6: Round and Round

I don't know it was meant to happen. You know what I'm saying, We weren't meant to have that success at that time because I think that I think we wouldn't have been able to hand it.

That is Tim Bird. He wrote and produced music with Sudden Impact, the lost boy band I'm trying to find. He was so integral to their sound. Some people call him the sixth member of Sudden Impact. I've gotten his contact info from Aaron Kane, the lead singer of the group, and I'm getting the Sudden Impact story from his perspective, and right away I get a brand new piece of information.

They start a group called Too Special first before they became set an Impact.

Too Special, Yes what I'm saying, too number two to oh yeah, okay, Too Special. This is a group who's had a lot of ups and downs, a lot of record labels and a lot of getting dropped from record labels, and as you're about to find out, they've also had a lot of names. In this episode, we'll hear more of the Sudden Impact story from producer Tim Bird and

Yeah, we all went to high school together. Was that I was in a group at the time. We were performing original songs and one of the members of Sudden Impact, well, they became such a bat, Todd White.

He wanted to start a group like New Kids on the Block.

It's nineteen eighty nine as this story begins. Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel is the number one album of the year. Mariah Carey is recording her debut album. The Rolling Stones are out on their Steel Wheels Comeback Tour. Will Smith beats JJ FADD and Cool Mo d to win the first ever Best Rap Performance Grammy for Parents. Just Don't understand, and he meets with Quincy Jones to develop NBC's The

So they're out in LA and they're calling us, Hey, we just ranted the heavy d. Hey he's randed Stevie wonder we thought they were lying. And then they had their poster, the two Special poster, right yeah, And they run into BIV.

There's like Michael Bibbins.

They say, uh, bib our poster and Biff told him get that out of my face. Well, was something, you know, curse first behind it. Get that out of my face. I'm not signing that bleep. And he thought it was you can swear feeling.

Okay.

He thought it was a poster of new Kids on the Block, because remember there was a rivalry between New Audition and New Kids on the Block, right Sead back in this day, right. So Todd told him said, look, no, we're a new group.

We're stuck out here in LA.

We have no way to get back home, but would you please sign this poster?

So he signed it. He said a new group. Huh, all right, I'm.

Here's some money for a ticket, plane ticket. I'm gonna send you out back to Virginia and wait for a call for me in a couple of weeks.

So, okay, Aaron told me that I didn't one percent believe it. This is actually how it happened. He just saw the picture.

Mm hmm, he just saw the pictures.

Do you do you think that that rivalry between New Edition and New Kids on the Block had anything to do with why he wanted to sign them.

Yes, I think so.

Yeah.

Nobody else believes it, but I think so. Okay, I think it was like get back, Yeah, yeah, I mean, and plus it's a lot of money because New Kids on the Box they they made a billion dollars.

Off of merchandise Alon, right, right, So I think it was that.

Okay, So what happens next?

What happens next? He calls us in a couple of weeks. We didn't believe them even they came back from La Yeah whatever, whatever. Me just working on songs and just playing around, and Michael Bivens calls the house and we're talking. He said, guys, I'm gonna sign you. Guys, I'm gonna send the contracts. They'll be out there by FedEx. They we all got the contracts, signed them as artists, signed me as a producer, and changed their name to Sudden Impact.

Right, and why did he change that name?

He liked the movie Clint Eastwood movie.

Okay, Sudden Impact was a big movie. It's the one that gave the culture go ahead, make my day. I was hoping for a better story there, but I will take that one. So Sudden Impact all signed their contracts. Tim Bird signs his and goes from being the unofficial producer to the official producer, and they all plan to get busy recording, but before they do, they get their big break.

And the rest is then they came back and ended up in the Motown Philly video. Right, that was during that same time they end up in the Motown Philly video.

So by the time they were in the Motown Philly video, had had you recorded anything officially for Michael Bibbins yet?

We had just started Well, actually he hadn't heard it yet, that's right, that's right. They didn't have They didn't have a finished demo that we could send some because everything was moving so fast.

So they're in the video but they don't have a song yet.

No, not yet.

Sudden Impact has gotten a major leg up. The video is on rotation on all the big music video networks. People around the country are seeing it over and over and they're waiting to hear music from Sudden Impact. The pressure is on. How did that feel for all of you getting that kind of boost? How did that feel?

Oh? I felt I felt great?

Yeah, yeah, I felt like, this is my chance to be Michael Jackson.

But you know, be famous and all that. But what happens.

I ended up leaving my group to focus solely on Sudden Impact.

What was your band called So Suave? So Suave is an awesome name. But this is the point in the story when the group that had been called Too Special and later was called Sudden Impact is about to be called something new.

After Motown Philly video came out, That's when Bibb started marketing and finding other art artists to come into the fold of the East Coast Family. Right then and there, when he formed the East Coast Family, he changed Sudden.

Impact to the White Guys.

Now why because whenever he would do interviews or boys and men would do interviews instead of asking questions about Michael Bivens BBD or boys to men, they would say, Hey, whatever.

Happened to them? White guys? There's the video? Yeah and so yeah, so big, change the name.

Change the name to white guys.

It's spelt like wit gizzies though.

Yeah, yeah, I've seen them. I've seen them in the video for one for all for one. Yes, where they are it's w h yt g I z E.

Yeah.

How did you and how did the guys feel about changing your name? For another time?

Didn't care. We were with Michael Bivens, So.

Let's talk about Michael Bivens. I would love to talk to Michael Bivins, but so far he hasn't gotten back to me. I've asked I vete Nicole Brown to put in a good word for me, because they're still close friends, and she has, but so far nothing. I've been thinking about it a lot, and I wonder whether he's worried that he is going to be the villain of the story. And I wonder whether that worries a Vet now that she's involved with the show. And if that's the case,

I don't know. Good questions.

I don't speculate, though, but I don't know. I think he thought it was a success, and yeah, think about it, he was the first puppy. What puppy ended up doing? BIV did it first. Yeah, so I don't know what. I don't know if those things behind the scenes that went on that we weren't privy to, but I'm pretty sure he should be He should be pat hisself from the back.

Back to the saga of Sudden Impact. Who I guess we should now start calling White Guys. What was the sound of White.

Guys, Salman? White Guys?

Was?

I would say it was pop?

It wasn't as poppy as in Sync or just that. And you know a little more soul to it, Okay, you know a little more so a little more like uh, a soulful group, like closely like what boys.

Thement was doing. Gotcha, Yeah, that's exactly they had. We evolved over the years.

Though, and they had the time to evolve to catch us up. Michael Bivens signed a group called Two Special to his three artist production deal at Motown, then change their name to Sudden Impact because he liked the Cline Eastwood movie. Then signed Sudden Impact to Capitol Records, then put Sudden Impact in Boys to Men's debut video, then pulled them off Capitol Records to sign them to his own label, biv ten Records, a division of Motown, then

Well, we started, we had built our own studio at Todd's house, so we were always recorded at home, so every day we would have songs. And at that time there was something going on between I think Boys.

To Men and Michael Bivens. Not sure.

Let's dig into that a little bit. Boys to Men's debut album, Coolly High Harmony, was executive produced by Michael Bivens, and it was a big success. It sold nine million copies. It had hits like Motown Philly and It's So Hard to Say Goodbye to Yesterday, which would play at high school graduation parties for years to come. Boys to Men were on their way. In nineteen ninety two, they went into the studio with Babyface, one of the most successful

Because this round about the time when there's second Boys and Men's second album came out and sold like twenty something million copies, and so things started slowing up. I really don't understand. I can't really speak on why things started slowing up when we knowsed it, but we still kept working. We would call Michael and I'm asking, when's the next time you gonna call chet send us out to la or put us in the studio, And sometimes

Then we finally got in touch with them.

He said, look, I'm gonna let you all go from your contracts, blah blah. So we're getting more seasoned with writing songs and producing songs, so every day we would build our studio.

Listen to what he does there. Tim Bird is talking about being let go from BIV ten Records, a massive disappointment, and he just glides right past it. A three year journey of high hopes, major labels, big expectations of pop stardom gets dashed in a single phone call, and Tim doesn't dwell on it for a second in his memory. The guys just get right back to work. That is called resilience, and that resilience is going to serve them well in this next chapter.

And so I think it was like a year or two later, or this was in ninety five when everything just went crazy.

So it's nineteen ninety five. Hoody in the Blowfish's Cracked Rear View is the number one album of the year. Mariah Carey sells twenty million copies of her album Daydream. The Rolling Stones are on their Voodoo Lounge comeback tour. Coolio wins Best Rap Performance for Gangster's Paradise, while Will Smith finishes the entire run of Fresh Prince of bel Air and moves on to Independence Day. I'm going to bring Aaron Kane back into the mix now and let

So now here we are in Newport News, sitting there and don't have no deal. Don't have no deal. We're I mean, we're constantly working on demos, and so we know that Teddy Riley is in Virginia Beach. Teddy Riley had the Future Studios in Virginia Beach where Michael Jackson recorded dangerous albums.

Guys is popping, Guys.

Is doing their stuff there, Black Streets down there, Black Street is doing crazy stuff.

Guy and Black Street. If you are hearing those names for the first time right now, look him up. Listen to Let's Chill or Before I Let You Go or Groove Me. You can thank me later. Teddy Riley is a member of both of those groups and he's their producer and he is really having a moment as he heard Michael Jackson is working with him. That is the ultimate seal of approval. At the time, white guys are looking for a label, for a manager, for anything, so

I think maybe Tim A todb went up there.

They they contacted somebody going into the Future Studios and it ends up being a guy named Leon Silver's the Third. I don't know if you remember a group from the Silvers back in the seventies.

Yeah as Wyle, right, yes, yeah yeah. Are they Hotline? Yes Hot Yeah? Okay, yeah yeah yeah.

Well Leon is like Leon Silver's the Third. He is a great producer, great songwriter. He actually did Janet Jackson's first album. Well at the time, he was at Future Studios working with Teddy Riley on some stuff. He actually did before I Let You Go by Black Street, Before You Go.

Can I Get Good Nun? He he did that.

I love these musical interludes.

That's one of my favorite songs of all time. I love that song, Dave Hollister saying that. But anyway, so I think the story is is that Tim walked into Future Studios one time and ran into Leon and had a conversation with him, maybe gave him a demo tape or whatever. He heard some of our stuff and he was like, guys, why don't you guys come by my house and start recording with me. Now, at the time,

And like any good old guy in his forties, Leon Silver's the third ran a tight ship.

We go to his house every day. We would get up.

He was an early bird, and we would get up at like six seven o'clock in the morning, be at his house in the morning at eight o'clock in the morning, and record at his house on reel to reel. He had real to reel. That's what we were recording.

That's standard old guy behavior. The guys write four more songs and record demos for them, and because they're not on a label anymore, not getting a stipend or weekend trips to Disney World, they're having to figure out how to feed themselves. How are you earning money during all of this?

I got a regular job. Yeah, Aaron and them Aaron them. They got jobs. Everybody got jobs. And then whenever we would finish work, we will always go to the studio. So it was like work, work, work, work. We would stay in the studio. So even if I had to be at work at nine o'clock in the morning, stand a studio till six o'clock in the morning and still at least get an our sleep to go to work.

What was work at that time?

It was? What was that time? It was sprint.

Tim is working at a Sprint store. And meanwhile Boys to Men are blowing up. As I told you, End of the Road goes to number one and stays there for thirteen weeks. I'll Make Love to You, from their second album, stays at number one for fourteen weeks until it gets replaced by On Bendney, another Boys to Men's song, Boys to Men Are Dominating, and Tommy Montola, the CEO of Columbia Records and husband of Mariah Carey, makes Boys to Men the same kind of deal Motown once gave to Michael Bivens.

Tommy Bettola said, listen, guys, if you guys do a song with Mariah, I'll give you your own label deal. Right, So they did the song you Know Went to the Moon.

The song Boys to Men do with Mariah Carey is called One Sweet Day. It goes to number one and stays there for sixteen weeks. They have now broken their own record for longest running number one single twice, and this third record stands until Old Town Road breaks it nearly twenty five years later.

So they got their own label deal off of that song called Stone Creek Records Sudden Impact.

Who I should be calling white guys right now? And I keep trying, but I guess my body doesn't want to have a pre existing relationship with Boys to Men having been in their debut video. So once again they go on a road trip to try to get some attention, but this time they have songs.

It was Aaron Nole and Todd went to Richmond, Virginia to see Boys the Men and Jodasy perform do that concert, and they ran into Mike McCarey, the one who left Boys the Men, the one with the back problems, the bass voice.

They ran into him at the arena.

And we had the demos at that We had all of our songs on tape, and they were really good because we were halfway working with Teddy Riley too a little bit indirectly, yep, indirectly, And so Mike McCarey heard the songs, He's like, we're about to start our own label called Stone Creek. Won't you guys come sign with us? And that's how we got the Stone Creek.

So now here we are in another label situation, and Stone Creek is a part of Sony Records. So now Boys of Men moves us up to Philly. That's how I'm in the spot where I'm at now in Jersey. In ninety seven, they move us up to Philadelphia, put us up in this amazing apartment complex in Germantown, Philadelphia.

Big apartment.

It was like the apartment was sort of like you and the TV showed different strokes. Yeah, yeah, the house but without the stairs. But that's how big it was. Yeah, we all, all six of us, stayed there for two years and we banged out songs. Because Boys Men ended up buying Will Smith's old studio in Gladwin, Pennsylvania.

So they signed us, and they signed another artist. His name is Uncle Sam. Oh no, if you know who Uncle Sam is.

We're fresh my memory. That sounds sort of familiar.

I Don't Never Want to See You?

Yes, Uncle Sam's I Don't Ever Want to See You Again went to number six on the Billboard charts. And I love it when Aaron Kine sings to me. So the guys are on their third label. They're finally getting to work on an album in a world where R and B vocal groups are selling crazy amounts of CDs. They start to work even harder. And this is the mid nineties by now, so I have to ask, is there choreography?

It's funny that you say that, because that was a problem for us.

Really.

Yeah.

Everybody wanted us to be dancers and be dancers like new kids on the block and new addition, and we just weren't into the dance. And man, we just like that wasn't something that we were passionate about. You know, like we didn't want to dance. We just wanted to record songs, sing songs and come out and sing to the latens like that. That's what we wanted to do.

Some dancing was expected, it was.

It was at that time, and everybody was like, come on, guys, you guys got to dance.

With Stone Creek Records, the guys get a new start a new attitude and a new name.

Another name change. Yes, this is crazy Yanye from Boys to Men.

He liked the way they look, and plus he was a fan of the movie The Outsiders, and he said, you know what we should call you, Guys to Outsiders, said, I just got finished watching the movie the other day, he said, Plus, some of y'all looked like one of the characters and the Alzheizers Ciders. So we're going to give each one of y'all the same nickname, pony Boy all.

This that young. Yeah, that was a great idea.

So Too Special became Sudden Impact, which became White Guys, which became the Outsiders. It's hard enough to get any kind of momentum going in the music industry without your name changing every five minutes. But the guys keep pushing forward.

So anyway, so we're recording at Sony and Boys of Men ends up putting out Uncle Sam first. So here we get bumped again and Dave, are songs.

That we were recording there.

We had actually some songs with boys and men singing, some backgrounds with us, and I mean the songs that we were doing there were just beautiful, beautiful songs and they choose to put out I don't never want to see you again. Uncle Sam put his album out. They put Uncle Sam's album out, and guess what happens after that?

Oh, you actually want me to guess?

Yeah?

Did they drop you?

The label goes under?

Oh god, Tommy Battola ends up dropping Stone Creek after the Uncle Sam album comes out.

So here we are again.

Now we've just been through all of this and here we are again with no record deal again.

So how can that be? He's the boys de Man m Riah Carey have the longest running number one of all time up to that time, right right, huge, So they've got they've done, end of the road. They've done. I mean, they're they're huge. They get offered a label deal, they signed two people. Was it just Tommy Mottola saying like I gave you what I said I was gonna ge you and now I don't want to pay attention to this anymore or what happened?

I think I think it was something internal that that we really don't know about. I think it's something internal between Poison Men and Tommy Mattola.

That's what I think.

I couldn't believe the phone call when we got the phone call that the label is folding, and now you guys got to go back to Virginia again. I mean, we were just devastating Stone Creek.

The whole label just straight up folds. The guys are back to square one yet again. But at least this time they've made some proper recordings. What happened to the music that was recorded for Stone Creek?

We still got it, Yeah, yeah, we still got it. It's kind of dated though, but yeah, we still got it. I remember, because remember, you gotta understand this one thing.

A lot of people don't remember.

Sun Impact was supposed to be the next new kids on the block.

So with all these.

Deals we were going through in between, that left it all open for back Street Boys and and Sync you know, to come through. So we weren't trying to be like them. We were trying to be a little more edgy. I'll say, like a comparison between Jodasy and Boys to Men, you know what I mean, a little more edgy.

So at least they still have their music from back then.

Kind of the songs are on four Match that I really can't transfer because I don't have the machines for them anymore, which really sucks.

Yeah, so they're just sitting there in a hard drive.

Yeah, not even a hard drive will tape, Oh my god. Yeah yeah.

Them studio tapes, you know, like even whenever people are doing radio, the little small little tapes that you put in Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah yeah a a's or whatever you used to call it.

Yeah, there's almost nothing you can do with that.

Anymore now unless that I can hold it up to the light and see if I can see the music notes.

But other than that, yeah, that's great.

So the frustration of that never coming out. Did that Did you see that wearing on on them? On yourself?

No?

I think I don't think.

I know.

I didn't feel that way. I was just too determined. I knew a couple of the guys were determined. I think that I say Alan and Todd, who were like the closest, they were also determined. Aaron and No they were determined, but they were just they just wanted to move on for something else. But they still was determined to do music. But it was frustrating. We did a lot of songs with boys, the men, went to a lot of parties, and then in nineteen ninety seven it all stop.

So Sudden Impact got signed at the time of New Kids on the Block. They kept writing and recording demos through the years when a boy band was pop music poison and then parted ways at the exact moment boy bands became big again with the right label. With any consistent label or name, they could have had their moment. The timing was just always exactly off. So what does that feel like?

Like a letdown? I said, we're going to find something else, you know, and went home.

And that's when we started having that being upset at each other because everybody wanted to control everything because we had gotten better with recording writing songs. So what I want to write too? I want to write too. And the majority of the writing was me and me and Todd.

Was starting to wane a little bit.

And I think what happened Aaron Aaron and Know they wanted to do darker songs than what we were doing, you know, sort of like a jobasy and this, that and the other. So one time we had a meeting and Aaron and Knows said we're going to start our own band.

Yeah, No Love Loss.

The Cane Brothers split off to start another vocal group with their friend Donnie Evans, which they called DNA for Donnie Noel Aaron the Outsiders fill the open positions with two new guys, Jimmy Marble and Jason Dowdy. And he won't be surprised by what happens next.

We found two more members to add to the group and then called them Outsiders for Life.

Yes, that is right. So just to review, two Special became Sudden Impact became White Guys became the Outsiders became Outsiders for Life. And it is a Z instead of an S at the end of Outsiders, and the four is a number four. It's an eye in life, though it's not a why they exercised some restraint. It's two thousand by now. Insincts No Strings Attached is the number one album of the year. Mariah Carey is filming Glitter. The Rolling Stones are playing smaller venues on their No

So from there, everybody else went back to Virginia. I didn't go back to Virginia because I met a girl here in South Jersey, and when that whole thing happened, I actually met her at a Boys of Man concert.

That's funny perfect.

Aaron stayed behind with his new girlfriend, who would become his wife, and he started a solo career under his own name on another new label, Invigorator Records. Flash forward to two thousand and six. The number one album of the year is the soundtrack to the Disney Channel original movie High School Musical Mariah Carey is Back with the Emancipation of Mimi. The Rolling Stones are in the middle

My song called Gota Love went to number seven.

On the R and B charts in two thousand and five, so.

Maybe made some significant amount of money, you know, with that. We sold three hundred thousand copies of that independently, so you know, that was very lucrative for us, and you know, got to buy house and buy stuff. And so after that, I did an album with them, Let That Out, did pretty good, and then that.

Label folded Geez because the two of them had always had a good relationship. Aaron and Tim reunited.

Me and him have been working on independent artists.

We do TV and film now.

Like I have a bunch of artists myself that I deal with.

I still put out my own albums.

I just put out two new albums in the last six months. One called Confused and another one called Love Receipts that me and Tim produced all ourselves.

And we do TV and film.

We do stuff for independent artists, working on stuff for Casey from Jobsee.

I just did a song with his niece.

I love letting out albums because I truly am an artist.

At heart, you know what I mean, Like that's where.

I came from from when I was seventeen eight years eighteen years.

Old, Like that's what I did.

And what I love about doing music is that you start with a blank canvas and you start with silence, and at the end of the song you end up with organized sounds and organized vocals and emotions, and and then after you get done producing the song and mixing down the song, it's like, wow, look what I have.

Look what I have, creative created.

Life, you know.

Yeah, it's just it's just a great feeling, you know, after you get done.

Right. But it's been you know, the path was a winding one to this point, and there were a lot of a lot of moments that just didn't didn't pan out well.

Of course, I would have loved to be a multi platinum selling group, you know, I mean, I mean, that's That's why when you're a little kid, you get in to this industry because that's what you want, you know. But I'm truly blessed that I've been blessed with a talent that I can, like, I'll be seventy years old producing the track.

You know, despite everything, Aaron Kane is in it for the long haul and Tim Byrd feels the same way. Are you happy that you took the ride?

Yes, very happy. I'm happy for the age talk about you said the.

Ride right, just the whole whole thing.

Yeah, it was experienced. It allowed me to grow, you know, That's why I love it. I enjoy it and and actually prepares you for downtime whenever nothing's going on. You don't stress out. You don't want to feel like you're a nobody or anything like that.

But as I love it.

Yeah, how do you think the rest of the guys felt about it? You said you don't want to feel like a nobody? Do you do you think that they ever felt that.

Way during those down times that we had.

Yeah, No, I don't think so.

None of us did. We were just determined. We didn't.

I don't think we had time to even think about being depressed. We were just like, Noah, let's go, let's go, let's go.

You know you mentioned earlier that there that you you're not concerned about fame anymore. Is there? Do you remember a moment where you were like, that's I'm finished with that pursuit now.

Yeah, early on, I think round about when I was with.

And being around that time period, and you get to watch how other people respond to whatever success or lack thereof, and you don't. I started to say, I said, I don't want to be like that person. I believe that we got it back in those days, I think we would have been broke.

Now, talk me through what that looks like to you. What you mean like the scenario in which Sudden Impact had released a huge record.

Oh yeah, they released a huge record.

Be great for that time period, but remember music started changing too.

How are we going to keep up with the change?

And when you're in front of the crowd, it's hard for you to make that transition with music changes. We were underneath the radar. Even though they were into videos, they were still under the radar, so they had the ability to grow when music was changing.

What's the guy's relationship with each other now? The five of them, the original five.

Okay, the original five.

Ok Yeah.

I talked to Aaron. Me and Aaron talk almost daily, so I keep in touch with him. I just talked to his brother no on Saturday, so I told him, Yeah, I told him about the podcast.

He said, I really don't know what to say. I said, they want to ask you about Sun Impact.

You know more of the ends than I do. I just recorded you guys. Yeah, So I talked to him. He's interested in trying to do it. Todd, who started the group, Me and him, like I said, we were like the Lenna McCartney of the group. And he's still a great songwriter. And he's been doing country lately, great crunch. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, he's doing great with that.

Dave, who's also in the group, we haven't seen him in years, no now.

I think he wanted to get away from that whole thing because he was kind of the quiet one anyway. Alan Healey, which is Todd's best friend. Alan Heely, he now owns a couple of computer repair stories.

He doesn't do music anymore. He still listens, but he doesn't do music anymore.

But aside from Dave, everybody still keeps in contact. Yeah, so I'm waiting on a reply from Noel Caine, and Tim says he's going to put in a good word for me with Todd White, who, if all goes well, will put me in touch with Alan Healy. So from the original lineup of Sudden Impact, that just leaves Dave, a man I know only as Dave. No one I've spoken to so far has his contact info. But now I have four more full names of Sudden Impact members, a few more names of Sudden Impact to the group,