|
|
THE JOURNEY ZONE
http://www.journey-zone.com
|
Jrnydv.Com’s
Exclusive Telephone Interview
with Robert Fleischman
January 8, 2003
Part One: Before Journey
I wanted to hear about something that Journey fans had never heard before—what had prepared Robert to be the man selected to lead what was even then one of the best bands in the business. To do so we would have to go all the way back to the beginning, to his earliest musical experiences.
DG: What were your first musical influences, and what first made you want to be a rock’n’roll vocalist?
RF: Well, I had a cousin who was eight years older than I, and he was really into the whole British invasion. So he was really on top of the Beatles and the Stones, and he used to buy all of these English magazines, and he’d have them around, and I’d look at the magazines, and I saw these bands, and stuff like that, and then when the Beatles came, you know, we saw the Beatles—he actually took me to see the Beatles play at the Hollywood Bowl. And I was really young, so he stood in line all night, got a bunch of tickets and he brought me along with him. So that was kinda’ cool. So, it was sort of an eight-year-old with a sixteen–year old--rock’n’rolling through him.
DG: Did you get any sort of formal vocal training at that point in your life?
RF: No. I never did. One Christmas I got a little tape recorder—a little reel-to-reel tape recorder about the size of a shoebox and I used to record stuff with it. And then when I could get records—back then you had only records and big, giant stereos—you couldn’t bring the stereo into your bedroom, so I used to go in my parents’ living room and plunk a record down and record it on the little tape recorder, and then take it to my room and then listen to all kinds of stuff. And then I started singing along with records, and then I would trim it, and then accidentally I sort of turned on the tape recorder and I would sing along with records and see if I could like blend in with them. And so at the age of like 11 or 12 years old I heard myself on tape and well it was “Wow, is that my voice? Is that what I sound like?” You know? And I sort of developed my character and I was accustomed to hearing myself on tape, and I sort of developed my tone and everything so I could blend in with all these different bands I used to sing with—along with the Hollys, and the Yardbirds, and the Stones, and the Beatles, I used to sing all those songs. And I just would turn on the tape recorder and see if I could blend right along in with it. And so that’s how I sorta’ got my ear. So it wasn’t that you go into the recording studio first time when you’re 18 years old or something, or 20 years old, you get the opportunity to go in and cut your first demo and you listen to yourself and go “God, that’s my voice?” You know, it’s completely foreign, but it was never really foreign to me, ‘cause I’d heard myself on tape for so many years. And then I went really crazy and just went wild with tape recorders and doing my own kinda’ laboratory—audio laboratory—with two tape recorders so that I could do harmonies and things like that. I’d experiment with the tape recorders and I was sort of really creative that way.
DG: Tell us about your first band.
RF: It was--we had Marshall stacks and Sun bass cabinets, and a drummer who’s name was Art Wood, who later on played with a lot of people, like Gary Wright and Peter Frampton. And I had my friend Martin Lombardi, the guitar player, and he lived in a beautiful home up in Palos Verdes—it was a Lloyd Wright home. So my first band house was spoiled—we had this double-garage and we used to rehearse in this great house looking over the Palos Verdes peninsula.
DG: Some people had garage bands and you had a Lloyd Wright double-garage band.
RF: (Laughs.) Yeah, it was really wild. So we would open up the garage, you know, and there was nobody around us except for all this property and so we would just play as loud as we wanted to. So that was a really great experience, because it wasn’t like a situation where you had to be quiet and all that; it was just like, anything goes, you know? And it was great. So we had great times there and I really loved that. I think I wouldn’t be doing what I’m doing now if it hadn’t been for Martin and his great house up in Palos Verdes.
DG: I’m sure it certainly distinguished your experience from that of the typical L.A. garage band.
RF: Yeah.
DG: What other bands were you in before you moved to Chicago?
RF: Well, my first opportunity was when Peter Gabriel left Genesis, I was actually courted by them, from England a la Los Angeles, and they would call me, and they had it all set up where I was gonna’ go to England and do Trick of the Tale, and that’s when Peter Gabriel left, and then they were recording that album and they were looking for somebody to replace Peter, and they called me up, and I talked to them for quite a few times, and then I was supposed to go to England and I had my flight and everything all arranged, and then I got a phone call saying that Phil Collins decided to go in and take a crack at the vocals. And so he did, and that was it.
DG: The rest is history.
RF: The rest is history. But I just love the idea that I got, at such an early age—I mean I was so young--to go and play with Genesis, and even at that time, I thought, I’ll go. But I doubted if I could even--Peter Gabriel’s such large shoes to fill, and I don’t know that I had much depth in my soul and was smart enough, and as great a lyricist as he, at that time. So I don’t know. It would’ve been odd.
DG. Well OK, so you went to Chicago in 1976—
RF: That’s actually a funny story. I was just breaking up with this girlfriend, and we were living down in Redondo Beach, and we were arguing about the apartment bills, and I was just leaving, walking down the stairs to give the key to the landlady, and all of a sudden the phone rang, and I ran upstairs and it was this guy named Frank Rand, who I think was the Vice President, or very big, the head of A&R for Epic records at one time. I think now he works for Doc McGee. But anyway, he called me up from Chicago, and he asked me if I’d be interested in playing with some bands that he booked in Chicago. He said “I’ve got three bands, I want you to come out here and check out these three bands and then you pick which band you want to be in.” So I went out with him and checked out these bands and I picked which band I wanted to be with. And I played with them in Chicago for—I guess about almost a year, I think, and we traveled up through Chicago and down to Florida and back, playing larger places, and we started getting a stir. And then I get this phone call from Barry Fey, who happened to be friends of a manager that I used to know in Los Angeles—who had played him some demos that I used to do. And so Barry Fey liked what he heard, and he hunted and tracked me down, and said “Are you interested in—” you know, it was sort of like “Are you ready for the big time, boy?” Sort of like that kind of conversation. So I gave the band two week’s notice and I went to Denver and I didn’t have any songs. He put me in the Hyatt Hotel there in Denver and I started writing. And then about three weeks later, I had put together a band and wrote a bunch of songs and I was doing a show for CBS records.
DG: And that’s when someone from CBS discovered you and sent you out to San Francisco?
RF: Yeah, it was completely snowing and we didn’t know if people were gonna’ make it, and then all the people from the west coast and the east coast made it.
Robert’s stories were certainly wild, but they left no doubt in my mind that by 1977 he was the right man for the job he was about to undertake. In retrospect, even if he was not ultimately to be the one to lead Journey to greatness, he was certainly the right choice for the transition period.
This transcript ©2003 Jrnydv.Com. All rights reserved.
Last Updated 02 July, 2007 (DHG)
|
|
|
