it right and all that stuff. He's like, he just wants to go in there and get it done.
Want and done.
So you're saying that your your process is more meticulous in terms of like wanting to do because you guys are super tight as a band.
I was going to ask, like.
No, no, I it's quite the opposite. The opposite we were. We were sloppy and we'd have to go over ship a lot to get it done. I mean by you know, after a while. By now people have their skills honed. But in the early blondie days it was pretty funky.
Well I mean, you know, I mean the way that you execute it call me at least, uh, you know, I you guys were air tight by then, you know.
So yeah, but call me. Call Me has a lot of Georgia's session guys on it, as well as the band, you know, I mean, Clem's on there for sure. Okay, I'm not even one hundred percent on who's what in that track?
Okay, I see, but I do want to know in closing, just where are you now as far as like creativity is concerned and still well, we just.
Finished the twelfth record with John Congleton and that was that's very exciting. It's a little it's it's a little more raw than the previous one. I'm listening to the mixes coming back. It's great. I'm excited to get it out in the world.
When when you uh, when do you propose that that will be? Uh, next year?
Next year?
Okay, I have a final question question you don't mind? Yes, it's it's kind of I ask a lot of people from your generation, especially that their vinyl record collections from from your past, you still have your your.
I still haven't, but I don't I you know, I'm happy to listen to digital stuff at this point that you know, it's like digital. I do a lot of photography still, and I'm not going to go back to film, if you know. I mean, I like film. It's nice, but it's also kind of it's kind of like a fetish.
But you still have returned, Yeah, but.
I haven't put anything on it in ten years or whatever. You know. Yeah, you guys appear.
Sorry, Steve. It's nice that he still has his collection. You know a lot of people.
Yeah, no, I got playing stuff. I got Charles Manson's record, I get the first pressing.
Really yeah, Okay, what.
Was I watched? I was just watching some dumb TV show and they closed with a Charles Manson song? What the heck was that? I can't remember? Yeah?
But for you, okay, So for you, what's what's in your your top five records of all time?
Oh? Man, well that's a lot. You know what John Faye is?
I know John Fay.
Yeah, John Fay like superhero me. I saw him play and talked to him briefly. Top five beyond that, just you know, standard stuff, what you consider, you know, bowl your records? Like I was at Studio fifty four and when James Brown did have a double Yeah I saw I saw one of those shows.
It's funny you say that for James Brown fans, I will personally say that the thing that I mind most about James Brown is that he doesn't know mediocrity.
So either either he will be.
The the the height of perfection or it's it's the worst shit ever.
And as a kid. As a kid, I.
Remember saving like seeing James Brown live at Studio fifty four, and you know, this is when I'm first starting to discover breakbeats and everything.
So I was like, oh, man, look at the cover. He's sweating. It's going to be real good. I brought it home and I was like, ah, this is the worst.
So I was one. I was at one of those shows. I don't know if it was the one that are on the record, but they kind of remember it.
Yeah, Live and fifty four. Well, you know, Chris, I want to thank you. We we had a technical difficulty and we lost and.
She fell out. She got lost in the ether. But any anyone want to get together and bullshit, I'm be happy to also my pleasure.
Yes, definitely, you're You're a legend and I appreciate us. So on behalf of Sugar Steve.
And I'm paid bill in my ear and fan take a lott.
This is Quest Love of Quest Love Supreme, and thank you Chris and Debbie for going over your history with us and we really appreciate it and we will see you next time the next go round of Quest Love Supreme.
All right, West Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio.
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