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"There were only two people from those early days (the 1970's) that we kept for later things," said Scholz. "They were very excellent at what they did, and very excellent people - my guitar tech and our stage manager. But that was it. The rest of it - we just started over, everything. Manager, road managers, crew, musicians, everything, we started from scratch. I don't think we would have done it at all if we hadn't run into Gary Pihl and if he hadn't started doing some work in the studio with me in the mid-1980's, because up until that point, I had no thoughts of going back on the road, and I don't think Brad did either. It was his idea to put together a band and a crew that was with people that we would enjoy being with, and were good people. Brad and Gary, I give credit for finding the other people that we were playing with."
It's now 1989. Tom was beginning work on a new Boston album, but a new variable had entered the equation. Brad Delp received a call from Barry Goudreau - Goudreau was forming another band, and asked Delp to join them and sing lead vocals. "We had finished the Third Stage tour," said Delp, "and Barry had approached me with some more demos. And at the time, I thought it would be fun - like the first record was fun. So I made a commitment to him to do this record and a tour. We were getting set to go out to California to start recording that record, and I got a call from Tom. He was getting started on the Walk On album."
Delp had to go over to Scholz' house and tell him the bad news, that he had made a verbal commitment to Barry, that they were leaving for California for a new record and a tour. "When I left that meeting, he wished me well - I remember he gave me a big hug before I left, he said, 'Good luck with that, and I'll do what I can.'"
Barry Goudreau's new group, which included Brad Delp, Brian Maes on keyboards and harmonica, bassist Tim Archibald and drummer David Stefanelli, was christened "RTZ," after the "Return To Zero" initials on the reset button of a tape machine. Paul Ahern, the former manager for Boston, became their manager. Their album Return to Zero (Giant 24422) spawned three singles, including the Top 40 hit "Until Your Love Comes Back Around" (Giant 19051). "'Until Your Love Comes Back Around' was written by our keyboard player, Brian Maes," said Delp. "That was a real nice song that I had done at one point or another - I used to go over to Barry's house - Barry and I being related through marriage, our wives being sisters - I used to see him a lot, and he'd be working on one thing or another. That particular song had been recorded six, seven years before it finally made it on that record. I always liked that song, too."
RTZ later went on tour, playing tracks from their debut album, as well as songs like "Dreams" and "All Those Years" from previous Barry Goudreau albums. Boston classics like "Long Time" and "Let Me Take You Home Tonight" also showed up at an RTZ tour. But in 1992, despite RTZ's desire to record a second album, Giant Records dropped the group from their roster. Maes, Stefanelli and Archibald later joined Peter Wolf's band. So did Charlie Farren, the lead singer from Farrenheit, the band that opened for Boston during the Third Stage tour.
"We did the record, and we did a tour, and what happened to Farrenheit happened to RTZ," said Delp. "In our case, my assumption is the record company thought they had Barry Goudreau and they had Brad Delp, let's put the record out and see if all the Boston fans pick up on it. I don't know if Giant Records put a lot of time behind the record. But who knows why those things work or didn't work. My reflection on that was it was a fun project to be involved in. We did a club tour - some nights it wasn't promoted particularly well, and we had 20-30 people there, and then we'd play places like Hammerjack's in Baltimore and we'd have 1100 in the place. Overall, I enjoyed the experience."
In February 1990, Tom Scholz was back in court, as his long-standing legal battle against CBS finally reached a judge. Scholz had already been awarded more than $3 million in disputed royalties by U.S. District Court Judge Vincent L. Broderick in a previous trial; but this trial centered on the legality of Scholz releasing Third Stage on MCA, despite having a contract with CBS.
CBS' attorneys opened by stating Scholz refused to produce his album, in violation of the contract. Don Engel, Scholz' attorney, retaliated by stating CBS bullied and threatened Scholz, and responded to Scholz' artistic thoroughness by cutting off royalties that were due. Scholz took the stand, as did CBS president Walter Yetnikoff, to argue their cases.
Six weeks later, the jury unanimously ruled in favor of Scholz. Scholz had argued that his desire to release the perfect record - not to be hampered by writer's blocks or label's threats - caused the delays. In addition to the royalties due, Judge Charles Brieant awarded an additional $1.6 million in punitive damages to Tom Scholz. "Basically, what the jury decided was that a record company cannot hold its performers to strict contractural time limitations," said attorney Don Engel to Billboard. "Putting together an album is an artistic process that cannot be governed by a record company, regardless of how many millions of dollars that piece of art is epxected to generate."
The jury believed that despite the six-year, ten-album contract between CBS and Boston, and despite threats to deliver the Third Stage album to CBS within six months, Scholz was indeed working on the album, and was not in breach of the contract so long as he continued work. "It's not a load of coal where you say you'll deliver it in two weeks and it's there in two weeks," said Engel to Variety. "We felt we were right, and we have felt so for six years."
Armed with his victory over CBS, Scholz continued his work on the Walk On album (MCA 10973). Gary Pihl returned from Third Stage, adding lead and rhythm guitars to the mix. Ironically, Fran Cosmo, the lead singer on the Barry Goudreau and Orion The Hunter albums, became Brad Delp's replacement on Walk On. Although listeners knew Delp would not be handling vocals on the Walk On album, Scholz wouldn't announce Cosmo as the new vocalist until the record was ready to hit the stores.
"Van Halen did it the other way," said Scholz to the Boston Globe. "They made a big deal of it when they changed singers. I'm not finding fault with that, but they made a big deal out of it to get some added promotion for that record. Which is fine. But Boston is not a band of personalities. At least it isn't perceived that way publicly. It really is a band that just has a sound and a style that is perceived publicly, but not the personalities. Also, we weren't making a wild departure in style. It wasn't like Michael McDonald stepping into the Doobie Brothers, where there was a big departure in sound. Plus, I wanted fans to hear the album without a lot of attendant thinking like, 'Does this song sound different from before?' There's been a positive reaction from fans, so that's worked out well."
Finally, in December 1993, Scholz presented Walk On to MCA for distribution. "It was a combination of an awful lot of effort over an awful lot of years, which is why Walk On is my favorite album of all five Boston records," said Scholz, "and probably always will be. For that one album, I felt like I had finally got my act together, in every way. I liked the songs, I liked the performance, I liked the production. There has been no other Boston album that I could stand to listen to after I was done. Walk On blasted on my car stereo from the moment it came out of the box."
While Boston prepared a spring and summer outdoor tour (with Cosmo, Pihl, former Giuffria bassist David Sikes, and drummer Doug Huffman), MCA sat on the record until June 1994, when Walk On was finally released. Despite initial success (and a #7 debut in Billboard's Album chart), Walk On did not sell as well as other Boston albums, and quickly skidded out of the Top 10 album chart after a couple of months.
The relationship between Boston and MCA ended that year. "What relationship?" said Scholz to the Boston Globe. "Let's put it this way. I killed myself to finish the record Walk On in December of last year. But MCA didn't put it out until June. We had planned a spring and summer shed tour and that whole thing went down the drain when [MCA] waited so long to put it out."
The tour was also delayed when Boston's former manager, Paul Ahern, dragged Scholz into court in a breach of contract suit. In October 1994, a federal jury in Boston awarded Ahern over $500,000 in damages (the decision was later reversed on appeal in 1996). "I didn't think he was entitled to the money," said Scholz to the Boston Globe after the verdict, "or I wouldn't have postponed the tour to fight it in court. The bottom line is that after living expenses, the money I get from royalties gets donated to a long list of charities."
Charities like homeless shelters, food banks, animal rights, AIDS research and domestic violence support groups. Since 1987, Tom Scholz has donated more than $2 million - from album sales, concert tickets, a Boston Garden benefit show for AIDS research, souvenir merchandise revenues and his own wallet - to these causes of conscience. In 1987, Scholz received the Mahatma Gandhi Award, in recognition of his support of these social causes. In 1988, the National Hopsice Organization named Scholz "Man of the Year." The Third Stage, Walk On and Greatest Hits albums contain addresses and information for organizations like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Greenpeace and the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence.
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