I Want My MTV (39 page)

 

BILLY SQUIER:
I had an idea for the video, based on the ritual of going to a concert. If we admit it, when we're getting ready to go out, we're checking our clothes and our hair. So I wanted to show me doing that in my apartment, then cut back and forth with kids getting ready to go to a Billy Squier concert and sneaking out of the house. In the last chorus, they get to where they're going, I get to where I'm going, we're all in it together.

The first person we went to is Bob Giraldi, the biggest video director in the world. I sent him the song, he loved it, we had a meeting, everything was good. Three weeks later, he called my office and said, “I'm out.” He decided it wasn't something he'd want his kids to see. I was like,
“Huh?”

 

BOB GIRALDI:
Having seen the video, he was right: I should have been the director.

 

MICK KLEBER:
Giraldi said he was routinely turning down projects that were underfunded. He was interested, if we could enlarge the budget. Compared to other labels, Capitol budgets were conservative. Bob understood and politely bowed out.

 

BILLY SQUIER:
So we regrouped and went to David Mallet. I told him the idea and he came back a few weeks later with storyboards. The first thing he showed me was a scene of me riding into a diner on a white horse. I was like, “Get rid of him.” That was the end of that.

 

MICK KLEBER:
Capitol had worked with David on clips for David Bowie, Iron Maiden, Queen, and a Tina Turner video, “Let's Stay Together,” which demonstrated her comeback potential. But David wasn't sold on “Rock Me Tonite” as a song. He may have submitted a treatment out of professional courtesy.

 

BILLY SQUIER:
Now we're in trouble—this thing has already been scheduled for an MTV world premiere. I'd had two huge records, huge tours, everything is set up. We're running out of time.

 

MICK KLEBER:
We talked to MTV about moving back the premiere date, but they were reluctant to change and couldn't guarantee a world premiere at a later date. I passed this on to Billy's manager, Tom Mohler.

 

ARNOLD STIEFEL:
Bullshit, MTV's already given them a date. Fuck MTV, they can wait. But Billy's a sweet, gentle guy. I don't think he had anyone fighting for him.

 

BILLY SQUIER:
David Mallet had been using a choreographer named Kenny Ortega, who is considered a great choreographer. Kenny was a friend of my girlfriend, Fleur Thiemeyer, who was a costume designer. Kenny rang up and said, “I would really like to direct this video. I love Billy.”

TOM MOHLER:
Stewart Young and I started comanaging Billy in 1980. We absolutely did not endorse Kenny Ortega and did not want it to happen. Stewart fought diligently to get rid of him.

 

BILLY SQUIER:
The idea Kenny pitched was “I've seen you perform, and you have great moves onstage. Let's go onto a soundstage, you take the guitar off, and do stuff you would do onstage.”

I wanted it to look like
American Gigolo
: grainy textures, somber colors. I was very clear about this. Kenny made a reference to the Tom Cruise scene in
Risky Business
, where he's playing air guitar. I said, “Absolutely not. This is not a pop video.” We shot on a soundstage in LA, only a week or two weeks before the world premiere. There wasn't much time left. I come to the set and see all these pastel colors, a comic-book city backdrop, smoke machines, a bed with satin sheets. This is not what we said we were going to do. And Kenny says, “No, trust me. When it goes onto film, it'll look the way you want.” “So this is gonna look like
American Gigolo
?” “Yep.” I didn't like the sheets, but I trusted the guy.

I mean look, Kenny is gay. And this is the way he saw me. He abused my trust, I really feel that. He did not do what he said he would do.

 

PETE ANGELUS:
Let me stop you right there. What could the director have said? “You're going to dance around like an idiot and don't worry, we'll cut around it?” There's no finger-pointing in that regard, Mr. Squier. I don't care if the director was lying dead on the floor, you shouldn't have put on a fucking pink T-shirt and danced around like that.

 

MICK KLEBER:
Kenny Ortega has since become famous as the director of the
High School Musical
series and the Michael Jackson documentary
This Is It!
At that point, he had directed a few videos—most notably the Pointer Sisters' “I'm So Excited”—but he had no experience with rock singers. Capitol frowned on artists meeting directly with video directors, but Billy was determined to control the process. By going around the label, he had thrown down the gauntlet. And although the concept seemed questionable to us, and we were somewhat alarmed about the idea of the video, Billy was completely sold on it.

 

ARNOLD STIEFEL:
Duran Duran videos were pretty light in the loafers, for straight men. But did Billy not notice the pastel satin sheets? I mean, I don't know that Barry Manilow ever did such a gay video. Billy was dancing like Donald O'Connor and Gene Kelly in
Singin' in the Rain
. It's more than swishy. He was jumping on beds and ripping off his shirt. He's the world's most horrible dancer. This is the great Kenny Ortega. How could he have allowed such a thing?

 

TOM MOHLER:
I was at the shoot, and I asked Kenny only one thing: “Please make sure you film the entire song with the band.” I wanted coverage so we could cut away to the band. He said, “No problem,” and that never happened. He did not do that. I was tremendously disappointed. Stewart and I wanted footage of Billy with a guitar, and if we'd had that, we could have re-edited Kenny's video.

I saw the video in my apartment in Beverly Hills. I was speechless. I asked the label if we could just
not
put out a video. And Jim Mazza, who was the president of Capitol, said, “We need optimal visual support.” I wish we'd had the balls to say to the label, “We're not putting it out.”

 

MICK KLEBER:
When the rough cut arrived at Capitol, the immediate consensus was that Billy's performance was disturbingly effeminate. “Is this supposed to be funny?” “Is Billy okay with this? He looks totally gay.” “A pink shirt? What was he thinking?” “It wouldn't be so bad except for all the skipping.” “Maybe we should call it ‘Cock Me Tonite.'” “Maybe we should kill it right now.” “But Billy's already approved it.” “Fuck it. It's only a video.”

 

ROBERTA CRUGER:
It was a pretty bad video. In fact, it was a very bad video. At MTV, we all said, “Oh my god, what were they thinking?”

 

BILLY SQUIER:
When I saw the video, my jaw dropped. It was diabolical. I looked at it and went, “What the fuck is this?” I remember a guy from the record company saying, “Don't worry about it, the record's a smash.” I wanted to believe it would be okay. My girlfriend said something like “This is gonna ruin you.” This is where I'll take responsibility. I could have stopped it. I found out subsequently that Springsteen had shot a video and hated it, so he scrapped it.

The video misrepresents who I am as an artist. I was a good-looking, sexy guy. That certainly didn't hurt in promoting my music. But in this video I'm kind of a pretty boy. And I'm preening around a room. People said, “He's gay.” Or, “He's on drugs.” It was traumatizing to me. I mean, I had nothing against gays. I have a lot of gay friends. But like it or not, it was much more of a sticky issue then. At that point, I told my manager, “Pull the video. Just get it off TV.” I was a mess.

The video had a deleterious effect on my career. The tour before, I was selling out arenas faster than Sinatra, and as soon as that video came out I was playing to half houses. I went from 15,000 and 20,000 people a night to 10,000 people. Everything I'd worked for my whole life was crumbling, and I couldn't stop it. How can a four-minute video do that? Okay, it sucked. So?

Kenny Ortega didn't get hurt by this; I did. That's ironic. Nobody said, “I'm not gonna hire him, look what he did to Billy Squier!” He just moved on. The only person who got hurt by it was me. If you want to get really dramatic, you could say the guy crippled me.

 

WARREN DeMARTINI:
We were on the road with Billy when “Rock Me Tonite” wasn't being received well. We were on the sidelines for that bombshell. I couldn't figure out why Capitol Records didn't pull the video and make another one.

 

MICK KLEBER:
The budget for “Rock Me Tonite” was perhaps the most money Capitol had ever spent on a video. When you compare the production value to other clips, it was a rip-off. Creatively it was a clunker. And from an artist development standpoint, it was a tragedy. The enterprise was a whopping, steaming turd just about any way you look at it.

 

BILLY SQUIER:
This was so traumatizing, it led to me firing Stewart Young and Tom Mohler in September 1984, after three and a half years together, and hiring Arnold Stiefel, who manages Rod Stewart.

 

TOM MOHLER:
I heard from Billy's road manager that we were no longer the managers. I think Billy blamed us, to a certain extent. We should've been stronger. That's what managers do.

This was a dark time. I mean, we had it all. Billy was selling records, tickets, and merchandise. It was personally devastating as well. Billy and I were very close. He'd been the best man at my wedding in February that year.

 

ARNOLD STIEFEL:
Fleur Thiemeyer did Rod Stewart's stage clothes, so I sort of knew her. She said, “Billy's in trouble.” We met him in Philadelphia, and I said, “This video is terrible for you. It's going to cause you horrible problems. You ought to get it pulled off the air immediately.” I thought maybe I could help, but it was too late. He finished the tour and then he became a recluse for a bit.

BILLY SQUIER:
It really points to a seismic shift in music. You weren't listening to music anymore, you were seeing it. I think MTV had a negative effect on music. Video directors were guys who made commercials and used videos as a kind of stepping-stone to movies. There are instances where it worked well. I mean, I'm sure Duran Duran was happy with it, you know?

I think videos changed how record companies acted. It's a force, so you're going to look for bands that are videogenic. I would never point a finger at MTV and say it's the Evil Empire. It was a good idea. But then MTV became the biggest radio station in the country, and the most influential. It became this monster.

Aside from this, I don't really talk about the video. I want to tell the story so people get a better idea of how this machine worked. It's like “Rock Me Tonite” is the MBA course in how a video can go really wrong. On a lesser level, this stuff goes on all the time. I just get to be the poster boy for it.

The wounds have healed and the scars aren't that deep, because my life has evolved in a good way. I left the music business when I was forty-three. I don't have to work. Look who's smiling now! That video is a bad part of a good life.

 

MICK KLEBER:
The lessons from “Rock Me Tonite” are that fame can be oddly fleeting in show business—and that rock stars should always think carefully about wearing pink.

 

ARNOLD STIEFEL:
I mean, lordy lordy lordy. Everybody must die when they talk about this video, right? I saw it last night on YouTube, and I almost peed. I had to keep watching it over and over. All I could do was call friends and say, “You must go to YouTube right now.” The response was extraordinary. “You mean, this was on television?” I said, “It was on television. I promise.”

 

 

 

MTV REJECTED MOST NETWORK TRADITIONS: THE
cheerful morning shows, the sitcoms, professionalism. But the awards show was an old idea MTV couldn't resist. To launch the Video Music Awards (VMAs), they enlisted Don Ohlmeyer, a TV powerhouse who has had significant roles at ESPN,
Saturday Night Live
, and
Monday Night Football.
The VMAs immediately became more interesting than the Grammys or any other music awards, and the ratings highlight of MTV's year. But where the Grammys celebrates itself, and the Tonys honor theater, the VMAs celebrated MTV with a display of the channel's growth, influence, and taste for scandal.

 

ALAN HUNTER:
Nina Blackwood and I were waiting for a cab one day, and a woman in her sixties, shouted, “More Van Halen!” Everybody was watching MTV.

 

JOHN SYKES:
Come 1984, we were finally big enough that we could throw our own awards show. Artists who only two years ago wouldn't give us interviews or even make videos would show up. Les got Bette Midler and Dan Aykroyd to host, I got the Police to appear, and we were on our way.

 

BOB PITTMAN:
Don Ohlmeyer, who had a business relationship with Nabisco and was one of my old NBC television guys, gave me the idea for the VMAs. We'd been thinking about an awards show, so it was in the back of my mind, but I didn't know how to do it. Don said, “Look, I'll finance it through Nabisco advertising, and I'll produce it. We'll be partners in it.” So that's the way it started. We weren't in enough homes to make it work for national advertisers, so we had to simulcast it on broadcast TV for the first couple of years.