AUTOGRAPH: The Writing’s On The Wall

AUTOGRAPH: The Writing's On The Wall

FEATURES

Roy Trakin

Like fellow metal Popsters Ratt and Night Ranger, L.A.'s Autograph is an overnight sensation which took 10 years. Without much fanfare or critical huzzahs. the quintet all of a sudden found itself lodged in the Top 40 with a hit single ("Turn Up The Radio"), and a debut album, (Sigh In Please) that just went gold. Who are these faceless wonders? I was dispatched to the RCA conference ^ oom colCdR0EEr on Sunset Boulevard e.di,°r’ wh0 to find P® out bv IvfJw *d„d0 a feature on Husker Du if dN°" y ?a,k f° Autograph, please...

five of nose'to-nose with all ever five of gonna em, wondering sort out ?he how the hell I’m ™ tape. I peer around the room. First thino p"u°ntettS|ead °'d 'heSe 9uys looks,eve Plunkett iead singer, is a veteran qlamres's* J° T'9ht be Michael Des Bar ress older brother: tall, thin sTonst™^^ sepuchral, pock-marked with ^bandang, visaae Drum h, .,s’ ha,rV le9S and earrings, is a double for John Belushi. Bassist Randy Rand and keyboardist Steven Isham are fugitives from a leather biker gang while cute, curly-haired lead guitarist Steve Lynch is the resident heartthrob.

Now that we’ve got that straight, how did this motley crew crack the rock elite?

It certainly wasn’t their pretty faces, but a stroke of pure, unadulterated luck. After plying their trades backing up the likes of Earl Slick and Lita Ford, the guys had been together only a few months when Keni Richards’s jogging partner, David Lee Roth, invited the band to open for Van Halen on their 1984 tour solely on the basis of a demo tape. Two weeks later, Autograph were playing before 15,000 metal maniacs in Jacksonville, Florida— the first of 48 dates of debauchery.

“Plunk,” as his fellow bandmates refer to their frontman, insists life on the road with Van Halen was every bit as bacchanalian as its reputation would suggest.

“It’s hard to do it every night for three months and live to tell about it,” says

Steve. “You’ve got to pace yourself.”

“We found out it was our job to bring the girls to the party,” adds Keni..

“They call it the cattle call,” interjects Randy. But don’t those rock ’n’ roll romances leave you wanting, guys?

“Yeah, you’re always wanting more,” deadpans “Plunk.”

Not every night was ecstasy, though. In Nashville, the rowdies threw quarters, bottles and even a knife, which narrowly missed Keni when it clanked off his high hat.

“Yeah, it was bad,” remembers Richards. “Backstage, we got stuck with Duran Duran’s deli tray from the night before: a beautiful side of ham with brown edges on it and a roast beef the color of a rainbow.”

“No, that has nothing to do with us,” insists “Plunk.” “Our Stonehenge is huge. You should see it.”

“We have little G.l. Joe replicas of ourselves parachute down onto the Stonehenge,” boasts Keni.

In fact, Autograph prefers to call their music “melodic,” rather than heavy metal.

‘‘We don’t come out and go, ‘We’re gonna rip your heads off!”’ insists Steve P. ‘‘It’s more like, ‘We’re all here together...let’s have fun...’”

Do they mind playing for an audience that’s half their age?

‘‘We can relate because there’s a part of us that’s still a kid,” says Belushi clone Keni. I half expect him to jump on the couch and scream, “Food fight!”

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“We’re just like they are,” echoes Plunkett. “They’re at the record stores waiting for new albums to come out and we’re doing the same thing.” And what records might they be waiting for?

“We like AC/DC,” says Randy.

“Especially when they had Bon Scott,” says Keni. “We always liked that street sense. He never had the attitude he was beyond the consumer.”

But he’s dead.

“Of course he is, but he lives on our tour bus!” proclaims Keni.

“We’ve got him stuffed in the back,” blurts Randy.

You’d think the whole punk thing would have turned guys like this into anachronisms, but no-o-o-o. Autograph is riding the metal revival to new heights. The tour with Van Halen led to them signing with RCA and their first album, Sign In Please. That was when lucky break number two occurred. Paper Mate, looking for a novel way to promote a new product to the youth market, agreed to fund Autograph’s first video if the boys would use their pen on camera. Voila! The big budget production for a first-time band and heavy MTV rotation lead to the kind of exposure which catapulted the single, “Turn Up The Radio,” and its commercial-like hook-line, “Things go better with rock,” into the charts. Did I hear charges of sell-out or corporate rock? Haven’t Autograph turned the rebellion of rock into big business?

“Of course,” says Steve Plunkett. “But rock’s always been business. When it started with Elvis, he signed with RCA, a huge corporation. And the Colonel was the king of business. Rock may have started innocently, but, if you’re gonna compete outside your bedroom, you have to make it business. Otherwise, you’re just playing for yourself.”

“Yeah, but the kids don’t wanna know about that side of it,” adds Keni. “They don’t wanna hear you say, ‘Hey kids, we’re making 20 grand tonight, so make a lot of noise.’

“The biggest crap I ever heard in my life was the Clash coming over here and playing the US Festival for half a million and then saying they didn’t want America’s money. What crap!”

“If we went onstage endorsing roach spray or microwave ovens, I could see the possibility of backlash, but for us to endorse a pen made perfect sense,” continues “Plunk.” “Finding a corporate sponsor is really the only way you can afford to make a video if you’re an unknown band.” At this point, Steve Isham, who’s been quiet up until now, offers his impression of Curly from the Three Stooges doing Motley Crue’s greatest hits before I ask the band if success has changed them.

“The trick of the game is not to get caught up in it,” says Plunkett. “It’s gotta revolve around the music, which is the bottom line.”

“I spend about 20 minutes more in the bank line,” says Keni. “Seriously, though, the toughest thing is we all have friends who are still playing ‘That’s The Way I Like It’ in bars trying to make it. I don’t feel guilty about succeeding, but the percentage rate of making it from Los Angeles is pretty low. All five of us survived because we challenged ourselves while a lot of others maybe never did.”

“It’s not us who’ve changed,” suggests “Plunk,” “It’s the people around us whose attitude is different, who perceive us in a hew way.” One more question, guys. It must be a bitch having three Steves in the band.

The ebullient drummer Keni doesn’t miss a beat with his bestBelushi impression. “It’s better than having five Dicks.”

There you are, boss. Now can I do my Husker Du piece?