Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
There's Lenny Kravitz, Sa Nriya Gonna Go My Way? On
C one oh one, I've got on the phone, Fred Myers. Fred,
you and I have been friends for so long, and
I know it's really hard to sort of encapsulate our
friendship and all of the years. And when I heard
(00:21):
when I heard you were going to do an audio book,
because I don't know anybody who's in radio who hasn't thought,
I've got to I've got to write this stuff down.
I've got a catalog these stories because people would never
believe me. I've got to make a book out of
this thing. And and you went and did it. It
was was the process ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well it was. But before I even go there, what
song did you just come out of?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Uh? Tim Parker's favorite? It's Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna
Go My Way?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Which I worked. In fact, the story is Virgin had
us all go to New York. We end up in
Lenny Kravitz's Greenwich Village apartment, which is kind of what
you think those old apartments out there, Like he had
a huge loft where it was one big room and
he had his snake in its sequarium. He you know
(01:16):
he had the craziest furniture from all over the world.
And I was two years sober and he brought out
some kind of button that's where That's why I got
looked back. But but I'm listening to that song while
you're ready to talk to me about this book I wrote,
and I'm going, oh my god, I worked that album.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I know you did. And the only reason that I
know you did is because you showed up at the
radio station in an RV dressed as the Pope.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
This is back when he dressed as the Pope.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It's so it's so hard to talk to you because
there are too many stories. Now you there, you were
the You were like the original record guy for Van
Halen and.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
That was my So that was my first day on
the job. I had to get eruption. You really got
me on the radio from a band we just signed
called Van hale Your.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
First day, your first day day on the job, first day.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Now three days later i'm with them. It's their third show.
They did Chicago, Madison, Wisconsin and no Madison, Chicago, Detroit. Yeah,
Journey just hired Steve Perry, so the Knight's flights go
down in the city. That whole thing that I'm so
sick of because we were on that tour for a while. Yeah,
(02:35):
but yeah, I mean my world, which is why I
wrote a book. And it started out more as my
story when I had hit a major depression in my life.
So if anybody listening out there has gone through mental health,
all I can tell you is the feelings temporary. Hang
in there, because it will all work its way out
(02:55):
with your hard work. I and so I started writing,
and I ended up sending this manuscript to la where
there's a couple guys in their mid thirties in the
film industry. They went, holy kyw, this is almost famous
times ten. And then when we started kicking around, could
(03:16):
it be a movie just like nil in sports? If
you're going to use the name or the image or
the likeness to pay for it. So then I had
to create a fictional character who is me, but I'm
not fictional. But I had to wrap my whole story
around a fictional scene. And so I zoned in on
(03:36):
Detroit where I grew up, and you and I were
on the phone earlier, and I was telling you about
this lady named Rosalie Trombley who had a radio station
in Canada right across the Detroit River. I mean you
can literally see Canada from Detroit, and geographically it's the
only time Canada is south of a state, which is weird.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Now, you and I always have this problem. I I
we have to take a quick break, and I'm gonna
come back and we're gonna grab your story. Tell me
right now, where can I order this audiobook?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
All right? Well, hitman dot com they wanted thirty four
thousand dollars a go daddy, So if you if I
put a dash between it where it was h I
T dash m E and dot com, it was four
dollars and ninety five cents, so I kind of went
with the bargain price.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Well, I already dash men hit dot com, hit dashmen
dot com. Hang on for me for one second, dot com.
One of my all time favorites. Right there, Van Halen
and everybody wants some on C one oh one. You
might have a few memories around that song, Fred Meyers,
No Rex.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
That one in particular, I used in my audio book Hitman,
where I it's a fit. It's historical fiction, so I
get to make stuff up. Yeah, And what happened is
when I was with Van Helen that was on the
Women and Children first album, and we were doing a
radio interview and David Lee Roth was he was just unbelievable,
(05:10):
and he had these two girls that he had picked
up somewhere that were dressed identically in goth outfits. There
was like black and white and dark hair parted down
the middle straight. So he grabbed those girls and they
were part of the circus of the entourage that went
up to do a radio interview. So we're at WABX
(05:30):
in Detroit. There's a group of people down below, probably
hundreds actually because they couldn't wait to get a glimpse
of Van Halen. Hell. This is their third album and
they're still doing radio interviews. So David brings the girls
to the window and as the break where Alex starts
doing those drum beat that wrote African rhythm drum beat,
(05:52):
David Lee panamized to the song to the crowd below
and he goes, I love the way the lines run
down the back of you eard stocking. Well, it just so
happens these girls are wearing those kind of nylons with
that line. He's got their bombs pressed against the window
and he's taking both of his index fingers and running
along the lines as he's panamiing the song. It was
(06:14):
hysterical because nobody knew what was happening except David. And
that's what made hanging with those guys for five years
so much fun.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
That's going to be just incredible doing like the record
stores and the memories that you have. I think it's
really cool that you did an audio but that you
decided to do an audio book. Do you do you
cover in that audio book some of the shenanigans that
record guys did to get attention from radio stations. Because
one time you rolled up in front of Sea one
(06:44):
oh one when we were at fifty five forty four
Leopard Street and you were in.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
An RV right street.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Remember you were in an RV with your assistant, and
you came out dressed as the pope with the hat,
the whole thing, and you look and you were promoting
Lenny Kravitz. Was it are you going to go my way?
Or what was the what were you what exactly was
you remember the song or the album?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yes, of course it was Heaven Help. And before I
even started the trip, I had went to my pastor
and said, Hey, those wafers that always get stuck at
the riff of my mouth. Can I have a roll
of those? And he goes, I'm not even going to
ask you what you're going to do with them? And
he handed me some.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Oh, bless you.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And so what I did was in the RV, I
had beads hanging out Paisley tapestries, and there was a
booth that I had a lava lamp and a little
CD player and I went to all my music and
program directors in my territory. Yeah, and they had to
come into the RV, sit down and listen to Heaven Help.
(07:48):
I put a little wafer in their mouth and bless them.
So that was that whole craziness.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
There is a polaroid of that somewhere somewhere in my
storage of it. I know of you, of you blessing
me while I listened to that song. It is one
of the best memories that circulates in my brain. Tell
me where to get through that.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Far from you is Victoria, Texas. And in Victoria, while
we were driving down the road, people were calling a
radio station saying, Lenny Kravitz is in town.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
That is awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We had banners that said are you going to go
my way, Lenny Kravitz. And then I heard the brand
new Janet Jackson album that no one had heard. So
the top forty stations in my territory that were, you know,
didn't play hard rock. Yeah, I was turning them onto
what we were going to release the Janet album. That
was the fun part about being the music business. We
(08:43):
got all the songs way before the public.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Tell me where to get the audio book.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Hit dashmin m e N dot com, go into about
and read about it and see if it's for you.
And if it is, it's fifteen bucks. It's four and
a half hours. It's pulling the curtain back to show
you how hits were actually made.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Are smashing pumpkins In nineteen seventy nine on See What
a Lot? I'm talking to Fred Myers, and I could
tell from the moment you and I started talking that man,
we were all over the map, all.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Over the other with Diarbres. But speaking with that spirit,
can I tell you about nineteen seventy nine?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yes, you have a story for every song I've played
this morning.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Well, it's because I worked them to radio. But so
here's what happened. Tom Pullman was a really big radio
guy and a really great guy. Him and I became
friends and he was programming KRBE in Houston, a very
powerful Top forty station. So we released nineteen seventy nine
and we release it to both rock radio Top forty because,
(09:47):
as you just heard the song, it's a great song, right.
So I remember being out at Lake Travis doing something,
messing with a trailer or a boat trailer or something crazy,
and Tom calls me and goes, Fred, I think nineteen
seventy nine is I said, I do too. He said, well,
I'm ready to make it a smash for you. But
there's always the butt, you know, because it's almost like
(10:11):
you're trading things, like one thing for another. So we
struck a deal about something with Janet Jackson where I
was going to send him his listeners to the Grammys
or something, yes, and then he in return he was
going to pound nineteen seventy nine on his radio station
and help me make it a hit. That's the backstories
(10:31):
of like my audiobook hit dashmin dot com is these
backstories of how we finagled one song by using something else. Well, yeah,
there was always reads or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
There was always a great payoff for the listener because
you're promoting van Halen. And then we would play the
hell out of Van Halen. But then we would also
send a bus to San Antonio or Houston or Dallas
and we'd take a bunch of peace bull from the
radio station with us a lot of times for free,
because we had struck such an incredible deal way back when.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I'd have to whip my credit card out for that.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Stuff way back when. But nowadays all that all that
stuff is like highly illegal now, so you can't. There's
all kinds of little things you have to get around
in order to do.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
You know, Oh my god, if I had social media
when I was on the road to being healed.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I'm sure you've got plenty of stories in the audio
book about Vee. When I think about, right, because Michelle's
always going you want to come up with like a
you know, a podcast on your career or an audiobook
of you know, some of your stories. And I said,
you would not like how it all began, because it
began like one of those Penthouse Forum letters from the
(11:52):
very start. I can't tell people what my first week
in radio was actually like.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Well, first of all, we didn't know cocaine, was bad
for you, it smelt good and it was fun.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
We in no way promote the illegal drugs on this
radio station. So where do we find the audio book?
One more time?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So it's like Hi, t the dash than the mean
dot com And then if you go to the website,
I'm really proud of it. I do. I do speaking
engagements as a rock a classic rock historian. So there's
a page there that you can you know, you can
read about the book to decide if it's worth fifteen
(12:32):
bucks for four and a half hours of inexpensive entertainment.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So hit dashmen dot com. That's where you buy the audiobook.
I bought my copy this morning. I'm looking forward to
my next road trip. But you and I will talk
very very soon. Hit dashmen dot com if you want
to purchase the Fred Meyers audiobook.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Here's the elevator pitch. It's about the birth of classic
rock and soul music through the lens of Detroit in
the late sixties.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
She
There's Lenny Kravitz, Sa Nriya Gonna Go My Way? On
C one oh one, I've got on the phone, Fred Myers. Fred,
you and I have been friends for so long, and
I know it's really hard to sort of encapsulate our
friendship and all of the years. And when I heard
(00:21):
when I heard you were going to do an audio book,
because I don't know anybody who's in radio who hasn't thought,
I've got to I've got to write this stuff down.
I've got a catalog these stories because people would never
believe me. I've got to make a book out of
this thing. And and you went and did it. It
was was the process ridiculous?
Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well it was. But before I even go there, what
song did you just come out of?
Speaker 1 (00:49):
Uh? Tim Parker's favorite? It's Lenny Kravitz, Are You Gonna
Go My Way?
Speaker 2 (00:54):
Which I worked. In fact, the story is Virgin had
us all go to New York. We end up in
Lenny Kravitz's Greenwich Village apartment, which is kind of what
you think those old apartments out there, Like he had
a huge loft where it was one big room and
he had his snake in its sequarium. He you know
(01:16):
he had the craziest furniture from all over the world.
And I was two years sober and he brought out
some kind of button that's where That's why I got
looked back. But but I'm listening to that song while
you're ready to talk to me about this book I wrote,
and I'm going, oh my god, I worked that album.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I know you did. And the only reason that I
know you did is because you showed up at the
radio station in an RV dressed as the Pope.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
This is back when he dressed as the Pope.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
It's so it's so hard to talk to you because
there are too many stories. Now you there, you were
the You were like the original record guy for Van
Halen and.
Speaker 2 (02:00):
That was my So that was my first day on
the job. I had to get eruption. You really got
me on the radio from a band we just signed
called Van hale Your.
Speaker 1 (02:11):
First day, your first day day on the job, first day.
Speaker 2 (02:14):
Now three days later i'm with them. It's their third show.
They did Chicago, Madison, Wisconsin and no Madison, Chicago, Detroit. Yeah,
Journey just hired Steve Perry, so the Knight's flights go
down in the city. That whole thing that I'm so
sick of because we were on that tour for a while. Yeah,
(02:35):
but yeah, I mean my world, which is why I
wrote a book. And it started out more as my
story when I had hit a major depression in my life.
So if anybody listening out there has gone through mental health,
all I can tell you is the feelings temporary. Hang
in there, because it will all work its way out
(02:55):
with your hard work. I and so I started writing,
and I ended up sending this manuscript to la where
there's a couple guys in their mid thirties in the
film industry. They went, holy kyw, this is almost famous
times ten. And then when we started kicking around, could
(03:16):
it be a movie just like nil in sports? If
you're going to use the name or the image or
the likeness to pay for it. So then I had
to create a fictional character who is me, but I'm
not fictional. But I had to wrap my whole story
around a fictional scene. And so I zoned in on
(03:36):
Detroit where I grew up, and you and I were
on the phone earlier, and I was telling you about
this lady named Rosalie Trombley who had a radio station
in Canada right across the Detroit River. I mean you
can literally see Canada from Detroit, and geographically it's the
only time Canada is south of a state, which is weird.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Now, you and I always have this problem. I I
we have to take a quick break, and I'm gonna
come back and we're gonna grab your story. Tell me
right now, where can I order this audiobook?
Speaker 2 (04:10):
All right? Well, hitman dot com they wanted thirty four
thousand dollars a go daddy, So if you if I
put a dash between it where it was h I
T dash m E and dot com, it was four
dollars and ninety five cents, so I kind of went
with the bargain price.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
Well, I already dash men hit dot com, hit dashmen
dot com. Hang on for me for one second, dot com.
One of my all time favorites. Right there, Van Halen
and everybody wants some on C one oh one. You
might have a few memories around that song, Fred Meyers,
No Rex.
Speaker 2 (04:47):
That one in particular, I used in my audio book Hitman,
where I it's a fit. It's historical fiction, so I
get to make stuff up. Yeah, And what happened is
when I was with Van Helen that was on the
Women and Children first album, and we were doing a
radio interview and David Lee Roth was he was just unbelievable,
(05:10):
and he had these two girls that he had picked
up somewhere that were dressed identically in goth outfits. There
was like black and white and dark hair parted down
the middle straight. So he grabbed those girls and they
were part of the circus of the entourage that went
up to do a radio interview. So we're at WABX
(05:30):
in Detroit. There's a group of people down below, probably
hundreds actually because they couldn't wait to get a glimpse
of Van Halen. Hell. This is their third album and
they're still doing radio interviews. So David brings the girls
to the window and as the break where Alex starts
doing those drum beat that wrote African rhythm drum beat,
(05:52):
David Lee panamized to the song to the crowd below
and he goes, I love the way the lines run
down the back of you eard stocking. Well, it just so
happens these girls are wearing those kind of nylons with
that line. He's got their bombs pressed against the window
and he's taking both of his index fingers and running
along the lines as he's panamiing the song. It was
(06:14):
hysterical because nobody knew what was happening except David. And
that's what made hanging with those guys for five years
so much fun.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
That's going to be just incredible doing like the record
stores and the memories that you have. I think it's
really cool that you did an audio but that you
decided to do an audio book. Do you do you
cover in that audio book some of the shenanigans that
record guys did to get attention from radio stations. Because
one time you rolled up in front of Sea one
(06:44):
oh one when we were at fifty five forty four
Leopard Street and you were in.
Speaker 2 (06:48):
An RV right street.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
Remember you were in an RV with your assistant, and
you came out dressed as the pope with the hat,
the whole thing, and you look and you were promoting
Lenny Kravitz. Was it are you going to go my way?
Or what was the what were you what exactly was
you remember the song or the album?
Speaker 2 (07:08):
Yes, of course it was Heaven Help. And before I
even started the trip, I had went to my pastor
and said, Hey, those wafers that always get stuck at
the riff of my mouth. Can I have a roll
of those? And he goes, I'm not even going to
ask you what you're going to do with them? And
he handed me some.
Speaker 1 (07:25):
Oh, bless you.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
And so what I did was in the RV, I
had beads hanging out Paisley tapestries, and there was a
booth that I had a lava lamp and a little
CD player and I went to all my music and
program directors in my territory. Yeah, and they had to
come into the RV, sit down and listen to Heaven Help.
(07:48):
I put a little wafer in their mouth and bless them.
So that was that whole craziness.
Speaker 1 (07:54):
There is a polaroid of that somewhere somewhere in my
storage of it. I know of you, of you blessing
me while I listened to that song. It is one
of the best memories that circulates in my brain. Tell
me where to get through that.
Speaker 2 (08:13):
Far from you is Victoria, Texas. And in Victoria, while
we were driving down the road, people were calling a
radio station saying, Lenny Kravitz is in town.
Speaker 1 (08:21):
That is awesome.
Speaker 2 (08:22):
We had banners that said are you going to go
my way, Lenny Kravitz. And then I heard the brand
new Janet Jackson album that no one had heard. So
the top forty stations in my territory that were, you know,
didn't play hard rock. Yeah, I was turning them onto
what we were going to release the Janet album. That
was the fun part about being the music business. We
(08:43):
got all the songs way before the public.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
Tell me where to get the audio book.
Speaker 2 (08:49):
Hit dashmin m e N dot com, go into about
and read about it and see if it's for you.
And if it is, it's fifteen bucks. It's four and
a half hours. It's pulling the curtain back to show
you how hits were actually made.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
Are smashing pumpkins In nineteen seventy nine on See What
a Lot? I'm talking to Fred Myers, and I could
tell from the moment you and I started talking that man,
we were all over the map, all.
Speaker 2 (09:16):
Over the other with Diarbres. But speaking with that spirit,
can I tell you about nineteen seventy nine?
Speaker 1 (09:22):
Yes, you have a story for every song I've played
this morning.
Speaker 2 (09:25):
Well, it's because I worked them to radio. But so
here's what happened. Tom Pullman was a really big radio
guy and a really great guy. Him and I became
friends and he was programming KRBE in Houston, a very
powerful Top forty station. So we released nineteen seventy nine
and we release it to both rock radio Top forty because,
(09:47):
as you just heard the song, it's a great song, right.
So I remember being out at Lake Travis doing something,
messing with a trailer or a boat trailer or something crazy,
and Tom calls me and goes, Fred, I think nineteen
seventy nine is I said, I do too. He said, well,
I'm ready to make it a smash for you. But
there's always the butt, you know, because it's almost like
(10:11):
you're trading things, like one thing for another. So we
struck a deal about something with Janet Jackson where I
was going to send him his listeners to the Grammys
or something, yes, and then he in return he was
going to pound nineteen seventy nine on his radio station
and help me make it a hit. That's the backstories
(10:31):
of like my audiobook hit dashmin dot com is these
backstories of how we finagled one song by using something else. Well, yeah,
there was always reads or whatever.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
There was always a great payoff for the listener because
you're promoting van Halen. And then we would play the
hell out of Van Halen. But then we would also
send a bus to San Antonio or Houston or Dallas
and we'd take a bunch of peace bull from the
radio station with us a lot of times for free,
because we had struck such an incredible deal way back when.
Speaker 2 (11:08):
I'd have to whip my credit card out for that.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Stuff way back when. But nowadays all that all that
stuff is like highly illegal now, so you can't. There's
all kinds of little things you have to get around
in order to do.
Speaker 2 (11:23):
You know, Oh my god, if I had social media
when I was on the road to being healed.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
I'm sure you've got plenty of stories in the audio
book about Vee. When I think about, right, because Michelle's
always going you want to come up with like a
you know, a podcast on your career or an audiobook
of you know, some of your stories. And I said,
you would not like how it all began, because it
began like one of those Penthouse Forum letters from the
(11:52):
very start. I can't tell people what my first week
in radio was actually like.
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Well, first of all, we didn't know cocaine, was bad
for you, it smelt good and it was fun.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
We in no way promote the illegal drugs on this
radio station. So where do we find the audio book?
One more time?
Speaker 2 (12:12):
So it's like Hi, t the dash than the mean
dot com And then if you go to the website,
I'm really proud of it. I do. I do speaking
engagements as a rock a classic rock historian. So there's
a page there that you can you know, you can
read about the book to decide if it's worth fifteen
(12:32):
bucks for four and a half hours of inexpensive entertainment.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So hit dashmen dot com. That's where you buy the audiobook.
I bought my copy this morning. I'm looking forward to
my next road trip. But you and I will talk
very very soon. Hit dashmen dot com if you want
to purchase the Fred Meyers audiobook.
Speaker 2 (12:52):
Here's the elevator pitch. It's about the birth of classic
rock and soul music through the lens of Detroit in
the late sixties.
Speaker 1 (13:00):
She
Popular Podcasts
Hey Jonas!
Hey Jonas! The official Jonas Brothers podcast. Hosted by Kevin, Joe, and Nick Jonas. It’s the Jonas Brothers you know... musicians, actors, and well, yes, brothers. Now, they’re sharing another side of themselves in the playful, intimate, and irreverent way only they can. Spend time with the Jonas Brothers here and stay a little bit longer for deep conversations like never before.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com