Broward Community College - Silver Sands Yearbook (Fort Lauderdale, FL)

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Silver Sands: Rick Bowen: out of the amplifier through the microphone and onto the tape. The way I do my records, whoever produces them, if I produce them or if I hire a producer to come in and produce a record, he has one hundred percent authority to do anything that he wants to do with the record. He doesn't have to answer to anybody. When he gives me a tape, I can either accept it or reject it, but I have to reject the whole product or accept the whole product. If I have a guy produce an album for me, he brings me a finished product. I don't say, On cut three I want some of this. A producer has got to have that sort of freedom. Hels like an artist doing a picture. If you tell him that you only like half of his picture but you didnlt like the other half and change it, it wouldnlt really work out too hot. ls this why a lot of groups form their own companies? Sure. Thatls why a lot of groups produce themselves. They don't like the stringency that a producer gives to them. l'm a strict producer when I go in to produce an album. I know exactly what l'm after and I won't settle for anything less. I won't settle for schlocky playing or I won't settle for I can't play it that way, l've got to play it my way, sort of thing. If you can't play it my way, l'll find somebody who can play it my way. Silver Sands: Rick Bowen: Silver San ds: Rick Bowen: Silver Sands: Rick Bowen: 4 il After you record the album, 5' happens? f There's just an incredible amoun: work, once we leave Criteria with' album and take it out to Califor Between then and the time it hits stands is the most critical period the album because you have to through mastering processes I believe me, you can take a tapel to a recording company and, if itls' mastered properly, it's not goin sound anything at all like what' came out of the studio with. I . . I What is the mastering? I Whenever they take the tvvo-track I that you give the record company they in turn make a master discf which the actual Iaquers are which actually press out the stam 1, In that mastering process the f sounds are equalized. The songs ca speeded up or slowed down to mi l micro infinities. You can speed I song two revolutions or speed u song enough to change it to a hi key or slow it down to a lower I The songs can be speeded up key. For instance, if a song is reco to the key of G without changin enought to be noticable. We may to speed them up or slow them d a little bit if their voices sound a Il i out of tune. We may want to ton up just to the verge of where we i it should be How much of that has been do The only things that were changed the Bang albums from the orig masters that came out of the recor studio were some equalization cha on cuts we thought we might use top forty singles. Those were equall a little bit louder. In other words might have gone five decibals in so to make them five db s louder on record than the other one was so Ii lf IE enough to change them to a hi ' in the key of E, you can speed i l ll

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Silver Sands.' R ick Bowen : Silver Sands: R ick Bowen: I invited them down to Ft. Lauderdale and in about four days, we went into the studio and started recording their first album. Then your mind was made up that first day in Orlando? Yeah, it pretty much was. It was a good match. We went in and recorded an album and we released it, and we put them on about sixty major concerts last year. They played with everybody from Alice Cooper to Rod Stewart. As a response to that, the album was overwhelmingly successful for a first album. lt was nearly one hundred thousand units. Who creates the music that goes on your albums? The groups come up with the basic idea of the song. They'll Say, Alright, this is the song that we have, here are the lyrics to it, this is the way we want to play it with these chords, and this kind of structure. Et cetera. We might lay it down on tape, and listen to it and I might say, OK, I like the basic things about it, or I might decide to throw it out altogether. Or, We're going to use those lyrics, but we're going to build a different song around it. Or l might add an intro onto it or put a guitar ride in the middle that didn't happen to be there when they originally gave me what they thought the basic song Silver San ds: Rick Bowen: was going to be. It's a collaboration of ideas, but basically we rearrange the songs the way that we think they should be. Now, the first album lBang'sl is geared toward a definite Black Sabbath sort of sound. We tried to get into that type of music. They're hard driving, strong lyrical type songs that don't really take you on a musical trip. But it wasn't that way just because we let it be that way. When the album was recorded, that's what a lot of kids were really into. Kids were going out, dropping speed, sitting back, and listening to the same C, F, and G chords thirty-six times. That's really what they wanted. Now, the second album is a lot different from that. The group's got a lot of musical talent, it is versatile, and all this comes through on the second album. We had more time to do this album lentitled Mother Bow to the Kingul and we decided we wanted to do a better musical album because we wanted to broaden the base of appeal this group has. So, there are acoustic guitars in it, there are even strings in it, it's arranged and the songs take you off slowly to a peak and then let you down. I mean, they are musically constructed correctly. The first album was not that way. But it wasn't that way just because we let it be that way. It was that way because we were trying to create a specific item. Who has the control over these decisionsg how much say does the group have in your creation? The group doesn't just sit down and I say, Here's a set of chants. OK, this is what I want you guys to play. They basically create the music. We rearrange it, we sweeten it, we do everything to change the mood of it. We can add singers, violins, mellotrons, moogs to sweeten it, but still the basic gut of the song has to be what the musician lays down when he comes

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'lver Sands: ick Bowen: Vver Sands: ick Bowen: L...- it stands out more on the record. So, if you listen to the whole album, if for no other reason, psychologically and subconsciously you remember that song because it was a little louder. Those are the tricks you play on the record buying public. How much money does it take to promote a concert and what risks are involved? lt requires a huge amount of money to stay in this business because each show that you buy, you are required to put up fifty per cent of the talent cost in advance, you are requied to put up a deposit on your building which usually amunts to about half the amount of the rent, and you have to purchase most of your radio and newspaper advertising by paying for it in advance. So, it runs into abnormally high sums of money. lt's just something l've always learned to live with. I have always had to worry about getting the things done that I need to get done. At the lowest point of my schedule, it's too busy and at the highest point it's just too chaotic. What is your relationship with Leas Campbell? On some concerts, l'm in a partnership with Leasg on other concerts, we're strictly East Coast Concerts or strictly Concerts West. lt depends a great deal on the individual shows. Silver Sands: Rick Bowen: Silver San ds: Rick Bowen: lt's a matter of doing two things for you. Number one, if it's a show that you're not that sure about, it gives you somebody to lay off part of the action to and in this particular area there are so many concerts that l don't want to have the amount of exposure that I would have by doing all the concerts by myself. And neither does Leas by doing them all himself. As a consequence, we pool our energies, our capitals, and we pool our exposures, and in all general partnerships we receive the values thereof. How much money does it take to promo te a concert and what risks are involved? lt requires a huge amount of money to stay in this business because each show that you buy, you are required to put up fifty percent of the talent cost in advance, you are required to put up a deposit on your building which usually amounts to about half the amount of the rent, and you have to purchase most of your radio and newspaper advertising by paying for it in advance. So, it runs into abnormally high sums of money. The rewards can be few or they can be great. lt's just as easy to make 310,000 as it is to lose 810,000 on a show. And there are so many different aspects that affect your concerts: the local economic levels, the amount of people that are in town, high school football or basketball games. There are just hundreds of things that can enter into it and spell disaster for you if you happen to hit the right combination of things on any particular given concert. How much advertising are we bombarded with when you decide to do a concert? In most markets, we try to spend ten percent' of what we feel our gross of the show will be. If we feel our gross of the show will be S50,000, we usually spend S5,000. In Miami, we