Putting The Band Back Together
Moderator
Elliott Lefko | Goldenvoice
Chip Hooper | Paradigm
Marc Geiger | William Morris Endeavor Ent.
Robert Kory | RK Management
Jonathan Levine | Paradigm
Susan Silver | Susan Silver Management
What industry reps do behind the scenes to get splintered bands to reunite can often be more than just playing “referee” to personality clashes or getting a band mem-ber help with an addiction. It can also take sensitivity and a big heart to get through the emotional turmoil.
Moderator Elliott Lefko of Goldenvoice started the discussion by asking Marc Geiger about his part in getting bands such as Jane’s Addiction back together.
“I think for a lot of these [stories], it’s the same,” Geiger said. “There’s a longtime dispute between two of the members in the group and playing ‘marriage counselor’ between them was interesting.
“In this case, it was Eric Avery and Perry Farrell. It took about a year and a half of talking about ‘Look at the bigger picture.’ After a year and a half ... it just fell apart. You can only do so much.
It was the same with the Pixies and a few others.”
But there are times, such as when the Pixies reunited and played Coachella, that Geiger said it’s worth it.
“I think all of these are ‘moments’ because you put a lot more into it that’s emotional. You get chills down your arm. When they get back together however many years later on the Coachella stage, you realize why you’re in this business.”
Chip Hooper of Paradigm said Phish decided to call it quits for a different reason.
“The thing about Phish is they’re a normal business band. When it stopped five or six years ago, it had done its thing at the time,” Hooper said. “Then about five years later, they were inspired to work together again. To me, they are the ultimate marriage of business with great musical art, great ideas and doing the right thing. They’re still viable and doing cool things.”
RK Management’s Robert Kory, who represents Leonard Cohen, said he’d been out of the music business for a decade when Cohen contacted him for help.
“The experience of Leonard Cohen, over the last four years, has really been the worst of this industry and the best. I’m princi-pally a lawyer who does entertainment technology finance ... but I have [an] understanding of touring and the music business,” Kory said.
“So here’s this great, renowned artist revered by everyone except for his manager, his lawyer and his investment adviser. They had concocted a scheme under the guise of some estate plan to liter-ally steal all his money.”
Kory said it took more than a year of working with Cohen to sort out the legal and financial problems. During that time, Cohen was eventually able to see it was possible to handle the rigors of touring again on his own terms and still meet the demand.
“The ‘chill’ came at a concert in Frederickton, New Brunswick, for like 750 people,” Kory said. “There were tears seeing this band play with such magnificence ... and the rest is history.”
Paradigm’s Jonathan Levine talked about his part in reuniting the former Grateful Dead mem-bers, who have since been touring as The Dead. Losing Jerry Garcia wasn’t the only thing keeping the members apart.
“I think the idea of putting a band back together can also come under the umbrella of keeping a band together. There is an art to keeping a balance,” Levine said. “With The Dead, [the reunion] wasn’t driven by money.
“When I came into their world, there was zero communication [between] any of them. This was more like brothers who refused to speak to each other.
The biggest delta was between Phil Lesh and
Bob Weir.
“If we could build a bridge between that delta … it felt pretty natural they would be very interested in getting back together.”
Levine said that once the difficulties were worked out, a plan was immediately put into place.
“You have to have a vision of what you’re going to do, and that vision has to start with the artist – what they want and what they’re seeking.” he said. “I disagree with the notion that musicians have a shelf life.”
Susan Silver, who’s managed Alice In Chains for 22 years, talked about what she and the band went through after the 2002 death of frontman Layne Staley and what prompted the band to reunite.
“There’s different motivations that bring bands back together.
In this case, tragedy played a big part in that,” Silver said. “Layne’s death due to addiction was some-thing that gutted us and the band considered themselves over at that point.
“But they’d never broken up even though they hadn’t played together for nine years. Jerry Cantrell’s solo career was moving along and he was being managed by Bill Siddons, who really could see the possibility of them getting back together. It was something at that time that none of us did. We couldn’t imagine those guys being on stage together without Layne.”
Silver said the devastation from the 2004 tsunami in South Asia was a catalyst in reuniting the band, with various singers stepping in, to play a benefit in 2005 to aid the relief efforts.
“More emotion was experienced that night than any of us anticipated. To see them playing again, and for them to be playing together again, was overwhelming,” she said. “They hadn’t played together in 10 years and it was like they were in a tour cycle.”
Within a few months of that experience, Silver said the band called her and Siddons and said they wanted to tour as Alice In Chains again.
“They had the motivation. Music was the motivation and it’s something they couldn’t live without.” she said. “They still considered themselves a band and went about auditioning people. It’s been an incredibly cathartic experience for everyone.”
As for what else has made these reunions a success overall, Hooper put it simply:
“The common denominator is that they’re all great bands that people want to see.”
|Tina Amendola|