Between a Heart and a Rock Place (12 page)

Because
Crimes of Passion
was still going strong on the charts, we decided “You Better Run” would be a good cut to use for our debut video. Everyone in the band was incredibly excited to be a part of this new method of bringing music to the fans—everyone, that is, except for Spyder. This was uncharted territory, and he wasn't exactly on board. His skepticism came from his concern that having a visual rendition of a song would interfere with the listener's personal interpretation. His reservations were partly responsible for the look and content of the video. There was no artsy story line, no imagery that might take you away from the music. This was going to be just like a live performance—nothing more.

We weren't told what to expect from the video shoot, just that it would be shot near the docks in the warehouses of Manhattan's far West Side. There was no stylist, no wardrobe direction. So I just wore
my own clothes: black pants and a striped shirt. All we really knew going in was that it hadn't been tried before and that it was supposed to be cool.

When we got to the docks, I was immediately impressed by how well they had it lit at night. The set itself wasn't really a set—just the barren, stripped-down corrugated metal of the warehouse with a corner where we were supposed to perform—but it was exactly what we were looking for, especially in light of Spyder's desire for this to be as true to our performance as possible. With no set dressing, no costumes, and no elaborate distractions, it was all about us and the music.

As we were getting ready, the director walked over to us. “We're going to turn a fan on you, and I want you to just do what you do. Just
go
!”

That told me he didn't get what we did. I wasn't a freakin' runway model.

“What do you mean ‘just go'?” I said.
Just go? I don't just go.

“Well, you know, start posing and stuff.”

I was horrified. This was new territory, and it was going to be on television. If this MTV thing was going to make us look foolish, then we'd have to take a walk. This guy didn't know us, didn't know our music, and almost certainly had never even seen us play. He didn't know that I was not someone who walked the catwalk and posed on command.

“No! No! No!” I shot back at him. “Here's the deal. We're gonna play and you are gonna film it. There's not going to be any blowing hair, and there's not going to be any
posing
.”

The director agreed that we'd just play the song, which we did s
everal
times. Even though the director let us do our own thing, I still had a bad attitude. In the end, that attitude ended up helping me with my performance for the camera. It was the perfect visual for that song. I was pissed and it showed in everything I did that night. My sneers were real. It was a complete accident, of course. I was so young and raw
then, and I felt like we were on the verge of a big crash and burn. But I definitely had a
fuck you
look on my face.

When MTV launched that August, we were the second video played on the inaugural day, right after the Buggles' “Video Killed the Radio Star.” The Buggles were an all-male guitarless band, which made me the first woman and Spyder the first guitar player to appear on the network. That day, we were sitting in a hotel room in Oklahoma, where we were staying to play a festival called Rock-lahoma (I know…). Miraculously the hotel we were in had MTV. Someone joked that it was one of the five places in America that had actually signed up. We were lounging around when Newman called and told us to turn on the TV, and the entire band sat there and watched slack jawed as history was made.

Coming on the heels of the Buggles' video, ours made for quite the contrast. Whereas theirs was produced with effects and imagery that displayed the fantastical side of what a music video could be, ours was simple and straightforward. The grit and grime of the location where it was shot covered the TV screen, as did the fact that I was so pissed off when we'd shot it. I gestured at the camera, pointing aggressively as I moved around the frame. It was high energy but it was a different energy from a live show. The dissolves between shots and elements showcased every aspect of the band. It was aggressive but contained. It was our performance but also something else entirely. I'd never seen anything like it.

I don't remember how many videos of other artists they played that day or that first week, but it seemed like they played us round the clock, every hour, twenty-four hours a day. They didn't have a full rotation of videos, and back then there were no game shows, no reality shows on the channel—only music videos. After a certain point, they ran out of options and would cycle back to us. “You Better Run” was inescapable.

In one week, our world changed. After
Crimes of Passion,
I'd become
much more recognizable, but it was nothing like what happened after MTV. To have a hit song on the radio was to have someone know your voice, your sound. To have a hit video was to have someone know your face. The semi-anonymity that we enjoyed was gone. We had officially arrived, and America had seen our faces—a lot. In the week that followed MTV's launch, I could no longer go to the grocery store or the movies, because I was swamped. People didn't simply look at me and think I looked familiar. They thought they knew me. It was great and awful, a blessing and a curse. There was no handbook on how to deal with that kind of stardom. Even musicians who'd hit it big on the radio never had to contend with their faces being everywhere literally overnight.

It was obvious that there had never been a promotional opportunity like this before in music. Even if you had great success, you could live a relatively quiet life because aside from touring and recording, the marketing options were so limited. MTV changed all that. Today, we take it for granted that video content is available anywhere you look—on the Web, on TV, on DVD. If you're an artist today, the ways that you can reach your fans without actually playing live for them are seemingly endless. But back then, communications were so archaic that this really was a revolution in how music was brought to the masses. The timescale on music success was suddenly more immediate than it ever had been. I was living proof.

T
HE TIMING OF
MTV'
S
debut could not have been better. The “You Better Run” video brought interest in us to a fever pitch and fueled the launch for
Precious Time
. It also kept the focus on
Crimes of Passion,
which had been going strong for almost a year and continued to sell about two hundred thousand copies a week. In all,
Crimes
was on the Billboard chart for ninety-three consecutive weeks, eventually selling over five million copies in the U.S. alone. Despite this massive success, it never got to number one, instead getting stuck in the number two spot on the
Billboard
charts, right behind John Lennon and Yoko Ono's
Double Fantasy
.

Although
Crimes
didn't reach the top spot, I'd made Chrysalis about $75 million and in the run-up to
Precious Time,
it was clear that I'd garnered more than enough clout to renegotiate my contract. After all the issues surrounding the marketing of
Crimes of Passion,
I knew that I had to get more control over my name and my image. I wanted the label to understand that I didn't like the confining role I was being given. Women had been rocking big since Janis Joplin—maybe there had been a lull in that of late, but we were still there doing our music.
And we didn't need airbrushed posters and ads selling someone who didn't exist.

There was definitely an old boys' club at work, and it was time to take a stand against the unlimited power the record company seemed to have over me. I wasn't becoming a crusader, though. I didn't think of it in political terms. Like any worker who's been pushed around by their boss, I felt that the label was holding too many cards. I was just like every other girl next door who wasn't getting the recognition she deserves. What was happening to me was happening to every other female in America. The only difference was that I was in a unique position to do something about it.

Before
Precious Time
came out, Newman tackled the long-overdue renegotiation of my contract, but unfortunately my moment to take a stand ended up as more symbolic gesture than actual power shift. For his part, Newman worked tirelessly on our behalf, but he was still trying to walk the fine line between doing his best for us and not ruining his relationship with the label. This impossible task overwhelmed him. While he'd learned a lot in his first couple of years on the job, he was still playing catch-up, and being in slightly over his head only made those tough negotiations even harder.

Sometimes his efforts were aided by the handful of good apples at Chrysalis who wanted to help us. One executive named Linda Carhart knew that Newman hadn't managed a music act before and she put her job on the line many times by giving him advice on how to navigate the negotiations. Likewise, the president of the company, Sal Licata, was always trying to help us find compromises. Sal was in the difficult position of having to run the company and be a “Chrysalis guy” while also being fair and nonconfrontational. Sal adored Spyder and was often one of the few advocates for him at the label. As someone who loved the music business, Sal hated all the bullshit that went on as much as we did. He did his best to referee, but he had to answer to Terry Ellis and Chris, so there was only so much he could do.

In the end, my advance, payment schedule, and royalty percentages were increased, though not as much as they could have or should have been. While I got more control over song choice and artwork, I would have to “mutually” agree with the label on both of those points. In other words, I was still bound to their opinions. They couldn't make unilateral decisions, but then again, neither could I. The one thing we didn't gain any ground on was the suspension clause. They still retained the right to ask for a new album every nine months—whether we were ready or not. Given our success, it felt like they were just throwing us a bone with these “more favorable” terms. I was confident that we could have demanded just about anything we wanted and gotten it. We were in the perfect position to put them to work for us, but for some reason, we didn't.

This relaxed attitude toward the negotiations was frustrating. We didn't push for as much creative control as we could have, and I couldn't understand why we were taking such an accommodating approach. When I would press Newman and my attorney, Owen Epstein, they always had some elaborate explanation as to why we couldn't ask for more. I should have held my ground with my team and pressed the case, but I didn't. Back then, I could only see the situation as a confusing problem that I'd grown sick of. I was tired of fighting. Terry played hardball, and though Newman did the best he could, in retrospect I never should have acquiesced.

Still, heading into the release of
Precious Time,
there was no doubt that we'd made strides. The cushion of success that we'd earned was enough to make everyone relax a bit. Spyder was getting a production credit, and because of our negotiations, the
Precious Time
cover did not elicit the same knock-down, drag-out fight. We weren't novices anymore; we had proven ourselves completely. I was being called the “reigning Queen of Rock and Roll.” For the first time since
In the Heat of the Night,
we were all actually getting along.

Of course, there were moments when the worst would come out
and the blatant sexism in the company would be readily apparent. Every few months, they held meetings with all of the execs to discuss strategy, marketing, and future album plans with us. Not long before
Precious Time
was released, we were at one of those meetings discussing ideas for a video—which song, who should direct, what the budget would be. It was a business discussion between eleven other people and me. Linda Carhart and I were the only females in the room, so I wasn't surprised when one of the marketing guys leaned across the table lasciviously and said, “What are you gonna
wear
?” his voice lingering on the word “wear” as he licked his lips like a predatory animal.
What was I going to
wear? We're in a business meeting talking about spending $350,000 on a promotional video and he wanted to know what I was gonna wear?

It was the same shit I'd had to deal with from the beginning; the only thing that was different was me. Instead of reacting with a crazed, militant response, I gave them reserved indignation. For a few seconds, I sat there silently, quietly looking at all of them with disgust at their behavior. Collectively they all shrank and became sheepish and apologetic. I stood up, accepted their apology, said, “Thank you, gentlemen,” and walked out. Meeting over.

It didn't just feel good, it felt amazing. Finally, after almost four years of putting up with that crap, I was starting to take charge of my musical life. Not Newman, not my attorneys, not even Spyder—just me.

 

W
HEN
P
RECIOUS
T
IME
WAS
finally released, it caught on quickly, becoming number one in the U.S.
Billboard
Top 200 chart and a Top 40 release in the UK. The first hit, “Fire and Ice,” landed on the singles charts about the same time as the album release. “Promises in the Dark” came out a couple of months later in October. That single, too,
was a Top 40 hit. The reviews were great. The
Los Angeles Times
called it “layered, fiery rock,” even saying that one of our longest cuts, “Evil Genius,” with its four-saxophone horn section, was an “epic” recording. It was clear to reviewers and fans that with our highly charged arrangements we were finally coming into our own.

Though only a few months had elapsed since our video for “You Better Run,” we were all too aware that MTV's power and influence had grown exponentially. In that time, making videos had gone from a quirky, optional experiment to an essential part of a record release. Once the label knew what they wanted your first single to be, you had to plan and shoot the video that would accompany it. MTV was a force to be reckoned with and it could not be ignored.

We decided to do “Fire and Ice” and “Promises in the Dark” as performance videos. We rented a soundstage in North Hollywood and invited the members of the fan club, radio contest winners, and family and friends. With that crowd of people, we filmed a miniconcert. For the title cut, we did a concept video that was a story about a rich girl who was a prisoner in her own life. (Sound familiar?)

With our faces all over MTV and two hit records on the charts, we once again embarked on a tour, only this time, with me and Spyder broken up, things were much more complicated. Chrysalis's prediction came true: we made the tour a nightmare for the rest of the band. We argued, fought, and acted nothing like our old selves. It was like we were two different people. Even today Myron refers to that tour in support of
Precious Time
as the “Hell Is for Us” tour, “Us” being pretty much everyone who wasn't Spyder or me. As everyone came to learn, it is not that much fun touring with a warring couple. We fought constantly, and the band and crew were ready to commit a felony just to get us to stop. If it wasn't about the latest Chrysalis offense or insult, it was about an amorous fan thinking it was open season now that we had broken up.

As it became common knowledge that we'd split up, people's lecherous qualities came out. When Spyder and I had been dating, the girls in the audience who were crazy for him had always kept a respectful distance. Now they were exposing their breasts during our show. At one concert in particular, some obviously drunk girl in the front row opened her blouse during our first set and proceeded to bleat, “Neil, Neil,” for the entire show. Occasionally she'd put her hands onstage, and when we got to the show's closer, “Heartbreaker,” I stepped on them and stood there until the song was over just to shut her up.

Spyder didn't have it much easier. I was constantly being approached by men in one way or another, and it took massive amounts of restraint on his part not to react. There were many nights onstage that Zel had to hold Spyder back from using his guitar as a baseball bat on some overzealous male fan. Guys came out of the woodwork with no rhyme or reason, thinking that I was fair game because I was single. Even my attorney, Owen Epstein, hit on me, which was just creepy.

Everything was torture. That tour was the only time I ever trashed a hotel room. Spyder and I were arguing, and I was screaming at him about one thing or another. We were both raging mad, and I went into the bathroom and slammed the toilet seat down, breaking it in two. I was horrified! It stopped the argument cold. It was such an out-of-character moment, but in an instant we both could see just how bad things had gotten. I'd like to think that all that tension made us rock harder, but we all could have done with a little less rock and a little more peace.

What made it harder was that I loved the road. Live performance was the reason I started singing and will always be my first love. I was never one of those musicians who dreaded the rigors of tours. People would ask me all the time if touring was difficult, and I'd tell them, “Life is hard, the road is easy.” Under most circumstances that's true. Being on tour allows you to step away from everything in life and just focus on performing. On tour I'd sleep until noon, have room service,
wear black leather, put on lots of makeup, perform, hear people cheer for me, get on the bus, travel to the next city, and do it all again. I'd show up to packed arenas and sing my heart out for people screaming my name. I'd see the enthusiasm in the faces of the fans in the swirling mass of the crowd, and I'd work as hard as I could to give them everything I had each night. There was no reality involved and that was the whole point. For twelve weeks, you could step away from your problems and return to the life that began it all.

That is, unless your problems happened to be on the bus beside you looking incredibly hot and emotionally distant, while reminding you that you never should have broken up in the first place. The fact that we'd had no downtime and no break from each other only exacerbated things.

There were funny moments on that tour, though. One night, we were playing a huge indoor venue when we had something of a Three Stooges moment with Myron. His drum setup that year included a cage and a large gong on a stand. Myron was a little guy, wiry and compact, probably 124 pounds soaking wet. We were playing the encore, and “Promises in the Dark” had a lot of breaks and rhythmic stops. The ending of the song had us playing a crescendo and Myron was supposed to blast the gong just before the last note.

Myron was a brilliant drummer and an amazing showman—well known for his acrobatics on stage. He'd routinely climb all over his drum set like a deranged red-haired monkey. As the end of the song drew near, he positioned himself on the gong stand in anticipation of delivering the final downbeat. The gong was
much
bigger than he was, and it certainly weighed more. He swung the mallet as hard as he could and hit the gong, and when it swung backwards, he turned to face the audience, raising the mallet triumphantly in the air.

While he was facing the audience, the gong swung back, knocking him off the drum riser and onto the stage. He was out cold. We too were facing the audience with our backs to him, so we didn't even know
anything had happened until we heard scuffling. Zel, Spyder, and I turned around to see Myron lying on the ground, unconscious, with his drum tech and assorted crew members waving towels and throwing water on him. Like a badass, he woke up and immediately staggered to the drums to play the final beat and end the song. In spite of what had happened, the whole scene was pretty comical, not worrisome at all. Not to mention it displayed exactly the kind of dedication we'd come to expect from Myron.

But that laughter and camaraderie came sparingly. By and large, the only time that we put the fighting with each other on hold was when we were dealing with the label. We would make this band work even if that meant that we couldn't be together. Even if we fought on the road, we'd do the right thing when it came to dealing with the label: put personal problems aside for the good of the whole. We argued our case together, stood up to them when we felt they were being unfair. Spyder and I are both Capricorns, confident, driven, and goal-oriented. When we are working toward something we can get tunnel vision. And we are very loyal people. Chrysalis made us dig our heels in. When we did have to meet with any label executives, we didn't walk in with Pollyanna attitudes, thinking everything was going to be sweetness and light. We knew better and we went into warrior mode, together.