9: Mama Said Knock You Out

So far, Like Michael Bivens at the time of the filming of the Boys to Men Motown Philly video, I have heard zero music from Sudden Impact, not the original recipe, nineteen ninety one version, not the five guys in the video. I don't think I actually can hear the music of Sudden Impacts because it's locked in a vault at Capitol Records.

This is nuts. First of all, how are you good man?

Happy to be alive?

We're both good.

I'm speaking with Todd and Allen over Zoom. They're both in their individual homes. They live about thirty minutes away from each other in Virginia, and as I talk to them, I'm reminded of something.

They're outsiders for life.

Bandmate Jason Dowdy told me about them, One that Todd is the hard charger of the group, the engine, and two that Alan Heally was their street cred. Here's what he said about that, just.

You know, like from his the family he's from, and the people he knows in the area, like he's kind of down with you know, some people from the streets it that way, you know what I mean.

I don't actually know what Jason means, but of course now I'm expecting some kind of Virginia Beach sopranos character a tough guy, and maybe he is, but right now over Zoom, the two of them could not be nicer. Maybe they've mellowed with age, or maybe they're just happy to be talking about this stuff. Either way, you will believe how Todd White.

Met Alan Heally. How did Todd White and Alan Healy meet.

Over a girl? Actually?

I think I started dating one of Todd's a's girlfriends and I got told that Todd White wanted to talk to me, and so I was like really, So then he told me I met him, and he was like, you know, treater good.

She's a good girl type deal.

And me and him actually became really good friends through this, and then those girls disappeared in our friendship kept on.

So it's kind of really interesting girls.

Man, Todd, My understanding is that that is how you met Aaron Kane.

Yeah, it was yep, Todd.

How many girlfriends did you have?

I had a lot of girlfriends.

Yeah, friends that were girls.

Yeah, friends that were girls.

I don't know, man, I had to get rid of a lot of that stuff, Dave, so I could make room for new memories.

Have you noticed that everyone involved with Sudden Impact or Michael Bivens says my name back to me when they answer a question, Hayden and Evett did it too. I can't help but wonder whether that was part of the training Michael Bivens put them through. Anyway, it works when these guys were teenagers. Though Todd was a bit of a wild child, it was an energy alan really clicked with.

Our parents were both majors in the army, so very structured lifestyle. And then you have some people that go into that lifestyle, I'd say, and then you have guys like us that completely fought against our dads and hated it.

So many of us joined the military. We went.

I asked my mom is Vietnamese Mom, I don't want to do the Air Force and she was like, what do you want to do? I said, I want to hang out with Todd, and you know, you know, she was like, follow your dreams, do whatever you want to do. So it was a it was a different you know, but titled just that guy man. He was just somebody that always people are talking about him because he's either pissing them.

Off or they liked him. Do you like Tid or you hated Todd? Todder?

How does that feel to hear that?

It's cool?

Man?

You know, I'll tell you this, man.

You know, we grow old, man, we grow apart man, and uh well, not really a part but like with me and Allen. Man, we can go like, you know, a week, two, three, well a month without to talk to each other and call and pick right up where we left off, right where we.

Left off, man, you know, and uh, it's cool man.

You know.

It was a real good bond. There still is.

It's always been. It's always been really you know. But you know, yet life happens.

You know, how are your parents with your decision to pursue music.

Oh they care whatever as long as he does something with himself.

You know what I mean?

What kind of kids were you? What kind of teenagers were you?

Were?

Kids?

Bad kids, wild?

I would tell you I was good all the way till about when I started hanging out with Todd. I was started getting where he was not in school, ninth grade, he was out. I got a call and it'll be Todd telling me, Hey, calling sick. We're going to go to the beach. We're going to write to you know. Then he started. There was all the music and being

All right, let's back up here a little bit and talk about how Too Special the first version of Sudden Impact came together. We know Todd White met Aaron Kane at a party when they were about to get into a fist fight over a girl. We know that the original version of the group was Todd, Aaron, and another guy named Eric. What we don't know is how Alan entered the fold.

I'll kind of tell you kind of what happened for me to get in this group. Todd and I were always kind of just friends that acted crazy. I mean, if I want to do summer laugh, I go hang out with Todd. Tide was always a damn nut, you know, carried through all the way to when we're this age.

Now. My son loves to go hang out with Todd just because Todd's wild. All right.

So I was in Washington State and I got this phone call about and Todd played me a song over the over the thing, and it was in a group called Two Special Tight, you know, and I was like and said, that sounds pretty damn good man.

I actually enjoyed that. So he told me that the two guys were.

Getting ready to move and he needed the guy in the group, and he was like, if you want to come back to Virginia, you know, I'll you know, I'll put you in this group.

And so I was like, all right.

I just want to chime in here and remind you that this level of wheeling and dealing, these potential cross country moves and personnel changes, these were all being negotiated among sixteen year old.

Boys and Aaron them didn't really know me too well.

And I came in and it was kind of a little bit of a first like, oh, he's Todd's guy, you know, and this helps tide, you know, decisions now, it's his best friend type thing. And so we got together and I told him when I got in the group, I wanted to, you know, not just do local shows. I wanted to start, Hey, let's make this big, Let's do something. And so me and him started. He had that I would say a lot of the talent. Todd has always been really good at writing hooks.

Todd, what was the name too Special?

All about? How did that?

I have no clue, as you, man, I mean, it's catchy. I wish I could remember, man, I honestly have no clue, man, you know, even a song I look back at the song please be.

Mine, be my girl, Please be mine.

Dun dum dump my girl, like were begging.

You know, it's but we were man, you're think you're sixteen years old. Man, you know what I'm saying.

I do know exactly what he's saying. But what I'm dying to know about is how they made the decision as two sixteen year old boys to take their poster, which again we're going to talk about later in the show, and fly all the way across the country to try something. What I didn't know is that getting a record deal wasn't just a happy accident. It was the fulfillment of a promise. So let's talk about the trip to Los Angeles for Marvin Gaye's Walk of Fame ceremony.

Did you drive, did you fly? What did you did? You tell your parents?

Well, yeah, tell our parents.

We asked everyone to go, So we asked Tid's mom.

I will tell you was like our manager.

She pretty much put up every bit of money anything for Tide. She would put up whatever she just wanted Tie not to going to jail. You know, be somebody, And I would tell you music probably saved his butt from going to jail straight up. Because me and Todd both looked at each other and you can't sing from jail and make money. So we're like, you know, at least nowadays you might be able to, but not back then. So we were kind of like, hey, let's go do this. I went and talked to my mom, and my mom

I asked her, let me go with Todd. She said no, and I slammed the Mercedes Benz door so hard and slash at her door.

Windows smashed, just went straight down, and she looked at me and she was like, you know, just pissed off. So I go to Todd and she comes back the next day and talked to Todd's mom and said, Alan, I work hard for my money. I'm gonna give you this money if you go to LA come back with something. And I was like, I promise you, I'm not going out there just to do nothing.

I'm going out there to come back with something.

They didn't get a recording contract off a poster because they were lucky. They got it because Alan promised his mom he would, and these guys are men.

Of their word. Cecil Jenkins.

On the other hand, Marvin Gay's friend and local music promoter, might not have been as good a guy as I thought.

And so Todd and I are out there. Supposedly he's gonna take care of us. Okay, We're gonna go out there. I'm gonna take care of this guy disappeared on us for the first night. To me and Todd decided because he left us there and just left us in hotel. We were kind of just I think his paycheck to get to La. So we get out there and we just get left and like we're supposed to be staying with him.

But guess what, guys, I can't get you in the place. Kada YadA. So we were like, you know, it's true, let's walk around LA. We're out here.

So you know, I'm a military brat, so I'm like, let's go. I've been in Germany, I've been in Paris.

We can make this.

Alan Heally and Todd White are sixteen years old, more confident and resourceful than I will ever be.

We go out there and this guy's up on the stage of Marvin Gaye's you know, family. So we're up there at the start and I'm like, man, this dude kind of just dissing the hell out of us, really, you.

Know, honestly.

So we're Mike Bivins comes up and runs next to us and stands like watching what's going on in Todd season. And I remember he Tide's like, yo, Alan, give him the poster, and you know, he walks off. So I walked up to him, like, yo, man, this a poster and he's like, I'm gonna keep that shit out of my face. And I'm like, I was like, well, this guy just told me to. I go back and tell Todd. I'm like, yo, this. He goes what he's saying. I'm like, dude just told me to get that shit out of

Man, I'm so sorry. I thought she was this group.

So he brings us up to Motown Records and we go right into the president's office, Gerald Busby's office, like, walk up, like man, Me and him have a poster in one song, please be on to it. Right into the office, and I'm sitting there like amazing, we're in this guy's office. I'm oh, my god, you know.

And so he starts telling Jerald how this.

Is going to be my new group, another group after another bad creation of boys to men, this is my new group, and so he starts askings, can you sing like this?

And I didn't. Man, I mean like, if I'm at a job, you asked me if I can do something? Oh yeah, I can do it. We can do whatever. So I sell our group.

Me and Ty are sitting there and we just keep talking and he's like, hey, look, I don't know what you came.

Out here to do, but you've accomplished it. Go back to Virginia and go home.

I'll call you.

What I love about everyone's version of this story is that nobody has told me what happened between Michael Bibvens looking at the two special poster and Michael Bivins driving Todd and Allen to Motown Records. And I think nobody's told me what happened because nothing happened in between. He really did just see the poster and make the decision, and Motown was just as quick to jump. Jeral Buzzby asks if you can sing? Does he at any time hear you sing?

At that point, Mike says, don't worry about it. I got these are my guys. They're gonna be able to so be and Todd didn't have count to sing in the office.

At that point, they have a meeting with Motown Records. They get Michael Bivens' number, and I promise that something will happen, and they call that number right away.

Before we left.

We called that dude in the morning like I've been even called Mike at seven in the morning and he's like, dude, it's me, it's my number, go home, trust me.

Then we go back to Virginia and we're.

Telling all Aaron and all them, Hey, guys, we got some We gotta tell y'all we got something.

Trust me.

And before they head home, they have one last conversation with Cecil Jenkins.

You know.

We go back to our accon lodge and that dude calls it Udd and goes, hey, did y'all see me on the stage.

And I'm like, yeah, we saw you on the stage.

And here I said, Hey man, I said to go, I got that question for you. Can you give me a meet with Jerald buzby tomorrow? And the guy's like, oh, hey, nah, Man, I ain't gonna be able to you know, swing that yeahda YadA.

And I was like, well, okay, we're going home tomorrow. We'll talk to you later. And so we got in our plane and we left.

The guys have a pending record deal with the legendary Motown Record but before anything else can happen, another quick personnel change.

So we get home and we tell.

Aaron and Noel and everybody, and then we tell them, hey, we're bringing.

Dave in the group.

We got another guy. We're bringing it because me and Todd decided we were decided we're gonna put Dave in the group. So we you know, this Yeah, they got pissed it first, so we didn't care. It was, you know, kind of Todd's dealing my deal. At this point, we were wanting to do our vision.

What was the vision at the beginning.

The vision at the beginning was, I would tell you we were inspired by us straight up saying, new kids on the block. We saw some dudes singing and we were like, damn it, we can to do that. Man and Tied had been in like choir.

And he was in beforeen. He was in school, he was in chorus and all that stuff.

The next step was an appearance on b ET. Michael Bivens was booked on Donnie Simpson's show Video Soul to announce his development deal with Motown and introduce the world to his groups Boys to Men. Another bad creation and sudden impact. But b ET was in Washington, d C. A couple hours drive from Virginia Beach. And you know how Aaron and Knowles's parents are about these excursions.

So we had to force his now Aaron and Knowles's parents to let us take.

Them because me and Tyd are like, we're going. Regardless whether you go or not, we'll replace you. Someone's going with us. I mean, I don't care who it is. Yeah, you know, And so Aaron really wanted to do it.

Aaron was, you know, he's still singing today. He really wanted to do it.

So he shot up there with us and Noel jumped in the car and we all jumped into Dave's five point zero convertible, trying to fit in the back seat.

It was rough up three hours.

The DC back seat, small, back seat small.

We show up and uh, it's ABC, I guess releasing the debut of Aisha. We are there and we see Boys and Men sing married, don't you week? And that's when we were like, wow, that's the singing group, you know what I'm saying. So we learned real quick. And we weren't that yet. Man, we weren't, I would say, you know, we we were still in the very beginnings of being a group. We're still writing our records, We're still trying to figure out what was going on, who we were right.

We're still developing ourselves.

The next thing we had come up was we were supposed to, you know, we find out, Okay, we're gonna shoot Motown Philly video because they I should just released now Boys and Men's gonna shoot their debut video in Philly. So we get a call and me and Tyd are like, all right, when do we need to be there?

And they said early in the morning on this day.

Okay, Me and Todd left that night because we wanted to be there early.

What was shooting that video?

Like?

For you?

Do you remember that day?

Yeah? I can remember it. This thing? How about you?

Todd?

Do you remember it? Yoh? Man?

It was it was different? Yeah, I remember the neon sign. I was like, yo, what can we put that sign?

Yeah?

We wanted that so it was an actual sign.

They couldn't do like effects back then.

They had a real, actually a neon sign.

Man, there is an actual, practical sudden impact neon sign and it must still exist somewhere. Where is it a museum a private collection? I have a goal now find it? And Lara Croft tomb rate or that ship?

So were there were there other takes? Were there other concepts besides the point?

Do you just kind of get that trot and let me tell you man, we could we had not that took a while?

Well no, yeah.

Another thing was they didn't have no you know, it was like a last minute thing we're doing a video and bibs like I'm gonna put my my next group in here. So they if you notice, Aaron's wearing a bow tie and the rest of us are wearing ties.

The reason why is because they only had four boys to men, so they had four ties.

So Aaron, because he was one of the leads at the time, said I'll go ahead and wear the bow tie. So all of the rest of us and They're like, what are you all gonna do? And I was like, shit, I don't know what we're gonna do.

You know.

It was like, all right, everybody point on the count of so and so and so it was like, shit, I can point, you know.

So then it's.

Funny you say that because people would always ask me all the pointers or shit like that, you know, and different different things.

And then yeah, it was fun man, it was.

It was I look back at does I still see them things and crack up my kids, you know, they trip out that, you know, like, Dad, you weren't that cool?

Like you were that cool?

I thought so I thought we were.

It does appear to me, though, that Dave Dave does seem to be pointing at the director.

Yeah, Dave, Dave's always trying to be noticing a lot. He's always a little bit out on his own there.

Yeah. Yeah, he's always been out there a little bit.

So if we were all dressed and let's say urban Dave's got on the skateboard stuff. He was a skater at heart from Virginia, you know, he lives in Virginia Beach now, so right there with Pharrell's from that whole area. But that Pharrell vibe how he dressed, Dave was already doing that way back in the day.

That was always his thing, vans and you know, looking like that.

So the video comes out, do you feel like the pressure is on now to start releasing music?

Yeah?

I thought we were going to be the next group out, okay, And Ty would say you we thought, hey man, we're next, you know, So we started putting stuff together. I would tell you vocally, probably we weren't where we should have been, okay, And that's where me and Todd when the time comes, we do some switching around and stuff. But I would say it was a lot of pressure. We wanted to be that next group. We were trying to find a sound.

You know what happens next, The guys signed with Capital, They record some music. Then Bivins asked them to leave Capital and go with biv ten Records, which they do, and immediately bivins roster of artists starts to grow. Also, his vision for sudden Impact takes a turn that is unbelievable.

He just had a lot on his plate. Man, he threw.

We went from three guys and I'll see see one for all for one there was twenty groups.

I'm like, yo, what the hell just happened?

You know?

And now who are we behind? So we decided we were going to roll and not just that.

Alut.

Remember his whole vision of us changed.

Man.

He wanted us to be like it was a EMF.

You were going to be a rave band.

He was all some different stuff.

Man.

We were kind of like, yo, man, that that's not us.

Man, If you don't remember.

In nineteen ninety one, the British group EMF, incidentally also five trendy white guys, had a number one hit in America called Unbelievable. They were ravy, they wore baggy day glow clothing, they had electronic beats. Their name stood for ecstasy motherfuckers. It was very of the time, but not at all what sudden impact was about. But on the other hand, sudden impact was about to not be sudden impact.

First we were sudden impact. Then it changed and I looked and it said.

Whyt g I Z And I'm like, wait, Gizzy, like no white guys.

And I'm like wait, Gussy, And I'm like, what the hell are you doing? Guzy guys like white guys, white guys. That's not really man. I'm half Asian man. My mother's Vietnamese. But at that point he said, it doesn't really matter. That's what you all are gonna be.

And I was like, oh, wow, that's what we're gonna be, okay, And so actually, you know, we, like I said, it was creative differences.

And I think also that we just weren't. We didn't know. He didn't know really what we were.

We didn't know we were.

It wasn't a thing of you know, I don't think BIV hated us. I mean, that's a strong word anytime someone says about it. He just didn't know what to do. He used to tell us all the time, we were his mom's favorite group at all of She had our poster in her house.

That's a powerful poster, is what that is. And I have it now.

We will analyze it later in the episode, but first I wanted to catch up with someone else who had a big moment in the pop music world of the early nineties. Someone who's time in the spotlight was also just before the Internet. Someone who is yesterday, today and always gonna make you sweat. Freedom Williams smoking a cigar, enjoying a stoke.

Where are you, I'm in Brooklyn.

No discussion of popular music in nineteen ninety one is complete without Freedom Williams. He was the featured rapper on the C and C Music Factory songs Gonna make You Sweat, Here We Go and Things that make You go hmm. His voice was everywhere, and it still is. Try to go a week without hearing Gonna make you sweat.

You can't say everybody over here, everybody, Oh, but there, the cloud is not but no, a fool is body people than the house?

See there it is, you just heard it.

That song is a perfect example of the C and C Music Factory sound Freedom smooth Flow, alongside Martha WASH's powerhouse vocals. Of course, in the video for the song, those vocals were lip syncd by a model named Zelma Davis. Lip Syncing by models was another big thing in the early nineties. That's a subject for another podcast. Freedom left the group in nineteen ninety three for a solo career, and the Music Factory shut down not too long after that.

I would like to talk to you about your experience of you.

Know, nineteen ninety and ninety one. How did you come to be involved with C ANDC Music Factory.

I was an engineer.

I went to engineering school when I got out of college in eighty eight, eight nine, and I went to work in Quad Recording Studios, now infamous Quad Studios where everyone seems to get into a shootout.

All right, not everybody gets into a shootout at Quad Studios.

I haven't, but it was the.

Place where tupacsha Kork got shot five times in a nineteen ninety four robbery. There's a theory that the Notorious BIG's nineteen ninety five song who Shot Ya is all about that attack, but Freedom kept it peaceful. He learned how to be useful as an engineer in recording studios, but what he really wanted was to be an MC while you were engineering for other mcs, where you like, get me in there, God, I could kill this or did you just say, like it's my momental come.

Later, Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean I understand. You know Buster rhymes when we left Leaders of the New School, he would hang out at the studios with a blood and try to get into the session, which is a technique.

You know. I used to get hide with Sladstone.

You know, Slatstone would come to the studio and look for me as an engineer. I was twenty two. We would go on the staircase and smoke a bone.

What were your goal's career wise? Where did you see yourself in twenty thirty years time?

Well, to be to make money, to be to be independent. You know, the goal of making music is Nobody who really makes money tries to make money for the sake of collecting rectangle pieces of paper. They make money for the sake of being able to fly first class. And pay for them to work and pay for their mom's conrect surgery, or buy the card they wanted. Nobody really money and of itself. So the goal of being famous

It costs money to be free.

And so as a young kid in the streets of New York, any rapper may be a public Enemy or christ One or Rock Kim or the boogiet Down Productions.

Or MC light.

Their goal is to get out of the hood, to be free. That's why we you know, it's our you know, But shit, I got to get out of here.

You know.

So fame was freedom.

Famous Freedom, absolutely Bowie.

We can't afford that, so we'll probably cut that out. Freedom did some engineering for David Cole and Robert Clavillis, the c's in CNC Music Factory. They had a dance project they were trying to put together, but they needed an MC. Freedom is an MC and they clicked and the defining dance pop songs of nineteen ninety and ninety one were born. But after a while Freedom wanted to break out on his own. He fell out with one of the seas and he embarked.

On a solo career.

What kind of sound were you trying to capture for your solo record post see and see similar?

A similar sound, A similar sound with just a little bit more edge, you know. And then and then I made a lot of records that were real street records too that I shocked, but people wouldn't. I couldn't get deals with them because they were like, Ah, that's not what you're doing, that's not who you are. I was always I always say, once you do a record like that, you can't really repeat that record. You have to venture

In nineteen ninety three, Freedom released his first solo single, Voice of Freedom, a slightly harder dance track with a chorus that sampled George Michael's Freedom ninety. The video is up on YouTube and it is pure uncut nineteen ninety three Intricate choreography in front of moodily lit Shanelink Fences Very season three of nine oh two on a wardrobe on everyone except Freedom, who of course is shirtless and oiled up. The song has the line dance till you wet your pants, and that's hard.

It is wild.

But by nineteen ninety three, as you know, by now, the charts had changed. There was conclusive proof that people wanted a different sound. So your record comes out and the Chronic comes out. Did you have a sense at the time of what was happening in the culture or yeah, just yeah.

You knew it was it was a problem. You could, you could because I loved the Chronic record. I was like, oh shit, that's bananas. I remember I remember being in the limo. We were going on somewhere on.

The road New York.

We were out of the country somewhere, and somebody in my crews put the yo. I got that great record crazy and with the whole hour and the Limo were rocking. I had a record out.

No, we wouln't even listen to my record. That fucking chronic record was bananas.

Of course you understood, you know when when when when Off the Wall came out, it was a game change.

You knew it. You know, you knew it.

So how did that feel when you're trying to promote a record of your own.

The missig industry was becoming very opinionated at that point. You know, if you didn't smoke weed and bust guns, you weren't credible. It was one point through the early the mid nineties where I remember when the La Catch was making records and all of these bluffs was making records, and I would watch the videos and I would be like, yo, who is going to a and R that fucking project. It's like thirty dudes with guns? Like, yo, who is

Hold me.

So, Freedom's record deal with Sony fell apart. A few other things materialized and then faded away. By now you know how that goes. Freedom is in Brooklyn now. He still produces records, He still mentors young artists, He sells real estate, does construction here and there. By the looks of it, when's a lot of bodybuilding competitions. If fame is freedom, do you feel that you got free?

No?

No, no, because of me as a person, not generally speaking, you know, I'm looking for the land now.

I live in Brooklyn, but I want horses and cows.

Now I want freedom, you know my own water. Freedom is not money. Money allows you to get off the grid to freedom. So money actually is a trap. The more you get, the more you want. When you get used to find things, you don't know how to well your own water. You don't know how to pick chickens from your own yard just you used to go into the store. So are you free? If the people who live like that live to be one hundred, but you got cancer at fifty, are you free?

So? Freedom is not having everything you want.

Freedom to me means giving up all the things you don't need.

My recommendation is that if you have a chance to talk to Freedom Williams, take it. He's friendly, he's fascinating. He will make you go hmm. Freedom learned his craft in the eighties so that he could meet people, make himself useful, and really seize his moment. When it came around in the nineties, Sudden Impact did something else. They started with the marketing before they had a record out, They made a poster. They built the buzz before there

I look at two special.

All huddled up under the Chesapeake Bay Bridge in nineteen ninety, all fifteen or sixteen or seventeen years old, and I finally feel like I know these guys.

I grew up with these guys.

Todd is all the way to the left, racing stripes shaved into his temples like vanilla ice, acid washed jeans, pegged at the ankle, dirty Nike shoes in the sand. Alan is next to him, wearing a bold polka dot, something David Silver would wear on a date with Donald Martin on nine O two one zero. Noel Kine is next to him, serving blue steel before we even had a name for it, in a T shirt and shorts.

Just from the poster. The poster got us there. That point got us to Capitol. I would say, Yeah, we pointed our way right to it.

You know what got you there is boldness like you guys took a huge swim.

Yeah, we just didn't.

I don't think it was something where we didn't have anything to lose at that point, Me and Tad felt just was the.

Way, this is what we wanted to do.

And it kept us, I would say, from getting into childhood mischief because we were so driven on what to do, you know, and what do we have to do to get to the next point. And even when a lot of this stuff happens, like I'm sure you're gonna get into we still kept.

Pushing like we still hadn't, you know, just tried.

By now you know how this story unfolds, The boys go from Motown to Capitol to bivten, then off biften and onto Stone Creek, and then Stone Creek goes away and then onto a Leah's label Blackground, and.

Off of that. What I suspected is that.

By this time and their story, the guys were pretty fed up the part of the story I hadn't heard. Was the night Todd finally vented that frustration. Blackground was a record label started by a Leah's uncle, Barry Hankerson, and one night after another endless wait to get an album released, Todd had a few drinks and gave Barry a piece of his mind.

I remember having a conversation with Barry. You remember this, Allen. I was drunk.

Well, I I got real drunk one night, man, and I'm gonna tell you I had a conversation with Barry's attorney dude flat said, look, this is some bs shit.

Man.

What y'all are doing? Man, this is this is you know what I'm saying, It's it ain't right man, you're playing god with me, you know.

What I mean?

Let me fucking go. If you don't plan on doing something, let us fucking go. What do you hold on to us for?

Obviously, obviously there's something there that you don't want to let go. You just don't know how to You just don't know how to handle it. You know what I'm saying. Were we the best group in the world vocally?

No, you know what I'm saying.

But there's a lot of other groups I can name, But I'm not going to you know what I'm saying, because I don't do that shit.

Man. But we had we had good music at that time.

Man.

Yeah, I know.

It feels cathartic for me too. This confrontation was a significant moment in that it got them dropped from Blackground. Their album once again didn't get released. Outsiders for Life self released an album in two thousand and six with the tracks ass Like That and Slipping Slide. It's up on the streaming services if you want to listen. But by the time the album was released, the guys were burned out.

Then it was time to grow the fuck up. Let's be real, man, we're getting old.

Man.

It's a about growing up man, you know what I'm saying. Are we going to keep doing this? Or or am I going to be thirty years old living?

You know, saying in a tent?

What am I going to do with my life?

You know what I mean? What am I?

What am I going to do now? So we had a restructure. I wanted kids. I didn't want to run around chasing a dream, you know what I mean?

And so you know we did that. We took a break. I think I took a break I didn't do music for how long? How like ten years?

Man? Yeah, it was it was like ten years.

It was like ten years. I didn't touch music. I didn't do nothing.

I would tell you this though, Man, I would think it's the time frame too. Man, we just we came out what we were doing there doing now, I would say time frame wise, if you look at it, we were just in the wrong time period.

There was social media.

We could have pushed so much stuff and done our own podcasts and done our own you know, follow the band type things.

Back then, there wasn't nothing but AOL messenger, you know what I'm saying.

We didn't have no internet back then. Man, we didn't have MP three's back in.

The timing was just not right. The timing was never right. But their attitude about it is good. They're not bitter and there's something that I have to know. It sounds like I already know the answer to this question. But are you glad you took that trip out to.

La Yes, me and him. I would tell you could.

You can't pay for the experiences that we went through. You can go to college and people can talk about their college years. I watched some of the most Hall of Fame type things in the music business.

Go. I met Aleah, I've hung out with her. She told me, I'm want in a million. I got video of it.

I got video with boys to men and things that I probably you can't even experience, being an end of the road video shoot, the all the video shoots we went to, walking through these things and living. I would say it was the closest thing to being famous without being famous.

Yeah, man, I think, I think. Man, you know, it's a journey. We're all on man, even you date.

You know what I'm saying. We're all on this journey.

Man.

You know, you get to you get.

To a place, you go left, you go right, there, you go right and find out right it wasn't the right way.

You go left again, you know what I mean. So you know it's all life's journey, man, It's everything's meant to be.

You know your story's gonna play out, you know, and you know life's the song man.

That's what I say. Life's the song man. Look around you, man.

So I have found three of the guys from Sudden Impact.

All that are left are Noel Kine, who I have emailed a few times and he just hasn't gone back to me and the elusive quiet Dave Smith, the guy who they tell me turned his back on the whole thing. After we get off the zoom call, I decided to take a swing with Todd and see if maybe he has any idea how I can get a hold of Dave Smith. Any emails right back? Yeah, man, I talked to him last week. Here's his email, and so I emailed Dave Smith and he gets back in thirty minutes. Yeah.

Sure, I'd love to talk. This is so much easier than I thought it was going to be.

I also ask Alan whether who Are You is a dis track and he says yes, but we were in a pissed off state of mind. We grew a lot from that lol. As to who they were dissing, I guess I'll have to get it from Dave Distrack Smith himself, Michael Bibvens. Though, still nothing, But I want you to hear something Todd said as the Zoom was wrapping up, something that is made even more poignant by the fact that his connection is a little dodgy.

It's definitely not is definitely not over.

It makes me think about what Scott Gimpel said in the first episode of this show.

I don't like the idea of endings because I don't like thinking that it's over for anybody.

This is a show about audacity.

This is a show about taking big swings, and I'm beginning to wonder whether these guys might be about to take another one. We'll find out on the finale of Waiting for Impact, a Dave Holmes passion project. This has been an Exactly Right production. Written by me Dave Holmes, produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded, mixed and sound designed by Andrew Eapen. Additional engineering and assembly by Annalise Nelson,

Follow the show on Instagram, Facebook.

And Twitter at exactly where, and follow me at Dave Holmes.

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