DWIGHT TWILLEY: SALVATION THROUGH WATER SPORTS

DWIGHT TWILLEY: SALVATION THROUGH WATER SPORTS

FEATURES

Toby Goldstein

by

Dwight Twilley, his tall, rangy frame barely contained by the walls of EMI Records’ conference room, is thinking about one of the only good things that’s left a mark on him in the past three years. “I’ve been inspired by just one record that came out and it was good for me at the time because it was toward the end of my torture, when they were releasing the chains off the rack. It was hearing the John Lennon ‘Starting Over’ single. It really helped me; I thought, ‘Oh yeah, that’s why I’m in this business, I understand, I remember, this is what it can do.’”

As he paces around the stark room, popping in and out of his chair, a can of Dr. Pepper in his hand, Twilley doesn’t look like the relic of an Inquisition. Yet every few sentences, the word “torture” crops up—it even appears in a lyric on his new Scuba Divers album—and he takes pains to elaborate on why he considers the phrase one of his household words. For a singing/songwriting/guitar-playing kid from Tulsa, Oklahoma, who was showered with acclaim when his first single came out in 1975, the change of decades brought only music business nightmares. The sound that charged out of stereo speakers to proclaim his brand of joyous American rock ’n’ roll would rarely be heard in public. What started as a superstar launch ended up a guessing game; what label would Twilley be on next? And the record company-management problems— you’ve heard ’em before from Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and so many others. Twilley’s got his tales.

“I hired a manager who stole all my equipment. I had so much equipment, I could’ve lived off it for a long time. Remember that gold guitar I used to have? Gone, everything I owned.

“To make this album, 1 used up every favor from every friend I had. Probably lost a lot of them, too. That’s why there are so many credits on the record, because when I was down, I figured that so many people had helped me and done me favors. I wasn’t gonna just write down the cool guys —I was gonna thank everybody. I thanked Basil Rathbone because those 90 minutes of Sherlock Holmes on TV were like saviors. Sunday in L.A. and when I couldn’t think about anything but torture I’d put Sherlock on. Watson!” he yells, like a guy in the desert who’s just found his personal oasis.

Scuba Divers is a surprisingly cohesive, k. and well-sequenced record, considering it .2 pulls together Dwight’s compositions “ stretching from the present back to 1979 £ and was recorded in several locations with diverse personnel. Seems that whenever a kind soul would give him studio time, Twilley would lay down one or two tracks, keeping in mind that they all might have to be fused together someday to make up his next album. “Once I figured out it was gonria have to be done that way, I made plans while I did each song, to take them somewhere and put the whole thing together so it wouldn’t sound like Santa’s reindeer.”

Hearing the John Lennon ’Starting Over’single really helped me. I thought, *Oh yeah, that’s why I’m In this business...’

What Scuba Divers does sound like is an exploration of harmony, as Twilley moved away from the trembly, shuddery Presleyisms that primed his three earlier albums. Instead of the catch-breath rumblings of “TV” or “Betsy Sue,” Twilley has favored the chiming brightness of “Somebody To Love,” a vintage Arista-era single he’s recut, and the stereophonic high notes of “Touchin’ The Wind,” which he spontaneously recreates to illustrate his enjoyment of multiple vocals.

Another difference between Scuba Divers and Twilley’s previous creations is in Dwight’s choice of a singing partner. This time out, the harmonies belong to Susan Cowsill, would you believe? She of the family with at least 347 members, by Dwight’s reckoning, and her brother John on drums appear throughout the record. For those who don’t remember or choose to forget, the Cowsills were part of a late 60’s-early-70’s phenomenon even weirder than psychedelia—bubblegum family groups. Dwight admits that this close encounter definitely began as the strange kind and retains his good humor even after I make a tasteful remark about them being “just like normal people, huh...”

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“Somebody invited me out, I think it was a road manager, asking if anyone wanted to go see a Cowsills reunion, and we said yeah, sure. I did think it might be worth it because I was interested in how they might do their harmonies.

“Now, probably the biggest problem I had when I separated from Phil (Seymour) was that I couldn’t find a drummer I was satisfied with. I’ve got my own thoughts about things. I didn’t want it to have a West Coast style of drumming, or even a normal sound. I wanted it to be that real pop Ringo Starr-type of drumming. So I went out and saw John and really appreciated his drumming. Eventually I had htm come down and play on the demo of the song ‘10,000 American Scuba Divers Dancin’’, and it worked out really well.

“And little Susan had become big Susan and she’s a beautiful lady and in fact I live with her. Jan, who also does harmonies, is John’s wife. It’s an incestuous situation but I like that, I like family-oriented things. Even the roadies I have are the roadies I had on my very first tour, guys from Tulsa. I went out of my way to do that.”

When Clive Davis had the Twilley Band signed to Arista in 1977, Dwight thought that surely, they’d be able to get proper support and tour. Arista released two albums, Twilley Don’t Mind and Twilley (by 1978 Phil had left, fairly amicably, and signed with Boardwalk), but never put the band on the road. “I would have loved to have done it,” Dwight sighs, “but Arista wasn’t of that attitude—me having a band and playing. It’s too bad. Eventually, in the last days, I had to play lots of bad gigs around Los Angeles just to keep up salaries, because I tried as long as I could to hold on to the band. But I couldn’t see starving my friends and we had to let them all go.”

I bring up the fact that even though Petty and Springsteen were caught up for a time in legalities that stalled their careers, they had enough resources left to go out on the road and, with careers no lengthier than Twilley’s, have achieved far more success.

“I’m not frustrated by that so much,” Dwight responds matter-of-factly, “because I’m here now, I’m working, I’ve got a record out, I’ve achieved a certain amount of recognition and most people know that. This business is crazy and I can’t go, ‘Gee, Tom’s doing better than I am,’ I don’t feel that way. I’m happy for Tom.

“What is frustrating is the legal torture I’ve been through. I can’t understand how somebody like me, an artist that really likes to work and record, can be confronted with someone else saying, “We like your music, we like you but paragraph 576, section B says you can’t.’

“There were days I’d go crazy. Sometimes I’d paint. I did an art show, my first exhibit, at the Museum of Rock Art for a month. 120 pieces. But I don’t take it seriously, it’s just a hobby, and they’re going back in the closet. I’m a recording artist, not a graphic artist.”

After the years of waiting, Twilley, Pitcock and his newly-formed band are finally performing artists, as well. They’ve just completed a string of dates in the West and Midwest and plan to be coming East by midsummer. Dwight Twilley has never been much of a philosopher, or given to intellectualizing, but the tune that opens Scuba Divers and its tongue-twisting title track are apt metaphors for his life.

‘“I’m Back Again’ is for everybody. With the economy being what it is and things getting hard, 1 feel like it’s a good statement for lots of people. Even if they were like me and weren’t ready to come back again at least they could fantasize on it and realize that it can happen. You’re not always gonna be down.

“Just as I was able' to start working again, I went in to do a demo and thought, I’ve never done anything that’s on the borderline of being novelty and I wanted to do something that made a picture. So I started out thinking, 10,000 Indians dancing, with headdresses, then Indian scuba divers, then, let’s make it American, and I got ‘10,000 American Scuba Divers Dancing’. I remember sittin’ in there thinking, I must be crazy, I’m in here doing my first work and what am I doing? I was doubting my sanity.

“But when it was done, I got incredible reaction to it. And if there’s any meaning to the song at all, it talks about the past and the future and today. And in between, for me and I think for a lot of people, there’s comedy and confusion. How many times in your life are there things going on that are just as insane as the idea of ten thousand American scuba divers dancing? For me, it’s been many times.”

I become aware that, as Dwight Twilley moves from reliving his tumultuous past to tentatively relaxing in the present, the word “torture” gives way to the use of “normal.” We imagine that would be some kind of welcome change.