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tell me a little about the band Boston and your execution of those great harmonies?
Well, Tom (Scholz) was responible for the harmony layering. The good thing for me is Tom plays just about every instrument, but he has a very low singing voice and he likes very high harmony parts. He's told me that a lot of his big influences, aside from Led Zeppelin and the heavy guitar kind of bands, were The Hollies and that kind of singing. So the fact that I had a high voice is probably what got me the gig when I auditioned for him. The reason that all the vocal parts were done by me on the first album, in particular, was that we didn't really think about the consequences when we went out on tour. Tom was creating a song, and in his head he had the sound and what he wanted to hear. To achieve that sound, he'd have me try different things. It was really fun for me, because I was able to contribute as well, adding different things and my own interpretations, which allowed me to be involved in the creative process. Eventually, I got used to harmonizing with myself, and it became easier than singing with someone else, and the finished result became our sound. When we went out on tour, we did exactly what we do now with Beatle Juice, sitting down with the record and figuring out the harmonies and assigning them to members of the band. When Boston went out on tour, there were only five of us in the band; therefore, it was tough to cover all those harmony parts. And Tom, to his credit, was adamant that we were not going to use any pre-recorded stuff, so we did everything live and, consequently, it wasn't exactly like the record, but we tried to cover it to the best of our ability.
Has your voice changed over the years? Can you still hit those incredibly high notes like in "More Than A Feeling"?
On a good day! By and large I feel kind of lucky because I can sing most of that stuff, but, for instance, that high note in "More Than A Feeling" .....those days are gone. And I've noticed that as singers tend to get older, they lose that higher register, particularly for a rock singer, where you really have to belt that stuff out. Even when Robert Plant came back with Led Zeppelin, he was singing a lot of those songs down an octave. Paul McCartney, as well, has lost his ability to reach a lot of those notes. But the interesting thing is you develop a different vocal texture, and to me it's not totally unpleasing. For instance, when I'm doing John Lennon songs, I feel I'm doing them better now than I ever have because my sound has changed slightly, and I really enjoy singing them. In the last couple of tours with Boston, I've shared vocal duties with Fran Cosmo, the other vocalist, who defies what I just mentioned about hitting the high notes as you get older; he can still hit them clear as a bell.
Did you have any formal vocal training?
Actually, no. I never really took any lessons, and I don't read music. I've talked to different vocalists who do breathing exercises, but I like to just go out and start.
What instruments do you play?
I play guitar, generally acoustic about half the night with Beatle Juice. I play keyboards by ear and play live on some things when we are on tour with Boston.
Is Boston still together, and are you part of the band?
Yes. As a matter of fact, I worked with Tom last week on a new song for an album that he is currently working on. Tom is hoping the new Boston record will be out this summer, but I'm not making any promises! I've learned long ago that when Tom is happy with it, that's when it will be released.
Back when Boston dominated the airwaves and you were at the pinnacle of success, did you get to enjoy and savor that persona of "rock star", or was it a fleeting moment in time?
Well, I think that perhaps the savoring and enjoying aspect is maybe now, more so than when you're in the middle of something. For example, the first goal was to simply be recording. When I met those guys on Revere Beach in 1970, I had never been in any type of recording studio, and when they told me they had done a demo and wanted me to come in and record, I thought, "Great, I'm actually going to get a chance to make a recording." To me, that was the greatest thing ever. Then we wanted to get a recording contract and were sending tapes out and being rejected by everyone, including the label that ended up signing us. When we finally got signed to a recording contract and the record came out, we were all happy with it, but honestly, I don't think we had a clue whether it would do well or tank. So when the record came out, they put us on a tour of larger 1000-seat clubs in the Midwest. I remember when we came out and did "Rock-n-Roll Band" I was amazed that everyone in the front was singing along and seemed to know the words to every song. The tour was supposed to last 8 weeks doing these clubs in the Midwest, which we thought was great, playing for 1000 people in a room. It ended up lasting 10 months, turning into arena dates opening for the likes of Black Sabbath. By the end of the tour, we were headlining Madison Square Garden. But we never stopped from those initial shows to actually think about it. I remember when we were on the road and got a telegram from the record company that we had sold 500,000 copies. They sent us a can of Boston baked beans, and by the time the tour ended the record sold over 1 million copies. So it was kind of like being in a bubble at that time. I'm glad my mother fortunately kept a scrapbook, because I never collected anything, and it's nice to be able to reflect on that.
Did you enjoy touring?
It was exhausting but at the same time exhilarating. I had never traveled west of Hershey, Pennsylvania.
Have you ever thought about doing a solo album?
Probably the genesis of Beatle Juice was really to put a solo album together. I had some particular songs in mind. I guess my biggest regret may be that, for whatever reason, I never got those songs of my own together the way I wanted to. I still have it in mind to accomplish that at some point.
What place do you most like to frequent in the North Shore area?
The first time I ever went to Einstein's Bagels on Route 1, I had the best "everything"
bagel that I can ever remember enjoying, along with the greatest cup of coffee! It's to
the point now that when they see me pull up, they have my order ready. That's my
strong pride of Route 1 now. Another great memory of mine growing up in Danvers was
going to Lenny's On the Turnpike. That was a place that any jazz great - be it Dizzy
Gillespie, Buddy Rich, or Maynard Ferguson - would play. I had a friend of mine in a jazz-fusion type band who had recorded an album with his band Guns and Butter; they played Lenny's and asked if I would come down and sing a few songs with them, so I did. And that was a real thrill for me to have sung at Lenny's On the Pike.
