More Than a Feeling: Talking Les Pauls with Boston' s Tom Scholz
Ted Drozdowski | 11.01.2010
Gibson.com is pleased to present The Gibson Classic Interview, where we open our archives and share with you interviews we ve done over the years with some of the world s biggest artists. This week, we revisit Ted Drozdowski s 2008 interview with Boston axeman (and Rockman inventor) Tom Scholz.
Tom Scholz s metamorphosis from rock and roll dreamer to living the rock and roll dream is legendary.
Toiling long and hard in his basement on funky used recording gear he d stitched and bolted together, Scholz, primarily with the help of his friend and singer Brad Delp, crafted the Boston album during nights and weekends off from his engineering job at the Polaroid Corporation. 
The lanky six-foot-six MIT grad had nearly gone broke after years of making tapes and having them rejected by record labels.
I had enough money for one last demo and sent it off to 24 companies, then figured I d sit back and wait for the rejection letters, Scholz says today. Lo and behold, three major labels were interested. I couldn t believe it. Nobody knew who we were, so I wouldn t even say we were struggling. It was groveling.
Scholz signed with CBS Records, and when radio stations began playing More Than a Feeling and Boston was released on August 8, 1976, the album which its breathtaking sonic architecture and hopelessly romantic lyrics became the feel-good cure for a nation suffering the hangover of Vietnam and Watergate.
Suddenly, the Les Paul wielding frontman says, we were 70s superstars.
Fast forward to 2008. Boston remains the best-selling debut rock and roll album in the history of Billboard s charts, at 17 million copies. Four more Boston studio discs and a greatest hits set have followed in its wake, racking up more than 30 millions albums sold worldwide. But the yin of Scholz and Boston s success has been countered by the yang of divisiveness and lawsuits, and, most tragically, his friend Delp s suicide in 2007.
Acoustic Rock Magazine's July 2010 issue presents a guide to the 25 greatest acoustic songs in hard rock, featuring the lightest tunes from the heaviest hitters. By Joe Bosso "More Than a Feeling" comes in at number two, just behind "Stairway to Heaven" at number one.
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