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

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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

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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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Rick Bowen Silver Sands: Flick Bowen. Silver Sands: Rick Bowen: 2. Nfxx, uv Z- X! ,V N by c 'xx have to spend more than that. We have to spend close to fifteen percent of our gross down here because there are so many stations and the demographics are spread out so great. Down here, we buy six stations: WBUS, WIVIYQ, WFUN, WQAIVI, VVSHE, and WSRF. D0 you think you Ill eventually expand into group management? I foresee that the concert situation will always be the backbone of anything that I do. I don't feel that l'm a good enough manager or that I have experience in that field to become an all-out professional in it. I don't feel that l have the potential to manage a stable of acts. I am capable of running my concert business and having one or two acts to manage and that's my full capability. Why are you in this business? The financial thing. lt's rewarding, usually. lt's the only kind of business -he qu? that you can lose huge sums of in and, on the other hand, make huge sums of money in a quick period of time. If you're that is. lt's just a gigantic co of things. The thing that dejects me the about the business are the young school kids that getfreaked drugs. That has been the one that has always bugged me business and I know that gonna do drugs, at their I their cars at school, and they re do them at football games and of my concerts, and that really me. That's the worst thing happening in our society today. don't get off drugs soon, I don't what's going to happen. It to death. We provide entertainment and the one thing that keeps people throughout the roughest times through the best times. People always want to be entertained just feel like that's my ieb.