LA Wonderland 1985

A piano duet with Stevie Wonder !

I had been playing keyboards with Tears For Fears (TFF) since their first gig in early 1982. 
In the early eighties Bath had a youthful evolving music scene, and I often used to run into Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith in Moles Club. They were fans of The Korgis and even asked me if I’d like to produce their first single, 'Suffer The Children'. I stupidly declined – not the first or last poor decision I would make, as you’ll see. 

An ideal record producer needs to be many things: assertive, creative, patient, inspirational, motivational – these are just a few of the qualities you need. It also helps to have a clear vision of how to get the best out of a band. And you may have to apply psychology in order to manage various strong personalities.  

That doesn’t sound much like me. 

I digress. Between ’82 and ’85, TFF played concerts all over the UK and Ireland and toured Europe extensively.
By the beginning of ’85 they were becoming really big and their obvious
next move would be to tour North America.  

Another guy I used to bump into in Moles Club was Pete Byrne, lead singer of another Bath band called Naked Eyes. In 1984 Naked Eyes had had not one but two number one singles in the USA Billboard chart. Pete had recently split from his long-time collaborator Rob Fisher and Pete and I began to write songs together. (Pretty good songs as it happens.) Pete’s permanent home was in LA and though he didn't have a record deal he had good connections with a few people in the music scene there. Through this network an opportunity had arisen for him to record a solo album in Stevie Wonder’s LA studio, and Stevie’s chief engineer Gary O was going to produce it. Pete invited me to write the songs for this new album, which would require me to spend several months in LA.

So I was faced with a difficult decision: tour the States with TFF and earn a lot of money; or spend several months in LA, initially at my own expense, working with Pete. One of the differences between the two options was that writing an album with Pete would earn royalties. They might be considerable.

Inevitably, in my classic style and with the benefit of hindsight, I made exactly the wrong choice. When I called Roland to tell him that I wouldn’t be able to do the tour, he said that was ok – it would give them a chance of getting a female keyboard player in the band.  

I was going to have to fund several weeks or even months in LA. I couldn’t have managed it all myself but by convincing my publisher, Virgin 10 Music, that I would earn truckloads of royalties, I persuaded them to advance me a small sum.  

And so, after tearful goodbyes to my friends in Bath, with my multiple indefinite work visa (those were the days) stamped in my passport, I flew to LA in the spring of 1985. Pete picked me up from the airport in his brand new BMW and we stayed the first few days at his in-laws at their beachside house in Ranchos Palos Verde just south of LA. It was down to me to find more permanent lodgings. I had two good friends, Graham and Dafne, who lived in Culver City, and they generously offered me the temporary use of their sofa.  

I needed transport and I was quite determined to rent a classic old American barge. This was quite easy in the States at the time. Rent-A-Wreck and Ugly Duckling were the most popular classic car hiring companies. I chose the latter, and hired a 1969 Pontiac Catalina on a monthly renewal basis. (I loved that car and was sorry to hand it back when I left.)  

Pete had arranged to use ‘downtime’ in Stevie Wonder’s Wonderland Studios, ie time when no-one else was using the facilities. In our case it meant doing overnight sessions starting at about midnight and working through till midday next day. We were due to start on a Friday night so I had a few days to prepare for the night shift. I woke later and later, and slept later and later, until I could be fully awake for the whole night. It was a sort of self-imposed jet lag. Messing with the internal clock like that is not good for one's mental stability.

I was in this wide-awake-at-night state when the first week of sessions was cancelled. No reason was given. They said it would be postponed for a week or two. I rapidly re-adjusted to a daytime routine. Then I was called without warning one midnight. “Hey man, we’re in the studio come on over!”

We never stuck to a schedule. I was always called to the studio when I wasn’t expecting it. Even worse we rarely did any work when we were there. Sometimes the engineer would start a session and suddenly disappear to the strip club next door. Or he simply didn’t turn up at all. 

On just such a night I was amusing myself at a beautiful grand piano, playing a rather clumsy version of Night and Day, the Cole Porter classic, when there was a kerfuffle by the front door. Members of staff suddenly leapt to attention and started to look busy. Someone shouted ‘Stevie’s here!’ I looked up to see the man himself walking into the room. He had heard the song I was playing and immediately joined in, throwing back his head to let forth  that inimitable voice. Then he walked over to the piano and touched my shoulder, sat down next to me, gently nudged me along the piano stool and started playing some bass chords.  

I was on the treble end of the piano. It didn’t seem to be the right arrangement.  

I said, 'shouldn’t you be up at the other end?'  So we swapped round.

Now at the treble end he launched into a full-blown masterful version of Night and Day in an entirely different key, while I desperately followed his chords with a shaky bass acompaniment. His playing seemed effortless and he sang his heart out - sitting next to him I could hear the real power in his voice - he gave it everything. I got better as the song went along and occasionally what I was adding on the low end made him smile. When we got to the end of Night and Day, he launched into Begin the Beguine, then Love for Sale. I was so caught up in the. moment, it was only later that it fully dawned on me: I had just played a piano duet with one of the greatest musicians of all time!  

Later we were properly introduced. He fooled around on the piano and synth for a while, we played a game of shuffleboard (!) then he played us a couple of songs he had written for Pete’s album, which were of course brilliant. I was thrilled by the possibility of sharing the album credits with him. 

When he left that night he asked the engineer Gary to transmit a mix of one of his songs to his car. I assume they used some sort of short wave radio transmitter. Stevie explained that he liked to listen to a mix in progress on the speakers in his car. He would make changes by calling the man at the mixing desk on his car phone  - more bass, less backing vocals, and so on.

Stevie called in a few more times over the next few weeks. He was a genuinely lovely guy and good company and had a great sense of humour – he was always cracking jokes about his blindness: 'why don’t you look where you’re going?' he might say. We found that we were both Leos with very nearly the same birthdays, and I felt we got on well. Sadly, though, I never played piano with him again. 

Pete and I were supposed to be recording an album but we were plagued by really poor organisation and communication. Sessions were frequently cancelled at the last minute. Engineers didn’t turn up when they were supposed to. Things went from bad to worse - weeks then months went by with very little progress made. I was baffled by the inability of the studio engineers to stick to a schedule. No-one involved in the project could be relied upon to be in the studio when they were supposed to be. Then on nights when they’d said there definitely wouldn’t be any recording and I was already asleep, they’d call at midnight with a now familiar cry; “Hey man we’re in the studio, come on over!”  

Eventually I diagnosed the problem. One thing explained it all, one habit they all shared. 

In a word - cocaine! 

Everyone was using it a lot - an awful lot!  

Now everthung made sense. The recording sessions were a shambles, the production team were totally unreliable - at this rate album was never going to happen. I realised this situation wasn’t going to change - the situation was hopeless. I began to lose all confidence in the project. I did not cope well. I started to unravel.  

Looking back it seems hardly surprising. I’d had months of disturbed sleep and was living with almost permanent jet lag. I was surrounded by some very weird people. Pete and I were offered the chance to produce a band called Rain Parade. We met them in rehearsal one day and later drove to an impressive house in Malibu to meet their manager.  A maid showed us into a parlour and there he was - wearing obscenely tight hot pants and sitting in front of a suede fireplace!  

A blue suede fireplace!  

Another day I was contacted by a guy who said he was a script advisor on a forthcoming Tom Cruise movie. He said he was interested in a couple of my songs which would fit well on the soundtrack. I was excited by this possibility. We met in the Rose Cafe in the Venice district - he showed me the film script and talked knowledgeably about the film. I thought it a little strange that I had to pay for his lunch – because he’d forgotten his wallet, he said. 

Driving home one evening along Venice Beach I pulled up at some traffic lights. There was a glorious sunset. I looked across towards the ocean and there he was: the 'script advisor on the Tom Cruise movie’ was sleeping rough on a bench on Venice beach! He was using the film script as a pillow! 

Weird people aside there was also the general stress of LA society.

There were many situations where I felt profoundly uneasy. When driving on the freeway at night, for example, I knew that if I took the wrong off-ramp and got lost I could be in real trouble. I had chosen the old Pontiac so as not to look like a tourist but the downside was it was unreliable as old cars are wont to be. Wonderland Studios was in Korea Town, in deepest LA down a network of unlit roads. The car often stalled and I would have to abandon it and walk the last couple of miles to the studio on foot. I adopted an outfit of leather jacket and shades in order to look streetwise. It was always in the dead of night and I would protect myself by pretending to be a mad, staring crazy man. Muttering to myself as I swaggered along I just about got away with it. 

But one day I tipped over into the beginning of actual madness. I started feeling more and more agitated and confused. This turned into a full-blown anxiety attack. I had a constant adrenaline rush and I didn’t feel like me anymore. Luckily I still had the sense to know I needed some rest and a change of scene. I flew back to England the next day.

Back home I sunk into a deep depression. A condition I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I'm convinced that what brought it on initially was that extended period of erratic, disturbed sleep, on a background of constant stress.

Pete’s album never got made and as far as I know none of the songs we wrote were ever recorded. I don’t blame Pete personally - he tried his best in difficult circumstances. I think he was better able to cope with LA madness than I was. All this time I had been keeping track of my friends in Tears For Fears. I watched  them enjoy a sensationally successful year of touring the States, with two number one hits, enthusiastic audiences and breathless reviews, knowing I could have been up there too.

But I got to play a piano duet with Stevie Wonder...

I'm so glad I made the wrong choice!