ELECTRIC SUPERMAN

ELECTRIC SUPERMAN

Features

RICK DERRINGER CAN'T BE STOPPED!

by

Toby Goldstein

His legendary stone guitar has been moved into a storage room, and you have to look pretty hard to find many rock 'n' roll artifacts, but Rick Derringer and his wife Liz are very much at home in their cozy Manhattan triplex hideaway. Welcoming a pair of guests (my guitar-playing husband was not going to be left out of this one!) with juice, beer and a slobbery greeting from his two dogs, Derringer lowers the sound on a nearby television (MTV, of course) and we settle onto a comfortable sofa. Grandly placed throughout the high-ceilinged living room are wonderful winged antique statues—the Derringers' own favorite collector's items. When Rick happily mentions that a similar piece fetched an impressive price at a recent posh auction, he shows almost as much excitement as that he gives to any of his diverse musical projects. Then again, if there's one man who knows better than to put all his faith and trust in the business he has worked in for almost two decades, that person is Rick Derringer.

Just a year ago, Derringer was not exactly climbing any stairway to the stars. His last few CBS albums hadn't burned up the charts, and Rick's relationship with the label was terminated. At discouragingly frequent intervals, Derringer's equipment was ripped off—once, stolen en masse from an unguarded truck. Yet, far from becoming fed up with the setbacks and letting them get to him, the guitarist turned’a.round and embarked upon one of the most productive periods in his lengthy career. By the end of 1983, Derringer had released an album on Passport, played guest sessions for Bonnie Tyler and Air Supply (say what?!), designed his own guitar line for the B.C. Rich company, authored several guitar instruction books, did some touring, and last, but certainly not least, produced one album and began work on a second for Weird Al Yankovic.

He may be exhausted, smiles Rick, taking a swig of his brew but it sure beats being idle. "It wasn't until right at the end of my last manager's tenure that I started feeling the problem was, I'm not really doing anything. OK, I tour sometimes, and once in a while,

I play on somebody's records and sometimes I go into the studio with my projects. But that leaves big chunks of time where I go, 'What am I sitting here watching TV; I should be doing something.' So when Jake (Hooker, Rick's current manager) and I started working together, one of our main things was, we want to be busy. Well, we succeeded," he says dryly, making a gesture of mockcollapse. "We tried all these different directions, and now the other side of the crisis is—if by some quirk of fate they all become successful, I better be a Superman to keep up with them. Now, it's how can I devote the proper time and attention to each of these things and see them grow properly."

Of all the transactions, possibly the most wrenching for Derringer was his label shift, downscaling from the vast CBS empire to Passport, a far more insular and less omnipotent organization. Despite his many years in the CBS enclave, Rick learned a few hard lessons about its power structure—and his rapidly shrinking place in it—whenever one of his releases did not live up to its potential.

"When Good Dirty Fun was released, let's say on September 20th, I was working. And all of a sudden, people came into the studio and said, 'Hey Rick, I saw your record today in my local store!' And I went, 'What? Wait! It's September 20th!' And what's so weird was that never happened before with CBS, but it happened with my first record on Passport. What you would get with CBS would be instant play on about 90 radio stations, but that would be fake, because the records wouldn't be in the stores. So people would eventually stop playing it, 'cause they couldn't get the sales numbers they wanted within three weeks. It was a built-in system which went on so long that we became complacent about it.

"As an artist, you hide from exactly what's going on, because you want to believe in the proper moral theories. You were led to believe that if you have good music and you put it on a big label, that people will have the opportunity to choose whether or not they want it. And once you actually realize what's going on, it's a real priority system where, if you happen to be Michael Jackson right now—and I'm not saying there's anything wrong with that; it's what we'd all like to be—they can sell your records better than any company in the business. But if you happen to be Danny Spanos right now (a friend of Rick's, on whose latest CBS affiliated album he guested), then all he can be concerned with is, 'I hope I sell enough records in three weeks,' because Danny Spanos's time is gonna be up and another group will be in. So you realize that this company has the power to take you off the radio, after you give them the music that supposedly is for them to sell. And it really destroys your confidence in that style of work.

"That's why Passport is so inviting," Rick enthuses. "It offers a building process that we were never even allowed the opportunity to think about before. It's a company that feels proud if it gets 70,000 records sold. And it allows the artist to make more decisions about how he feels the record should be marketed, how much money should be spent, and where. You make your own formulas," Derringer sums up in open admiration, pleased to be in the company of other longtime professionals, such as Todd Rundgren, who have recently signed to the label.

Whatever Derringer's creative differences with CBS may be as an artist, they haven't interfered with one of his pet projects— producing the divinely ridiculous Weird AJ Yankovic. Weird Al is already destined to some small corner in the college of musical knowledge for his "Hey Ricky" parody, of Toni Basil's "Mickey," but according to Rick, the guy is "a productive, energetic, healthy, unending inspirational well. He's hardworking and honest and nice, all the good stuff." Modest praise, that.

Brought together with Yankovic by Jake Hooker, who wrote "I Love Rock 'n' Roll," when Al wanted to record his parody, "I Love Rocky Road." Rick now eagerly describes the young accordionist's upcoming assault on decency. "It's called 'Polkas on 45' (are you listening, Detroit?). He's taken all the hits of the day: '1999,' 'Every Breath You Take,' and he's done them as a medley of polkas." The mind boggles. Has all this rock 'n' roll hootchie-kooing gone to the brain? Let us not forget that Derringer's production efforts also include an LP for T.J. Hooker's basset-eyed Adrian Zmed, who obviously dreams of becoming the next Rick Springfield, he should be so lucky.

"The producer job is heavy du communication between people, and it doesn't have much to do with giving orders if you do e

In the style of other artist-producers, Derringer is more of a helper than a dictator, encouraging his subjects on to express themselves fully instead of imitating some ongoing trend. "You can definitely help with sounds, act as liaison between the artist and engineer, who can never communicate, and vice versa, but beyond that, it has very real parameters. The job is heavy duty communication between people, and it doesn't have much to do with giving orders if you do it properly."

When the word "respect" is mentioned, Derringer becomes even more animated, and his thoughts tumble out. "That's what this business lacks sorely! When I say this I'm only speaking in big theoretical terms about the possible future of the music business—not a very serious subject (he gives a hearty chuckle), 'cause the music that's on the radio now is very good. But it just seems like, with all music having to filter through A&R situations—which are very controlled and sometimes controllable—that is only going to stifle creativity and growth. I think there's a big need for people who are able to find a band or a sound and say, 'Forget about what you like, buddy...I like it, and I'm a person, tool' We shouldn't discount ourselves in these formulas," Derringer asserts. "We're all important."

When asked if he just might be referring to pressure about his own style not being "contemporary" or "heavy metal" enough, for instance, Derringer counters that his problems always had more to do with trusting the opinion of others too highly, and himself not enough. It took a fairly significant crisis of confidence following the disappointing showing of the If I Weren't So Romantic album (sternly produced by Mike Chapman) that Derringer and his band realized that, "If you make decisions based on your own heart, you can go back and blame yourself if something went wrong, or take the responsibility if something went right."

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RICK DERRINGER

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Derringer’s valuing of an artist’s musical identity figures prominently in other of his projects. The Stealth guitars hfe’s designed for B.C. Rich are made “by a guitar player designing for other guitar players, as opposed to just lending his name to a guitar.” Rick’s instructional books reveal more of his technique than they conceal. Noting that other teachers aim to protect much of what they’ve got, Derringer is confident enough with his style to be fairly forthright.

As my husband takes advantage of the moment to enmesh Rick in some intricate technical conversation, Derringer flies around the apartment, bringing back several exotic pieces of equipment to illustrate his remarks. Of course, it’s possible for someone to be in this business for two decades and not look past the next royalty check—you can point to the jaded rock star of your choice. But to feel and act as Derringer does—diversifying to ensure that the next 20 years might be just as'productive in their own fashion—seems to be the far more useful path. How does Rick Derringer feel about the course of his life to date? “Happy,” he replies, without a doubt. ^