How Derek Shulman Went From Gentle Giant To Signing Bon Jovi

Derek Shulman might have one of the most complete and full-circle musical journeys in history.

From his origins in a tenement building in Glasgow, Scotland, to his chart-topping pop band (Simon Dupree and the Big Sound) to reinventing progressive rock music with Gentle Giant, and then to his career is a record label executive, where his triumphs include Bon Jovi, Dream Theater, Pantera, Slipknot and Nickelback, to his moves to help revitalize legacy artists like Bad Company and AC/DC, there isn't much Derek hasn't done.

The transition from being an artist to being an executive wasn't as fundamental a change for Derek as you might think. He tells all in his new memoir, Giant Steps: From Stage Lights to Executive Heights.

"The good thing is I had the experience of both being in Simon Dupree [and the Big Sound], if you like, and that was a great apprenticeship for stagecraft and everything else, and being in a pop band. But then, of course, being in Gentle Giant," he tells Q104.3 New York's Out of the Box with Jonathan Clarke.

"There wasn't much a band could say to me that I haven't done. They couldn't say, 'You don't know what it's like to sleep on a bus. You don't know what it's like to not have any money in your pocket.' I could relate to everything. ... And I could also play a chord or so and say, Why don't you try this?"

Derek was joined at Q104.3 by the author of the foreword to his book, famed rock producer Tony Visconti.

Derek's music-above-all approach to being an executive wasn't terribly different from the example Tony set while producing the first two Gentle Giant albums.

"We gave each other a lot of permission," Tony says of their studio work together in 1970 and 1971. "I didn't hold them back. I didn't want them to make a pop album. I didn't want to 'clean this up' and make it all dance beats. I was frustrated because I'm a trained musician, I studied music, and I was making a lot of pop records, which are fun up to a point. But if that's all you do, it makes Jack a dull boy. I was so turned on by [Gentle Giant]. I could do anything with them. If they gave me something that was far out, I could say to them, 'Let's make it more far out.'"

Watch the full conversation via the player above!

You can order Giant Steps: My Improbably Journey here.