Musician Magazines
Tom Scholz
Boston
Everyone forgot about Boston until they released the Third Stage album in 1986. Eight years later, the 4th Boston album (Walk On) was released this month. Boston has become a legend for releasing an album only every 8 years. So who knows, maybe the next album won’t be out till the year 2002! Even if it’s sooner, Boston still only has 4 albums out in 18 years. That makes them the slowest band in rock history. But any way you cut it, a true fan can take any part of this album and say, "Yep, that’s Boston." But, Tom Scholz’s guitar work is much more aggressive than on earlier albums, with a veteran guitarist feel. As on the Third Stage album, Tom uses his Rockman technology in the studio to get that perfect tone. This point should appeal to those young listeners hearing Boston for the 1st time.
By John Stix 
Sometime after the pilgrims landed at Plymouth Rock and before the great collapse of last year's World Series, Boston was discovered by Tom Scholz. Here's how it happened.
"Rock 'n' Roll Band,' was written because Jim (Masdea), always the hopeless dreamer, was playing in bands in Hyannis, like it says in the song," Tom said. "He was always saying how so and so was going to come to see them. I had heard it so many times before. All these kids playing in bars thought some record guy was going to come in and discover them. You're a rock 'n' roll band and it's something special. That's what you like to think about when you're playing in a bar. I finally thought, I'm going to write a song about everybody who dreams about that. It's what I dreamed about. But that's not what happened with Boston.
"Here is the true story. I did a lot of demo work starting in about 1969.1 worked for about a year and bought a twelve track tape deck with my savings. I had to keep working full time through the whole thing to make the money to cover all the expenses. On some of the earlier demos there were other people involved. Barry Goudreau played on some of them. Epic became interested on the basis of six demo songs. Jim helped with the drum arrangements and playing the drums, Brad (Delp) did all the vocals and I did the instruments. That was it. All six of those songs eventually appeared on record.
"Those demos were started in 1974 and completed in 1975. The actual demos were not cut on the vinyl. There was a big back and forth thing about whether we should use the demos themselves and do some touch up work and re-mix or should we start over. I had to actually re-record exact copies of them. The demos weren't good enough because the drum sound wasn't good enough. In some places the meter wasn't very good. We had to record between the hours of 12 midnight and 8 a.m. because I was working full time at Polaroid. Brad worked full time. Jim played in bands either up north or down south. So we would record on days where he had to play afternoon sets. He would pack up his drums and drive two hours to the studio, meet me in the middle of the night, unpack his drums, set up; we'd mike him, get our sound, he'd play the part as best he could at 4 a.m., tear everything down, pack the drums back in the car, drive back down to the Cape and try to get a few hours sleep before his next show. He had to set his drums up again that night to play on stage. I had to get back in time to go to work. And this is what we did for one year.
By Andy Aledort
"I had been working on some new jumps, fooling around in the middle of the rink and trying a maneuver called a 'scratch spin,' which I find very difficult. Suddenly, Whammo!, I fell, completely obliterating my left arm." Tom Scholz, founding father and resident genius of Boston, is no stranger to taking chances. Most of the time he confines his risk-taking to the relatively safe environment of writing and recording music and designing revolutionary pieces of guitar-related recording gear, like the Rockman. But he is now talking about ice jumping, his latest passionate endeavor.
"It happened this past Fall, and it was a nasty, nasty crash," he says with a chuckle. "The larger forearm bone shattered into several pieces right at my wrist, and they had to operate, leaving me with this horrible, Frankenstein-like cast, with giant bolts sticking out of my arm. Now I wear protective gear over the forearm when I skate, because I couldn't support my weight with my left arm if I were to fall. Another big negative is that I am forbidden to play basketball with other players. But I can still jam."
As in, jam with other musicians? "No--jam a basketball," he laughs. "Playing the guitar hurts like hell! Excruciatingly, utterly painful. But I suffered no nerve damage, and my fingers all work fine. Once I get warmed up, it always starts to feel better."
As any true Boston fan knows, Scholz rules on the keyboards as well. Has the injury hampered his piano playing? "The only time it bothers me is when I play Rachmaninoff's 'Prelude in C# Minor,'" he says slyly, "because it has a lot of 'cross-handed' stuff in it. Other than that, I'm all right.
"The most important thing to remember," Scholz continues, "is that no matter how screwed up your wrist is, it really doesn't affect your ice skating."
MUSICAL TRENDS MAY COME AND GO, BUT TOM SCHOLZ, BOSTON'S RECLUSIVE ROCK MAN, COULDN'T CARE LESS. 
ALONG THE WOODED HIGHWAY THAT LEADS NORTH OUT OF BOSTON STANDS A DINGY RED BRICK BUILDING. HOUSED IN THIS UNASSUMING STRUCTURE IS THE BIRTHPLACE OF THE ROCKMAN SCHOLZ RESEARCH & DEVELOPMENT. WHERE BOSTON IS CURRENTLY REHEARSING FOR THEIR FIRST WORLD TOUR SINCE 1988. THE BAND IS TAKING TO THE ROAD IN SUPPORT OF THEIR LATEST OPUS, WALK ON. ONLY THE FOURTH BOSTON ALBUM SINCE 1976. WHEN SCHOLZ AND CO. BURST ONTO THE SCENE WITH ONE OF THE TRULY MEMORABLE CLASSIC ROCKERS. -'MORE THAN A FEELING."
A TALL, LANTERN-JAWED MAN, TOM SCHOLZ SEEMS CRAMPED IN HIS COMPANY'S TINY RECEPTION AREA. SURPRISINGLY YOUTHFUL, HE LOOKS MUCH THE SAME AS HE DID IN '76. THOUGH THE NEW ENGLAND AUTUMN IS WELL UNDER WAY. SCHOLZ IS DRESSED IN THIGHLENGTH SWEATSHORTS, A T-SHIRT AND WINDBREAKER. BUT WHAT ELSE WOULD A CONFIRMED BASKETBALL ADDICT WEAR TO WORK. PARTICULARLY WHEN HE OWNS THE PLACE?
AFTER A VIGOROUS HANDSHAKE, Scholz's first act is to offer me coffee. Like the late Frank Zappa, he is a nocturnal creature. "It's still morning for me," he laughs, "Even though it's late afternoon for everyone else."
He's the quintessential crackpot Yankee inventor, an American original who does things his own way, and the rest of the world be danged. Sometime in the mid-Seventies, Scholz, who scored a Masters in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (M.I.T.) even as he slaved in countless bar bands, discovered his dual calling: analog audio, and what would come to be known as classic rock. He has resolutely stuck with both while the rest of world succumbed to disco, synths, punk, digital, new wave, hair bands, grunge and CD-ROM.
Boston's debut album has now sold over six million copies in the U.S. alone, something all the so-called business factors involved in success(right time, right place. right band, right management, right record company, heavy radio play, blah, blah, blah...) can't all together explain. Perhaps Tom Scholz, whose former top secret project at Polaroid was the development of instant movies, has developed a process by which that Jonathon Edwards album you just had to buy becomes a Boston LP by the time you reach the cash register? It might sound plausible, if the long, long wait for the follow-up didn't prove any "instant album" theories to be little more than a feeling.
Rumors about the delay have been flying about like guitar-shaped spaceships (Close Encounters fans may note how familiar the Boston cover now looks and I challenge trivia experts to find the short bit of "More Than A Feeling" in the film...it's there!), the most prevalent of which concerns the flooding of Tom Scholz's basement studio, summoning up visions of the techno-wizard guitarist struggling amidst the sludge to save his studio album and career.
Resonant Frequency #29
by Mark Richardson
For 75 years the guitar has craved electricity. Tom Scholz and Brian May believed that the instrument on juice could do anything. "No Synthesizers Used. No Computers Used." said the inside sleeve of Don't Look Back, while the 70s Queen albums I own all have a variation on the stamp "No synthesizers!" These seemingly reactionary claims actually said more about faith in the power of a guitar than they did about synthesis. Scholz and May didn't just want good ol' rock'n'roll guitars-that-sound-like-guitars; they believed in the guitar as an endless tool for shaping sound. They told us these things on the album sleeves to point out that whatever the musical problem, the guitar, if treated and processed appropriately, could solve it.
Now our world has changed and we're living in front of screens with our fingers on keyboards. But there's still a place for the guitar. Since before the time of John Fahey's "Requiem For Molly" the guitar has found a ways to embed itself into experimental movements following changes in technology. The guitar in computer music symbolizes both a connection to the past and the possibilities inherent in organic unpredictability. With its strings vibrating in space the guitar gives the all-brain/no-body computer a glimpse at what happens out here in the physical world, where flesh still counts for something.
Modern Guitars Magazine Column by John Foxworthy
Everyone must remember the old coil reverb and vibrato knobs on amps like the Sears Silvertone (classic stuff). Nowadays we process through mini nuclear plants … a long ride from our roots. From the old “Fuzz” box and Cry Baby to the digital harmonizer, effects processing has evolved by leaps and bounds since electric instruments were first introduced. Tom Scholz, best known as the guitarist of Boston, helped to spearhead the advancements present in today’s audio effects.
Scholz graduated from Ottawa Hills High School in Toledo, Ohio in 1965 where he went on to maintain a 4.8 GPA, out of 5.0 at MIT. Being 6’ 5” he was known to be a skilled basketball player rather than a killer guitarist. Tom graduated MIT with a Masters Degree in Mechanical Engineering and went on to become Senior Product Designer for Polaroid.
By Walter Carter
For Boston’s most recent CD, Corporate America, Tom Scholz and his bandmates created a collection of thoroughly contemporary music, but the recording technology was decidedly un-contemporary. Scholz did not update, modernize or in any way mess with the classic sound from “More Than a Feeling” (1976) or “Don’t Look Back” (1978), and that meant recording the new Boston just like the old Boston – on tape. Magnetic recording tape.
That’s right, the electronics whiz with the Masters degree in engineering from MIT, the inventor of the Rockman over two dozen patented designs, refuses to enter the digital age. It’s not because Scholz wants to be old-fashioned, though. It’s because he can’t work as efficiently (keeping in mind that he typically spends four years making an album) and, most important, he simply can’t get the signature Boston sound using new technology.
Read more: Classic sound of Boston is still Tom Scholz, still recording on tape
By Blair Jackson - Mix Magazine Online
October 10, 2003
Kramer has been a loyal friend of Mix's for a long, long time, always available to talk about music history and recording. In recent years, we've interviewed him for three “Classic Tracks” articles — Hendrix's “All Along the Watchtower,” Led Zeppelin's “Ramble On” and, most recently, Traffic's “Dear Mr. Fantasy” — and discussed his techniques for surround mixing (Mix, March 2003). With his induction this month in the TEC Hall of Fame, however, we thought this might be a good time to offer a more general overview of his glorious career. We caught up with Kramer at his Putnam County, N.Y., home in late July. More than 30 years in America have chiseled away at his South African/English accent — and also turned him into a hardcore Yankees fan. (Please don't hold that against him.)
Tom Scholz is one crazy dude. Sure, he’s probably a genius, and he single-handedly changed the sound of rock with the meticulously engineered guitar sounds on his classic ’70s Boston albums. He also developed the Rockman series of headphone amps and signal processors, and, man, who didn’t plug into that stuff during the line’s heyday in the ’80s? (Scholz detested his sojourn as a manufacturer, and sold the Rockman line to Dunlop Manufacturing in 1995. Only the headphone amps are currently available.)
But when the guy makes an album—such as the brand new Corporate America [Artemis]—he immerses himself in the process for four years or more. And unless there’s a lead vocal track to cut, he works totally alone. Is this healthy?
“When I’m recording, I don’t have much of a personal life,” he admits. “I’m thinking of music constantly, and I have an awful lot of ideas. I also have the stamina to develop most of them—which is one reason it takes me forever to make a record.”
Dan Daley - Mix Magazine Online
Sep 1, 2000
In 1976, mainstream American rock was making the transition from blues-based proto-metal to what would become a decade-and-a-half's worth of power pop. It was an era when the recording of the pistons of rock - guitars and drums - made the transition from a crude craft to a true science, as guitar sounds began to receive the kind of data processing heretofore reserved for NASA telemetry.
"More Than A Feeling," the first single from Boston's eponymous debut album, hit the airwaves that autumn (making it to Number 5), and acted as a pivot in this transition, combining some of the ebullience of the rock era's early days with the precision and technology that would mark rock record productions from then on. That song and album also set benchmarks for the record business. Boston became the best-selling pop debut effort in history, a title it held for a decade before it was supplanted by Whitney Houston's first album. It ultimately sold 16 million copies in the process of creating a reference point for production values and studio technology that would stand for years.
Tom Scholz makes records slowly. Very slowly. He once estimated he had been working on his first one for seven years before it came out as Boston. The second Boston album took a mere two years, but Scholz insists only the first side was really done. His third and most recent album appeared eight years after his second. There are a number of reasons why Scholz needs this much time, but the simplest is that the man is a compulsive--some would say neurotic--perfectionist. He wants it done Right. This means that, with a few key exceptions, he does it Himself.
"It's hard for somebody to put down music the way I want to put it down," he explains, "I listen to exactly how every note is played, not just the pitch, the volume or the sound, but the attack, the intonation, and all the little nuances. And if it's not the way I think it should be, then I want to get it done over again and have it done right. When it comes to recording, I'm one of the only people I know that can put up with me."
Guitar Player, August, 1977
Surely, it would have made a great ad for the back pages of some fan magazine:
"Now you too can become a rock 'n' roll star in just your spare time. Record tomorrow's hit songs right in your own basement. Millions of records sold almost overnight."
A rock and roll fairy tale? Sure, but one that has come true for Tom Scholz, the lanky (he's well over six feet) guitarist and spiritual motivator of the rock group Boston. His band has sold over three million copies of their first LP, Boston [Epic, PE 34l88] constructed almost entirely from tapes recorded in Scholz' 4-and then 12-track basement studio. For massive popularity, Boston rivals such established stars as Peter Frampton, Fleetwood Mac, and Stevie Wonder.
Circus Magazine 12/30/1976
by Anastasia Pantsios
Whoa! It all happened so fast for a group called Boston that it taught them off guard.
But, a month after the album's Fall release, it had sold in excess of 200,000 copies and record company personnel were rhapsodizing optimistically about a gold album before Christmas.
All this, and nobody really knows who Boston is yet. Like the liner notes on the album say, they haven't been in any bands you've heard of. Guitarist Barry Goudreau, lead singer Brad Delp and the band's leader and chief songwriter Tom Scholz had been playing together for five years, strictly basement-style, working on their own music while working at other jobs, they quit those old jobs only last June when the band went out to Los Angeles to mix the album, an album which was largely recorded in Tom's home studio. Fran Sheehan, bassist and Sib Hashian, drummer, had been playing in other bands around the Boston area.