When we last spoke, Todd White, the main songwriter for Sudden Impact, the boy band i've been trying to find, gave me the contact info for Dave Smith. Dave Smith has been the hardest Sudden Impact member to find. They tell me he's the quiet one, the shy one. Tim Bird says, Dave Smith turned his back on the whole thing in the Motown, Philly video. Dave's the one who's not looking into the camera. He's looking just off to the side for direction. Dave Smith is my white whale.
But I have his email address, so I reach out and he gets back and we plan a time to talk.
And here's how it goes.
Dave Smith, how you doing. I'm doing great, The elusive Dave Smith.
I don't understand why. I'm just saw elusive. Todd told me that.
You know, I was led to believe that you were going to be hard to find.
Well, I guess everybody says that because I don't social media. You know, I've never really been on any of that stuff and never had an interest in it.
What's your deal? Do you have like respect for yourself and your time?
Pretty much?
Okay, I've heard of people like you the elusive Dave Smith is super Cool. One final shock for one final episode of Waiting for Impact, a Dave Holmes passion project. I have now found four of the five guys in a group that was called at least five Things. Dave Smith was in Sudden Impact, which became White Guys, which became the Outsiders, which became Outsiders for Life.
Right now, he's.
Talking to me from his car in Orlando, Florida, where he's taking time out of a family vacation to tell me about the whole odyssey, a trip he was the last to sign up for when the group was still on their first name.
So you were the last to join Too Special, correct.
That's correct. Right around the time I joined, they were already thinking about changing the name. But I believe it was changed by Mike Bivins. Yeah once once we actually all met him and we came up with a new name. I mean he came up with a new name.
I finally did see the famous two Special poster, which you are not in.
Yeah, exactly four ugly guys missing the good looking dude.
I'm telling you would have gotten signed that much quicker. There would have been a bidding.
War had you been that's ridiculous, right.
How did you come to join the group?
Alan was one of my good friends from like sixth seventh grade, and he knew I was going through a little bit of a difficult time in my life and my sister passed away when I was about fifteen. Oh sorry, and he kind of just said, hey, man, you know you're one of those guys. It's like cause I played sports and the skateboarded like crazy and and all those kind of things. And he basically just said to me, you know, I think this would be a good outlet
for you. You should come to it. And then I found out later that they all really liked my mustang I had, and it was one of these like dumb things, like they wanted me to hang out they could ride around and buy a five point zero Oh no, just as a joke in the beginning, you know, but they they literally it wasn't like a I'm going to be dead, honest, like when I'm fifteen years old. It wasn't like aspirations to become a singer. Being a group at that point
in my life. To Todd and Alan and Aaron and Noel were all together for I think about a year prior to me something like that, and I came in right at the end there.
So when Todd and Alan head off for LA with the poster in the demo and then they call you and tell you that they've been.
Total lie in my mind what we total lie in my mind, I remember telling them well, because I didn't believe them. I mean, they well, they called I think they called me first from my recollection and just you know, uh, Todd said, hey, I got somebody I want you to talk to, and then Mike jumps on the phone and you know, in this little in his in his voice, and I just totally thought they were gagging me, you know, and I was like whatever, you know, and I went
through it and just let it go. But I really didn't believe it until Alan had called me back later and said, dude, that was really Michael Bivens, you know, and you know, I was like, new addition, are you kidding me? And I started freaking out then, you know. But it was definitely a surreal moment once I realized
it was real. And I think it was like that for the guys too, because they they finally, you know, when they got home, they got to tell us the full story because back then it was like, you know, cost a million dollars to call from LA to Virginia, you know, especially for sixty year olds with no money.
Todd and Allen say they brought Dave Smith on board after the Michael Bivins encounter. David Aaron seemed to think he was in the group before.
Now.
It's hard to form memories in strange times like these, so I don't press the issue. The important thing is that Michael Bivins is interested. He wants to get the Sudden Impact project moving right away. Bivens has managed to get a whole episode of Beet's nightly music show Video Soul, dedicated to the acts. He's signed to the East Coast family. He's going to introduce Boys to Men to the world.
He's going to world.
Premiere another bad Creation's Aisha video. For the record, this is almost definitely the bet show that if Vtnicole Brown was watching when she told her roommate she believed Michael Bivins would someday manage her. The guys figured Bivins just wanted them up there so they could meet Boys to Men, and ABC Bivens had only just met them a couple weeks before this, so they piled into Dave's legendary Mustang five point zero three in the tiny back seat and they drove all night to get there.
The first people we met physically was Mike from Boys to Men. He came up and said, hey, you're those white dudes that Mike's wanting to sign. We're all like half to sleep on the couch because we drove to the middle of the night, and he was super cool
and nice. And then Nate came down, and then wan Ya, and then it was Boys to Men actually came down first and they started talking to us and you know, telling us their story because at this time they're not Boys to Men, you know, they're just they're just guys. They hadn't even done anything yet.
Sudden Impact meets Boys to Men, they meet ABC, and then Michael Bivens comes down with a little bit of a surprise.
We had no clue, at least I didn't, I know, and I don't think any of the other guys did. If they say they did their line that we were gonna end up being on beet for this whole segment.
That's right.
He wants to put Sudden Impact who he hasn't really heard sing yet on live television.
And he's like, well, let's have a little a singing thing or something, you know, and we're like, we've only been a group for whatever, you know, So we weren't like we could all sing, but we you know, we weren't boys to men, but you know who went first as boys to men?
Boys to men? Sing Mary, don't you Weep?
And blow the roof off the green room, ABC sing a few bars from Ayesha, Sudden Impact gets a little intimidated.
God, I can't remember what song were saying. It was some old R and B song we had had, like we just had the hook, practice and rehearsed in case we had to sing, because at this point we had no you know, they Todd and us them had a couple songs, but they weren't really songs you could sing a cappella. They were more you'd have to have music to do it because it was very, very poppy at the time. So that happens.
Bivens decides that Sudden Impact will do more of an interview kind of a thing for their segment on Video Soul, which for high school kids who were like five minutes into their entertainment career is stressful enough.
Boys and Men came out, I believe, first they sang, then ABC came out, debuted their video, showed themselves, and then we were kind of like the last segment and we just kind of sat down and they asked us a couple of small questions. I think Aaron. We decided Aaron would do the answering. We would just say our names. That was it. And I was nervous as a heart, you know, our hearts pounding out of my chest.
Was it live?
It was live? It was yeah, it was it was it was oh yeah. We were just kind of a little push at the end. But but it was like crazy to us. We had no clue what's going to happen.
They've been on live television introducing themselves, a group that just started existing. We will eventually release some music that hasn't been recorded yet. Such an impact. Decide they have work to do if they're going to compete with the Boys to Men's of the World. But as you know, before they really hit their groove, Bivins comes to them with another big opportunity.
Tell me about the making of the Motown Philly video.
Taking a Motown Philly. I believe at that point we had gotten into the studio and we started doing some songs, you know, and he was just kind of letting us ref like doing our own thing, trying to come up with some ideas to go to the Go to the Motown Philly video. We found out about it from Mike again and he asked us if we would travel up because he'd really liked this to be in the video with the guys, you know, more like of course, you know, like we would love to do that. What are we
going to do? And he goes, well, I don't know yet, but we'll figure something out and we're going to get you in the in the video.
In the short time since that trip to b e T where Boys the Men wowed the guys with their vocals, Boys to Men have leveled up. Now they have stylists working for them, Now they have choreography.
Now they're big time.
Kind of long story, shirt is, we went to the site where they were shooting the night scene for the Geno Steakhouse thing, and we were just in all of the whole situation, you know, watching them in there. You know, now they're dancing, like what's going on here? And because they their show was not that polished when I had seen them before, you know, it's more just standing and singing.
And now they had a whole thing going and it was impressive and we were very excited, and you know, and I remember in that night say, we're we're kind of in that night scene. You have to really look for us, but we're all jumping around having fun and everything.
They are in that night scene out by Gino's Stakes if you look closely, but Bivens isn't finished.
With them yet.
And then Mike was like, well, no, I'm gonna have more of a definitive shot. I had this idea where I got a camera and he you know, he told us what he wanted to do, and and it was kind of like very fast, you know, and we're taking his advice because he's you know, been doing it a long time. He told us to do the point, and that's what we did. We did our little point and smiled and then it was it was definitely surreal, Like were you nervous, Yes, a little bit, but it was
it was It's hard. It's hard to say that I was really nervous of it because we weren't singing. I think we were more excited and giggly than we were nervous. At least that's how I felt it was.
But we do need to address the fact that Dave is pointing just a little bit off camera. You're like point It almost feels like your point at someone like it's you're just like a little not down the barrel of the camera. Was there someone else on set that you were like pointing at?
And it was like a couple of different takes, and then one of them he said to do a point and we pointed, but we all happened to be looking like eyeing that way, because that's our lack of professionalism at that point. We have no clue, you know what I mean. Four of us wore boys to men's t shirts, white shirts with ties, and I believe I think it was me. I had to end up wearing a red bow tie and not a tie. It was either a mirror aaron I have to look at that was one
of us too. I knew it was one of us. One of us had a bow tie. And so we got we got like the hand me downs from the guy's outfits from the night before, and then there was a neon sign and we're like with our name on it already, and this is and this is you know, if you look at the time frame, this was then within eight weeks of meeting Mike.
So then that video blows up suddenly Motown Philly and you guys are everywhere.
What's that like for you? Now? That was definitely different because we went from in our town from really nobody's you know what I mean, Like I mean, we had our friends, you know, but too you know, we couldn't go into the mall, you know, like normal not around that time, because just people knew who we were and kids were just It's just it was kind of a different time than I think it is now a little bit. Unless you get some of these more pop acts, I
think they go a little crazier. But they weren't crazy for us. I think they were crazy for the situation, you know what I mean, like, oh, they're part of the East coast SEMy because nobody heard us sing a drop yet, you know, but we definitely we didn't really we kind of stayed away from that because it's just turned into a weird situation and none of us really knew how to handle it, you know, being that young, we definitely enjoyed it, you know, you know at school.
I mean like it definitely made a thousand new friends that weren't really my friends. I'm gonna say that really got weirder. Then when when BBD came on tour because their tour coincided. I think the next summer after Boycemen's album released and BBD was on tour, and then we find out we're in the tour book and we're going to the show. And then this is when Mike presents
us with those jackets, these BBD World Tour jackets. We're all like, you know, now were you know, of course I'm wearing them everywhere we go, and you know, now our march for death. It's like everybody knows that we're part of the situation. And the guys are doing really well. ABC is doing really well. BBD's tour World Tour was just sold out, and we're recording at home.
Such an impact who are still just starting out are in Bell Biv Deevo's nineteen ninety one Official World Tour Program. I know this because the second I got off my zoom with Dave Smith, I went on eBay and found myself a copy. It is them the original five, all in giant gene and billowing nineteen ninety one shirts, posing
with Bivins, Boys to Men and another bad creation. I text a picture of it to Aaron Kane and he replies, that's all of us behind the Beet Building the day the world got introduced to Boys to Men.
Us together with Tim, you know, we were kind of like our little version of the Fab six. You know, we went in and we did our thing, and we were in there for a couple of months, and Mike came and visited. He liked you know, song, x Y and Z and wanted us to work harder on x Y and Z, and we just kind of progressed from there. And then throughout that time from us when all the other things started happening.
As sudd an Impact or working on their sound, getting ready for their moment wearing their jackets, they also have a front row seat as their friends and Boys to Men becomes superstars.
And it was like three of them came with us to the mall and it was like watching the new
Kids on the Block or the Beatles or something. I mean, people just around them and they were just like they had went from being these guys that were just already cool guys that could sing, but now they were celebrities like they were true and they knew it and they knew how to handle it, and they had, you know, it's been a year or two had progressed and they were doing much better with it, and it was it was really surreal to see that was really cool.
So witnessing that up close, are you like I want this or are you like this?
Is terrifying?
At that time, Definitely I want this one hundred percent because I was I was younger, and I just you know, you're thinking of all the girls you could meet or whoever you want to meet, and who the famous person is and that, and I could have, you know, and me being where I was in my life personally losing my sister young, it was just me and my parents had gotten divorced from it. It was like a whole
It was a tough situation for me. So for me, it was such an outlet and I was like, if I can make this work and I can progress this to a higher level, I'd be able to take care of my mother, take care of my father, maybe they can could get along a little bit better, and it'll just make everybody's life a little easier. So that's kind of where I was when I was that age.
So you've got like a real personal stake in making it work.
Yes, personally, I did, coming in last being like not really supposed to be there in my mind, and I wanted it to work, and I was willing to do what we had to do to make it work.
An early acting teacher of mine gave me a piece of advice that's really stuck with me. He said, when you get an audition, do your best and then forget about it. You might not get it, or you might get it and it doesn't happen, or you might get it and it does happen and you're cut out of it. Do your best, forget everything you can control, and then if it all works out, you'll have a nice surprise. I remember hearing him and nodding and thinking, that's great
advice that I'll never do. How can you not think about all the things you want all the time? How can you not spend all your energy wishing there was a time machine so you can go back and do things differently. I know I can't change the past, but if I think about it hard enough, can't I Over time and with repetition, rejection has gotten much easier to take,
but it's always hard to give. In putting this show together, I found that what I ended up talking about is nothing like what I thought i'd end up talking about. I envisioned this as a much sadder story than it's turned out to be. The themes I thought i'd be exploring got pushed to the side for bigger, better, more hopeful themes. And that's great, except some of the interviews I did early on don't fit now. I'm when I have to cut some people from Waiting for Impact A
Dave Holmes's Passion project. One of them is Margaret Show, and I think I owe her the respect of hearing it from me.
Margaret, Hi, Hi, how are you.
I'm great? How are you?
I'm good. I'm good. I'm good, I'm good.
I you know, I just I feel bad about this, so I just want to like come out and say it. I'm sorry if I said I'm mysterious. I'm very sorry about this, but we have to cut you from the show.
Oh oh yeah, it is.
Not you.
Okay, it's not you. You were fantastic. But as we got deeper into the story. And as I found the Sudden Impact guys and got deeper into it, the whole theme of the show changed. Everything is a little bit different now and it just doesn't what you gave us, which was so good, just doesn't fit anywhere anywhere.
So the Sudden Impact has really suddenly impacted me.
It has, it has an unfortunate way, in an unfortunate way. But I wanted you to hear from me, and I'm just really sorry, and I really want to thank you for participating.
Okay, well, this is disappointing, but I understand.
I'm not convinced. I'm not convinced.
It was really I really wanted to, you know, be in this, and I moved a lot of things so that I could be a part of this. And I'm really you know, I just I mean, I've done so much, I've given up so much, so much to do this, and so I'm just frankly, I'm.
It's a bitter pill. It's a bitter pill to swallow.
But I guess I'll wrap it in some bread and just like choke it down. You know, I have to be an acceptance, right, So sad, Yeah.
I'm I'm really sorry that I didn't. You actually made me feel a little bit worse.
But I do understand. I mean, these things are difficult in the moment.
I mean, you know, thank you for telling me. You know, I'm not trying to shoot the messenger. I'm grateful that it's you telling me. And yeah, you know, at least I'm not wondering.
I'm just I'm sorry.
I know from my own career, how does appointing it is when you participate in something and then and then you get cut out or you work hard on something and then it just sits there and it's the worst feeling in the world. And so I just, you know, I didn't want some suit to call you. You've had the thing where a suit calls you, or or not.
Nobody calls, and then you just sort of wait and then you just never hear. I think that's usually the way things go in show business, is that it's like ghosting and.
They'll hope that you forgot.
So that's generally how it works in Hollywood is if something is not happening, it's just like we'll just pretend it never happened.
Ever, right, and then when we see you, we don't have to feel bad, right because it just none of it happened. When you get ghosted by an executive, what do you do? How do you shake off the disappointment?
Usually that's really when I try try to get under another executive. You know it's not you know, not in a sexual way, but you know, you the way to get over someone is to get under someone else. That's the classic thing. So you try to get on another job, and you try to get another another idea.
Of what's possible.
I guess I mean that sort of like ensures your longevity in entertainment. And also it's resilience. You know, you want to be able to keep going or that's when you think I need a reinvention right now. Yeah, so I'm gonna drop, I'm gonna drop a bunch of tiktoks, or I'm gonna do TikTok challenge. I'm gonna do it with somebody.
What you're not gonna do is give up, never.
Give up, never give up, Always keep on trying, always keep going, and pretty soon they won't ghost you anymore, or you will actually literally be a go because you'll be dead.
That's a very good point. It's a very good point, Margaret. What is the boldest thing you have done in your career.
The boldest thing I think is just well, probably just starting because I never saw queer Asian American women do anything in the eighties and so that entirely the entire idea of going into stand up comedy as a young person was really the very boldest thing anybody could do. But I didn't have any sort of thought that I could do anything, and I didn't lose anything by trying. So that's kind of the attitude I still have. You don't have anything to lose by trying.
Yeah, and you can always try.
You got to keep trying, Just keep trying, just keep trying, and you know it'll all sort of make sense later. It makes sense in the end. You know that sometimes people have a renaissance in their seventies and eighties. Sometimes it's you know, it their their their career comes becomes very rewarding.
Very late.
So look to that, look to look to the examples of the people who are really old around which there's a lot of them. And it's also just like, you know, having the time to celebrate your success and really appreciated at the age that you're at, because when you're older, you really appreciate everything, you know, because you've seen it all. So like I think if I if I was younger, younger and I did, I wouldn't have appreciated all the things.
Like I didn't appreciate the success that I had when I was very very young, so I didn't understand it. You know, Now I really appreciate it now. I'm really glad. But it's like you know, I now I really appreciate my longevity with everything, except for this particular project that you and I are talking about right now.
Yeah, yeah, again, Margaret, I'm so sorry.
I'm just very sorry, but I really thank you for being so understanding, for participating in the first place.
You're a queen of course. Oh you're the greatest. And thank you for improvising this scene with me right now.
We did well, I have a lot to you know, I have a lot of experience and projection.
Oh my god.
We even did a series we did a sea together that didn't get it. But they didn't even tell us it didn't get picked up. They just they just like acted like it never happened.
Like like we imagined it, like it was all.
A dream and it was a really cool show. But we were ghosted, and we were totally ghosted. Nobody told us, oh, well, you know, but we're better for it.
We're better for it. We shook it off. We tried something new. God damn it.
You know what's new that's really good?
Claro ooh okay, and then Margaret and I talk about pop music for another hour, which proves my old acting teacher right. Margaret and I did a pilot together years ago. We were excited a and we forgot about it. It's a good lesson. Do your best, learn your lessons, dust yourself off when you get knocked down, and keep walking. If you're lucky, years later, you'll remember it and laugh and then talk about pop music. You can survive rejection, no matter how many times they throw it at you.
You just have to keep moving forward.
Dave Smith knows how to keep moving forward, how to shake off the sting of rejection and get back to work. He has faced his share of rejection, and he's still an affable guy. He still smiles when he talks about all of it. Nothing bad to say about anyone, no bitterness or anger about any of the false starts. But even he has his limits. How did you feel about the name change to white guys.
Absolutely hated it. I just thought it was too straightforward. So an Impact was a good name. It fit us, you know, I felt, because where we want to impact the scene the way it was going and progressing. But we didn't even know about white guys until it debuted in that video.
Really, so you saw it before you knew about it.
I saw it before I knew about it, and I was like, what's that? And then like you know, of course, we called Mike and he's like, no, we just everybody decided, you know that you guys. Everybody says where's the white guys at? And he became like, not a joke, but it was what everybody.
Called us white guys.
As you remember, had a couple of lines in that East Coast family one four All four, one song and a featured moment in that video. That song actually got some radio airplay, another potential big opportunity. The Sudden Impact story is full of albums that got recorded and never released, recording contracts that got signed and then terminated. But I didn't know until I spoke to Dave that there was also a big performance, a big MTV performance.
They got canceled at the very last minute.
Then the next thing I remember coming up was the the MTV doing the performance live and debuting the video. And this was a big deal because we're gonna all sing the song live on MTV in the I don't think it was TRL then it was something else. It was it was God, it was the name of it.
I think it was MTV. Yeah. It was just like a basic show and they would let artists would go on and sing and stuff like I remember seeing like I know, Nirvana sang on it at one time, and a couple of a bunch I mean tons of people had sung live on it, like like they showed the
video then they would sing or something like that. And Mike brought us up there to do it, did a lot of rehearsal for it, a lot of things, and it just ended up being that Mike wasn't happy with some of the people live and not I'm not not I think that's what happened because we kind of just it kind of got just canceled. You know, we're going
to debut the video. We were about to perform it, and then Mike just said, right, we're not doing the live part, and we really never got a one hundred percent answer on it, but from like the little switches we heard from it, it was he wasn't happy with something about the live performance, and we asked if it was us that we found out. It wasn't us at least, so at least that's what we were told.
Were you there on set getting ready to go?
We were on set, we were in position, we had microphones. I mean, it was happening, and then Mike came in and canceled it, and it was very weird and we didn't know what happened.
According to my research, this is almost definitely the nineteen ninety two show Hanging With MTV, kind of an early version of TRL, but without a countdown. It was hosted by a lot of people in its run, John Norris, Duff, Kennedy, Gail Mayron, who would go on to starr in the movie PCU with the nineteen nineties version of Jeremy, the one before he beat mail pattern baldness. I also remember it being hosted by Steve Isaacs, a handsome guy with
very Chris Cornell hair. I know Steve a little bit, so I text him and I asked him if he was a host of Hanging With MTV and he says he was. And then he says, I swear to God, I just uploaded a bunch of old episodes from some VHS tapes that were sitting in my closet for literally thirty years. I ask if he remembers anything about the East Coast Family coming by, and he says, yeah, that's one of the ones I just posted. Hang on, and
he sends it it was uploaded just last week. Right from the beginning, our guys are getting no respect, even boys.
Some men kind of forget them.
The East Coast Family is just the three groups I actually four groups, and we all happen to be on the East Coast where we live, and we all happen to be part of vib Entertainment.
And then what was supposed to be the performance which Bivin's canceled at the last minute, So now it's just the video, the title of which Steve gets wrong, like we all do.
All right, there's some groups looking out for each other, and here there are all together with one for all, all for one.
Steve is now just kind of bobbing his head.
He's on camera a couple seconds longer than he expected to be because the control room is scrambling. I've been in this position before on live TV on MTV, where you think one thing is gonna happen, but the plan changes at the last second. The director has to make a new plan on the fly. A producer's yelling into your ear piece. That post performance interview gets scrapped, So now you've got to fill time.
That's what's happening here. That's what you're listening to. How's it going?
I'm Steve Isaacs.
There you have if that's today's first look video from the East Coast Family, All for One for All, All for One.
We're out marketing ourselves up here.
We're I'll let you know how we feel coming up though.
We've got Todd one.
I asked Steve whether he remembers any of this, the East Coast Family performance getting canceled, and he says not offhand, I get it. I wouldn't either. Dave Smith does, but he doesn't hold a grudge over it. What kind of manager was Michael Vivins.
When we first when we first started, he was honestly, he was really good. I mean he kept in contact with us every couple of weeks or so make sure we knew what was going on. He tried to explain to us that, you know, there's not a lot going to happen early on in this situation because we still have to establish music and things before he could really push things into a certain direction. And I think but
for the most part, we all got it. You know, of course, everybody is frustrated waiting and all those kind of things, but you know, he always came and showed some love. You know, he's come in and you know, drop drop us a jacket and say, hey, you're part of this. You know, don't get frustrated. It's not gonna it's not going to just end. You know. Sometimes he would occasionally fly us out to LA and visit him.
You know, we go to his house and hang out with him, shoot basketball or something, and you know, so I don't think it was in the beginning. He was he was very attentive, but you know, he only had three or four acts, you know what I mean, in my opinion, But as we went through the progression of it, and you know, everybody showed up and he had that and the record label and all that, it was, it was less of him. And I don't think he wanted it that way. I really don't, you know, I never
got that feeling. I just feel like he kind of it kind of whirlwind on him, and he was trying to put the right people in the right places to help this thing work, and it just wasn't working fast enough the way he wanted it to work. And I think that's ultimately where that demise came from us to them, because we got so it got so long in waiting and we couldn't get it the answers we wanted that we kind of wanted to separate because we felt like we had enough, we had enough music at that point
that we could we could shop ourselves. You know, we're a little cocky at that point, you know, for some for some odd reason.
So how did that relationship end.
It was, I mean, it was kind of just like it just paid it away, you know what I mean. There was never like a phone call like all right, you know, no harm feelings or any of that kind of stuff, or it was just like at the time it elapsed, and I think he knew, and you know, we had to hire our lawyer at that point to to negotiate us getting out of this situation so we could try to move forwards. And it just kind of
just paid it. I don't I don't remember a distinct, abrupt like this is over situation, like you know, I.
Never got to say bye to Mike, so you didn't then get to say goodbye to mic.
No, I don't remember anything in that aspect of it. I mean, not like I mean at this point, I mean, BBD was so huge and they were working on their second album, and then he was doing that new addition reunion album, and Voice to Men was like, you know, selling millions of records. At that point, they had surpassed, like you know, everybody in R and B. At that point, it just went in. It was so crazy that I just I just think there was a lot going on for Mike, and and I don't think he ever wanted
it to be that way. I think he I think if he had such a good heart in my mind, that he wanted everybody to be super famous like Boys to Men if he could. And I don't even think, honestly, there was a point when I was younger I thought it was about the money. But then as I thought about it as I got older, the age he was and the way he spoke to us, the way he spoke to everybody else. He really wanted everything to just be.
He just wanted it to help other people the way he was helped when he was younger to make hisself better. So I don't look on it look back on it negatively in any kind of way.
Tim Byrd has told us what happens next.
They record some new demos with some producers in Teddy Riley's circle, and they bring them to Boys to Men. But the way Dave tells this story adds a visual element that I cannot get out of my mind.
And so we basically recorded a bunch of new stuff together, and our goal was, all right, we know the biggest R and B group in the world. We're gonna be able to talk to these guys somehow. And then they're going world tour with Babyface, And I remember they came into town and we didn't buy tickets because we were just like, that's just idiotic, because we're gonna get stuck in the arena and not see them. Myself. Aaron and
I believe Alan it might have been nol. We decided we're just gonna walk up behind the Hampton Coliseum and we're just gonna they're gonna see us. You know, that's how we're gonna make it happen. And we walked back there and we stood there and stood there and it was I mean it, maybe twenty minutes went by and we saw Big Aunt walk out of the tour bus and we yelled Aunt and he turned around started laughing and he hadn't seen us in like a year and
a half something like that. He walked over and said, hold on a minute, and we walked straight backstage to the guys, and we were like, they still remember us, you know, And you know, you don't know at that point because they're thirty five million at this time. You know, they're huge.
We've heard the ending we know Boys to Men signs them to their label. But still Dave telling me about him and the guys standing by the backstage gate waiting to be noticed by the old friends who become superstars. It's heartbreaking and inspiring at the same time. They're determined to make it happen. They're wise enough not to let vanity get.
In the way.
These guys are good, but we also know what happens after that. They don't get dropped so much as the label just disappears. They're back to square one again for the third time, and none of them can legally drink.
Yeah, what did that feel.
Like for you?
Very stressful because you know, at this point, I'm like nineteen somewhere around there. We're out of school, so we're putting one hundred percent into this.
Now.
It stressed us out as a group, like immensely, like kind of driving a knife between us a little bit. Everybody's like pointing fingers at each other a little bit, like why did this happen? Why didn't that happen? And who did this? And who did that? You know, And none of it was really any of our end visual faults. I think it was just it just wasn't the right time for that to happen. And you know, I don't
I don't look back on it. I mean, at the time, I'm sure I was really pissed, but I was nineteen years old and I already had three record deals at the time. What was I complaining about? You know, I should have shut up and just been happy with who I had.
See, that's a good attitude. This isn't even my story, and I'm frustrated for him. In Dave's mind, the whole project finally ran aground once and for all because of two major tragedies back to back.
Long story short, we pushed on more record deals and did got a lot further than we did with the two special sudden impact as far as a group is concerned. I actually got songs on the radio, and then you know, nine to eleven happened and Leah happened, and it tore our world down. And I think it would have been a much different world for us if those two things didn't happen consecutively in the same year.
If you could talk to my vins, now, what would you say to him?
I don't know. I would just kind of just tell him, you know that there's no hard feelings for that whole situation, like you know I because I would think when you're that age, you know, I'm thinking back, if I was that young and I had that much talent that I was supposed to portray to the world and then you let down a lot of people that he had to
have a lot of mental stress go on. I would think that he didn't fulfill his dream, but a lot of other people's dreams and I don't and I don't think he did anything malicious, But I just wanted to know that. You know, I appreciate what he did for us. It was something I'd never changed. I got to see and do things that most people ever ever do in their life, and it always due to him earlier on
in my life. Every single bit of it, even the part that was even more impactful later as us as a group, you know, that wasn't with Aaron and Nola. Was all started from the day Todd and then met him in La So I, you know, I just say thank you because you know, I have great memories tonight, I got stories to tell. Like my twenty year old has no clue about half of this stuff. She's just heard some of my songs, like cause you know, I'm big, Like I don't want to hear in too much cussing.
And you know, even though she you know, she's an adult now, I'm still trying to be dad. But she's just blown away. She's like, can't believe the stories, and so it's fun. I'm like handing it down. I gave her my my BBD jacket. She wears it, has it, has it on the internet and all that stuff.
That BBD Tour jacket, the jacket that made the Boys popular in high school, lives on as Instagram content for a whole new generation.
It's the circle of life.
So it didn't happen for such an impact, but they didn't walk away from the experience empty handed.
We all became very, very independent on how we were gonna make ourselves be successful in life. Within two years, I you know, I started my own construction business and I've had it since and i've and I'm really successful now. I'm doing really good. And you know, I could take my family to a trip in Orlando for two weeks and do all the things and I can't. I can't complain, especially with the way the world is right now. It's been.
It's been crazy musically, and I think we're going to about to get like a whirlwind of great music and personally coming from this long sit with all these great musicians out there now.
By the way, after our conversation, I do email Dave Smith and I do ask about who are you and whether it was a dis track and who that dis track was dissing, and he says that song was made with a lot of emotion about how things went down with boys to men.
Aaron and Noel.
We were young and not happy with how things went, and a week or so after that, Aaron Kane texts me and says, Hey, I just want you to know we're all talking again. So now, thirty plus years after the poster, twenty plus years after the breakup, any lingering bad feelings among the guys are just water under the Chesapeake Baper. Here's the thing. I like these guys. I'm
rooting for these guys. They went for it. Aaron Kane walked away from what could have been a baseball scholarship to devote his time and energy to Sudden Impact, and he still makes music, and he still believes the whole thing was worthwhile.
Tim Bird still produces music.
He's still honored to have been in the orbit of Michael Biffin's still thinks Michael should be proud of the work he did with the East Coast family. Todd White still writes music. Alan Healey comes up and collaborates. Sometimes they smile when they talk about these times. No, they beam.
The whole experience allowed Todd to get what he wanted when he was younger, which was to stay out of jail, and it allowed Alan to do what he wanted to do when he was younger, which was to hang out with Todd Noel Kine is not great at returning emails in a timely fashion, but listen, I have no room to throw stones. And Dave Smith, the quiet one who turns out to be anything, but got into the whole
thing with the hopeful heart of a child. He thought maybe if he hit the big time, became a pop star, made enough money, he could heal his parents' broken hearts, help them get over their daughter's death, make them love each other again. And now here he is, years later, still happy it all happened. I remember what my friend Scott Gimple said to me back at the beginning of this show about how he doesn't believe in endings.
My still holding onto that hope, which is a kin to the hope that I had back in ninety one.
Like, oh, I can't wait to see this. I still have that because I don't like thinking.
That it's over for anybody.
I think about the very last thing Todd White said to me in the last episode.
It's definitely not I mean, his connection wasn't great, but what he said was, it's definitely not over, man, And even over a.
Bad zoom connection. I could tell he meant it.
I still don't know what sudden impact sounds like, but having taken a good long look at the whole story, now I know what they did. I know they got knocked down and they kept getting back up. I know they shook off the disappointment and frustration and move moved forward by being bold again and again. Their story may not be over, but whatever happens for them next, I have my answer as to why I never stopped thinking about sudden impact. It's because they kept reminding me to
be bold. They didn't mean to, but that's the way these things work. This three second moment of a nineteen ninety one music video is one of the many weird things that keep popping into my head. My brain is full of things that I am told are frivolous or forgettable or unserious, and when I believe that they are. When I try to make myself a person who cares
about more practical things, I mostly fail. When I remind myself that it's not only okay to be the kind of person who cares about these kinds of things, it's actually necessary.
I tend to do all right.
When I tried to be a straight, preppy lawyer, I didn't do too well. When I took a chance on myself, my real self, it worked out. I can do passable work as someone else, but I can only ever really succeed if I'm me.
Maybe that lesson will stick this time.
I think a lot about what Ivet Nicole Brown said to me back in our second episode about watching that episode of Beet's Video Soul where Michael Bivens introduced the East Coast family and how certain she was that he was going to manage her. I just knew that he was part of my destiny, she said. Or God knew what was going to happen and put it in my mind. Maybe that's what got me out of bed on that April morning in nineteen ninety eight to stand in line
in front of MTV. Maybe it was a divine intervention that kept me from going back to sleep. Or maybe it was that better, more evolved self, the one that we think we're going to be when we make ambitious plans, reaching out from the future and giving me a gentle shake by the shoulder. Whatever it was, I listened to that instinct and I took a wild chance. So did Evet, So did Sudden Impact, So did everyone I have spoken
to in this show. The writer in theologian Howard Thurman said, don't ask what the world needs, Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it, because what the world needs is people who have come alive. That thing you're obsessed with, whether it's a moment in pop culture or bowling history or dog Halloween costumes, that thing that you feel a little strange telling people about, that's you.
Maybe when you look at that.
Motown Philly video again, you'll know that they're pointing at you, reminding you to be bold like they were. And if you're looking for inspiration to take a wild chance of your own, maybe that point can be it.
Got a thing you want to make, Start it. Don't think you're ready start it anyway. Get pushed down, get up, need a hand, ask for one. Make your thing. We need it, We need you.
Yeah, we're all pointing at you. This has been an exactly right production. Written by Me Dave Holmes, produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded, mixed and sound. I'm designed by Andrew Eapen, Additional engineering and assembly by Annalise Nelson, Music by Ben Wise, artwork by Garrett Ross. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia Hardstar, and Danielle Kramer. Follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter at exactly right and follow
me at Dave Holmes. For more information, go to exactly Rightmedia dot com. Binge the show add free on Stitcher Premium for a free month. Head to Stitcher Premium dot com, slash impact and enter promo code Impact when you select a monthly.
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