Gliders Over Hollywood: Paul Rappaport's New Book Details His Adventures During Rock’s Golden Age and Why the Future Needs Its Past | The Sharp Notes Interview

Inside the Wild World of Rock Promotion with the Columbia Records Promotions Legend

Let’s face it—if the music industry were a spaceship, right now it might be sputtering through the void, looking for a little more rocket fuel. Algorithms are everywhere, attention spans are short, and too often, passion plays second fiddle to data. But every once in a while, someone shows up to remind us of what the industry used to be—wild, inspired, and driven by larger-than-life personalities who weren’t afraid to bet big and be bold.

Enter Paul Rappaport, or just “Rap” if you were lucky enough to know him during the golden age of rock. He wasn’t just in the room—he was the one setting the room on fire, bringing the magic of rock ‘n’ roll to life through legendary promotions, wild stunts, and a deep, unshakable belief in the power of music to move people.

In his brand-new book, Gliders Over Hollywood (Jawbone Press) Paul tells the untold stories from the trenches of Columbia Records, where he helped shape the careers of icons like Bruce Springsteen, Pink Floyd, Bob Dylan, Judas Priest, Billy Joel, and so many more. This isn’t just a backstage pass; it’s a masterclass in creativity, guts, and the human side of the music business—the kind of stories that might just help us reimagine the future by looking back at what made the past so electric.

From sword-fighting with Bruce Dickinson to floating a Pink Floyd airship, Paul’s career reads like a rock novel, but it’s all real—and it’s all heart. And as the industry asks itself what’s next, maybe it’s time to remember how it used to be done. Big ideas, crazy risks, and above all, a love for the music that seemed to make anything possible.

Evan Toth: The place where I'd like to begin is I've been doing this podcast for a few years now. Even though I was a musician for a long time, and I like to think I understood the music industry, once I started doing this, I don't think I really realized the hard work that PR and promo people do behind the scenes for all aspects of the entertainment industry, but we're here to talk about music. If you had to sum up or just explain to people what that really is behind the scenes, the hard work that those PR people do. I think you're the guy to explain it to people that might not really understand exactly what that's all about.

Paul Rappaport: Yes, sure, and I will tell you that you're not the only one. I found a lot of artists who did not understand what we did for them, much less what their managers did for them. I would say because some of the managers are very hardworking people, and I'd say, "Do you know what your manager does for you?" They'd go, "No, we just know the money keeps rolling in." I said, "Well, you should find out because this guy is out there killing himself for you."

I'm talking about major acts. I'm not talking about on the way up there. I'm talking about major league acts that you'd be shocked that they didn't know, but a lot of those folks also started in a time where they didn't have to worry about marketing and such. In the late '60s and early '70s, you pretty much just had to be the artist, and the business people took care of the business. All you had to worry about was making your music. Although we used to tell artists that, "You need to start paying attention to the business side because if you don't, you'll likely be taken advantage of, frankly, by anybody."

I think what people should understand about the music industry is it's very competitive. There is a lot of music being released montly, weekly. Back in the day, record companies would be releasing an uncanny amount of albums and singles. In today's world, look, there's not even any gatekeepers, music just comes flying out when anybody wants to put something on YouTube. It's competitive. What we're trying to do in the behalf of the artist is get them noticed and get in front of everyone else.

"Please look here first. Please listen to the music that I'm working for first. Please find a home for this music on your radio station," or if you are a press person you're writing about it. In today's world, if you're streaming and you're trying to get your artist to be in certain streaming services or people's mixes, the influencers, what have you. It's very competitive. It's funny because I remember taking my kids to work. They always wanted to know why I was taking catnaps. They were little, and I said, "I work really hard." I said, "Let me take you to work so you can see what I do."

I take them to work one day. I think one was eight, the other was five or whatever, or six or nine, whatever. I get home and I go, "Do you get it?" They go, "No, Dad. All you do is listen to records, and then get on the phone and yell at people." [laughter] Then I said, "I don't yell at people. I'm not that guy. There's a famous guy named Irving Azoff. He yells at people. I don't yell at people." "Oh, no, Dad, you yell at a lot of people." It can be heated sometimes, and they didn't see the hard part.

Paul and the Stones Rolling Around During the Late 80s/Early 90s

What would have been the hard part? Let's make it back in the day when rock radio ruled, and I'm working albums on rock radio. Records have to go up the charts in order for radio to stay interested. When a record begins, a few radio stations play a song, they get some listener response, and people like me have to spread the word to other radio stations around the country, "Hey, MMR in Philadelphia is playing this new band I have, The Psychedelic Furs. I know it's a weird name, but you should try it, listeners want to hear it."

Then, if you have credibility, somebody in another station would play it, and that's how music is built also at top 40 radio. They can even cite numbers. They'll say, "Oh, so and so's-- this top 40 station, this thing jumped from 30 to 22, now at 15, so the record's proving itself." People like myself have to spread that word. Now, the records have to go up the charts so that radio knows they are still viable, they're still in play for them to be playing on the radio station.

Now, again, it's competitive. Other promotion people are trying to get their music added at these radio stations. They are talking to program directors and music directors, saying, "Hey, are you getting enough listener response? Can this record go from, let's say, a light rotation to a medium rotation? What do I need to do to get it into a heavy rotation?"

All right. At Columbia, which is very big label, I could be responsible for 8 albums at once, 10 sometime, projects, very beginning bands, bands that had careers that were mid-careers, superstar acts like Pink Floyd, The Rolling Stones. It doesn't matter. They all have to go up the charts, which means I have to, because the charts are all done by math, I have to make sure that those 8 or 10 albums all have at least miminum 6, but I like to get 10 additions a week.

Let's say there's 150 rock stations that I'm building a project. I like to get 10 new stations a week to ensure that that record's going to move up the charts a few points, depending on what's going on with the charts, and there's also spins, rotations. I'm looking for additions, and I'm looking for upward rotations from lights to mediums, mediums to heavy. It's not just me. I have 25 local people out there that are talking to radio and their markets, and I'm on the phone with international people.

We have to keep a chart so that all of those albums that we're working each week-- it's maintenance, chart maintenance, when they're moving up, they're moving up, they're moving up. Now, it gets very competitive. Now you're in the top 10. How are we going to take a record to the top five, and how are we going to get it to number one? Right?

ezt: Right.

pr: It's almost like a word game, like it's a map. For each project, how does this work? How's this--

ezt: Yes, it's like a strategy. There's a strategy as well.

pr: It's a strategy. Right. Every week, you have a strategy. If you don't make it, you have to try harder for that album the next week, but bear in mind, somebody else is-- a lot of somebody else are pushing this, pushing that. It's a business of favors, so we're doing big promotions with radio stations, "Hey, I've got front row seats for Bruce Springsteen." We do a big promotion as a thank you. It's like, "Hey, we love this new band you got. Hey, Rapp, thanks very much. We're going to put this thing into heavy rotation for you."

It's a give-and-take business. It's really that kind of symbiotic thing, but it's the same way for every record company. Some weeks, somebody has the edge, and some weeks, somebody else has the edge.

ezt: Of course, during all that, you really only have a finite period of time also to make this impact and do it, so the clock is ticking, ticking, ticking right before the product becomes a little stale and you're on to the next act, I suppose.

pr: Exactly. The clock starts ticking. Say Tuesday is the day that radio stations add new music, so the clock starts ticking on Wednesday. You're trying to set people up Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Monday is a big call day because it's the last day you can make your appeal. Tuesday, they're going to add or drop a record that isn't working or a song that isn't working. It's very time-sensitive.

Sometimes you can't get ahold of people right away. Some people answer their phone, some people look at a computer, some people don't. It's a bigger grind. Now, at the same time, the managers are fighting for their bands. Just like we're working radio, the managers are working us. Hey, "Rapp, I know--" My nickname's Rapp because my last name is Rappaport.

ezt: Cool nickname.

pr: "Hey, Rapp, we're working on these records, but you know my new band? Can you just make sure that-- take care of them, and come down to the club and see them. We want to make sure that you're on our side and that we're a priority." They're talking to the marketing people, "My band needs a new video. Yes, I know that's going to cost money. Here's why we think you should spend the money." They're putting the band on tour. They have to talk to promoters. That's a whole separate business. The record company doesn't do that. We're just the music.

The whole live performance is another business, which the bands and artists do on their own with their manager through agents and promoters to sell tickets. They're working hard. Look, press people are trying to get press for the acts that I'm working and so is every other record company, but no, we want the front page of Time magazine. We want the best article. It's very, very competitive, and everybody is looking for the edge. We're all looking for the edge because we all want to do the best we can do.

At Columbia Records, we had a rule, if we can, possibly, any record that gets to the top five goes to number one. There is no number two at Columbia Records, only number one. That puts enormous pressure on people like myself because to get to number one, you could be really close with somebody else and maybe only one extra ad or one extra heavy rotation because you stayed up late and called somebody at home and said, "Just do me a favor and stick it in heavy for this week," just to get to number one. It's that insane. It's nuts.

We used to have races. My biggest competitor was Atlantic Records, a guy named Danny Bush. They had a lot of rock acts. Every week, we used to have a race for most added. It's a new album, not a brand new artist. It could be a big artist, but who's going to get the most additions at rock radio in that week? If it's a big artist, you're talking 80, 90 ads, and then the next week, maybe there's 20, and you're cleaning it up to try to get to 150.

He and I would go at it, and we'd be talking the trades, "What did Danny do? What did Danny do? How many has he got? How many has he got?" He'd be calling, "What does Rap got? What does Rap got?" We'd get to the end, and we'd barely beat each other by one or two ads. Because in those days we were a business that had a lot of money, if I won, just like you're tipping your hat to a World War I flying ace that you just shot down, I would send Danny Bush a bottle of Dom Perignon. [laughter] "Danny, good race this week. Good job. Salute you, Rapp."

ezt: And if he won?

pr: Nothing. [laughter] Probably get a phone call.

ezt: Come on, Danny.

pr: Danny, get a phone call, "Ha, got you." [laughter] He's a legendary promotion guy, Danny.

ezt: People understand now have the context of many of the things that you were involved in. Why don't we bring it up to the book here, because you've had all these experiences? Just as you mentioned in this answer to the prior question, you're talking about different characters and Danny and there's different people. This whole world, you've decided to write the book about it, as they say, and you've got a literal book. What was the inspiration in your life right now to say, "Let me put this down on paper. Let me put some of these experiences down on paper."?

pr: I think it was because, as you said, it was a wonderful world. It was a world like no other. People, if you read this book, you won't even believe half the stuff that's in it. You'll go, "This can't be how it was," because it's too wacky, right?

ezt: Yes.

pr: It was the Wild West, and we made this business up as we went along, which is the rock business, started really late '60s, early '70s, to become a big business. By the time the mid-'70s come, you've got big, big rock acts and rock radios selling tons and tons of albums. The world itself was full of characters. Imagine a movie, Guys and Dolls, only it's record people. Everybody has a nickname. We don't have Sky Masterson. We have a guy named Sky Daniels. We don't have Big Julie. We got a guy named Heavy Lenny.

We're all characters, and we have the money to make our dreams come true, to do big promotions. We're encouraged to think big. We're encouraged to think creatively. The money comes second. It's a business where the art comes first. Make the best music, get the best producers, get the best album covers, have people like Rappaport think of crazy, imaginative promotions.

They gave me money to shoot laser beams off mountainsides. You read in the book, this is stuff that as big as you could think, they would back you. Now, this book just didn't happen overnight. I started this book six years ago. I wanted it to be great. I had written a blog for 10 years, and I found a writer's voice. I learned how to write. It's a craft, and I began to write these stories and then put them together, but there's a lot of stories.

This little voice kept telling me, "Somebody's got to write this." When my time is up, it's gone. Unless somebody captures this world, you see it a little, if you read artist books, if you read Bruce's book or Keith's book, or Eric Clapton's book, you read about their world, but it's only their world. I wanted to capture the whole world. This is what rock music-- when it was released, this is what was happening. This is what early radio was like. This is what it was like to work in a record company. This is what it was like to be a salesman, but do it in an entertaining fashion because it was all entertaining.

You're talking about a business where fun was part of your job description. I know it's hard for people to believe today. You're talking about grown men, we're just big kids, we're posing as mature adults. You're talking about a business where there's bowling in the hallways in the afternoon, water gun fights. I had a fencing duel with Bruce Dickinson from Iron Maiden. We both found out we were fencers.

All of us are just pushing the WTF envelope. I said, "Get your gear. We're going to have a duel, and let's do it right down the hallway of Columbia Records," because as far out as the record business was, nobody had ever seen anybody have a fencing duel in front of their desks. [chuckles] It's crazy stuff like this. You're talking about a business. Evan, the manager of Journey. Journey is a huge band, right?

ezt: Sure.

pr: You're talking millions and millions of dollars.

ezt: Gigunda, yes.

pr: Gigunda. Okay. He gets on a Yiddish kick, not even Jewish, but he and the road manager get on a Yiddish kick. He sends a Yiddish for dummies book to the whole industry. Says, "If you want to speak to me or Pat Morrow--" His nickname was Bubba, famous road manager, Journey's road manager, "You want to talk to me or Bubba, you're going to have to read some lines of Yiddish." I get the book, it's cute, fine.

Herbie calls me on a Thursday. I'll never forget this because we had to decide a single. I can't remember which Journey album it was, but we were selling 50,000 albums a week, and you have to have singles come out in a timely fashion to keep the momentum going. This was the day we had to decide what the next single was going to be. "Herbie Herbert, line one." "Hey Herbie, it's Rapp, how you doing?" "Vos machst du?" He starts talking to me talking Yiddish.

I'm saying, "Herbie, I got the book. It's cute." He won't stop talking, he's talking Yiddish for two minutes. Finally, he stops. He goes, "Rap, what the F? A nice Jewish boy like you can't learn a couple of lines of Yiddish?" I'm like, "Herbie, look, I got the book. It's cute. This is a timely conversation, man. We have to decide now, this afternoon. It's three o'clock in New York. We have to decide the next single for Journey. It's going to be put in production. I have to tell the rock stations tomorrow, we need to decide this."

He goes, "I know. Learn your Yiddish and call me back." Click. [laughter] "Okay, now, Evan, in order for me to get the next Journey single, I have to learn two lines of Yiddish to call the manager back so that I can get this to put the single in production, otherwise I don't get it." That's welcome to the rock and roll business, 1985. It's endless. They're all like that.

I was a character. We're all characters. We're bigger than life. We get credit for being characters. Herbie did it because he knew that he'd be the talk of the industry for months. "Hey, Herbie called Rapp, and Rapp had a good--" It's like, it's that kind of business, I had to capture it. I didn't want it to be forgotten.

I wanted people to know Herbie Herbert, besides the artists that you meet in the book, which I tried to write it like you are their style, so you're having conversations with Mick Jagger and Keith Richards and Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan and all these people. I wanted them to meet the Herbie Herberts of the world and the Sandy Pearlmans of the world, who was a manager of Blue Öyster Cult and wrote a lot of their songs, and here's a whole other story you read about.

These people are wacky in the most wonderful ways. I don't know. Somehow, I got the call. I look up, look to Heaven, I go, "Thanks. At least somebody wrote this book. Happened to be me, but at least it's out there." Somebody, if you want to read about it, if you want to know how this scene was, man, here it is.

ezt: As you say, the superstars, people have heard those stories. They've written their own books. They've had books written about them and magazine articles and in-depth pieces, but as you're saying, the behind-the-scenes stuff, for a good person like me, that's really interesting too, and it will be a lost history because if someone who wasn't-- you happened to be someone who was there with them, and you're the kind of person that can write that book.

pr: Yes, I think I'm a natural storyteller. I got that from my father, but writing is different. It's a craft. When you write and you want to make it interesting, it's a real craft. I get down to the minutia, like, "What is the first sentence of this chapter, and how do I bring somebody into this chapter?" If I'm trying to make a joke or something, how do you do that in print? Where does that show up? Or what is the most important part of this paragraph?

Maybe I've got it turned around, and I have to think about that. If you want to write, you want to write well, it's a lot of rewriting, re-editing, throwing stuff out, putting stuff back in. It's a real microscope down to every word. That's not the right word. It's not conveying what I want to say.

ezt: As they say, "All writing is rewriting." "All the best writing is rewriting."

pr: Look, I'm telling you something you already know. I just wanted to get it all down. I wanted people to see a side of artists that maybe they wouldn't see like Keith Richards is a really cool guy. It's like Keith Richards wants to talk about guitars, "Hey, you need to get into G tuning. This is how all The Rolling Stones hits are made. You're a guitar player. You would like this." He gives me a guitar lesson. It's not about this celebrity thing. It's about two guitar guys talking to each other. It's a beautiful moment. I wanted people to see those sides of artists. They don't see that, right?

ezt: Of course, it wasn't a 9:00 to 5:00 job. I mean, this is a career for someone that really wants to go all in. I'm sure you had late nights and trips.

pr: No, it's a lifestyle. This is a lifestyle. This is 24/7 and you need to-- if you want to have a family, which I did, I had to learn how to walk a fine line because it's a business where you could be out every night of the week if you want, not just for the bands that you have that are playing, but other bands that are coming to town. People would say, "Hey, you want to go see Peter Gabriel?" I'll say, "Yes."

In those days, so much new music was happening, and I would get a call and say, "Look, there's a guy. We think he's going to be the next big thing. His name is Elton John. Come down to the Troubadour. It's his debut. You should check it out," so I'm there to see Elton John's debut at the Troubadour. Guess what?

ezt: You were there that night.

pr: We were like, "Oh, my God," but there were a lot of next big things because Bruce Springsteen played the Troubadour and Billy Joel played the Troubadour. Everybody played the Troubadour. You could be out every night. I didn't get home in time to put the kids to bed. I'd see them in the morning a little bit, so I made a deal with my wife. I said, "Look, you're going to do this during the week." Sometimes I'd be on the road for four days in a row. I'm just not even home. I said, "On the weekends, I'll take over. Go do whatever you want to do, and I'll just take care of these two little guys."

Then I realized, "Oh, my God, the job of a mother." I was always behind. You can't keep up. One week, she went to a spa. I had to watch these kids for a week. Oh, my God. [laughter] I never learned how to cook, so that was-- you know?

ezt: Yes.

pr: [laughs] This is embarrassing, not even know how to do laundry.

ezt: You were like, "Kids, get in the car. We're going to this Iron Maiden concert..."

pr: I'm trying to do all these stuff for these kids. Oh, well, that was part of their life. Look, I took my son-- the older guy went to more concerts because he's older. The younger one became a big Pink Floyd fan because I took him to see Pink Floyd.

ezt: Wow.

pr: The older one, I would take him to see-- If you read in the book, there's a great story about him and Alice in Chains. My 10-year-old son actually turns me on to Alice in Chains. You'll read about it in the book. He became their mascot. They loved him. Now, I'm taking him to see Metallica, and the opening act is Alice in Chains. Now, both me and my 10-year-old kid heads are going like this, right?

ezt: Yes.

pr: Our heads are slamming. I'm thinking, I'm looking at him because I'm just a big kid anyway, and music's inside of me. Both our heads are bopping. He's watching Metallica. I'm watching Metallica. Then I'm going to take him backstage and meet Metallica and Alice in Chains and everything. I'm looking at this, thinking, "Would Boy Scouts be a better choice?" [laughter] I don't know. This is my world.

ezt: No way.

pr: He loved it. They got to meet a lot of bands, and they loved it. Sadly, a lot of people could not control how much fun they were having in the business, and families suffered. Rock stars are notorious for wives and broke marriages because they're on the road all the time. It's tough, tough business. If you wanted to have a family, you really, really had to-- there were nights that I knew I had to be out, and there were nights that I could've been out, and I went, "No, I'm going to go home."

If I go home early, maybe I could see the kids before bedtime just because I wanted to keep that together. I realized that my business was Disneyland, and my home was reality. For me, I lucked out that way, or at least I figured it out so that I would have a nice home life.

ezt: As you're explaining very well, the cast of characters, the adventure there that was involved, and I guess this is maybe a little bit of a cliché direction to go in, but it feels like maybe things are a little different now. You'll have to tell me. Maybe that's not true. Also, maybe there's just a new cast of characters and things are crazy in a different way. Maybe it's a twinge of nostalgia here, but you tell me. What do you think? What's your take on that?

pr: I think there's a big difference. The business, as I said, grew from the '60s to the '70s and even through the '80s. Maybe it starts in the '90s, where the record business becomes the money business, and now there's a shift in priorities. Now, well, maybe we don't have time for a new up-and-coming singer-songwriter, like a new Bob Dylan or a new Bruce Springsteen, to go out and play clubs, and we have to develop these people and take three years to do it. Maybe they break by their third album or their fourth album.

Much easier to stay in the pop world. Let's get a gal, put a belly button ring in her, give her a song from Max from Sweden, five producers, wind up, hit record. We'll sell two million records, and then she'll have another one. When her career's over, we'll get the next gal or the next boy band or whatever. The accent is different. Look, I still have friends in the business, and it's not near as much fun as it used to be because now it is so money-driven. The big phrase now is, "Don't leave any money on the table." When you do a business deal or you're doing something out in the world, don't leave any money on the table.

Well, if you don't leave any money on the table, you're not going to have any fun because it takes money to have fun. Bill Graham, famous promoter in San Francisco, if you were a band or an artist that played for him, he would build backstage elaborate sets as a thank you for playing for him. He's a promoter, but, "Thanks for coming and playing shows for me." If you're The Who, you went backstage, and there were a bunch of ping pong tables, all custom painted like the Union Jack from England, make them feel at home.

Pink Floyd came to play. Bill Graham built an English pub backstage. If you were backstage, and a lot of industry people were, you walked into an English pub, you sat down, you had a beer, and you had a steak and kidney pie. If you were Bruce Springsteen, there was a New York bar. There was a gelato stand. Evan, can you imagine how much money? They're like movie sets. Was Bill worried about leaving money on the table? Bill wanted to be Bill Graham. He's P.T. Barnum of rock.

He wanted to be known as the greatest rock promoter, so guess what? Not only you're going to go to the show, you're going to have fun at the Bill Graham show. If you're the artist, you're going to have the best time you ever had backstage. "Forget cheese and crackers and grapes, what any other promoters are giving you, I'm doing this." I think it was in 1994, you read about it, I had an idea for Pink Floyd because they're famous for their inflatables. I had this idea to create a giant airship, a blimp.

When blimps become so big, they're called airships. I had an idea to create an airship that would be painted psychedelic by their graphic designer. It looked like a creature from outer space. It flew from city to city. It gave rides to fans. We had radio stations broadcasting from the gondola. Biggest rock event, promotion event in history. That cost $750,000. Now, if you're Columbia Records, you're already going to spend $2 million out the gate, traditional marketing and promotion. I was in charge of a creative marketing department. Then I came up with a lot of ideas like this.

If you're going to add another $750,000 to a budget, that's a big deal. In the end, as you read in the book, the band wanted it so bad, they paid for part of it, and Michael Cole, the national promoter of that particular tour, The Division Bell, paid for part of it, and Columbia Records paid for part of it, just so that we could all afford it. I guarantee you, in today's world, if you went to any record company and said, "Oh, I've got this idea that costs $750,000," they'd throw you out.

They'd throw you out of the office. Why? Because, "Well, why should we spend that money when we can keep that money?" There was a party for Aerosmith, and I didn't write this in the book here. It's an Evan Toth exclusive.

ezt: This is good. This is exactly what I want.

pr: Okay. There's a party for Aerosmith. Now, imagine you walk into a giant ballroom that was known for some concerts, and some television shows were shot there. I actually shot a television show there once. It's a giant ballroom, but when you walk in, you're invited to the Aerosmith's Nine Lives album release party. You walk in and you find yourself in some-- it seems like it's some kind of a mansion or something, because you're walking through all these rooms, and the rooms are all dressed different.

The walls are made out of soft goods, but they look like walls because there's paintings hanging on them, and each room has something different in it. You walk in and there's a mermaid in a clamshell with a flute, and the flute is playing one of the Aerosmith songs. You walk into another room, and it's some creepy guy with an organ. He's playing one of the Nine Lives songs, and you walk into another room. They're all art-directed. It's a maze. You're walking through all these rooms, and you're like, "Wow, this is psychedelic." It's like you took acid or something. You can't believe it.

There's nine rooms. After the majority of people are there, you hear Steven Tyler's voice echo out nowhere, "Welcome to Nine Lives, Aerosmith." Everybody's in these rooms, but the walls start moving. They're moving up. The walls are rising around you. You're looking at this building, is rising and rising and rising above your head. As you look up, you can see that there are giant pulleys, electronic pulleys. This thing has been created, for lack of a better word, beams across are hanging all these rooms.

It's rising. It's rising up. Pretty soon, you realize, now you are in the ballroom looking at each other. The audience is looking at each other, and you look up and see this giant edifice above you. Aerosmith doesn't come out yet. There's a pre-show, which I was in charge of, and the pre-show, it includes an escape artist who is hung up upside down in a straitjacket over spikes.

ezt: Geesh.

pr: He's hung up, and they light the ropes that he's hung on. They light a fire. He has to get out of the straitjacket before the fire burns the ropes and he hits these spikes.

ezt: My goodness.

pr: That's one. Okay. There is the most world famous sword swallower, and all these things are happening before Aerosmith even hits the stage to play music from Nine Lives. That event, that release party for Aerosmith cost $450,000. It was talked about for years. That's the kind of stuff we did. Today, people would just laugh you out of a room. No one would think of it, but the accent was on that kind of thing. We want to be bigger than life. We want people talking about us.

That world can't exist today because business is done different today. Who knows? We're living in a pop world right now, but very soon, things could change with some next singer-songwriter. I just saw some kid named Jesse Wells. He's Bob Dylan-esque. He's writing songs that matter about the culture. We'll see where that goes. It is a very different business. You know what? I don't want it to say like, "Oh, my day was better," or, "Our times were better." I just happened to fall into it during that time period, but sorry, not sorry, it was better.

ezt: It was better.

pr: It was way better. [laughter]

ezt: Thinking about money and thinking about the way that times were then, some of my favorite groups that would be not a surprise to you that you've worked with. You think about artist development, and you think about Bruce Springsteen, you think about Bob Dylan. You think about Billy Joel. Now, if you know the history, you understand that these were all acts that took some time to build and allowed to change. Particularly, Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen, they had several albums before they hit. I don't know that that's a thing anymore. We don't have time for that anymore.

pr: There would be time if someone wanted to do it. What I wonder about is, there are people out there that have a lot of money. There are millionaires, there are billionaires. Who out there loves music enough to be an entrepreneur to go into the red for a little while, because that's what you do, it's an investment, to do it the old-fashioned way? There's a lot of talent out there. It could be done, and here's the way you do it. You start out. You get talent enough that when they play a club, oh, my God, they're getting encores. There are enough people that are interested.

You're going to send them to clubs all across the country. It's going to take time. They have to be good enough so that people want to make an appointment to see them next time. Oh, these guys are so good when they come to town again. Then you build them into theaters little by little, and you get airplay however you can on Spotify or Tidal or on YouTube. They make a video. You build these careers that way, and it would help if the songs aren't pop diddies, but maybe if someone's writing songs that matter, that go deep into someone's heart.

There are artists that are doing that today. I'll tell you who's had a long career. Taylor Swift, who takes a lot of heat, even I have some issues with Taylor Swift, but she's person who started traditionally. She was a singer-songwriter. She wasn't a pop star. She was on singer-songwriter radio for a while. Then she went into the pop world too.

ezt: She made that segue so well that people don't even-- It's true because you do forget that transition. I remember people being shocked at it at the time, and now it's like you forget that she was ever something else.

pr: Some people wouldn't even know she was something else. I guess it could be done if someone wanted to be an entrepreneur. Also, in the '60s, early '70s, even through the '80s, the music business was full of entrepreneurs. These were people who had vision, who wanted to make a stab at something different. Jac Holzman made Elektra Records different. Seymour Stein made his record company different. He had a different idea for the artist. He wanted a different sound.

There were entrepreneurs and there were manager-entrepreneurs. Journey was started by Herbie Herbert after Neal Schon had been in the Santana band. When the Santana band dismantled, he got ahold of Neal Schon and Gregg Rolie, who were from Santana. "Neal, I want to build a band around your guitar playing." They started from scratch, playing clubs. They had two albums before Steve Perry was even in the band. People don't know that. I worked two Journey albums before Steve Perry was in the band. Then Steve comes along.

Now, you're in a different place.

It could be done. It's just going to take an entrepreneur with money who's not worried about being in the red because they want to build something. Everybody these days seems to want to take the easy way out. That's just my viewpoint. Other people might listen to this show and say, "That's not right," but I've watched the formula. Here's the formula. Put the formula out there. The formula works. Here's five producers. Here's the guy that does the beats. Here's the guy that does this. Here's the woman who does that. You'll have a hit record, but my question is, how much soul can come out of any song or record with so many people involved layering things?

It's not the same as somebody who wants to tell you something and they sing it, and maybe the song is the thing that we're going for. Let's go for the song. I've heard certain pop artists with a beautiful song, and somebody decided it was hip to put a drum loop in it, because drum loops were hip or are hip, but it ruins the song. I want to hear this song, but instead it's Chinese water torture. I'm being tortured by this, it's like, "You're killing me."

It's the song that's important. I think sometimes people have lost the plot, or the plot goes somewhere else. There are a lot of these pop songs, which by the way, I'm a pop fan, some of these pop songs are very good. I don't want to say that they're not.

ezt: Right, I love a lot of pop too.

pr: They're their own thing. Max and these guys, these are talented people. It's not like they write bad songs. It's just different, but the songs, they are like for the now, and then they go away. After a year, am I singing these songs anymore? Do I care about them? They're like cotton candy. It's like I eat it and it's gone. It was great while I ate it, but a lot of songs from back in the day that are still popular today, because they went into someone's heart, because they were written from the heart, and the producer went, "How do I serve the song?" Look, tell you something interesting. People don't realize how important drums and bass are.

ezt: The rhythm section.

pr: Yes, the rhythm section. They just want to know about the lead guitar player or the keyboard player. If you don't have a good bass and drums in a band, doesn't matter what anybody else does. I don't even care if you're Eric Clapton, if you don't have a good bass behind you and drums, it's not going to come off, right? Drummers like Ringo Starr for The Beatles and Liberty DeVitto for Billy Joel, they were listening to the songs because their parts, they play parts that accentuate the lyric. That's their talent. They're not trying to be the greatest drummer in the world. They're trying to be the right drummer.

Nick Mason for Pink Floyd plays the right parts to accentuate the song. This is an art form. "Oh, this is going to be a lyric, so if I do this, it's going to accentuate this lyric." A drum loop is the same thing over and over and over and over. It's like, yes, it's perfect, but maybe perfect isn't what you want. I also love the fact where bands used to play together.

If bands are in a studio playing together, there's a symbiotic thing that takes place between them. There's a magic. They're listening to each other. This magic gets recorded when people play together as human beings. It's not the same if you just send somebody in, they layer their part, they layer their part. You can't get the same human magic.

ezt: I'm glad you bring up Liberty DeVitto. I told you I'm a musician, and the last album I recorded, I was lucky enough to-- Liberty was the drummer on my album.

pr: Oh, wow.

ezt: I got to watch him do his thing. As a songwriter myself, you bring the song to the guy and you play it, and he goes, "All right, what is that? How does that go? All right." He's paying attention, and he's listening, and he's got it. Then you do a couple of run-throughs, and it's as though these people are speaking another language. They're speaking this-- They're listening to the lyrics. They're listening to the vibe of the song. He's just so seasoned and trained that he just knows how to respond appropriately to what the songwriter's trying to do.

pr: Right, and he is listening to you. It's your art. He's helping you. It's like, "How can I help this guy Evan? How can I bring this song to life?" There is a talent which you experience, lucky for you. Not everybody gets Liberty DeVitto to play on their record. You witnessed it firsthand. I think who knows what the future of the music business will be. I do know that there's a lot of people that are playing and singing. I see young kids who actually want to be good players again, and I think there's a lot of hope for music in the world to strike out and be different.

I mentioned this guy Jesse Wells, somebody just turned me onto him. He is playing probably the cheapest guitar I've ever-- I don't even know why he's playing such a cheap guitar, or at least it appears to be cheap. It doesn't matter. He's out in the field singing.

ezt: That's his thing.

pr: He's got a capo. He sings this song. He doesn't care. There's no big effects. There's no big YouTube stuff. He's just singing, but his songs are so meaningful, you get it, so now, he's setting an old-school standard. "Hey, it's just me and a guitar. I don't need anything else. Here's a message you might want to hear." I find it fascinating. I think it's great. Who knows what the future will be. A lot of young people are listening to music from back in the day to learn from it and also experience it. The numbers on Spotify now for bands like Fleetwood Mac and Tom Petty, young people want to know who these people are-

ezt: Sure. Right. That's true.

pr: -because the music is as good today as it was when it was recorded. They don't view it as old, they just view it as good. "Who is this Tom Petty guy?" I had a young dancer friend of mine, a Latin dancer friend of mine, he's 35 now, he must've discovered The Rolling Stones when he was 25. This guy's from the Ukraine. Incredible dancer, tells me, "The Rolling Stones changed my life." I said, "How could The Rolling Stones change your life?"

"They changed my life because I'm 17 in 1960, whatever. The Beatles and The Stones, they changed my life. They're changing my culture, but how do they change your life as a 25-year-old kid from the Ukraine?" He says to me, "Ha. That voice, the guitars. Are you kidding me?" What does that tell you? He got it. It's magic. It's magic.

ezt: Timeless.

pr: That stuff's great. He doesn't care that they're older. He gets it. Those songs went from The Rolling Stones' hearts to their fingers, into the Jagger's vocal, and into the ether, into the record, onto the song and it hits this kid and it reverberates because the music is telling a story he wants to hear and the guitars make him tap his foot because guess what? It's rock and roll and it's this and this and this and this. He gets it. I also like that again, not because, oh, it's my music. No, it's everybody's music. It's a renaissance of music that is as important as Bach and Beethoven was during their day. It's just rock and roll.

You take this music from all this time period, you're talking magic, not only from the music, but from the producers who learned how to make sounds better. The whole '80s with the gated drums, that big Phil Collins drum sound that Journey, that every other big band captured because it's a sound. Don't have to use that sound, but that's a wonderful sound for rock.

ezt: Sure.

pr: Or take Keith Richards, who's a purist, he doesn't care about pedals. Like, "I don't need those," plugs straight into the amp, "Just give me an amp that I can crank up so it'll distort a little bit."

ezt: Keep it simple.

pr: "Keep it simple. Give me a snare drum that sounds like a snare. Give me a pop," and you get Take It So Hard. You go out and find a better rock song than that. It's like, come on. It all comes down to the human giving messages. "Here's a message for you. This is how I do it."

ezt: Paul, I've got to ask you, you're a promotions guy. You're a publicity guy. You see my records behind me. I imagine you must have had some really cool stuff through the years. Do you still have any of it? I see you have some things behind you there. You've got old records.

pr: Well, yes. It's funny, if you stay in the business as long as I have, you collect. [chuckles] If you worked on a project and you really made a big difference, you would be awarded a gold record, platinum record, whatever. I have 30-plus years, I have a lot of those. I have signed guitars as thank yous from people. I have some wonderful memorabilia.

My favorite, favorite thing that I have that you see a picture of in the book is a little-- it can't be bigger than 8 by 7 picture that Keith Richards had signed to me because he taught me G tuning. G tuning is an open tuning they use for blues, but Keith took it to a whole nother level. You take one of the strings off the guitar, you take the top string off the guitar, you don't even use it. It gets in the way.

It's done with five strings, and you're playing three notes with two fingers. If you listen to Rolling Stone songs like "Brown Sugar" and "Tumbling Dice", and "Honky Tonk", all these songs, they're all in this G tuning. I have still about 3,000 albums.

ezt: Wow.

pr: I can't get rid of them. I don't listen like I should because there is a magic to vinyl records that anybody who listens to them knows there's a real big difference between vinyl and digital. A lot of people say there isn't, but there is. It's just a fact.

ezt: Sure. We know.

pr: It just is. I have them, and I don't listen to them as I should because my lifestyle is on the go, and I listen to most of my music in the car. I don't sit in a living room anymore, although we are redoing our living room, so maybe [chuckles] I'll get a new sound system and put these things on, but I can't get rid of them because there's history. First of all, the album covers are history. Some of my albums have games in them. This Country Joe and the Fish, and here's a game you play. Here's a gatefold. Here are liner notes.

When my time comes, I told my kids, "If you want these albums, great. If you don't, make sure that somebody who wants them gets them. I don't want them trashed." I can't get rid of them because they're such a part of my life. I can't. I just feel like part of my soul is going to leave me if I get rid of them. I can't. Interestingly, I have a whole CD collection that I just went to a local record store and said, "Hey, you guys are selling these? I love record stores here. Just take them. I don't want any money for them. Just make some money and keep the business.

ezt: Wow.

pr: Just stay in business." Thousands of CDs because now everything's streaming, so I don't need these. I kept the ones that you can't find, like box sets and things, special box sets. I still have tons of CDs.

ezt: You kept The Division Bell with the blinking light.

pr: I did, yes. [laughter] Here. Wait a second.

ezt: I remember the--

pr: Storm Thorgerson, okay. This is it.

ezt: There it is. It's still blinking.

pr: Listen, this blinking is--

ezt: You changed the battery.

pr: Yes, I changed the batt-- many times. This CD package, this blinking light, just so people know the art form that I was lucky enough to be a part of, Storm Thorgerson is the graphic designer for Pink Floyd album covers, or he's designed the most famous album cover in the world, Dark Side of the Moon. You know all those albums you got sitting back there?

pr: I bet he designed 60% to 80% of those covers. You don't even know it.

ezt: I know this, I know his name. I've certainly seen the name.

pr: Okay, so you'll see Hipgnosis, him and a guy named Aubrey 'Po' Powell. Storm comes up to me backstage at a Pink Floyd concert. He goes, "I've got this great idea." This album, it's a live record, and it's called Pulse.

ezt: Oh, that's Pulse. I said The Division Bell by accident, but it's Pulse. That's right.

pr: No, no, no. I know. It's live. It's called Pulse. He goes, "Listen, it's Pulse." He goes, "Rap, it's Pulse. That's a live record, right?" "Yes." "I want it to be alive, so I'm going to put a blinking light on this package." When I heard that I was like, "Oh, God, I got to go talk Columbia into this because they're not going to want to pay for a blinking light." Again, it's more money. "I'm going to put a blinking light on the package, but not only is it going to blink." Just talking of Storm Thorgerson, this guy is a genius.

"It's going to blink at the rate of a human heartbeat." It's not just going to blink. It's going to blink at the rate of a human heartbeat. Now, first of all, artistic-wise, genius. Marketing-wise, I'll never forget the day that thing came out. I happened to be in England. I went into Tower Records in England. There's all these other CDs. In the middle of the store, there's a giant step down of these CDs that are blinking. They're alive. Everything else in the store is dead by comparison because you're looking at something that's alive, that's blinking, that's saying, "Come and get me. I'm here for you."

The guy was just out of this world. In my book, I spent some time talking about what he did and how he did it because he deserves-- again, who's going to know about Storm Thorgerson? Somebody's got to write about Stormy. Come on, this guy is the guy that-- A Momentary Lapse of Reason by Pink Floyd, that's not three beds on a beach and the rest is computer-generated. That's 700 beds on a beach, right?

ezt: Yes, crazy.

pr: 700 beds on a beach. Storm thinks about it, somebody's got to give him the budget to

do it. Get this, if you look at the album cover, you can see it's damp because guess what? The day before when they're supposed to shoot it, it rained, and they had to take 700 beds off the beach, and the next they put 700 beds back on the beach. That's what this business was, like that, so again, another reason to write the book. I want people to know who Storm is and his background, and you read about what he did and how he did it. Fascinating stuff.

ezt: Well, listen, this has been a fascinating conversation, and certainly, learning about the book, but it's also been inspiring to think about "Hey, some of this feeling might come back, some of this inspiration." I know I just used inspiration twice, but some of this inspiration behind the marketing was so important, and maybe that's part of what people miss now, and maybe reminiscence like this might bring some of it back a little bit.

pr: It could. There is no reason why this can't happen. Maybe the world isn't exactly the same because the world changes, and we all change as people, and the times change, but the idea to be creative and to make art a priority, and to go back to messages from artists, a lot of people say, "Oh, it could never happen again." No, of course it could happen again. It just takes entrepreneurs who want to do it. Just because I am still a promotion man, if I'm allowed to do this, I'm going to show this. [laughs]

ezt: Yes, and I love the design too.

pr: This is six years and four editors worth. If you're interested in any of this stuff that you've heard, it's called Gliders Over Hollywood, comes out April 15th. I don't know when you'll air this, but if you air it before, it's available on pre-order now. You can get it now. What an age we live in. They deliver it to you on April 15th.

ezt: Unbelievable, and great graphic design on that too. The cover is very cool.

pr: Thanks. The Jawbone Press, great publishers. All their books have wonderful covers. There's a guy named Paul Palmer-Edwards, who is an incredible graphic designer in London. I wondered about the cover because I couldn't figure out how to make something compelling. There's so much in this book, and he said, "How about this?" He sent it to me in four different colors, and I went, "That's amazing. Yes." [laughter] I said, "I like this color. I like the aubergine color." I thought, "Oh, he'll send me an idea, and then we'll work on it." He said, "Great." He just said, "No, here it is." I went, "Yes, you're right."

ezt: And he did it. That's it. Well, cool. Listen, thank you very much for your time. I really do appreciate it, and best of luck with the book.

pr: I really appreciate it. I really appreciate you having me on. Thank you. Thank you so much, Evan.