Mic Murphy

Our guest is the founding member of one of the most legendary futuristic electro-funk duos, The System. Mic Murphy joins Team Supreme to talk about the club scene in New York at the end of the '70s and influencing multiple generations of artists.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quess. Love Supreme is a production of I Heart Radio.
I'm from Raleigh, North Carolina. Man, you're kidding me? Ye starts,
I don't record it now, recording now, pane, I should

(00:22):
have known that. Oh hell no, I ain't gonne. Come on,
ladies and gentlemen, Um, welcome to another episode of Love Supreme.
Quest loove Uh with me this course? Uh Team Supreme
fine tacolo in a new location. Yeah, man, yeah, man
came down to Charlotte. He gets working for a couple

(00:43):
of days and um, yeah bro, yo yo man, I
had to I meant to tell you too. I think
I may be joining you. I ain't going as crazy
you're going with it, but I've drastically cut down my
meat intake. There you go, bright drastically. I still I mean,
I still do my fish. I love. I can eat
fish like every day of the week. And uh, I

(01:05):
still do my you know, my chicken. I'll do like
you know chicken, but uh like beef for like. I
think yeah that it might be a rep Yeah, bro,
we might make it to seventy. Make sure that iron.
Just make sure you're replacing that iron with something. Man,
I'd be drinking metal muscle in the morning. I feel old.

(01:26):
Keep doing George Sluice man, listen to keep that colessar
all down speaking. What's up, Steve? How you making up?
Oh my god, you're just talking about meat. Makes me
want a steak. You know, I don't know. I do
everything bad, so I might I might not make it
to seventy. But I love you all. I'm Everything's okay,

(01:51):
but to be with with everybody here and looking forward
to great. Everyone's fine. You just you just recorded an
album for your label. We recorded. We recorded two full
records in two days. David Murray was one of the
records and Log Lundon, a Norwegian guitarist, was another one.

(02:12):
That's j M I Recordings dot Com. Everybody from we
we joke, we joke about Steve's new found celebrity. But
Steve is definitely UM done a lot of pivot work
UM in the last few years, developing really just living
in his dream, like you know, recording and putting out
is you know, after you collect every jazz record, I

(02:34):
guess the next thing is you have to be start
making them start. Yeah, you're the new so that's right.
You know. The label started right around when this podcast started.
Five ye years ago, five years old. Ye, you have
a new background. You look like you're on a tour
bus right now. I'm not spot you just have tour
bus curtains. Come on out nice from this of the

(03:02):
This is the way better than the paper with the
paper clip making fun of you. It looks it kind
of looks like to her busy the factory blinds they
gave me at the new spot, and I'm real happy
to be at Okay, well, you're making out everything's fine.
Living good in the black is the neighborhoods in Los Angeles. Holliylujah.
Shout out to Estelle, who took me around and showed

(03:22):
me the good corner stores. I am living, Like, huh,
we'll just be careful because a lot's going on in
l A. That happening to very rich people. And they're
very rich people who have rolled. That's to me, like,
why are you Because everybody tells me, well, I'm being
specific because people have said that to me a lot
out from outside of l A. And I don't think

(03:43):
they understand that the people who are getting robbed are
not in my tax part yours. It's like criminals just
figured out rich people. Yeah, so that's what. Okay, let's
hear everyone's moving to a pivot where we now you know, no,
let me not even put that out there. Um. I
will say that our guest today is the founding member

(04:07):
of probably UH, one of the most legendary futuristic um
electrical duos, UH professionally and better known as The System.
What made the System unique is the kind of space
that they occupied at a time period in which UH,
new ideas and new concepts were happening in real time.

(04:30):
And this is like the post disco le Leroy Burgess
era of Boogie Um and which it was needed of
a jolt. You know, It's like new wave was sort
of coming in for a lot of the pop acts.
And you know, of course Prince finally had control the
will and made the entire world take notice of his vision,
even made like Leon Silver's in the West Coast take

(04:50):
note of his vision. Meanwhile, I'll say that in New
York City, you know, club culture, dance culture sort of
reached a boil with where hip hop was creeping into
or dipping their toes in the water. And and you know,
for the first time you're hearing songs with a little
harder edge to it and R and being funk. You know,
acts were slowly dipping their toes in the water using

(05:13):
like futuristic synth sounds and harder drum programming, and you know,
and I feel that that particular pocket, it's very influential.
Duo occupied. Let me just get it, get him out
of the way first, please welcome to the Quest Live Supreme.
Mike Murphy of the System, Thank you, Thank you, brother,

(05:33):
than I wanted to know because you occupy there's there's
a very specific period of New York City that I'm
unaware of. Like we've had many guests that can sort
of put me down with what was happening in Los
Angeles between like seventy seven, but um, for the first time,

(05:57):
I think we're really gonna dive into what R and
B and what dance culture and what um, black music
in general was going through in between you know, forty
five for those that weren't under the Purple Umbrella and
for those that weren't directly during hip hop, like especially

(06:17):
in New York City. So, you know, thank you for
doing the show man. I appreciate it. Thank you for
having me. I really appreciate brother. So you're you're speaking
to us now from where East Harlem, New York City?
And okay, so you're still a Harlem resident, Yes, yes,
I am. Okay, but I grew up in Jamaica, Queen,
so this I'm a I'm a twenty year transplant. Well

(06:40):
before we started taping, you were letting Fonte know that
you two are from the same hood we're I'm born
and raised in Raleigh, North Carolina. The mogae Cores, the Austin's, yeah,
be big. We rolled deep down there, some of them,

(07:01):
I'm sure I do. I went to Central, so I
went to the north Ronto Central, So that was where
I came from school. And then and uh, Riley, I
mean I moved to Riley like oh five, but uh
I've been there ever since. But yeah, man, um, it's
you know, cool city. Real. It's going up like everywhere else,
like the rent and all the properties going nuts. But
but it's it's a beautiful city, man, That's what's up.

(07:23):
How long did you live there before you moved to
New York? Oh I was. I moved up here when
I was a baby. But every summer, you know, how
mom down you're going to your uncle Jesse's This summer,
So I did that top. I was like thirteen fourteen.
Once you final was like okay, you know, because I started,
you know, playing in bands and stuff and we were

(07:44):
getting a bunch and she was like, all right, I'm
gonna let you We'll let you get some okay. Was
were those good memories of having to go down south
or was it always like man, I want to play
with my friends in the summer up in New York
or no, my cousins were friends. M Bernard Fowler is
my first cousin. Yeah, that's my first cousin. Of course,

(08:07):
is this the as well? Yeah, he's from Queen's Bridge
and um, you know, as kids we would we were
best friends, running back and forth to each other's house.
Is our mother his my father and his mother are
um brother and sister. So so she was like, my
she's my real auntie. And we spent weekends together hanging out,

(08:28):
playing and stuff. So we've tight. Wow. So he's your
actual first cousin. He's my actual first cousin. How that's incredible?
All right? So for our listeners, like Bernard is pretty
much you know, he's who's the who of of background singing? Um,
you know, he's known for his work with the Little
Rolling Stones. Yeah, and and lead singers and lead singers.

(08:51):
She's he's definitely one one of the absolute best. Yeah,
I gotta say the infamous House classic. Uh well, Peach Boys,
Don't Wait, Make Me Wait? That's all Bernard. Yeah, yeah,
not to mention like the work that he's done with
Bill aswell and Herbie Hancock and the recently departed Uh wow. Okay,

(09:17):
So the question I usually start with, can you tell
me what your first musical your first musical memory was. Um,
you know, as a kid, my mother loved music, so
we used to go to the Apollo all the time.
And it was at a time when you could see
five shows and one day you could just sit there,
hang out and watch all the shows. And so I

(09:40):
did that a lot. Those are my earliest, my earliest
memories you know in music in the house. Um, of
course the Jackson five, who I emulated in my first band,
and kind of that's how I got my start. Did
your mom do for work man? My mother was my mother? No.
My mother was a um a planned reader engineer for

(10:03):
mob Bell Bell Telephone Company, and she was a rebel.
Like she was. She was the original liberated woman. She
really was community leader and um, she used to give
back in the day. Um, there were a lot of
social groups. They gave dances. So whenever they'd have a dance,

(10:23):
of course, my little band, the Soul Shakers, we'd be
like the floor show. So they would have like a
well known kind of orchestra. One was Ron Um Ron
Williams and the Band of Renown, so they would be
the big band playing and then we would come on
and do like a Michael Jackson James Brown floor show.
It's it's interesting to hear normally, Um, a lot of

(10:46):
our guests on this show, if their formative years were
in the sixties or seventies, nine times out of ten,
secular music is taboo. But it sounds like Lee used
to hear, like was it was. Were your parents strict
with music? You're not allowed to listen to any music
but gospel or any of those things. No, I didn't

(11:09):
have any of that, Um, pretty much. I mean in
my house it was like Brooke Benton was king. You know,
It's like King Cole was King. The Smooth, the Smooth
r and b Love the Love of Boys singers. Um,
So I kind of grew up really actually loving Brook Benton,
those kind of classic songs with the strings, with the deep,

(11:31):
deep melodies and the deep lyrics and um, that's kind
of what I cut my teeth on. And later it
developed into more more of the funky stuff. Okay, what happened?
How many siblings do you have? Where do you fall
in your family line? I'm I'm firstborn son of three. Okay,
so I'm the leaders passing it down to you. How

(11:55):
do you because normally, if most I noticed that most
of people in ming are usually the younger person. You know,
there's always an older sibling that's passing the music down. Here.
Listen to this is James Brown. This is kind of nobody.
But my aunt Jennis. You know, like I told you,
my mother worked from mob Bell. My aunt Jennis, who

(12:17):
moved up from North Carolina, would keep me during the
day and she could sing like Aretha Franklin, real real talk,
but she would only singing. She would only sing in church.
So during the day when my mother would be at work,
she'd like, Mica, Mica owen is what you call me,
get up on the table and put on the show
from me. And she put me on the table and
you know, have me singing different songs the Jackson Five particularly,

(12:40):
and uh, you know that's kind of where my love
for music and performing came from my aunt Jenny. So
I assume that at one of these concerts you saw
the Jackson Five perform, Like, would you say that that
was like one of the more memorable concerts that you
saw or oh yeah, well the five. There were a
lot of There were a lot of young groups. Five

(13:01):
Stair Steps may have been the first group that I
saw at the Apollo of Young Guys, and Black Ivory
actually performed at the r k oh On Jamaica Avenue
in Queens. When I saw them perform, I'm like, wow,
I can do that. I can do that because I don't.
I think they're just slightly older than me. Um And

(13:23):
when I saw that they were able to perform and
and actually make a living at it, I was like, wow,
I can do this. Were the Stairsteps actual musicians in concert,
because yeah, based it was studio musicians. But I know
that Kenny Kenny, Kenny Burke played. Kenny Burke played on stage.

(13:45):
My memory doesn't serve me how well he played at
that time, but he was definitely he was definitely playing
on stage back then at the Apollo. When did when
did you start your well you talked about as far
as your musical development was concerned. Was that a school

(14:05):
thing that schooled encouraged or did you get her on
your own? No, I was I was really I went
to egghead schools. I was bust to schools, and you know,
I was very much into math and science. To be honest,
I was really an egghead. But my best friend this uh,
this kid, Robert Fontaine. Here my mother Rain Fontaine and

(14:28):
Shirley Austin. They could not be separated. And she was like, uh,
they dressed the same, they hung the same. So rob
was her child. So we became close friends, even though
it was a couple of years older than me. He
had a band, and of course you didn't want to
let me in the band because I was too young.
I was like a little squorp um. But eventually two

(14:49):
of the band members, especially the singer, they started getting
into drugs and everything, and my mother was like, you
should hear Michael saying I'm telling you, you know I'm saying.
And so I started singing with that band, and that's how,
you know, initially got my start. Singing and performing, and
the band was the Soul Shakers. And I don't know
if you know Ronnie Drayton. You know that name, Yes, Ronnie,
the late Ronnie Drayton. Correct, Yes, the late Ronnie he was, Yes, indeed,

(15:14):
he was a drummer in the band. Wait, isn't Ronnie
related to Flave? I don't know if he Okay, I
might be mistaken because there's another Drayton that I met
that used to work at Tower Records that is related
to Flave. I know that Flave came from a large family.
But no, Ronnie's not related to No. No, Well, we

(15:36):
grew up two blocks from each other. He lived around
the corner for me, and also growing up, he was
kind of inspirational for us because he left the band
as a drum and said, I'm gonna be a guitar player.
I'm gonna start playing guitar. We're like, we'll just stick
to drums because you're such a good drummer. But eventually
he kept going at it. He got a gig with
the Chambers brothers, and so they were going on the

(15:56):
road and we were, you know, we were kids and
pro cads and we were go around the corner and
watch him being picked up by the band the station
Wagon with his amps and everything, and we're like, wow,
he's really he's really doing it. So he was an
inspiration at all as well. It just hit me that
Run used to play with Hendricks. He was really her

(16:19):
band leader Edwin Bird's song Nonah Hendrix. Yeah, yeah, he's
he's he's a legend. Yeah, very very sad to see
see him pass. He was at our age he was
like the most serious musician. I mean, I grew up
around a lot of really talented funk bands, like in
my neighborhood and Jamaica Queen's literally every other block there

(16:40):
was a there was a band. There was a funk band,
Mother Knight, you know Eddie Eddie Martinez of course, the
legendary Eddie Martinez. Yeah. Mother was one of the rock
box Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah. They were one of our
local bands. And we had some hella funky bands back then.

(17:01):
Where were these shows happen at high schools or gm
Like how like give me a typical rundown of Okay,
if you have a neighborhood band, one, where do you rehearse?
Because I know that at least for the Midwest families
with garages, you know, hence the term garage band, Like
that's where bands are formed. But if you're in New

(17:21):
York City and you form a band, first of all,
where do you rehearse that. We're in Jamaica. Queen's everybody
had a garage and a basement, so you're the You're
you're either rehearsed in the basement or the garage. My
next door neighbor was Eddie Hazel's father, Eddie Hazel Sr.

(17:42):
What He lived next door to me. So the Parliament
back in the day would come and and pull around
on the background, you know, basically give parties. But his
father he did all the processes in the neighborhood, all
hair processes I'm saying you would in parliament could also
do hair So I forgot about that. Yeah, I'm a

(18:10):
hair chapter until a mere getting wow, so that's crazy.
Who who else were your were your contemporaries growing up
as far as like who you went to school with
or other people? Well, yeah, when I was in um
public school it was really you asked about how where

(18:33):
we would gig. The six local clubs. There was the
Club Ruby, the Linden manor there was after Rochfield Village
was built. There was some big concert venue there everybody
would play. There were a lot of clubs. There were
a lot of bars, local bars, and they all had bands.
I mean we're talking before DJ before they realized, oh

(18:54):
we can just get a DJ to come in. You know,
we give it every everybody would get. There were bands
like the fire Bolts Um who were really kind of
the leaders for us local bands because they had it
organized so they played. They gigged every weekend like they
always had shows for different cotillions. And there were a
lot of gigs back then, and when we were we

(19:16):
were like the band under them, so we would sometimes
be the opening act basically the floor show. Is this
a thing where you can if you're that top band,
can you make a nice living? Well, first of all,
how old are you doing this period? I'm like thirteen fourteen,

(19:37):
and you can go into a nightclub and do a
show and it's not cure wasn't a thing yet. Or
my mother was a manager so and and she she
was she was a beauty, so nobody said no to Shirley,
so she would kind of she was kind of book
us on gigs and they're like I said. During that era,

(19:58):
everybody was a member of a social club. So they
would be shinnecock Um Rod and Gun club and they
would give an annual event. There might be the motorcycle.
The bat Back band was the official band for like them,
Linden Boulevard Biker biker club. Real, they would all have yeah, yeah,

(20:19):
yeah they would. They rehearsed from Linden Boulevard. How far
from where I grew up. I didn't know the Fedback
was from there. Okay, yeah, Fedback is from Linden Boulevard
for like thirty minutes. Yeah, I've heard about their shoes.
So all these social clubs, they would have a contullion
where they'd bring out the young ladies. There would be

(20:40):
a lot of events you could play. You could really
make a living. I mean I was a kid and
I was I'm making like a hundred dollars a weekend
all the time. And you know, back in that for
a teenager period. Yeah yeah, yeah, back then. What at
what point for you at least are you even considering

(21:02):
making this a profession? And I know I know that
the group clear played Uh yes, yes, yes, So I'm
not there yet because I'm really like I said, I'm
an egghead. I'm going to Brooklyn Check. I'm gonna be
I'm gonna work for NASA. That's my that was my head.
That was my DUTs in my head. That's that's what

(21:23):
it was. I'm going to NASA. But I was in
the band the Soul Shakers, and at some point we
were like, let's try and see if we can get better.
And a young lady named La La the forest Cope
who you give good love Yeah, joined the band. So
La La changed a lot for me because she was

(21:46):
she was like the first female rebel who always said,
well why not, why can't we get this? Why can't
we do that? Why can't I was more like in pocket,
like come on listen, we'll get it so down, so down.
So once her energy came into the band, we were
for ever seeking the better drummer, the better bass player,

(22:07):
the better guitar player, the better sounds is the better gig.
So she changed a lot from me, you know, and
just that we can make it clear. I don't even
mention it earlier, but I don't even get clear um
for our listeners that don't know. Lala wrote Whitney Houston's
very first single You Get You Give Good Luck Love produced. Yeah,

(22:29):
we didn't want to admit we didn't know who La was,
but we didn't thank you. No. You know, she made
noise and the she did some stuff with like full force,
and she as a solo artist around like eighties six anyways,
sorry yep ye, but but part of her thing was
she would write songs way back then, and I would

(22:51):
kind of fool around with ideas imitating other people's songs.
But she was the first person I was around who
would just sit at the piano, make up a song
and break your heart. And and she was in the
band and we would do gigs and she would sing
like songs like gladys Night and the gladys Night song,
Um last Tray, what is it last? I'm leaving midnight,

(23:16):
And she would she would tear the house down. She
would do things like Billy Holliday. She just had that
soul and that spirit that she would tear the house
down with these songs and songs like you Give Good Love.
She was writing those songs when she was sixteen. She
was already right, she had written that she had written
ten of those by the time she was sixteen, So

(23:37):
that kind of made me start noticing, you know that
this songwriting is a thing. Songwriting is really a thing
that you should be focusing on, particularly you know, in
the band things. So moving on, we we we got
into this band called Jack Sass to Jack Sass Band. UM.

(23:57):
Former members um included like, uh, a lot of local
talent in Jamaica, queens and really good musicians. UM. So
we really had to step up the bar a little bit.
But our band, we were playing all over the East Coast.
We would play the Jersey Shore, we would play Miami,

(24:18):
we would play Virginia. But we couldn't get a record deal.
So alone. This time, this guy comes to town. We
used to play this club uptown called the Seller with
band this fan Kicky Kinky Fox. I don't know if
you know Timmy Allen. Um. They were like they would
play one weekend, we would play another weekend. So this

(24:39):
guy Fred Petris, little Macho Music, who produced and Change
and BB Change. Yeah. So so he comes to town.
I'm still deciding if I'm really gonna do music. So
he comes to down and UM he says, Hey, I
really like you guys, I want you to be He

(25:00):
had this record out UM called Peter Jacques Span, which
was a huge hit in Europe. He's like, I want
you to guys to tour and pretend your Peter Jacques band.
So we're like, okay, because he's gonna pay us. Well,
basically we didn't record anything on the album, but we
were going to perform the touring act of Peter Jacques

(25:22):
fan and we would be the artist. So that kind
of fell apart. But then he called me one day
and he said, um, hey, Murphy, I want you to
introduce me to bands in in the city, all the
best musicians, and I want you to work for me.
I want you to work in my office. I want
I'll teach you publishing, I'll teach you recording, I'll teach
you everything. But just connect me with all the bands.

(25:44):
And so I did, because I knew I knew all
of the musicians. Not I didn't know all of the
studio recording musicians because in New York at the time,
they were really they kept it real tight. You couldn't
even get you couldn't get a session, you couldn't get
to record anywhere. They had it on lock five Thornton
Um call up. They just they had sessions. Jogi Horton,

(26:06):
you know that whole crew. They had the session We're
ad Unlock. So a band like ours didn't send a chance.
But through through my relationship with him, he actually did
bring me in to run his office and I would
hook him up with the musicians and do demos, and
I would go to the sessions when he was out
of town make sure everybody was recording book the sessions,

(26:29):
learn about publishing, and at that time it became real
for me because I could connect my brain with the
creative part on how this can how this is a
real business, how you can really you know, how you
can make things happen. So that's when when I started, Yeah, yeah,
that's when I started to think about music as a

(26:50):
real profession for me. There's one thing I wanted to
ask about your tenure in your band. You were doing
these club gigs on an average one. How long were
you expected to perform at these these shows? And how

(27:10):
big is the repertoire, like just in terms of I
understand like every band had to know the top forty,
so you had to have of course, So how how
does that work? Is it? Like every Friday you go
to the local record store, you get all the forty
five and you're like, Okay, damn, we gotta learn to
have to trap by the commodores or like, what's that process?

(27:32):
Walking through that process. At the point where we got serious,
we were rehearsing four days a week and we were
we were the shows. Look, we went from being like
a four show band actually having to hold on a
club and generally you'd be booked Friday, Shaturday, Sunday, so
that's five sets, three nights in a row, so you

(27:53):
had to have And also we were doing originals because
at that point we were we started figuring out how
to manipulate ours ound and create a sound of our own.
And Jack says, actually it was a really killing band.
I don't know if you know. Liz Chisholm was the
bass player. She's one of the original female bass players
in New York. Liz Chisel Omarha Kim was really drummer

(28:16):
in the band. I mean, we were we we were,
we were we were pretty serious, like we were coming
up on a funky rock than we were doing things
like we were doing rare earth songs. We were doing
we were just doing our own brand. We would we
would hit him with with the top forty hit, but
we'd also hit him with something that's in the vein,

(28:37):
like a song by War or you know, we were
coming off a little bit left of center, but it
was really working. It was working. You you mentioned queens,
and also I wanted to know whether or not at
the time was anyone like from the Jamaica Boys like
in also in the sphere I'm talking about like Bernard Right,
you know, Marcus Mill all those So all those cats

(29:02):
are in the mix. Um, Bernard right was in the
Junior fire Bolts. So the fire Balls I mentioned earlier,
who had really gotten it down to a science where
they were gigging all the time for weddings. So they
created a spinoff called the Junior Firebles and Bernard Bernard
was in the Junior Fiables. Yeah you're still popularly you

(29:22):
have your own sequel. Yeah, all these all these bands
were in the mix, and all these bands were killing. Okay,
So you right now you led us to the point
where you're learning the business. How how are you getting
talked into being a tour manager and at what point
are you entering clears life? Like because I remember, like

(29:43):
it's weird that I know, like intimate connections is is
a staple. But I'll admit that only after hip hop
that I learned intimate connections because I always knew clear
because of like their early part in ninety where they
had the song called win Yeah, I'm around them this

(30:05):
whole time. So I'm in Brooklyn Tech High School and
Dennis King is the chief mastering engineer at Atlantic Studios
right on, so we're He was someone who took interest
in my early band, Jack Scess and actually was the
first person to ever take us into the recording studio.
So he worked in Atlantic and I would come home

(30:28):
and I would stop at Atlantic Studios, and he lived
near me in Queens and I would ride home with him.
But that stopped entailed waiting around in Atlantic Studios Columbus Circle.
I'm telling you, I saw everybody record a wreath. I
saw the stones come through there, Ricky Lee Jones, I

(30:48):
mean like everybody who was anybody. I'm talking the days
when um, you know all the actually the cats, a
lot of the cats from Philly. The guitar player and
the bass player bub Bookachi Olmes was his name, the
keyboard player, they would all be around. I got Dave up,
so so I got to kind of blend in through

(31:09):
that and also view recording sessions and learned sessions. So
Dennis at the time was working with the band Clear,
who was from Baltimore, and they had one small record
that didn't do a lot, but by the time the
second record came, they were in demand to tour. So
he obviously couldn't go on the road because he was
a mastering engineer Atlantic and he knew I knew the

(31:31):
road because I had taken my band everywhere and I
knew all the details, booking hotels, all of that. So
he asked me to be their road manager. So the
first tour, well, the first big tour I get to
go on is Prince Rick James and Clear Clear was

(31:52):
the opening acted to Heaven. I thought I died and
went to Heaven brother that so, oh it's crazy. I mean,
I have actually pictures from the tour of Prince when
he was doing the jockstrap and the resept ladder thing.

(32:13):
I have pictures back there Rick Jane All, I have
pictures of all the madness um and he kind of
Rick had had kind of a crush on the Clear girl,
so you know, he liked them as the opening act
and we did. We must have done like fifteen dates.
And I'm telling you, Prince Prince killed. It was so

(32:35):
funny because he killed Rick every single city. He killed him.
First they started out, you know, the it's the opening act.
You might have six ft of depth and they peel
you off. And the next act, you know, have twelve
ft of depth, they peel him off, and then Rick
has his whole big show, right, But Prince Prince had

(32:59):
those stairs and he had like a little light rigged
that said Prince. And I'm telling you they were kicking
ass and taking names every single gime. Oh it was,
it was. It was crazy. It was And I'm standing
there with my mouth albe because in a way my
band Jack sass. We had this guitar player, Vick Vaughan.

(33:22):
Hopefully hears this. Vick Vaughan was as good as Prince.
He was good a guitar player and as good a singer,
but he didn't have that, you know, that extra thing
that makes you want to stick to the business. He
ended up he ended up moving to the Midwest, South Dakota, somewhere.
Um but we he was kind of the New York
City embodiment of prints. So when I saw Prince. I

(33:43):
was like wow, and it also made me kind of decide,
you know what, I can do my own I can
come up with my own thing that's different than all
of this, but I could do my own thing. So
that's when kind of my road management dream turned into
you know, I want to create some thing. What we're
touring conditions? Like whoa, I'm so glad you're tour manager

(34:05):
because it's like we'll know everything. Yeah, exactly, because he's
just you'll put the fires out sort of, you know,
have very selective memory. But if you're touring in nineteen eighty,
you know, a band like Clear, Are you guys in
a fifteen passenger van? Are you tour bust status yet?
What kind of hotels are you in? Like I want

(34:28):
to know, like the boring stuff, like what what is that? Like?
In nineteen eighty it was it was right, it was correct.
Um Al Hayman was the tour promoter, so everything you
don't have to worry about the money. You just had
to be there on time. Um. I always book connections.
I don't even know if they're still in business connections,

(34:49):
bus service. Um, you know, we had a budget for
hotel hotels were cheap back then you get you could
get decent hotels for a hundred dollars um. It was.
It was smooth and correct. It was every per dam
was solid. I was handling the money. Everything was smooth.

(35:10):
I had three bands on tour together. I had Clear,
Change and b b Q all on the role at
the same time. That was a little I was a
little swarp, but I knew. I knew how the job
because I want to know about this group and ever
in the case, in the case of Change, of which

(35:31):
I believe it was Jimmy jam that revealed to me
that Change was really well in name the two Italian guys.
Uh yeah, were they in concert? How did that work? No?
They never showed up the concert. They were studio musicians
and brilliant ones. They had an amazing sound and Michael

(35:52):
Brower would engineer most of the projects. It was all
the best suit Luth of Van Jo who I also
worked for on the road. After think it was like, yeah,
I think like early shows. Yeah, I was I was
guy with the fog machine and I was the guy
with the spotlight and I was paid Luther. Luther paid

(36:12):
his guys. It was crazy. I had to listen I
love working for Luther so much. And that was another
point where I was like, Wow, I love I could
I want to I want to entertain again. But I
did one tour where I drove from New York City
to Los Angeles for his on his first tour, all
down through Texas, myself and one other road guy. So

(36:32):
I've I've done. I've worn all the hats. I've won,
like the road he had, I've won the drive and
cat hold the spotlight. I want my favorite interview ever
any of them know about your talent? Did anybody know that? No,
No they didn't. They didn't know. Let me tell you
a great story. We're on the road in South Carolina

(36:53):
somewhere and Clear what you are with? Clear? And David
and I had made the record in Times with Passion.
We made it like one weekend, actually like in one day,
twenty four hours. We made the record, went the studio,
got it out. I knew a couple of people Atlantic
because I had worked with with Um Dennis and I
had worked with Clear, and they always said to me,
you know, because I was a good looking young fella. Yeah,

(37:15):
They're like, hey, if you ever if you have to
make a record, So why don't you bring it, Why
don't you bring it to me? Let me hear it.
So we made in Times of Passion in one day.
I took it to Atlantic. They signed it the same day,
but I didn't I didn't make any noise because Clear
I was working for Clear, and I don't know if
you know Woody Wood, he was a little bit of
a kind of jealous guy. Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly.

(37:38):
So We're on the road in South Carolina doing an
outdoor date and I'm carrying, you know, SPT bass amps.
You know, there's ampeg. I'm carrying an SVT based cabinet
to put below the bus, and David's on the tour
bus and he's yelling, make our songs on the radio,

(38:00):
our songs on the radio. In time the Passion was
playing on the radio. Found out that you were singer.
So can you well, since you already you you brought
the great David Frank into the picture, can you explain
the story? What am I to believe? And he told
me this once was was Madonna originally supposed to be

(38:24):
in the system, and you replaced her. So what happened
was we were all we all were grow we all
kind of circulated around the music building on Eighth Avenue
and thirty six whatever. Um, you know, all the bands
rehearsed stare. People would kind of share recording spaces, like
you'd have a space and you'd have it from two

(38:44):
to five and someone else would have it from five
to nine. So I got I gotta back up because
I got David. I got David Clear. Um, I gotta
be the keyboard player and Clear. So what happened was
Dennis King was put together the tour for Clear, and
they didn't have a keyboard player. So one night he
took me to this club uptown and he said, yeah,

(39:06):
come with me. I want you to see this singer. Um,
you know, I want to see the singer and then
tell me what you think. So we go to this club.
I didn't think much of the singer, and I said
to him, Hey, that keyboard players really good. I mean,
you should maybe just consider him from Clear. But they
were playing kind of like steely Dan style. You know,
it wasn't It was nothing like the electro that you

(39:27):
come to know David as at the end of the
player you come to So he did that for he
did that tour. This was not the Brig James tour.
It was the next tour he did that tour. And
when I when I would work, I guess I would
sing sometimes or I would sing along to songs, not
making anything of it or paying attention. But um, one
day he had he had cut this track that Eve

(39:49):
been working on because you got a DSX, a DMX
and he got an Oberheim, which he actually kind of
bought it with another one of the musicians in the
music building. So out of the blue, he calls me
and he says, hey, I wrote this song, and you
know Madonna was supposed to sing it, but you know
Steve Bray wants to put guitar and they want to
put this on it and that, and I don't. I

(40:10):
don't want to do that. I don't want to do that.
So he was like, why don't you come to the
loft and listen to it? So I go to his
shared loft in the music building. I don't know what
I'm expecting because I've only heard him play in the
clear mode, which is kind of jazzy soul with some
funk basically, And that's not what I wanted to do either.
I wanted to do something completely different. Musically than that.

(40:33):
So I get there and he said, well, you know,
listen to it. Tell me what you think. He hits
the button and it's the track of in Times of Passion.
But I died and went to heaven because it was
exactly what I what I had been thinking of, because
I was thinking of what if you put Rick, James
and Kraft work together? What would that sound when he

(40:53):
hit When he hit that button, I was like this,
this this is it. You know, this is I've been
looking at what I hadn't She said, well, you know
Madonna was gonna and I knew Madonna too. There's a
story there too, She said, yeah. Mcdonnad was thinking, okay,
well when when I when I was in the Bend,
when I was in jack Ssass, we used to play
at the Queen's College, rath Skiller Um. She would play

(41:17):
on Wednesdays and my band would play on Thursdays. So
I knew her from that. So you know, you know
how you go and check the competition out. I'd gone
to check her out there and do it, and you know,
and we also knew each other around the music. But
mcnapping and you want to do with mcnapping that's time
you want. That's why she was like that. She was
like she was like, you know, I knew she had

(41:37):
the attitude, but I didn't, you know, I didn't know
what how far she was gonna take it. So anyway,
David said, yeah, Madonna was going to record it, but
she backed out at the last minute. Can you can
you record it? And I'm I said, well, what was
the title? She had said, um, Crimes of Passion. Okay,
let me see what I can come up with. And
I was just singing along with the track, a humming

(42:00):
and kind of Crimes of Passion kind of falling with
He was like, that's great, that's great. Now go home
and write the song. I'll pick you up in the morning.
We'll go to the studio and record it. I'm like,
write the song right and tonight and we're gonna record
it tomorrow. So, you know, I had had the dream
of what I wanted to sound like, but I had
no idea what I wanted to say. So somehow I

(42:24):
stayed up all night. David came to pick me at
my mother's house in Queens at like seven o'clock in
the morning. We go to the studio in Long Island.
We recorded all day. We laid on the parts. I
sing all the leads, all the backgrounds, um. We mix
it um. And the next morning when he dropped you
off at my mother's house, I had a big sound

(42:45):
since some in devation because I always owned the band's
p A. So I put the cassette tape in and
I played it and I was like, this is this
is the one. If you don't do something with this,
you're never gonna do anything. So I immediately, like at
nine o'clock, I called Dennis King, Hey, Dennis, Um, can
you can you cut a couple of ascetates of this
thing I cut yesterday? So he said sure, So I

(43:07):
went to the studio Atlantic. He cut three ascetates, of
which I have I have two of them now. And
I went and I went to the two people who
I knew in the record business who had said to me,
if you ever if you ever come up with anything,
let me know. One was Jim Della Hatt who worked
for Atlantic Records with Jerry Greenberg Um, and the other

(43:30):
one was RFC Records. And they you know, they were
big because they had you know, socio and they had
they had a lot of really popping electoral soul record.
So I went to yeah, okay, yep, yep, he's the
president of maras is he not? Yeah, he was the president.

(43:51):
But at the time he was president, he had just
come step down from being the president of Atlantic. So
he was the president of Atlantic. He was the president
of Atlantic. Yes, but when but he was forming his
own label, and I think he only he had signed
h he had only signed one act so far. So
I take the record to Jim Delahan and I said, Jim,

(44:13):
just cut this. He plays like thirty seconds of and
he says, hold on a second, and he disappears through
a door and outcomes Jerry Greenberg. My jaws on the
ground because Jerry is the cheese. I mean, he's he's
the man. He comes out, he kind of looks at me,
sits in his chair, turns around to face the speakers.
I'm looking at the back of his head. He listens

(44:35):
to like thirty seconds of it, and he turns around.
He says, bet yourself a record deal just like that
one day, one day it was that easy. Well yeah,
at that moment, at that moment, and the record came
out in it it quote a fire, It really did it.
Quote a fire. So this wasn't a case where you

(44:56):
had to like a relationship with Larry Love and or
someone to like, he'll play my thing, test it out
in the crowd and see how it works. So you
just instantly had an end with the brass at Atlantic, absolutely,
and thank god, Frankie Crocker love the record. Frankie Crocer
loved the record. He ran it into the ground and

(45:16):
he you know, Frankie was a DJ at the time.
If you like something, he's playing it. He doesn't care
what the trend is. He doesn't care what anybody says. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
So he played that record to death and then, um,
you know, as far as the system the rest of history.

(45:36):
You said something really interesting about your interaction with David
frank And what you said was he pressed a button.
So can you explain to me at the time your
willingness to embrace kind of a new culture, which is
program you know, at the at the age of you know,

(45:59):
sort of new drum machines are being invented, new synthesizers
you're being which I could imagine could be intimidating because
the thing is is that there's a watershed moment for
black music. Um, after the sort of post disco fallout
where a lot of these bands that were foundational, UM

(46:20):
name them like Brass Construction, mass Production, any band with
like eight niggas on the cover, Like you just know
what its same thing, no real talk. I was already
there because it was already. I was already listening to

(46:42):
craft Work. I was listening to Yazoo your Rhythmics. I
was eating I was eating up every record and of course,
of course the Thompson I was. I was there already.
I mean I was, I was eating. I was eating
off a soul and funk. But I was already there

(47:04):
because of what you're saying. I had been on the
road with Brass fifteen pieces, and I'm like, how these
guys making money? You know, It's like this is this
what makes this makes no sense to me? I don't
get the math here. And you know, there were a
lot of there were a lot of brass Construction like bands,
Phase g O, all these bands from from the Midwest.

(47:26):
I was like, how everybody? So I was, I was
we We've interviewed all those bands. I was just laughing,
We've interviewed and is the thing is, though, is because um,
you know even though I was like nine in the
eighty like when like terms like new wave, we're being

(47:46):
invented in all those things, I'd never truly understood or
got a chance to ask a guest on the show,
like is this a Titanic synchro swim moment for you?
Like do you learn new technology or do you just,
you know, definantly say no, I'm gonna keep my horn

(48:06):
section and these Fender roads and this clabinget. Let me
tell you one of the reasons why I love Jack Sass.
So we had we always had great drummers, but a
lot of times they were nowhere to be found when
it was time to do. We had this cat, Leno Reyes.
I don't know if you know who he is. He
ended up playing with games, but we had a couple

(48:28):
of gigs lined up and he just didn't show up.
And I had bought a rolling drum machine, like a
little Mini eight oh eight. I was like, come on, guys,
we can we can use this for the gig. Let's
just do the gig. And they laughed me out of rehearsal.
They laughed me out of rehearsal, but I was like,
all right, you know somebody's somebody's working on this, and

(48:49):
I'd already been geared up, you know, reading Enemy out
of the UK, and like you said, Gary Newman, all
these bands in my image, I was already dressing new
way even I was always thinking new wave, but I
didn't know how to create it on my own with
the with the musicians that I had around me. So
I was already playing with technology and drum machines and

(49:11):
all that kind of stuff. When I met Dave Can,
I just ask a question about radio, because you mentioned that,
like Frankie Clarker popped off, you popped you off on radio,
and I'm curious since you mentioned a new wave, like,
so what happens after that? How do they decide, Okay,
we're going to continue to service these black radio stations,
We're gonna service the pop radio stations, Like how does

(49:35):
that have? What happens after Frankie response, the response of
the people calling in? What is that? Actually? When that
record first played? You know who women to me is right? Yeah?
So in two me like two days later and Tom
called and said, man, I heard your record and I

(49:56):
had to pull onto the side of the road outside
of the Midtown Tunnel what are you doing. I'm doing
a session now. He was doing Juicy Fruit. He was
recording that at the time, and he invited David and
I to play on that session because he wanted that.
He yeah, we're that session I forgot he said yeah,

(50:20):
So we went. Yeah, we went and played on that
session and we started getting We started getting a lot
more calls like from the UK, come to the UK
producing this artist in groups in and you know in
America also, hey, producers, can you give us give us
some of that that system funk. So we started doing
pretty much right out of the box. So they never

(50:41):
put you in a radio box, so you would never
just in the Frankie Cracker in urban box. Well we
you know, everybody starts in the urban box. But once
you start breaking out, don't forget. We had um you know,
after the results of that record starting to take off
like that, UM, I had another meeting with Jerry and
he was like, you guys want to do a twelve

(51:02):
inch And because of what I had learned with Petris,
I was like, now we want to do an album.
Well what would you what would you give us to
do a twelve inch? And he gave us a number
and I was like, give us double that, we'll do
an album. Now we had already been we had already
been writing songs, like, we had already been working on songs.
So basically our process and recording was we would get

(51:23):
together and maybe spend a couple of hours. David might
have some ideas he's working on doing arrangement, I'd work
on a vocal. I'd singing melody, and you know, we
basically had seven songs for the album already, so it
was basically we go into the studio record all the
parts he had prerecorded. And I don't want people to
think that pressing a button means you're just pressing a

(51:45):
button and something's coming out that's been prerecorded. There's a
lot that that song in Times of Passion, if you
ever listened to it, he's using an O B eight.
He made four different keyboard sections on the instrument. I
was gonna say it was Midia thing, Beckman, Yes, Middy
was the thing. Middy was just becoming the thing because

(52:06):
I always wanted to know, like, yeah, you guys had
intricate arrangements, especially on that first record, and I was
trying to figure out, like are you programming in this
in real time or is his MIDI like a MIDI
culture in I never knew when Middy came. So no,
he's playing, he's playing in real time. But as you know,
you can either sequence it or you can let it
play in real time, so he's recording it. He's really

(52:28):
Actually David is a is a great physical player, like great,
so he was. He divided the keyboards into different sections.
So there might be one section, of course in the
lower and that's the base. Another section might be a pad,
another section might be a little squeaky thing which you
could you could you could change programs while you're recording,

(52:49):
and it would record the program changes. So those sounds
like brew do do Brude is him basically pressing different
program buttons. And then you had to drum machine so
you have you know, you could have six seven, eight
parts would play back automatically, you know, And none of
this was at all no, because after we we did

(53:11):
in Times of Passion, I kind of knew how the
system could work and how we could take it to
another level um with the instrument because basically you had
you were basically it was a digital recording, you know,
without tape, you could record all the songs except for
the vocals, because they had nothing at that time where
you could actually record the vocals and still be in
sync with everything. So being someone who had played in

(53:34):
bands five shows a night, I could, I could hit
it on a dome like every gig, the harmonies all
out before I get into sweat, and you're in my system.
There's one thing I always wanted to know, you know.
At this time, also, like hip hop is also finding
its legs and developing, and you know, pretty much, I

(53:54):
guess the modus operandi of hip hop was was kind
of like, Okay, there's no more music lessons in school,
so we got to figure out how to make music. Ah,
won't make hip hop. And you know, I'm certain that
you're growing up and and you know, our firsthand witness
to this culture as it's starting. How how did that

(54:16):
not call you? And you still maintain like singing and
traditional R and B and funk like you could. Well, yeah,
you've done rapper in your records, and I gotta ask
you about that too. But yeah, um, actually, if you
listen to some of our stuff, those beats are actually

(54:40):
imitating some of the hip hop that was coming around. Yeah. Um,
That's what I'm saying, why didn't you just Africa Bumbada?
Because I thought there was a place for melodics and
storytelling in the way I could. I wasn't a rapper,
was I wasn't a rapper, and I thought there was
still a place for the context of what I was

(55:01):
doing over these bombastic beats that would still work so
and there were other guys who were just they were
just doing it so much better, and I just had
to remain kind of authentic to what system is. That
was what I was leading into, because the thing is
is that you know, the kind of the genre of freestyle,
you know, the kind of Stevie b Is, Yeah, Planet

(55:24):
Rakish Man tronic, sort of gay toweight lead breakdance in music,
which is clearly more on the hip hop side of
the fence than you know. There's some other guys like
I don't I don't know their names, like the guy
that's saying like your little brother or Nolan Thomas, Nolan Thomas,
how do you know that I'm in a group called

(55:44):
Little Brother Nucleus Jam Yeah, or even like the street
dance guy I forget his name, Uh, I forget his name,
but yeah, like, however, it's it's like the particular lame

(56:05):
that you guys occupied, even though it has the ingredients,
Like I know, like the DMX was was sort of
the the secret weapon. So you guys weren't using a
Lyne drum and you weren't using an eighth weight yet.
I almost feel like, you know, between what Prince was developing,
which was more purple print whatever I called purple music,

(56:29):
and the freestyle stuff that was more closer to Shannon
you know, uh, you know, like the Shannon freestyle breakdancing
nucleus stuff. You guys were closer to New Jack Swing
to me minus minus the no no, no, no, no,
I don't mean that. What I'm saying is the seeds,
like your your beats were hard enough to wrap over.

(56:53):
And it's a converse space that Jimmy jam and Terry
Lewis weren't occupying just yet because they were in Italye territory.
But what I wanted to know is like, how like,
as far as you like going to nightclubs and whatnot, Like,
are you guys saying yourself like, yeah, we got to
compete with these loudass drums and no, but did you

(57:16):
hear baptized the beat ever our record, Yeah, our record
baptiz that was that off kilter. We were doing it.
We just were doing in our way, and we were
listening to everything that was going on. And you know,
my lesson was always be different, just just stay just

(57:38):
stay the course and be different. I have a prince question.
Has anyone played you his version of your in my system? Yeah?
I've heard it, yes, okay, Yeah, it's mostly Line and
him kind of okay. So in in light of in

(58:00):
light of the The Beatles documentary that you know is
on Disney now to get Back documentary, which you know,
I feel fascinating people not baptize the music. We'll say
that it might be a little excessive for nine hours
of watching them try to make a record. However, I

(58:22):
think that's a very important documentary only in the fact
that you truly get to see how records get made,
which in the case of the Beatles, it seems like
they're too default go to places whenever they get stuck
for an idea, like Paul will tend to go back
to earlier Beatles songs, so he'll go back to you know,

(58:45):
he'll start singing lovely reading, He'll go back to that,
and John Lennon's go to thing is either Little Richard
or Chuck Barry, Like every three seconds is like whoa
baba about bap bamboo. And the thing is is that
when you're writing songs, you have to do you know,

(59:06):
I've going on record to say, like you know, D'Angelo
and I would do entire Prince albums, and then one
song will spark an idea like wait, we'll keep on
doing that again, and then you morph into another song.
So um, and in the case of Prince, always wondered
and obsessed over the fact that when he's creating music,
like is he aware of other music at the time

(59:29):
or is he just in his own private bubble in
which you know, he's just alone, isolated and coming up
with this brilliant stuff. Or is he actually aware of
what black music is doing and then creating his own
thing and kind of you know, I finally got my
answer and hearing so you know, I, you know, after

(59:52):
he died and suddenly like just a whole mountain load
of of Prince uh sound checks and mainly like the
sound checks to me, like tell the best story of
his creativity because you know, he'll riff on a line
for five hours in a row before it's lunch breaking.
So there's a moment um. There's a moment where kind

(01:00:15):
of at the tail end of the rehearsals before they
go on the road, you know they pretty much they
played you know, karaoke and them. But the reason why,
you know, people off then asked like, well, why didn't
he learn the song? I think the whole the whole
idea is not too learn the songs and learn the changes,

(01:00:39):
like you learn one part of it and hopefully if
you repeated enough, then it becomes something else. And there's
a moment where you clearly like in in this forty
minute version of your my system, he will eventually morph
that into what we know as the bird, but it's
it starts. I find it fascinating that once once, you know,

(01:01:05):
once I spent a year just listening to those sound checks.
Then I realized, like, oh, so he listens to modern
radio and then learns it and then tries to unlearn
it and morph it into his music, Like how I
mean to know what he morphed into. I know, back
then it probably wasn't obvious that he was going to

(01:01:27):
be king or like a god in music. But I mean,
I'm certainly that it has to feel somewhat like validating
that you're definitely one of the pegs that helped him
climb to a hit, which is you know, the bird
for the time. Yah know it? It feels good. I mean,
if you're trying to get around to how to how

(01:01:49):
David and I right, I don't do that at all
with with David. So our process is more David thinks
more like he's Beethoven. I'm not. I'm being I'm being
honest with you. Yeah, he's thinking, yeah, does it fit
into the context of what's going on now in music? No,

(01:02:11):
that's kind of my job to edit that music together
because sometimes you hear long landscapes of some of the
things we have or what they became. There's modulations and
then there's time. So I kinda I'll inspire him when
he thinks and ideas. No good like he played during
my system for me the baseline when we because we

(01:02:33):
were working on the album, I would go we spend
two or three hours, you know, writing songs because we
both had to do other gigs to survive, and that
was one idea he was like, I don't I don't know,
what do you think I don't like. I'm like stop.
I'm like stop, yes, yes, that baseline. I'm like, no, stop,
give it to me. So a lot of times it

(01:02:54):
would be like what he thinks is the chorus, I
think is the verse to have a section. Maybe he
thinks that's the a section. But I will edit it together,
even back then from the beginning. I'll edit it together
and move things around to make it be what I
hear as not commercial, but something that that I could

(01:03:16):
sing over and somebody else could sing over. You know.
People ain't singing over modulations and people ain't singing over
you know. So I will edit into a piece, and
I'll send it back to him and say, hey, try this,
and then we'll take it a step further and be like, oh, yeah,
I never thought of that. We'll take no, that's not
He'll be like, no, that's not the chorus, that's the verse.
I'm like, let me give me, give me a minute,

(01:03:37):
let me let me ride this out for you, let
me get sexy on you, let me show you, and
then you will come up with a year in my system.
So that's kind of how it works, and that's kind
of how it's worked throughout our career. You know, we
never I don't listen to anything else, and suggests, Hey,
we need something that sounds like this. Okay, So he

(01:03:57):
may have ten ideas on a on a cassette and
send them to me, just little pieces, and I'll say,
I like this piece, this piece of that piece. Let's
work on knees and we'll work on and I'll be like,
we need a B section, or we need a we
need a chorus, we need the chorus to hit more.
And we'll work on that and we'll mold it and
slowly but surely, I'm saying slowly, surely, but sometimes only

(01:04:19):
within an hour or two hours will have the shape
in the form of a song. Wait a minute, I'm
so glad I'm talking to you right now because it's
just's two questions I've been dying, dying to ask you
or Frank, and I can't believe this is at the moment.
First of all, one one of the secret sauces in

(01:04:39):
the group, in my opinion, was always you gotta please
tell me about the great Paul Pasco on guitar. Next,
what what what David Williams is to Michael Jackson? You know,
David Williams has probably been the most consistent, steady thing

(01:05:00):
and Michael like not even Michael Jackson is consistent and
steady through his career, through you know, creativity, physicality, whatever.
David Williams is almost the most consistent. The sound of
his guitar from like that line of Billy Jean connecting
to want to be starting stuff up again, like the
sound of that loud plug guitar. I think next to

(01:05:22):
David Williams, Paul Pesco has one of the most distinctive
act sounds like he's well speaking of Madonna. Uh, he's
that work on. I think Lucky started. That's thick. Yep, yep,
he's on. He's on a lot of that stuff. Oh,
he's the the U. C and C Music Factory hall

(01:05:47):
of notes, like adult education. All that tell me about
Paul Pesco, Like I never heard any stories about him. Yeah,
so Paul is just a wonderful, wonderful guy. Um we
this is for you is Paul Pesco. I don't know
if you know our song this is for you, This
is for you. He's the guy. He's the guy. Really,

(01:06:10):
him and him and David they would get together and
cook up somethings. This is for you as one. I
want to make you feel good. That's Paul and David
cooking up that that plectrum on I want to make
you feel good. The lines. Yes, he's he's basically like
a line and a Kachenka guy. But also he's he's
very cordy. He knows his chords, he knows how to

(01:06:32):
create atmosphere and mood. Um. Just a brilliant guy. I love.
I love the guy. I love the way he plays,
I love the way he thinks. Okay, my second question,
when you know your your your first record comes out
when I'm twelve, and I swear to God, I swear
up and down because I swear that's your voice. I'm

(01:06:55):
here and I swear up and down. There's there's a
local hit or I don't know if it's a local
hit or a local group New York group. I need
to know, did you have anything to do? There was
a song that you used to always play in Philadelphia.
It's the name of the song. It's not Attitude. It's
a song called We Got the Juice. Do you know

(01:07:16):
the song? Yeah, of course I know. Attitude is our group.
We created Red Jam and Lewis. We created that group.
Bernard singing on that, I'm singing La La Chris Hello,
because your boys need to fight like you you always

(01:07:36):
yell on your records, And when I was a kid,
I always thought that was the System and someone corrected me,
like at a record store once and I never you know,
I forgot the name of the song, but I always
swore that we got the juice was like the follow up.

(01:07:59):
So that was Bernard how group or no, Well that
was if that look, I was following the Fred Petrus model.
You have a band, you have a band, the System,
and then you can expand that sound to another use
kind of change the attitude of it and create a

(01:08:19):
whole other bank of songs. We wrote all the Cyndy
Mizell sings on it, who was someone who sang a
lot of Yeah, she sings on Lisa Fisher sings on it,
La La sings on it, Bernard follows things on it.
It was just our way to spread the juice. But
it was clearly that song could have been the next

(01:08:42):
single on the System album, Like so obviously you're you're,
You're saying you're creating your You're You're not your competition.
It sort of like prints of the time, like you
have to grow your own crop. Yeah, exactly, to be honest, Yeah,
that's what That's what we were doing, exactly what that
was my idea. I found out recently that um, Charlie
xc X finally admitted to me that, um, well, what's

(01:09:07):
the name of the idiom song that's uh would yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
don't care. I love it? Yeah, yeah, I love that song. Yeah.
Charlie actually basically admitted to me that that group never existed.
They just found two models too sing that. Yeah. But

(01:09:27):
she was more coming from the place where she felt
that the song was so cartoony that no one would
take her series as an artist. So like the the
compromise was, we'll still release the song, but we'll do
it under like it won't be a Charlie, I get
it now. So did you just feel that we got
the juice wasn't like serious enough for the system, but

(01:09:49):
it was still a good song that worked, not what
we had. I think we had the System out System
record out then and it was still climbing and we
were still touring it, and I really took a page
out of Prince's book with the Time, because actually I
saw I saw a Prince at the Ritz and the
time was an opening act, but I know it was

(01:10:10):
Prince's band. They had on these black robe hoodie costumes.
You couldn't see their faces, so they were the band
playing and I was like, wow, we could we could
do something like that in New York. We could, like,
I could come up with another group. We have enough
musicians around. Really, that was really the thinking, to be
real honest with you. So it was was that song

(01:10:32):
also your version of the times wild and Loose always,
you know, like derivative of wild and Loose? Like that
was your version of it? You know, I didn't. I
really didn't listen to the Time that much except seven
seven seven eleven. That was That was my joint back,

(01:10:58):
That was my joint. Um Oh, Frankie Crocer had this
saying on the radio we got the juice, so I
knew he could come up with something using that that
he would play it, and he did and it's spread,
it's spread it just so, how is how is touring
for you guys? Doing this when when the album takes off? Well,

(01:11:19):
I mean that's if I have any regrets, I kind
of regret that We didn't turn the touring thing into
a bigger thing because, um, when the records took off,
we had calls to produce records in the UK. We
had called We produced a lot of Howard Johnson, Nick
and Valerie Simpson. Um what did you work? Nick and

(01:11:43):
val Yeah? It comes with the package. You know that song.
We did like three songs on that album. I think
we're the only people ever produced to produce them. We did.
Uh god, we produced a lot of records and I
think that was an error for what we could have done,
you know from the live avenue. So we we did

(01:12:04):
some Victoris. We did Marvin Gaye tour that was that
was a big tour. We did ready, yes, that's correct, Yes,
can you oh wait was it you guys in Imagination?
Well we did in the UK. We did here some
dates with Imagination also because they were kind of a

(01:12:25):
similar we were in a similar vibe. So he wanted
somebody really contemporary to open. Yeah, and we had I
don't think I'm not sure what we have. Don't disturb
this group at that time. This is you're in my system.
It's like four. It's probably sweat. Yeah, And it also

(01:12:45):
may have been out him and too, because you know,
I wanted neat neat concert, show up on time, do
the gig, get on, get off, easy, turnaround, no big
nine piece horn van. You know, we we fifthed a
bill in a lot of ways because we travel light. Um.
But that's kind of my one regret that we didn't
really build up what we could do live, uh with

(01:13:08):
the system when you're performing live, because the albums are
so have very distinctive like electronic sounds how and you know,
also going off these prince rehearsals, which I know he
had to sort of turn serious miracles to get the

(01:13:32):
sound of the studio to to duplicate that live, Like
how easy is it to do that stuff live? That
was easy? Look, we have we have a keyboard player,
Chris Kello. I don't know if you know who he is,
but he's a phenomenal now he wrote he's the one

(01:13:52):
who did all the arrangements for Diane Warren. But he
was a young kid. He was like maybe fourteen or
fifteen um when his mom's when I asked his mom,
can you let him come on the road with us?
And I'm putting him in fift maybe he was sixteen
maybe maybe him and him and Bernard right well arch
rivals in that area of Queens. They were both like idiot,

(01:14:16):
suvant genius. Cuba plays but all that sixteenth note and
he could do all of that stuff. So we really
didn't have live both him and David. David very dexterous,
both hands give what Chris very dextrous, Paul. That was
That was not the hard part. Hard part was kind
of convincing David to maybe add a drummer or add

(01:14:38):
you know what I mean, add that other component that
would allow us to have that push and pull that
you know you can only get with a live band,
those hits, those accents that you can only get that
with a live band, you know, and half to playing
with live bands, I know you need that. So and
also it was very compelling all these production offers, and

(01:15:00):
you know, you kind of just you write the songs,
you get the publishing, you get the production fee. You
you know, it's you're on the road, you're spending spending, spending, spending,
you know what I'm saying. It was like that kind
of balance of you know, being away from home and
right I I have I have a this is my
night question. Of course, you know you you and David Are,

(01:15:24):
You're brought aboard by the great uh Are. I always
messed up his name. This guy's might hear? Um? You
know how you know Atlantic house producer and you know
average wipe in He produced Shaka CON's first like six
solo records, and you know, it was a it was

(01:15:45):
kind of a big deal when Shock As I Feel
for You album came out, in which you know, this
is clearly them acknowledging the power of hip hop and
where music is going. So it's a less jazzy record
and more leaning towards the future. But there's there's a
question I always had about this is my night, and

(01:16:06):
this leads to a, UM, I don't know if the
grace period has passed that I can actually say the
name of this particular Thursday night institutional comedy show that
all of America religiously watched all the eighties. But there's
a moment in in that particular black comedy show or

(01:16:28):
an NBC at eight o'clock on Thursday. So there's there's
an iconic episode. There's an iconic episode where uh, the
youngest daughter the brood has a sleepover and um, you
know one of the one of the kids that are

(01:16:49):
having a sleepover is Alicia Keys. So there's there's there's
a really funny, cool moment that connects you guys with
this episode in which kind of uh just randomly call
these two kids THEO and Denise maybe yeah where where

(01:17:09):
they are having a quickie like dance party with the
kids and they're dancing to a version of This is
My Night that is not the album version of This
is My Night. And I make fun of Alicia Keys
because she's the only kid in this in this group
of you YouTube um rudy sleepover Like she's the only

(01:17:33):
kid that clearly has two left feet, uh in the scene.
It's funny, but it might assume that before that song
was submitted to Shaka, that you guys demoed it or
because that version of This is My Night is not
the version from Sokka Khan, but it's clearly like a
different So I just wanted to know, like I gotta

(01:17:55):
hear it. But we demo, to be honest, we demo
every song. We're never going cold record, so we demoed.
So the way that came about we were recording at
Atlantic Studios. Are Reef was in Studio A. We were
in Studio B, the Hallway Studio, and we're working on
Don't Deserve This Groove, and he came and asked, hey,

(01:18:15):
you guys have anything for Chaka, And we worked on
it like overnight. The next day we turned it into
him and he was like, yeah, we're gonna record it.
But he also, don't deserve the groove. You're if you
if you know the song in the middle section, there's
a female, right, So we played him don't deserve this
group because we respected him. We respect him so much.
He said, all you need to do is add the girl.

(01:18:38):
Add the girl in the middle. That's all, and you
have a you have, you have, you have, you have
a smash. So we added the girl in the middle
and we had a smash. If he talked about that,
he was talking about the middle part. No, no, no, no, no,
we had we had that already. We had to close

(01:18:58):
the door and turned up. Yeah, yeah, I had that
hook already. We had everything, but the middle we didn't
have that. But he said, at the girl, at a
girl in the middle, who was the girl on that
Who was the girl singing that part? We had order wheel.
Cindy Mizelle singing in the chorus and from uh unlimited

(01:19:23):
touch are you? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, stuff's there. B J Nelson,
that's that's b J. In the solo section, that's my girl,
I love you, b J. Yeah. B J sang the
middle eight, um ud your wheeler, Cindy, I think sang
with me on the hook or maybe just Audrey and

(01:19:45):
b J on the on the chorus hook, don't district.
B J sang the lead the middle of the call
and response. What did you think of Michelle's cover of
that I love her so look Miche Michelle so so.
I I co produced her first album, the first three songs.

(01:20:08):
I got shafted out of the credit. I was a
vocal plantation, yea dread dreadlocks Yeah yeah, I produced that
vocal Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I got. I got
kind of shafted by the credit by someone who I
brought up in the business and the game. Who kind

(01:20:29):
of I ended up ended. No, not Gampson. Gampson's my man,
bets I got. I got cheft the Yeah, I got
shafted on the credit, but um yeah, she acknowledged it,
she said. When the song was released, she said, for
those in the know, McMurphy co produced you know, my first,
my first record. I know she about giving credit. Yeah, yeah,

(01:20:52):
I love I love Michelle Lover from day one. I
love everything she does, everything she touches. Um. I'm just
you know, I was. I was so proud to actually
I to that point. That was my proudest production moment
really honestly, because the whole record was so beautiful and

(01:21:13):
just her attitude, and you know, I love her and
everything she does. Is there any other stuff you worked
on that you Yeah? I co wrote Secret Garden from Madonna.
I didn't get a proper credit on either. Ye, So
y'all did end up working together? Yes, yes, we did.

(01:21:35):
And I wrote another song. So I wrote the song
um to your Father, which she called me up when
she was working on the album. You called me up,
she said, McMurphy. McMurphy, I'm gonna make you rich. You're
gonna be You're gonna be rich. McMurphy. How the song,
the song didn't make it on the album. And and

(01:21:57):
Secret Garden I played. I played the instrument some the
chords too. I didn't get any credit, but you know,
life is life, man, another kind. I wanted to ask
you about from from that era that was kind of
moving and shaking chet petty Bone. Did you guys ever
have any dealings working together? Yeah, well he remixed a
bunch of System cuts and uh, I know David played
in a bunch of his remixes. Um ok, but he

(01:22:20):
did remix a bunch of System songs at some point. Okay, Oh,
can you can you please settle this once and for all?
All right, I recently found out that it wasn't you,
But I will say that for the last thirty five years,
I would have put my life on the fact that

(01:22:43):
you were the voice, So clove shut up. That was
That was Chris. That was Christopher mac Yeah, yeah, that
was who we were. We were really good friends, you know,
we were real we were real friends and we still
were still neck. That was Chris Max. Yeah. So since
we mentioned so we can I ask you about the

(01:23:04):
hair and the maintenance and because I don't disturb this groove,
it was I had, I had I had a well
started up. My My first one of my first girlfriends
was a hairdresser, so she taught me early to maintain
and she would like she would primp it and get
it right, and it just it just it became like
a vegetable that just kept growing. It took on the

(01:23:27):
life of its own. Some AquaNet would help with help
with the You know, I would tie it up at night.
I would tie it up at night like a buffon.
I love it like the girl sleep on a chair. Yes,
you see on the pillars right here, just like like

(01:23:48):
Friday because she doesn't let her hair touch the bill. Ye.
Do you remember when you were we all recorded, I
know the song baptized Beat, but recording the scene for
Beat Street. Do you remember anything about the Yeah, very clearly. Um,

(01:24:10):
well it was that, Um, what's this club on street?
The h it was a roller skating rink. It was
a roller skating rink on twenty seven s um, and
everybody was there, all these different acts. And I know
we've we've performed the song and when we were done,
they were like next. In the edits, they said next,

(01:24:31):
But I thought I thought we had to slam in
the song. I thought baptized the Beat, And to this day,
I think it's one of the most inventive songs lyrically,
beat Wise changes the bridges, everything about it. Yes, it's
it's it's some fly ship for me, it's it's you
were definitely better than Andy B Bad and Wine. Yeah,

(01:25:06):
you can tell when he play in this career, he
knew like, yo, man, I'm just in and out out
of your study. Poor guy never had a chance. Yeah,
so okay, can you There's the one thing I also
wanted to know is how did the group dissolve after

(01:25:28):
eight nine? And you know why didn't you guys sort
of try to push it further past that point? So
let's see, we had don't disturb this groove. There's a
massive hit. We did big tours. UM the next record,
Rhythm and Romance. I think we kind of went down

(01:25:48):
the rabbit hole of Cheddy Riley style funk in our
own version. UM. I really think pretty much at that
time we kind of run our course where our heads
were at right then in terms of we we need
to have to go really simpler, like really back to
the basics, or I don't think we could get any

(01:26:12):
any bigger in terms of the music, in terms of
the chord and the layers and the parts and the
levels and it it had just to my head, it
had blown up into too much to too much to digest.
UM and David actually had started to get a lot

(01:26:32):
more session work on his own. UM what is UM?
I'm kind of looking for a new direction. I'm trying
to think of something that's a little bit different. UM.
He had quite a bit of success in that era
as a keyboard player and working in producing, and I

(01:26:54):
was trying to find my own niche. I ended up
going to l a In Tree and forming a band
with Just. It was really like a summer camp, like
a musical summer camp. We had all kind of gotten
divorced or our record deal that ended, or we were

(01:27:15):
trying to find usselves with Andrew, Simone, gard Nicole st
Paul Peterson, myself. So we went there the summer and
actually that record just came out two weeks ago, The
Mighty Soul Mates. It just came out, UM and we
recorded like twenty four songs. We recorded like twenty four
songs and yeah, so we recorded actually UM A and

(01:27:42):
M record. John McClain kind of put us together because
he was a friend from way back. He's the one
that said keep an eye on Prince. You know once
he once he loses that baby girl voice and started
singing in the full voice, he's gonna be a monster.
He's gonna be a monster. And he turned us on
kind of a Jimmy and Terry and he was really
like a like a career of driving force. So I
think he said, don't you guys get together, see what

(01:28:04):
you can do. So we hold up summer gard Nicole's
house in Woodland Hills. Like four or five months we wrote,
literally we wrote maybe more songs. W we finished twenty
four songs. Not to interrupt, but John McClean is one
of the most elusive, hardest cats too. He is our

(01:28:25):
dream interview. Like he's literally the common denominator of almost
every other guest on this show. And Mr griff well,
well yeah, but yeah, he has reasons. He has reasons
he can't make it. But I know why, why why

(01:28:46):
is he such a mystery you kind of you know.
I mean, I've spent time with him, like over the
court because he really was a fan of the system.
He really was. He put us together. He wrote us
a producer couple acts, so we did a couple of
projects for him. But I would ride around with him
in l A and we were kind of talk music
and he would talk Michael John. He grew up with

(01:29:08):
with the Jackson family, his father I think was I
don't want to speak out a line with his father
was in the underground under whatever in l A and
uh and uh. But John always had a brilliant ear
for music and a personality to put s up together
and just a sense of kind of what would work

(01:29:28):
and who would work. He's always had that. So he
brought us together. We spent someone together, wrote this record,
and then the earthquake happened in January and we kind
of all splintered and all went our separate ways. I
think John changed labels or whatever, and this record is
set complete since so I was finally able to get

(01:29:53):
a deal for it with A. D. A. Warner and
the record just came out one on December three. Oh man,
that's music to my ears. Literally wow, that's and over
the course also, um, Andrew Simone and I have become
brothers over the last Actually I met I met uh
Andre on the Prince Rick James Clear tour. He was

(01:30:16):
the only person in the band because I'm you know,
I looked like a roadie. I'm basically roady. No one
would no one would look for me, no one talk
to me. But Andre and I connected on that tour.
And we remained friends ever since. Okay, so you weren't
you weren't in system mode yet you were just one
of the guys as far. Yeah, I was just one

(01:30:37):
of the guys hanging around the edge. I don't know
what you do exactly, but you ain't you ain't you
ain't an artist, so you know you get Well that's beautiful, man,
you know, I just want to say, man, like, I mean,
this is this is definitely a dream interview, Like I've
always wanted to talk to you or you know you
or David either or and this is one of the

(01:30:59):
moments that you know, definitely a highlight for me to
get the nerd out and study history right here. Actually yes,
And I just want to say to man, like, don't
disturb This groove is like one of my favorite songs
of all times, like in any genre. I mean, you

(01:31:23):
know that song just when I was a kid and
I would just hear it, like, you know, on the
way like my mom taking me to school in the morning,
you know what I mean, Like that was just it's
still one of my favorite songs of all the eighties. Babies,
I mean posted the video with jay Z just saying
it in common in this casual language, like don't disturb
this groove. Like I kind of think it's like at
least the top ten for most eight babies. No, it

(01:31:43):
really might be. Know that that song is just an
amazing record, man, Like seriously that it's you know what
they said, it's just yeah, that's a good story about that.
That's a good story. We have time yet so so
so when when when we would make records, generally the

(01:32:04):
label they just let us do what we do. They
just you know, you just turn it in when you're done.
So at this point, it's like we had done a system,
we had done experiment, we had done the pleasure Seekers,
and now we're coming on, don't disturbe this group. The
pleasure Seekers did. We made a lot of noise. So
now it's time. They want. They want, they want payback,

(01:32:26):
they want They knew that big hit, the money record,
So we knew, David and I that don't disturb this
groove was it. We we knew. So you know, you're
going to a and R meeting. You're gonna play all
your ship, but you're gonna save the best one the last, right,
You're gonna say the best of the last. So we
start playing the songs on the album. We play everything,

(01:32:48):
and now we're like, okay, we got one more to
play for you hit play on the record place for
about a minute a minute and a half, and Sylvia's says,
come on, baby, I know y'all got I know y'all
got something else, but you got what you got from me. Yes.
So Merlin Bob was also he was like, really that, yeah, Merlin.

(01:33:16):
Merlin Bob said no, no, no, no, no, just wait
a second. Let's listen to that one more time. And
they listened to the second time, and she still didn't
want to release as the first single, but she said,
all right, you know, if that, if that's what y'all,
you know, if that's what y'all want to do, I'm
okay with it. But you know, I think we is
stronger and about this. Yeah yeah, that's right, all right now,

(01:33:43):
right right? Yeah? What was her comeback to? What was
the comeback? No, there was no there was there was
no comeback that. That record just went through the scene.
It was not okay, yeah, no, no, no, we never
got we never got that. But that was kind of

(01:34:05):
I thought that was an interesting story about don't disturb
the group. So they didn't, but the label didn't believe
in and until it until it just saw it hitting
it and it went out. Yeah, till I saw some
recognition from some label out on the West coast, I
think in Washington State or something. There was some taste
to make a label at the time, and they said
their phones were lightened up so that one blew up.

(01:34:26):
And and I really believe it's one of our one
of our best. Yes, yes, absolutely, yes, alright, So just
before we sign off, any other secret projects you've you've
done that we don't know about. Mm hmm, come on,
let's give you a lot. I've done a lot, but

(01:34:49):
I I don't know what I think. I think the
Michelle and then the Madonna's stuff is kind of really
what I'm I'm kind of proud of stuff you do
right there. Thank you very much, man, Thank you for
having me. Man. I really appreciate you guys. All right, man,

(01:35:10):
thank you for the music right for real? Yeah, yeah,
I want to shout out to my brother David Frank.
We've been on this throad since nineteen eighty one, even
earlier because he was in clear. My love for him,
I love for his talent, my respect for him and
him getting on board with all my crazy ideas and

(01:35:31):
my crazy energy. Um, I got so much love for him.
And we actually we have a record on the griddle
right now that's being mixed in l A. And it's
a it's a new system record, um being mixed by
Tom Lord Algae and Jimmy Doug Oak. Songs are finished. Yes, yes,

(01:35:55):
no we're not. We're not playing, but you know we
need the right we need the right place to write home,
to get it out in in this new world. Um,
but it's I think it's gonna be a sensational record
as as you're doing this, I promise. This is my
last question. Are you Are you aware of the sort
of the phase of like throwback, that that sound that

(01:36:17):
you guys helped create, like the from groups like Tuxedo
or up in Canada, there's um, what's a tracks brother's name? Oh, Chromeo,
chromeo like And we're not we're not throwback, but the
Foreign Exchange. Me and my brother we are very much
inspired by y'all. For real. I was gonna say, are

(01:36:39):
you against like oftentimes people say like no, let's push forward,
let's push forward, But I swear there's just a generation
of people that are starving for like authentic like pulling
out the d m X drum machine, pulling out the
Oberheim synthesizer, that sort of thing. Are you guys going
back to square one with this? We for the most part, yes,

(01:37:02):
but we're down with your quest. You've got an idea, brothers,
we'll make a real, real, simple and basic. I mean, well,
that's that's what we're about. That's what we're trying to
get you right now. Might be a mission for Zoe
and Man. I mean I'm listening, I mean listen, here

(01:37:28):
was open for all her Man. I will do the
documentary on it. I promise you. Here was open. That's beautiful. Well,
once again, thank you very much for joining us, Sugar
Steve anything any thank you, fear, thank you any time.
And for your music. Michael, thank you, thank you, thank
you having me alright, alright, we're talking to you, Lata.

(01:37:50):
Be good. M h m h m hm. What's Love

(01:38:10):
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