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At that point Scholz quit Polaroid to devote himself full time to music. His second album, "Don't Look Back," took two years to record; he still looks on it as unfinished. In 1980 Scholz launched SR&D. "I started it so I'd have some place to work, so that the music wouldn't be a job," he says. It financed his third album. Scholz and his team of five engineers developed the Rockman, a paperback-size mini-amplifier that makes any guitar sound like it's plugged into the finest equipment in the business. "We had 8,000 orders before one Rockman ever left the factory," he says. This year SR&D expects to do about $6 million in business.

It took six years; to produce "Third Stage." "When I first started working on the project, I'd put in 50 to 60 hours a week," Scholz says. "During the last two years I really had to drive myself to go down to the basement and finish it." He got an inkling of success two years ago, ebony porn when a boot-leg version of the album's first single, "Amanda," got massive airplay. '"Amanda' was the No.1 phone request around the country. It was great publicity," says manager Dorenfeld.

Vast sums: "Third Stage" is Scholz's most personal album; it carries a message. The third stage or life, says Scholz, is what comes after childhood and adulthood. "It is what I consider most important in maturing into what a human being ought to be," Scholz says. "Let's put it this way, what it's not about is trying to decide when you can buy a new BMW." Scholz lives by his philosophy. He is a vegetarian. Though he won't talk about figures, he has donated vast sums of money to such organizations as Greenpeace and the Fund for Animals." What I'm really interested in is not how all this can change my life, but how I can use the money to change the things I care about," he says.

Before the next album, he means to take a break--his first in six years. His hobby is flying--he's an instrument-approved pilot and he builds radio-controlled model airplanes. "Of all my possessions, this is No 1 in my book," he says, pointing to a sleek two-foot-long plane he designed. How fast does it fly? "I've never timed it, but over 100 mph." His other passion is basketball. An ardent Celtics fan, the 6 foot 5 Scholz plays regularly with local high school and college kids. For his 40th birthday he and his wife are heading to Florida so he can shoot some hoops on a court he played on 20 years ago. "My whole interest in the game is the slam-dunk," he says. As the record charts show, that particular interest also helps in making music.
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