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Rod McBrien interview

Q1.
Can you tell us your biography?

I wrote my first songs and recorded my first records when I was in high school. There were some excellent musicians in and around my hometown of Amityville, New York and I formed, or was a part of, some great bands. The Tornadoes was the first group I would record with: Mike Consi, Terry Ketcham, Hal Schad, Bill Gildersleeve and me - high school buddies.

One day we all cut school and went to the city chasing our dream, which was of course, to have a hit record. While making the rounds banging on doors in The Brill Building, 1650 Broadway and 1697 Broadway trying to get someone to listen to our demos, we got lucky. We caught the attention of Jim Gribble who was managing several hot groups at the time. He liked us and signed us to a recording/management contract. With one change in the group - Joe Venetucci replacing Terry Ketcham - we recorded our next record, produced by Jim Gribble and Stan Vincent, as The Long Island Sounds. The record was released on Down Records, a new George Goldner label, and went the way of the name of the label - down. I believe this was the first release on this new label. And it may have been the last release as well.

My first full-time job in the music business was as an apprentice audio-engineer at Ultra-Sonic Recording Studios. Ultra-Sonic was a new studio on Long Island. I had recorded a few demos there and got friendly with the owner, Bill Stahl. I asked him for a job and he gave me one. I started out setting up microphones and music stands before sessions and sweeping up and emptying ashtrays after sessions. But I learned the ropes quickly and was soon engineering sessions on my own. It was here at Ultra-Sonic where I met George "Shadow" Morton and where I would engineer my first number one hit: "Leader of The Pack," by the Shangri-Las. It was also here at Ultra-Sonic where I would meet John Linde and Pete Antell and where The Valrays would begin their recording career.

I learned early on that I could not depend on royalties from record sales or advances from production deals to pay my bills and so I continued to work for many years as an engineer to supplement my income. In 1964-1965 I spent a six month stint in the U. S. Coast Guard Band and shortly after I returned, I was offered my first job in New York City.

Brooks Arthur, one of the best engineers to ever sit behind a recording console in New York, became my mentor. Producers Hugo (Peretti) & Luigi (Creatore), had just moved from RCA Records to Roulette Records and needed an engineer to run the Roulette Studio. Brooks saw to it that I got the job. It was at Roulette that I met Ted Daryll and the Eastern Scene took form.

From Roulette I went to work at Allegro Recording Studios. Allegro was a hot studio in the sixties. Many hits were recorded there. Allegro was owned by Laurie Records and managed by head engineer Bruce Staple. I worked there for a couple of years in the late sixties as an engineer. Some of the acts we recorded were: Dion, The Chiffons, Tommy James & The Shondells, The Royal Guardsmen, Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels, The Critters, The Innocence, The Tradewinds, Bobby Bloom and The Tokens. Allegro was located in the basement of 1650 Broadway, one of the more popular music business addresses. And being in the basement, you could hear the subway go by. This didn't affect the quality of the records recorded there, but you could not record a narration without music.

Within a couple of years, Brooks Arthur opened his own studio, Century Sound, and brought me on board as his second engineer. The studio was short lived but we turned out a lot of hits. I personally recorded Neil Diamond, The Grateful Dead, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Ian, The Boxtops, The Jaggerz, Bobby Rydell and Jimmy Darren among others.

I've engineered in many studios over the years. I now have a small studio within my large apartment in New York City and still engineer most of my own productions. And I do have a select few clients that I still engineer for in my studio, Jimmy "The Wiz" Wisner being the biggest. We just completed new recordings with Randy & The Rainbows and Paul Evans.

In the early 1970s I found out about commercials and how lucrative the residuals could be. Rod McBrien Productions was formed and I’ve been writing and producing music for advertising ever since. I have won four Clios, the academy award for advertising, and numerous other awards. My clients have included: Coca-Cola, Miller Beer, Pizza Hut, Campbell’s Soup Special Olympics, Claritin, Kodak and Burger King.

My company is a full-service music supplier and in addition to Records and Advertising, I have written and produced music for National Championship Football Games (Orange Bowl and Fiesta Bowl), Feature Films, Television and other Special Events and several National and International Tributes including: The Vietnam Women's Memorial featuring Crystal Gayle and The Women's Memorial featuring Kenny Rogers and Patti Austin. In 1997 I was commissioned and wrote the song "Above and Beyond" to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the United States Air Force.

Q2 : a.
What influenced you to pop music?

My grandmother was my first influence to popular music. When I was very young, pre-school, my mother worked and my grandmother cared for me during the day. She didn't have a television but she had a big floor-model radio. And from what I remember, it was on all day. "Make Believe Ballroom" is the show I remember most and I can still sing the theme song to this day. It's not in working condition at the moment, but that radio is a prominent piece of furniture in my living room.

Q2 : b.
Who were your favorites at that time?

The singers that come to mind from those early years are Frankie Laine and Perry Como. There was a young man who lived a few doors down from my grandmother whose name was Frankie Lane. Of course, he was not the Frankie Laine, but I thought he was. Maybe that's why he comes to mind.

As a teenager, when I controlled the dials, my favorites were: Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Dion and The Belmonts, Chuck Berry, The Cleftones, Johnny Ray, The Skyliners, Bobby Darin, The Del Vikings, The Coasters, etc. I could go on and on.

Q3.
What attracted you to the music business?

Love of music and the excitement of the business. (There was a documentary on the A&E Network a couple of weeks ago about the music business in the early sixties centered around the Brill Building and 1650 Broadway in New York City. It reminded me how exciting it was to be a part of that.) And after my first recording session, I was hooked. There was no turning back. This is what I wanted to do. I thought, if I could make a living making music either as a performer or writer or producer or recording-engineer, why would I ever get a real job? What could be better than this? And also, because I thought I was good at it.

Q4.
What was your first work?

I wrote a song when I was in the fourth grade. I remember wanting to write it down on manuscript but, being a drummer, I knew about rhythms but not much about notes. My cousin Alan helped me. He was a very bad accordion player but good enough to find the notes. I'm sure it's a blessing that the manuscript got lost over the years.

My first recorded works were "That's My Girl," and "Round House," recorded by The Tornadoes and released back to back on R&M Records. My first work on a major label that received major airplay was "Get A Board," by The Valrays on Cameo Records.

Q5.
The Eastern Scene and Pebbles & Shells were your works before Salt Water Taffy.
What kind of groups were they?

Ted Daryll wrote a song called "Let Me Be More Than Friends Tonight" and played it for me hot off the press. I loved it. I thought it was a smash. I think Ted wrote it for The Lovin' Spoonful. But I suggested we put a group together and produce a record ourselves. Forget about pitching it to The Spoonful or anyone else for that matter. This sounded like a hit and we should make a record. Ted agreed. I called in John Giametta and Ted called in Jimmy Strassberg and we had a group. We proceeded to make a record.

Our friend, Reid Whitelaw, was called in to manage the group and put together a record deal. Reid made a deal for the master with Freddy DeMann of Amy Records. (Freddy went on to become Madonna's manager.) Reid sent the group to Scranton, Pennsylvania to do a TV show and the following week arranged for us to do the Up Beat TV Show in Cleveland, Ohio. This was a momentous engagement. We could drive to Scranton but had to fly to Cleveland. And this was the first time any of us had ever been on a plane. The Up Beat Show this particular week featured another up and coming group - The Temptations.

It was also memorable because in order to cover our travel expenses, Reid committed our services to a local nightclub affiliated with Up Beat. We were booked as the house band in a dance club complete with go-go girls. The only problem was, besides "Let's Be More Than Friends Tonight", we only knew four or five other songs. And "Let's Be More Than Friends" wasn't really a dance song. This is the complete history of The Eastern Scene. A one-record wonder.

I did find a photo of the group, however, that I didn't remember existed. The interesting thing about this photo is that neither Ted Daryll, John Giametta or I know who the fourth guy in the picture is. It may be an old friend of mine from Long Island, Ron DeMarino, but I'm not sure. Pebbles & Shells on the other hand was typical of groups from the sixties, a true studio group. The musicians were all studio musicians and the singers were all me. I liked the song, "Let's Be More Than Friends Tonight" so much, that when The Eastern Scene version didn't make it, I recorded it again. I did, however, gather up four guys to form the group just in case the record took off and we had to send a group on the road to cover appearances. We even had publicity photos of the newly formed group taken. And the group had never even so much as rehearsed together.

l-r : Ted Darryl, not sure, Rod McBrein , John Giametta)

The Long Island Sounds "The gaucho pony"	The valrays "Get on board"	The Eastern Scene "Let's be more than friends tonight"	Pebbels & Shelles "Let's be more than friends tonight"

story goes on ...
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Rod McBrien interview

Interview : Kunihiko Sano(VANDA)
Traslation : Shin Iwai,Tsutomu Fukuhara
Owners of pictured record: Kunihiko Sano(VANDA), Tetsuya Ishiyama

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