|
Page 4 of 5
Actually, Hashian is not Sib Hashian's real name. It is John (at least that's what his paratrooper buddies from his Vietnam regiment call him). Hashian, who chose the last, name because of the hash-smoking nomads, is said to be the son of a famous novelist.
"I am the same man today, even after the success" Hashian confides. "And, as Joe Namath says, I can't wait till tomorrow' cause I get better-looking everyday"
He has, while we've been talking, racked up 28,000 points.
"It's all about the extra ball, my friend."
BLUE JAYS HOP ACROSS THE green lawn in front of lead singer Bradley Delp's rambling, modern house. Construction men work on a swimming pool in the backyard. Delp gestures humbly across the entire scene. "I am perfectly happy to do anything and everything to make this band work;' he says. "Why shouldn't I ? I got it made"
Two years ago Brad was biding his time at Hot Wad Industries, a company that makes heating elements for Mr. Coffee machines. "I always knew singing in a band is what I wanted to do," says Delp "But I wasn't doing anything personally to promote it. I felt, kind of naively, that someday it was going to happen. But I felt, what am I possibly gonna do if I end up being thirty and haven't made it yet? I'll go crazy' " Delp claps his hands. "So I figure I just lucked out!"
Delp, whose natural hangdog expression usually hovers around glumness, hasn't been interviewed often enough to build up sturdy philosophies of life for mass dissemination. So his stark honesty is both embarrassing and refreshing. Especially when he says things like: "It's not easy being successful and having money. We don’t have that much money. Well, we do ... but we had to borrow money to pay our taxes. It's weird. If you're not used to handling it, it's all cut up. So I really don't know. I have no idea what kind of financial situation I'm in. I read the other day that the Singing Nun owes $127,000 in back taxes .... What kind of shape must I be in? So it's crazy, and I don't even think about, having the money. Because I don't know whether I have it or not. It doesn't concern me"
One feels compelled to mention that such a cavalier attitude might just find him fleeced of his new home and pool one day.
"Yeah ' " he agrees pluckily. "Fortunately, Tom has a little more of a level head on his shoulders. 'Cause that's important. You can blow it all. Being a genius, he knows how to be practical when you have to be."
Brad Delp views his life as a victorious battle over terminal anonymity. Now he's in the position of having, become a personality before he is a "whole" person. And speaking of persona, Delp, as Bostons frontman, has had to come up with one fast. His complete concert credentials, before Boston consisted of opening a show for Mitch Ryder ("Didn't get paid, but we met Mitch') to playing one with Barry "Ballad of the Green Berets" Sadler.
On the first Boston tour, Brad and Sib would walk among the oblivious Boston fans for the vicarious thrill. But eventually, shy Delp was jumping into audiences, wildly pumping hands and working every corner of the biggest hockey arenas.
For all this fantasy fulfillment, he does not appear the happiest of men. Certainly not the exultant rock god he seems on the Boston poster adorning his studio wall. "I think everything's wonderfull," he corrects me. "All the people that we've met, Bob Seger-we headlined over him and I was embarrassed. Whaddya gonna say 'Howdy Bob!'? Getting to meet Mary Kay Place and Stevie Nicks. I just think that's great. We went to the Grammys the first year. Ella Fitzgerald was sitting behind me. I felt like they were cardboard cutouts and I was in a wax museum. I could never figure out why I was there. I could see what Tom was doing there ... but I'll take it.
"I don't feel like a rock star at all. I would deny being a rock star. We only have one album out. It did pretty well. The material was not difficult to latch onto."
Delp carefully shows me a scrapbook he and his Student /wife Kathy have put together. He sits down at his grand piano in his living room to play a flawless "Martha My Dear." Then we take a pleasant ride back into Swampscott.
"I feel like I know what the Beatles went through,' he says, narrowly missing a drunk strolling down the center divider. There were always guys doing coke and smack and acid. I never did it, but I knew a lot of people who did. It's not an easy business to be in. The critics build you up. Then they shoot you down ... why do they do that?"
Take a band like Boston. They may sell 9 million records, but there about as exciting as a plate of tripe.
Rock & roll is about sex, and they might as well be eunuchs. They're just a wet dream for an accountant....You Tell Elvis Costello, instructs Tom Scholz "that we have been attacked by people who made it better....That he had to beg for his CBS contract. He is just jealous....We must drive him crazy ! I love it !"
The occasion of this second 'visit with Scholz, who usually doesn't have time for second visits this close to the wire, is that he's making good on a promise to play me the Second Album. This is a big thing for Scholz, as he explains when we sit down to talk first on his living-room sofa. Drinking a small-size beer, Scholz is, considerably more scrappy than before. He even looks me in the eye. I wonder how he feels seeing his name linked now with Jimmy Page, Pete Townsend and others. Does he feel he must cultivate some sort of alluring mystique?
"I'm not after being a rock superstar," Scholz replies. "I don't think my principal ability as a musician is as a guitar player. I consider it one of my most limiting things. It's difficult for me. I get the impression with some of these guys that they can just pick up a guitar any time 'of night or day and whip off these incredible leads. I have to work at it quite a bit' "
He would, he says, rather be compared to a great songwriter. "Which probably wouldn’t happen ... but I think the songs are really the most important thing. You can take a piece and not really play it all that well or do a lead that's not very hard to play, but just sounds great. None of it really matters unless it's got some song. The song is the vehicle for getting across those golden little licks and melody lines people can't get out of their heads. I think that's more important than the guitar playing. I'm all for using the best of our technical knowledge and ability to make good records. In this band there's very little science that goes on. I, was real upset when somebody started the rumor that the" songs had been written by computer."
How does he feel about spending so much time and anguish making a record that, under most conditions, will be listened to with more expensive drugs than stereo equipment? "Fine with me if it' makes me sound better", replies Scholz. He laughs. "Let me tell you about some Polaroid engineers I know...
Scholz is most comfortable talking about music and the electronics involved. Mention the money flow or Charles McKenzie and he tightens. "Charlie's the type of guy that even if you hated him, there's something about him you'd have to love, you know," he says. "Nobody wanted to see the thing get screwed up because of a stupid legal hassle. Everybody who's involved here, McKenzie, Ahern and the band ... we're all ... it was the first time we hit it. They had just hit the jackpot and the money was starting to pour out. I don't think he and Paul worked all that well together. But it worked out painlessly. The only pain was the fact that, as usual, the lawyers walked away with a bundle of money, so you know someplace somebody lost something they should have had. Let's not talk about lawyers.
|
