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Old 03-14-2004, 07:45 AM   #1
Mysterblues
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Marino on Downloading

Scroll down and read the interview, very cool take IMHO







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Classic Rock Revisited presents an exclusive interview with...


Frank Marino

By Ryan Sparks

Thanks goes to Batty

CRR: What have you been up to, what are you currently working on?

Frank: Well I’m always working on things but at the same time I’m waiting for the release of the double live record that I’ve done. It was supposed to come out in January, now it may not happen until February. It’s really up to the record label; they’re going to pick their spot. I don’t think they wanted it to come out at Christmas and have it go up against the major releases; they’re just an independent company.

CRR: Who’s releasing it?

Frank: It’s a Canadian label, Justin Time, which is run by Jimmy West. So while I’m waiting for that I have a commitment to do a DVD and a blues album. I’m kind of looking at the beginnings of that but I’d rather be doing some touring behind this album, however I can’t plan any kind of touring until I have a release date.

CRR: So the plan is to tour behind this live album?

Frank: Yes.

CRR: This has been a much-anticipated release for fans since you recorded it on The Eye Of The Storm Tour in 2001.

Frank: This was done in Montreal and I’ve been trying to get it out for two years. I didn’t want to just grab any record deal to get it out there, so I sat on it for a while waiting for the right situation and Jimmy is the right situation. He’s about the only honest guy I know in the music business. It’s a question of integrity the way he puts things out. I had some offers from some larger labels like Sanctuary and others, I didn’t like the feel of the situation, it was a case of "yeah we’re going to ship a lot of copies of your record". It’s not a question of numbers for me, I want some kind of integrity with it. I want the company to like the record and not just look at it as a product.

CRR: I was reading an interview you did last year and you said you actually trimmed the new cd down to two discs, it was originally going to be three, is that right?

Frank: Yeah I had to. I don’t think people would have bought three cd’s.

CRR: What about the three cd box set that was supposed to come out?

Frank: That will never come out (laughs).

CRR: (Laughing) It will never come out?

Frank: That was a Sony thing. I was on Columbia years ago, they basically came to me a few years ago and said they wanted to do this whole retrospective thing, an anthology of sorts. I didn’t’ really want to get into anything because of my past history with them, but when the guy who approached me with some nice overtures explaining how they would handle it, I decided ok, I’ll take a chance ‘cause he sounded like he was the right guy with the right attitude. I worked on this thing for a year and a half putting it together, it was totally done right down to the cover art and then at the 11th hour when it was ready to come out, they came back to me with a whole different arrangement and I told them "that’s not why I did this". They basically said "well that’s the way it’s gotta be" and I told them "No that’s not the way it’s gotta be". I think they just figured that I’d say "Yeah ok whatever" because I worked so hard on it and I spent my own money on it but I wasn’t going to do that so I said "No, if you want redo the whole anthology on your own without all the extra stuff that I’ve put into it, you’re more than welcome to go ahead and do it".

CRR: So you had some extra material for it?

Frank: Oh yeah, plus I re-mastered everything digitally. There was a lot of detail. It took me a year and a half between two or three guys working on it almost everyday.

CRR: Were you doing this in your studio?

Frank: Yeah and at a mastering studio, that’s where I ended up spending a lot of money on it. I just automatically assumed they would pay the bill. They ended up using that as leverage figuring if they didn’t pay the bill then maybe I would sign the deal. I just refused and took the loss.

CRR: They can do their own anthology if they want.

Frank: That was my whole point, they could have made their own without me. They could have hired their own mastering guys and put out their own anthology, minus some other stuff but they still could have done it. They came to me to make it more worth everyone’s while and I signed on because we would have done it a little bit differently, then they came along at the last minute and tell me they’re going to do it differently than they way they had originally presented it to me and figure I’m going to just go along with it like I’m some 16 year old kid and I really don’t give a shit. I don’t care. Their legal dept figured they’d play hardball with me and that I’d eventually sign in order to pay the people who’d done all this work. It completely broke me but I said no based on the principle.

CRR: This was a few years ago?

Frank: Yeah, it took a good year for all that nonsense to transpire. The masters are just sitting there and are going to sit there forever. I suppose there’s still a chance it could come out one day if we could come to some sort of agreement and I find out that I own some of the stuff that they think they own. Then maybe I could put it out one day.

CRR: Unfortunately it comes down to basically who owns the music.

Frank: In a sense it does, but I wouldn’t really have had a problem with it had they just come to me and say they were putting it out, I would have said fine no problem. I think they felt that by recruiting me into the project it would give their release some sort of legitimacy and the fact that that I would have brought some new music to it plus the fact that I would produce it and re-master it. We had a very clear understanding that it wasn’t going to be like it was before and then when it came time to put it out they said, "Yes it is going to be like it was before".

CRR: This goes back 20 years ago to what you went through with them originally, at one point you left the music business. Is this due to the problems you were having with the label?

Frank: It’s not just because of the label; they were a big part of it. After I left Columbia I did a lot on my own with other smaller labels, I kept touring and doing things but I left Columbia in 1981 or 1982 and by 1993 I had had enough with the whole post Columbia thing too, things hadn’t changed that much. It wasn’t just Columbia, it was the business, the industry. A couple of days ago I gave a talk at a local University about this very subject to a bunch of the music legal faculty and the legal students as well along with some record company people. The whole subject was the music business and the Internet. I don’t think I made too many friends with my position on the industry side. My position is keep the music, keep the fans, keep the downloading and get rid of the industry. That’s my position (laughs), cut them out, not cut us out or cut the fans out. I don’t think that downloading is wrong; I don’t think it’s stealing. I think they make it out that way. I think it would be nice if the fans supported the artist and pay them something for the music that they download but at the same time, even if they do pay, the record industry is not paying the artists anyway. If I’m going to be ripped off I’d rather be ripped off by the fans and not by the industry. That was the basis of my talk. I think the prices of music are way too high, I think the public is paying these prices to feed the machine rather than the artist. Most people don’t understand that the artist gets $2 and splits it up among five band members. Where does the other $22 dollars go? My point is artists can make their records, manufacture them and sell them at no greater than $5 and still make exactly the same amount of money that they would make if they were with a label. As a matter of fact they’d make more, they’d actually get paid. If we could educate people that this is the way to do things then maybe one day, maybe five years from now this will be the way to do things just as e-bay has become the way to buy things. If that could happen there would be no music industry.

CRR: The whole Internet has really opened up things for music. As you said the artist could make his own album, offer samples online and sell it directly to the consumer.

Frank: That’s what I think should happen. That way the fan knows and he could still steal if he wants to, but you know I think most people who like specific types of music, it’s going to be like PBS, they’re going to want to support it. They’re gonna say I get this entire record that I used to pay $25 for, now for $5 I can ensure the artist keeps making music.

CRR: I think a lot of people who download songs often end up buying the album anyways.

Frank: I see it this way; most of the people who download are like people who try pirated software. Most of the time the software they get, they try it out and then it just sits there on their machine, they don’t do anything with it. They basically delete it. Once in a while they’ll find something they like and they’ll either use what they’ve got or buy it from the company because they want the support or the downloads or whatever.

CRR: A good example of this would be Winamp. When it came out the guy who created it was surprised at the amount of people who paid the ten-dollar shareware fee. He suddenly had thousands of dollars coming in. People actually bought it rather than just snagging it for free.

Frank: And that’s the way I think music has to become. I think the idea that you’re going to tell people that they can’t download it is wrong. These guys on the panel the other day tried to make this whole case that it was right to sue these people because not only were they stealing but they didn’t know they were stealing, so by suing them they felt they were educating them.

CRR: That’s wrong.

Frank: Do they really think people are that stupid? It’s exactly how they got into this problem in the first place; you figured people were just stupid. You were giving them crap for twenty years, selling it for more and more money. They took the Microsoft approach, this ubiquitous monster that figures you need what I have because there’s no alternative, but you know what? A lot of these fans found an alternative; it’s the Internet, the great equalizer.

CRR: Now the record companies want to open things up for discussion.

Frank: Yeah now they wanna have meetings and talks at Universities. Now they wanna give 99 cent downloads, excuse me? With a 99 cent download the record company makes even more money than they did by selling the record. First of all the artist still gets a pittance of the 99 cents, secondly there’s no way to track how much they’re giving out and thirdly at 99 cents a song times 15 songs that’s $15 for an album without having to manufacture any plastic. They’re making way more money that way.

CRR: The bottom line is what does it change for the artist? Nothing.

Frank: Nothing. So back to my point, we have to cut out the middlemen who are, in this case the record companies and the retailers. In the case of the independent labels I wouldn’t go that far because at least in their case they’re making the kinds of deals with their artists where they’re splitting it 50-50, in some cases they do not own the material they’re licensing it. They’re giving the bands something for their money where the majors are not. I think the independents are going to be the new majors, not in the sense of the way the majors are today but they’re going to be the new way of doing things. They’re human; they put back the customers’ always-right philosophy.

CRR: I could never figure out how local artists such as yourself would always have the import stickers on your cd’s in the record stores.

Frank: Yeah my stuff is usually in there as an import (laughs).

CRR: Do you get the proper distribution on an independent label though?

Frank: That’s sort of a two- edged question because yes, in a sense you do because they do what they can because it’s in their interest to distribute it, that’s what they do. They really have nothing better to do than try to distribute it as much as possible. They’re not making money any other way. They don’t have the tentacles that the majors do, so theoretically they can give you the extra distribution but do they use it? No, they don’t. Take a look at the majors’ position, here’s the logic that people don’t understand. What you have at the sales level is pretty much what you have at the radio level as well, the problems are the same. From the radio point of view there are only so many hours in the day that they can play music, the common dominator is time, there are only so many songs they can play in a given day. If the record companies only had eight or nine artists then everyone would be on the radio but when each label has 100-200 artists, they’re all competing for the same airtime on the radio. If you take the major label, they’re the ones that have the major artists; their rosters are made up of majors and minors. The problem is that they need to have their major acts on the radio, so the time slots get filled that way. Do the minors really get the same push on radio? No, because it’s not in the record companies best interest to alienate their major artists by kicking them off the radio in favor of their minor artists. So what happens now is you’re theoretically potentially able to get into the scene but only if you become the same type of major which will then work for you. The same problems exist in retail. The record companies want their majors on the front racks, on the posters and at the listening posts. The minors get relegated to the back of the store. It’s exactly the same problem all over again, you have the same potential distribution but because of their own greed you’re never going to get a shot. Minor labels try to market their stuff in alternate ways.

CRR: In today’s market how do you compete to get on the radio?

Frank: You don’t. I have a niche market or a cult market. I have 500,000 hits on my website because of my reputation of over 30 years in the business. Although even in our best days on Columbia we were not a radio band. We were an underground act; the people who bought our records bought them largely because they saw our show. I still fit into the exact same place that I always have, except there are no longer dozens of festivals for people to play every summer, there’s maybe three now. I never had to worry about getting on the radio and getting the records into the front of the store because from day one that’s not the type of music that I was doing anyway.

CRR: What was the difference as to why Mahogany Rush never got on the radio where your contemporaries like say Rush or Yes for example did? You could have got the same airplay.

Frank: We could have but the major problem plaguing me and which was very unique to Mahogany Rush was that I just happened to be doing music around the time of Jimi Hendrix’s death. I started doing this in ’68 and Hendrix dies in ’70, but some writer at the time ended up writing that I had said that basically I was the reincarnation of Hendrix. The story was so ridiculous in the fact that I was alive 2 years before he died and I was doing that kind of music already. It just so happened that Hendrix was one of the kinds of music that I liked at the time, not the only kind by far. There was definitely an influential thread in the type of music that we were doing, that and the influences of The Allman Brothers, The Doors, The Beatles, Pink Floyd and a bunch of others as well, but they focused on the Hendrix thing for two reasons, one because I was a guitarist, secondly he had just died and thirdly, no one was doing that kind of music for a good two or three years after I came on the scene. It’s not like today, where every player has some sort of Hendrixism. They’re measured by that, you know Stevie Ray or Robin Trower, but at that time it was completely unheard of.

CRR: The story made for great copy.

Frank: Well that’s it, because it was so unheard of, it made for great copy, so what happened when we played our concerts the curious came out in droves to see what we were all about. It just so happened that once they’d come out, they realized there was no truth to the rumor. They just realized that I was a good guitar player. They became more fans of the band and that’s how we built this underground following. I spent the better part of 30 years trying to refute that myth and the press would have none of it. In a sense it created bad things for me but on the other hand would I have played the California Jam in 1978 and played to 300,000 people if that myth hadn’t have been started seven years prior? Maybe not.

CRR: You were very musical at an early age, playing drums and guitar and by the time Maxoom was released you were what 17 years old?

Frank: Actually 16.

CRR: That’s incredible to start so young. I mean you probably weren’t even 20 years old by the time you three or four albums out?

Frank: Maxoom, Child Of The Novelty, Strange Universe and IV, by the fourth album when I went to Columbia which was around ’75, I was born in 1954 so I was like 21 yeah.

CRR: You had all this experience under your belt recording and the touring; it must have really opened your eyes.

Frank: The whole reason I got into music was to try to open my eyes (laughs). The reason I got into music was because I got sick and I was admitted to the hospital. I spent the next few years just trying to cure myself; music was this cathartic thing to try to get my mind off the trip.

CRR: Were you a musician prior to being treated for the LSD?

Frank: No. I started out on the drums; I was 13 years old when I went to the hospital to be treated for the LSD.

CRR: 13! Oh my god.

Frank: Yeah, when I wasn’t in the psycho ward being treated for that, I had to basically find something to spend my time on. There was a room with a piano, a guitar, checkers and stuff like that, so I picked up the acoustic guitar and started to try to play it. I noticed that as long as I was playing this guitar it took my mind off my problem. It stuck to me like glue, so that when I finally got out of the place I asked my mother if she would get me a guitar because it really helped me not think about my problem. She got me one and I played it constantly, I guess when you sit there and you do something so consciously and you become dedicated, I became proficient at it. Now why the Hendrix thing? I mean here I am on acid playing the guitar, what other kind of music am I going to listen to? It’s not like there was any other guitarist doing anything remotely similar to psychedelic music. He was the only guy, so I very much identified with his music. As a musician I developed along those lines but I was also influenced by jazz and Buddy Rich having started out on drums. When I started writing my own music it was very much influenced by Hendrix but also by jazz and some of the blues that I had heard as well. I mean even to this day when I do a concert there is a section of the show devoted to playing jazzy material.

CRR: Hendrix grew up being influenced by the blues as well.

Frank: Yeah, he was obviously listening to a certain kind of music too, he played the same kind of music with a fuzz and a Marshall and it became his own. It’s not like he invented anything, he just found a new ways to put it across.

CRR: In the 80’s when Stevie Ray came out, Buddy Guy couldn’t even get arrested you know? Hendrix was just picking up where the traditional blues left off.

Frank: Yes but here’s the weird thing: Every single guitar player that came after me, everyone who came along playing electric blues guitar, there has never been one that came after me that got flak for sounding like Hendrix. Not one, I can’t think of one. In my case from the point of view of the industry I got nothing but flak for it and I still do. Some older writers who are still writing still refer to me as "Oh yeah the Hendrix guy". They still can’t let that go, but in the same article they’ll praise other guitarists who are way more influenced by Hendrix than I’ve ever been.

CRR: Would you attribute this to bad timing?

Frank: No, I attribute this to a couple of things, one, the main fault against me other than the story about me by the writer, was the fact that I was Canadian and I was 16, what kind of temerity did a 16 year old Canadian kid have to do this kind of thing. Canadians are more accepted in the music industry than they were back in 1969 and 1970; you just couldn’t get into America if you were Canadian.

CRR: What I meant by bad timing was, around the time you were starting to get noticed Hendrix had just recently died so inevitably anyone who comes out after him is going to get compared or criticized.

Frank: Of course, but you have too put it in to context, now that might have been true had I been some 28 year old guitar player who was trying to make it and all of a sudden I latched onto that. I was a 16-year-old acid casualty from another country. I didn’t know what I was doing; I didn’t even know my own name. I mean I was already playing that stuff while he was alive. There were three or four versions of Mahogany Rush before the first album came out that were playing that style of music back then. I wasn’t going to change how I played just because he died. Don’t get me wrong I have an tremendous amount of respect for what he did for music and how he revolutionized the guitar, but I don’t hold him in the same regard that a lot of guitarists seem to do, they elevate him to hero worship status, almost a prophetic status, like he’s some kind of a prophet.

CRR: Speaking of guitarists being elevated like that, I remember reading an interview about 10 years ago where Ritchie Blackmore was asked what he thought of Stevie Ray Vaughn and he said "As a player, he didn’t do anything amazing" I thought that was a rather bold statement at the time.

Frank: And if you recall Stevie also had a lot of the Hendrix influence as well. He was the next generation’s version of me, and then he died and that elevated him to this hero status as well.

CRR: So don’t die Frank (laughs).

Frank: Well I hope not, I don’t want to be a dead hero (laughs); I’ve got three little girls. In 1993 when my first daughter was born I didn’t care. I wasn’t interested in the farewell tour, I just said fuck it and went home. I don’t care about celebrity and I never did. It was one of the major sticking points between me and my managers in the ‘70’s. I would not play the game, I wouldn’t talk to the press in the same way that they did, I wasn’t guarded in what I said. They’d say, "You can’t do that. If you want to be a star you have to act a certain way". I didn’t want to be a star. That created a lot of friction, so my reputation became like "Frank’s hard to work with", what it really came down to was that I wouldn’t whore myself at their behest.

CRR: Looking back at what you achieved with Mahogany Rush, when was the period where you felt the band really made it?

Frank: We never released it because I never thought we made it. I always felt we didn’t. The only time I realized we’d made it was when I saw the website that Wild Willy Parsons started on the band in the 90s’and by that time there was no band (laughs). I was surprised we had that many fans because no one ever sent me a check. I never saw any royalties in my life. I worked for 23 years and never made a dime.

CRR: Was there a defining moment playing live?

Frank: There were so many big concerts but I always felt it was because we were with Aerosmith or some other band. I never really felt like it was legitimately because of what we were doing. I found out later it was because of what we were doing. I guess I shouldn’t have felt that way, so consequently I never got to say, "I’m enjoying this". There was very little enjoyment for me in 23 years. The best parts were the sound checks (laughs).

CRR: How do you feel about that now, knowing you didn’t enjoy the moment as much as you should have, any regrets?

Frank: No, not at all. I wouldn’t change anything except maybe I’d sign with a different record company. I had a great run, I mean how many 16 yr old Canadian kids starting out get to go where I went and do all the things I did. I got to be thankful to God for that; I could have been packing boxes somewhere.

CRR: Did you have a favorite band to tour with in the 70’s?

Frank: The only guys that ever treated us good was Kansas. There were maybe one or two others, but pretty much 99% of the bands that we went out with treated us badly. Because it’s 99% it’s not like you’re even noticing, it’s the normal thing. It’s not like "Oh man we’re not getting a sound check today".

CRR: Sad to say but I guess sound checks were a total luxury.

Frank: They were a luxury yeah, that’s why I said the only good thing about it was when we got a sound check.

CRR: How did the band go over in Europe?

Frank: Very well.

CRR: Better than North America?

Frank: From a fan perspective, absolutely. That’s where I got this feeling that something was going on here. It was a totally different reaction. It was like Beatlemania sometimes, people crying, kind of weird.

CRR: Do you think that would hold up today?

Frank: If I went there. I mean when I left Columbia 20 years ago, I stopped going. I just didn’t have the money to pay the expenses. The last gig I did in England was in ’82 and sold out the Hammersmith Odeon for one or two nights, it was a real toast of the town type of show. I left England and never got back for 20 years.

CRR: You went back there a few years ago though didn’t you?

Frank: Yeah when Uli (Jon Roth) called and invited me to do The Legends of Rock Tour with Jack Bruce and Glenn Hughes.

CRR: That must have been a great time?

Frank: It was fun, I had a great time. Some of the guys didn’t have such a great time. I mean I did it basically for free. I did it for fun. I think I made a $100 (laughs).

CRR: Did you get to jam with anyone?

Frank: Michael Schenker was supposed to be on it and he cancelled for some reason so Uli called me and asked me if I’d do it. I think he thought I wouldn’t do it for some reason. I said "Sure I’ll do it, as long as I get to bring my kids". I got 15 dates, nice dressing rooms, nice shows and great people. I think they were always wondering why I was always in such a fuckin’ good mood (laughs). A lot of people were stressed. I’d just show up at the sound check and if I noticed that people were stressed, I’d just say "fuck it, let’s just jam". We’d just plug in and starting playing Dave Brubeck’s Take Five or something like that, stuff that they’d never done before. These sound checks became desired after that.

CRR: That will lighten things up a bit eh?

Frank: Yeah "here comes Frank I wonder what we’re going to do today", I’d be like "Ok boys today we’re going to do some Chick Correa" (laughs).

CRR: Stuff they never thought they’d be playing. Maybe one of these guys will take you out on tour again sometime.

Frank:: Well you never know. Uli called me the other day and his wife who is an amazing singer is coming to stay with us for a few weeks and we’re going to record a few of her songs here in my studio. With me the music is always about having a good time, I don’t take it seriously. I think that’s the secret of longevity. I can laugh at myself.

CRR: Who was in your band at the time?

Frank: Well I only brought my drummer because they couldn’t afford to bring anyone else. My drummer Josh is only 22 years old so he got a great kick out of that, he’d never been on a major tour before. They provided me with a bass player and a guitar player and the guitarist they gave me was from Glenn’s band, JJ.

CRR: JJ Marsh.

Frank: Yeah. He and I became very, very close. We played together beautifully. I don’t think I’ve played together as well as I did with JJ. It really worked out great and hopefully one day I’ll get to play with him again. This guy Francois that they got from France was a great bass player, he was a hired gun. He was playing bass for me and for Uli as well.

CRR: What about your brother Vince?

Frank: Well I haven’t played with Vince since the 80’s. He got more proficient at playing jazz guitar, he did sound gigs and got very good at it. He still does that and the odd playing here and there. I don’t see him as much anymore. It’s funny your own brothers and sisters you don’t see them nearly as much as you do your own friends. I see him at holidays and stuff like that.

CRR: So no plans to play with him in the near future?

Frank: No, because I don’t think he wants to play that kind of music. He really likes jazz. It’s too bad he doesn’t actively pursue it because if he did, he’d probably have the best jazz band in town.

CRR: Where was the live album in ’78 recorded?

Frank: The material was taken from 12 shows; I think most of it was recorded in Texas. This was done back in the vinyl days and was only 45 minutes in total. The record company basically threw us out there to do the live album largely because they didn’t want to fund a new studio album. They weren’t even really going to put it out, there was a statement on the back cover of the record about how we had whole 2nd vinyl record which at the last minute they decided not to include, so that was supposed to be a double album.

CRR: That’s something else we’ll probably never get to hear.

Frank: It never ended with those guys. It was like dealing with the prince of darkness (laughs). Everyday was a new problem.

CRR: The next album Tales of The Unexpected was half live, half studio.

Frank: That’s right and not long after that Jimmy (Ayoub) left the band. I spoke to him the other day and it was great to speak to him again. We actually spoke about doing something together again for the 1st time in 25 years. Corky Laing also called me the other day as well and he wants to put some gigs together, he’s playing with Leslie West in Mountain again. I’ve known him for 30 years so we’ll see what happens with that. Have you heard the trailer?

CRR: No I haven’t.

Frank: Download the 11 minute audio trailer of the new live album off the website. I think you’ll like it.








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