October 26, 2021 • 47 mins
The search for Sudden Impact continues, as Dave meets another member of the East Coast Family, a young singer who was set up for stardom and found something different instead. Plus, music chart journalist Chris Molanphy gives us the fascinating specifics on exactly how popular culture changed forever in 1991.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
Let's talk for a minute about Akron, Ohio. It's a
historical site for pop and rock music. It turns out
it's where the Black Keys met and Devo. It's Chrissy
hines hometown, the city she wrote my City was Gone about.
And then that song became the theme for the Rush
Lim Boss Show, and that makes me feel bad. And
somewhere in that city there's a Sheraton hotel lobby that,
(00:25):
for a brief moment in nineteen ninety one, was a
magic portal. You walked into that lobby and if you
sang for the right person in the right way, you
walked out with a life that was changed forever. If
that Nicole Brown sang a song called go Outside in
the Rain for Michael Bivens in that hotel and her
life changed course. And that same night, in that same place,
(00:46):
a young guy who was about to start his freshman
year at Ohio University tried the same thing.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I sang for him in a hotel lobby at like
two in the morning, and he called me the next
day and he was like, going off for your record deal. Whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Hayden hi Do was eighteen, a jock with a voice
big enough to fill a Sheriton Hotel Atrium. He sang
for Michael Bivens, and his life took a detour, one
that went right through the East Coast family, one that
lasted about a decade, one that involves Beyonce. He's gonna
tell us about it right now on Waiting for Impact,
(01:22):
a Dave Holmes passion project. While Hayden Hid's life was changing,
(01:45):
so was the rest of popular music. Later in the show,
We're gonna go deep on the pop charts of nineteen
ninety one and why that was the year that changed
everything about what got played on the radio with one
of my favorite writers, Chris Malanfi. You're gonna learn something
really interesting about the week that changed pop music forever,
the week Nirvana's never Mind took the number one spot
(02:06):
away from Michael Jackson's Dangerous. But here's what we've learned
so far about Sudden Impact. We know Sudden Impact was
one of the first artists to join Michael Bivins East
Coast family. We know he got them signed to Motown.
We know Bivins was so enthusiastic about them, so certain
they would succeed like Boys to Men ABC BBD, that
he put them in the music video for Motown Philly.
(02:28):
We know Motown Philly was inescapable in nineteen ninety one.
The three big places you could watch music videos back then, MTV,
VH one, and b ET played it all day long.
We know that after Motown Philly, Sudden Impact changed their
name to White Guys Whytgize, but we don't know why.
(02:49):
We know that, in the wake of Boys to Men's
success in nineteen ninety one, Bivins began expanding the East
Coast Family. He signed rappers, vocal groups, singers, and we
know that one of those singers is someone we now
know as a vet, Nicole Brown, who joined the East
Coast Family after angrily singing and Michael Bivins in that
same magical Sheriton lobby. And we know that in nineteen
(03:10):
ninety two Bivins gathered all his protegees together to record
a single and video called One for All four one.
They did a whole album, actually, East Coast Family, Volume one,
one four All four to one. The song and the
video are pure nineteen ninety two sac The raps mostly
ciggity sound like viggety this because that's what rappers did
(03:32):
that year. It combines elements of the new Jack swing
sound that was hot at the time with the heavy
hip hop beats that were becoming more popular. It's what
we would later call a posse track. Chris Malanfi will
tell you more about this in a little bit. Besides
Yvette and white guys, there are a couple standouts in
this video for me. One a kid who introduces himself
(03:53):
as Bivins's cousin Fruit Punch. He says, yup, my name
means fruit Punch, but I don't get out much, which
is an alarming thing for a child to say. There's
a rap duo called ten ten, two kids who both
look about ten, both with their suspenders on backwards like
Chris Cross was doing at the time, and then about
(04:14):
a third of the way through, the guy that told
me should have been huge, Hayden hiding. He only goes
by his first name, Hayden, a corn fed white guy
with a sport coat over his shoulder, looking every bit
the midwestern fraternity boy. He was one chance meeting away
(04:35):
from becoming Hayden can fucking sing, and with a vet's help,
I got in touch with him. Initially, I'm hoping he'll
be the guy who hooks me up with sudden Impact,
and I still hope that, but once I start talking
to him, I find that I just want to know everything.
He didn't get the fame and fortune he expected when
he got that phone call from Michael Bivins, but he
(04:57):
seems genuinely happy. Maybe what he got was something better.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I was in the East Coast family, so I was
a solo artist signed to bit ten Records.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
When I speak with Hayden over Zoom, he's in his
basement back in Ohio. He looks about the same as
he did in the video. He's unassuming friendly. The music
business is a memory for Hayden now, and probably a
complicated one.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
When my album was due for release, two weeks before
my album was released, the CEO of Motown, Jerald Busby, resigned,
so they put me on hold, and I was kind
of in a holding patterns.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Hayden Haidu grew up
in Akron, Ohio. He was an athlete, a football player,
but one who also liked to sing. And in the
eighties you were supposed to stay in your lane. Mixing
sports with the arts unthinkable. Zac Efron and Corbyn Blue
hadn't even been invented yet. That's a high school musical reference.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I sang in choir my senior year. I did a
play by vi Berdie. But this was before you know,
now you have athletes that want to get into acting
because you know, Disney's really popular, and it's the thing
when I was in high school, like, if you played football,
you didn't like do the acting thing, you know, I
mean you were either an athlete or so. I was
(06:15):
kind of, you know, I was kind of breaking a barrier.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I think Hayden's plan was to go to college, but
he wasn't much of a student and his football career
wasn't enough to get him a scholarship. So he applied
to Ohio University and he sang for them.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I ended up going to OU and was offered a
vocal scholarship. I went down and sang for them because
I didn't have the grades.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
But late that summer, just before he was about to
start his freshman year, Hayden decided to take bold action.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Before I went down, Michael Vivins, the Belvit Devo, was
doing a tour and they were in Ohio and Afron, Ohio,
and that was right when Michael Vivins had founded Boys
to Men, So every time he came off tour in
this hotel, there were thousands of people going to sink form.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, join that East Coast family.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah yeah right. And a buddy of mine called and
he's like, dude, you got to get down here in
sink for him.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When you showed up at that hotel lobby to sing
for Michael Bivens, what did you want? Did you did?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Like, what what did you picture?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I think, honestly, I was I had no I had
no idea. I was so innocent. I wish I could go,
you know, like I knew I could sing, but I
just got up and just sang, you know, And I
didn't I didn't have any you know. My buddy called
me and I just went up there and all these
people were singing, and actually I was just waiting and
(07:37):
I was like the last person to sing for him,
and he just he wrote down my number on like
the little gum wrapper.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know what happened next? Bivins called an Offred Hayden
a record deal. Now you may be asking yourself, how
does Michael Bivins have the cloud to just be tossing
recording contracts out to strangers and share it and hotel lobbies.
It's a good question and we will try to answer
it later in the episode. But Bivin told Hayden, I'll
call you back in two weeks. Write a song. Hayden
(08:03):
had never written a song, but he figured he'd learn.
He actually did go down to Ohio University to start
his freshman year. But put yourself in his shoes. One
of the biggest pop stars on the planet says, he's
going to make you a pop star, and you're going
to focus on Polysi one oh one or whatever. Get
out of here.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I was wet behind the ears. You know. I was
a Midwest kid from Ohio. Who you know. I mean,
I signed my record deal and then I went off
to OU my freshman year, so I didn't even go
to class. You know. I was like, I'm out of here,
you know. I mean, it was not it was not
a good mix for me.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I bet was there money involved at that stage?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well? Yeah, so when I signed, when I signed the deal,
at first, yeah, they gave me a little bit of
money and then I just went to college and he
was like, look, you know, we got to get things
set up and so it was about seven or eight
months in and then I started going out to LA
quite a bit, and it was just too hard for
me to do both. You know. My dad was kind
(09:01):
of like, are you sure you want to do this?
And I was like, I'm out, you know, at eighteen
years old, get to move to LA and kind of
work on an album.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah. And then once the ball started rolling and you
got signed, what were you picturing?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I think in my mind, I thought I was going
to like be a superstar. Honestly, I think I thought like,
and I don't say this in a bragging way because
I'm older now, but but I don't think I realized
maybe the talent that God gave me. And then when
I started working with like real professionals and they were like,
you're You're really good.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
They settled on an image for Hayden. They wanted to
make him like a nineties blue eyed soul man. They
recorded an album, and Bivens kept working on Hayden. If
you know the story of New Edition, you know, these
guys worked their asses off to be the biggest and
the best, and Michael Bivens expected that kind of discipline
from his artists.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
The Big ten label was more. They were really hands on,
right you know Mike. Mike's a different dude. Like, you know,
I would be in an airport and he would be, I, dude,
get on the tart, like, get on the you know,
get up and start singing. He was like old school Motown.
Oh yeah, like embarrassing moments like we did a restaurant.
He'd be like, stand up, start singing and people are like,
(10:12):
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
So wait, so what what does that feel like to
have to do that?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
You're like, you're, well, you don't want to crap your
you don't want to crap your pants because you're you know, yeah,
you're you know, every time you do something, it's like
it's live or die with him. You know, he grew
up with you know, he was from an era where
you know, you worked for everything you you wanted to
make you a real artist. Right, So at the time
you don't know that. You know, at some point you're thinking,
in my am I filling up this guy's ego And
(10:39):
what's the point. What's the point. But then when you
look back, you know, I think he really wanted to
prepare you for you know, you know, I mean new
addition They're one of the hardest work in groups, you know.
You know, they had sixteen hour rehearsals of pain, so
he was all about he really wanted you to become
an artist.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
If you remember, Evet said she loved that Hayden album,
An event does not lie. Hayden's proud of it too.
It's got a cover of Steely Dan's PEG with gospel
group Take six doing the background vocals. They made a
video for the first single, Funhouse, with Hayden kind of
doing a James Dean thing out in the California desert.
Motown was on board. The album was about to drop.
(11:17):
You finish your record, and then then what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Well, I get home to Cleveland and we shoot a
video and it's like we're ready to go, like we're
looking for a promotional tour two three weeks, and then
all of a sudden, Joe, you know, I get a
call Gerald Busby's resigned. You know, obviously Motown's on hold.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
This is a tale as old as time. A big
executive gets excited about you, signs you to a deal,
invests some time and money into you, and then that
executive goes somewhere new maybe they get fired. Maybe they
just get a new job somewhere else. But you can't
follow that executive to where they go because you're under
contract to the place they signed you too. You're obligated
(11:59):
to the play and not the person. And the new
executive comes in, and that new executive has projects that
they're excited to invest some time and money into, and
you're not one of them.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Actually, the album we did was it was a really
good album, but it just it never surfaced because you know,
when Jerald Busby left Motown, there was quite a hiatus
for a while.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I'll say a couple of things here. One, after I
spoke with Hayden, I emailed him to ask whether it's
possible to hear that album anywhere, and as of now,
he hasn't gotten back to me. It might be a
sore spot. I would understand if it were, but I'm
dying to hear that record. And Two, I tried to
track down Jerald Buzzby and he died in two thousand
and eight. But Hayden's album sat on a shelf. It's
(12:41):
nobody's fault. It's just the way it goes. It's actually
the way it goes. A lot.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I don't think anyone goes in and makes an album
and says this is this is going to fail, especially
then because you know at the time, like you know,
Motown Price spent one and a half million dollars on
my album. I honestly believe that if we would have
released that album, it could have been pretty big because
I would have been like he was kind of marketing
(13:06):
me as like the new version of Elvis in a way,
so it was very R and B. But like we
redid Love Me Tender from Elvis, and it was like
it was you know, it was just a there was
nobody in the industry, you know, that was doing what
I was doing. I always tell my wife, he loves
Justin Timberlake. I'm like, he stole, he stole everything from me.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Man, justin Timberlake cannot catch a break this year, can he.
Hayden's debut album is gathering dust. Motown's not releasing it,
and because he's under contract, nobody else can release it.
So Hayden is in a holding pattern. He's in Hollywood,
collecting a stipend, playing golf, starting to drink a little.
Like his album, He's just sitting there waiting, even.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Just trying to find some side projects for me to do.
And at this point, you know, we're becoming like brothers.
We're really tight because we've kind of been through the
war together. And I think in his defense, you know,
he was pushing this Midwest stern white kid and era
where you know, like you know, there was no cross
pollination of like music, and he's trying to figure out
(14:07):
his way and I'm hammering him like, dude, I'm ready
to go. And through all that, I think we're really close.
But you know, it was like it was like almost
it was a year of just you know, I mean,
I got really good at golf, right, I played a
lot of golf. I mean that year of not doing
anything and get twenty five hundred bucks a month is
you know for a twenty year old kid, it's not
(14:28):
bad when you're living at home. Bad, No, not bad.
So yeah, so I was just put on hold. But
I was still trying to, like I really wanted to
because I had gotten the la bug now, right, So
I'm like, now, you know, before it was like I
just want to go sing. But then you know, I've
seen some pockets of fame, and I'm like, you know,
being famous wouldn't be terrible.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Hayden was getting frustrated his college years had passed him by,
his hopes had been raised and then dashed too many times.
Something had to give.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
We did a demo and then we we ended up
doing a couple of other songs outside of what he
was having us to do, and eventually we got to
deal with Columbia. That was out, you know, that was
not a part of Michael Bibbins at all. And that's
when our relationship just it ended. And I've reached out
a few times, but how did you leave it? Well,
so I you know, at the time we had hired
(15:19):
an attorney. He called Mike and it was like breaking
up with your It was like the breakup, you know.
It was like, hey, I'm going to sign with Columbia,
I'm not going to view with fIF ten. And it
was like it was sad, you know. I mean I
cried a little bit after that, but you know, look,
I was I had probably been on hold for you know,
I had put my life in Mike's hands from the
(15:40):
time I was eighteen to now we're talking. It was
probably twenty three. So at some point I got to say,
am I going to continue?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And I didn't. I couldn't really see the forest through
the trees. I had to make a tough decision for
myself and what I thought was best. I kind of
moved on. And you know, my attorney was like, that
was unbelievable. He's like, you two grown men. It just
broke up, like two heterosexual males just broke up.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Now I can't help but notice, as Hayden says this,
that he's not angry. There don't seem to be any lingering,
hard feelings. It may have been a heterosexual breakup, but
as with a vet, it's pretty obvious Hayden still loves
Michael Bivens. The music world turned upside down in nineteen
ninety one as the smooth listen at work sounds of
(16:27):
Top forty radio gave way to alternative and hip hop.
For some more insight on that, I turned to my
friend Chris Malanfy. Now, Chris is a music critic, a
pop chart analyst, the host of the podcast Hit Parade,
But back in ninety one, he was an obsessive just
like me. Who were you nineteen ninety one?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Let's see a pop fan who also cared about hip
hop and alternative music. A writer for my college music magazine,
A guy who read Billboard every week, because that's the
kind of nerd I am. I've been that nerd since
the mid to late eighties, so that's made great.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I love it. And now look at.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
You, yeah and my Bowie T shirt. Fifty years old.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I knew the pop music world that's sudden impact. Evtnicole
Brown and Hayden we're trying to break into really changed
around this time. But I hadn't really thought about how
that all happened until I got a hold of Chris.
It all boils down to a Barcode scanner.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Ninety one is the year. It's the BCAD moment of
chart following because it's the year of sound scan. It's
the year that SoundScan is added to the album chart
in May, the Hot one hundred in November, and it
utterly changes our understanding of how songs and albums become hits.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Billboard Magazine is a music industry trade publication whose album
and singles charts are the gold standard. It's the singles
chart Casey Caseum used for American Top forty. That's how
legit it is, and starting in nineteen ninety one, they
began using Nielsen SoundScan data collected from scanners at record
store cash registers. You bought a record, the person behind
(18:05):
the counter wave the wand thing at it, it went boop.
That information went to Nielsen, who sold it to Billboard,
and that's how they compiled the sales chart, which makes sense.
It makes so much sense you kind of have to
ask what had we been doing.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
We had our Billboard had been phoning and faxing retailers
and radio programmers to ask them, give me your top
thirty records this week or whatever, and then they would
rank them. It wasn't as if the system was devoid
of data, but it was very imprecise and frankly fudgeable data.
Fudgeable is my favorite adjective for it, because it suggests
(18:40):
all sorts of nefariousness without actually coming out and saying it.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Up until this point, the album and singles charts that
I had grown up following were tabulated by like rumor.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
And what it did was it taught us that the
patterns that we had been assuming albums and singles would
follow were basically all wrong. The simple way I like
to say it is albums open like movies. We used
to think that an album would open somewhere in the
middle of the chart and then rise to number one
or number five or whatever. An album's biggest week is
(19:13):
its first week, and we only learned that through SoundScan.
Prior to nineteen ninety one, there'd only ever been six
number one debuts in the history of the album chart
in like forty years. And I can name him off
the top of my head, Please Don't two by Elton John,
one by Stevie Wonder, one by Bruce Springsteen, one by
Whitney Houston, and won by Michael Jackson. And after sound scan,
(19:38):
the first one was by skid Row, right right. Not
to disparage skid Row, they were at the peak of
their popularity, but.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Skien were clearly skid Row if you want, like they
were big for hair metal in nineteen ninety one, but
like they were not even the biggest hair metal band
at the time.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yet they were the first Scouts sound scan, excuse me,
the first act in the sound scan era to debut
at number one on the album chart. They that's a
record nobody can ever take away from them.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
When skid Row debuts at number one with a record
that doesn't even have a single on the radio.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
You know, the culture is changing, and what it's told
you right away is, oh, this is not special anymore.
This is just going to keep happening week after week.
And now if you look at the album chart most weeks,
you know, call it thirty to forty weeks out of
a fifty two week year. The new number one album
is a debut. It's a brand new album because it
(20:32):
opens like a box office hit. It opens like a movie. Right,
Avengers Endgame doesn't open at number ten and rise to
number one. Avengers Endgame starts at number one and then
gradually drifts down.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
That's how albums open to singles charts the top forty.
You know what Casey Casem used to do. They're a
combination of record sales and radio airplay. And in nineteen
ninety one, Nielsen also debuted Broadcast Data Systems, an early
version of Shazam that listened to and report did which
songs radio stations were actually playing. Previously, Billboard had just
(21:04):
had to take the word of record stores and radio stations,
but now they had the real raw data. The big
sound just before the change was adult contemporary Michael Bolton, Wilson, Phillips,
Amy Grant, which just keep her song Baby Baby in
the back of your mind for later in this series.
You might want to go to YouTube and watch the video.
That's all I'm gonna say. It's possible, and I'm not
(21:26):
making accusations here. I'm just saying it's possible that the
middle aged white men who ran radio stations and owned
record stores might maybe have over represented the middle of
the road white adult contemporary artists that they were comfortable with.
Like Chris says, it was fudgeable until it wasn't. The
pop charts had reflected what record stores and radio stations
(21:49):
said people were buying and listening to. In ninety one,
they began to reflect what people were actually buying and
listening to. How then did the pop charts start sounding different?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I mean, you're already you're already seeing hip hop make
a run at the charts prior to sound scan, right,
You've already seen everybody from mc hammer to Vanilla Ice
to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, you know, make
a run. Tone Lok in nineteen eighty nine got a
couple of top three hits. But what changes is that
(22:21):
now it's much more plausible that rap can.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Top the Hot one hundred, the.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Very first this is not a terribly hardcore street rap record,
but the very first number one on the Hot one
hundred the week they flipped the switch towards SoundScan and
BDS is set a drift on Memory Bliss by PM Dawn.
That's a very poppy, catchy, mainstream friendly record, which was
already in the top five before they flipped the switch,
(22:48):
but by the following summer baby got back by Sir
mix a lot. It's hard to picture that record spending
five weeks at number one without sound scan accurately itallying
sales and airplay, and then you know, within a few years,
Tupac is scoring, you know, a number one hit. You know,
Puff Daddy is scoring number one hits. Like all of
(23:09):
that is really you know, Bone Thugs and Harmony score
a number one hit. All of that's kind of unimaginable
before SoundScan. Sound scan makes that plausible.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Like Chris, I was in college that winter when Nirvana's
never Mind went to number one. It was astonishing something
so strange and so seemingly unradio friendly becoming an actual hit.
It was a sea change. I watched it happen, but
it wasn't until just now talking to Chris that I
thought about how it happened.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
So, like, I mean, you know the Nevermind phenomenon, right,
that's unimaginable without sound scan. That's more on the album
chart than the singles chart. Although Smells like teen Spirit
is a top ten hit, it goes to number six.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Just breaking in here really quickly to tell you, I
could talk to Chris malanfe about what songs peaked at
what position on the chart all day long, and for
all of the terrible things the Internet that has done,
I am so glad it has facilitated this conversation.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
But get this, but that fabled moment that everybody talks
about where Nevermind knocks out Michael Jackson's dangerous that is
entirely due to SoundScan. I actually did a whole Hip
Parade episode about this moment, because it's actually a widely
understood moment. According to Billboard's chart dating system, it happened
two weeks into January nineteen ninety two. The honest truth
(24:25):
is that because there's a lag between when Billboard collects
its data and when they date their charts, what really
happened is that basically all of the teenagers who got
Dangerous or some other album for Christmas went to the
record store and either returned it or used their gift
cards to buy never Mind. Because the data that was
collected the week that never Mind went to number one
was all collected basically like Boxing Day through New Year's
(24:47):
So basically that week that all the kids are home
from school, they at voting with their dollars.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Teenage rebellion by way of gift card. I love it.
But what we were learning was that the young people
with disposable income who buy records and drive trends and
dictate what gets played on the radio, we're going for
something harder and heavier than what Hayden and Sudden Impact
slash white guys. We're trying to make the market for
a blue eyed soul singer or a boy band who
looks a little like New Kids on the Block was
(25:16):
less friendly than it seened just a few months before.
But let's talk about Michael Bivens and how he found
himself in the position to sign all these acts. Bivin's
story as a performer begins years before this with new addition,
but his time as a record mobile begins in the
spring of nineteen ninety with one song. Do you remember
(25:40):
hearing the song Poison for the first time. This would
have been at the end of our freshman year.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I probably was working a shift at my campus job,
which was the Durfy Sweet Shop at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut,
and I'm pretty sure that that's where I heard Poison
for the first time. And that record is just catch
as hell and it leaps out of the speakers like
a rap record.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Poison sounded like nothing that had been played on Top
forty radio before. Bell Bivdevou described their sound as.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Mentally hip hop smoothed out on the R and B
tip with a pop feel appealed to it.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
It's a mouthful, but it's accurate. And then after Poison,
do Me, a song so filthy you couldn't believe you
were hearing it on the radio in the daytime.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
And the fact that Doomy came right after, and Doomy
was just as huge, and there was I remember, you know,
I was already a Billboard reader in college, and there
were radio programmers kind of fretting a little bit about
do Me, because like, can we play this record during
you know, sort of the homework hour, The hour when
(26:50):
the really young kids are listening, you know, like do
they know what?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
You know?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Is he doing her hair? I remember this quote in
a Billboard story of like a radio like, you know,
I'm playing the regular version and we haven't done anything
to it because they don't actually curse in it. But
it's pretty filthy, you know, and yet they were playing it,
you know.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
But it was that kind of PG thirteen content, that
hip hop inflected production, that mixture of pop and R
and B that mentally.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Hip hop smoothed out on the R and b's hit
when a Pop Fail Appeal.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, that that made Motown take notice.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I think that Michael Bivens. But the reason he got
away with, you know, playing with house money as it were,
was that a he had had an enormous hit, and
b he had he was helping the labels solve a
problem they were having.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
My most recent episode of Hip Parade, the one that
just came out a couple weeks ago, was about Millie Vanilly,
And one of the arguments I make about Milli Vanilly
was that whether you know, fraudulent as they were, they
were important to the hybridization of rap and pop on
top forty Radio in nineteen eighty nine and ninety They
actually even appeared on Billboard's first hot rap single, art
(28:00):
like That. That's a little remembered fact between like Kid
and Play and rob Bas and DJ Easy Rock Like,
they had enough cred for at least a single or
two to appear on the rap single stret And what
the problem that Bell biv Devou were solving by ninety
was that they were much more authentic sounding. Yet they
came out of what was previously a boy band. So
(28:21):
they had pop, but they had hip hop street cred,
and they they you know, nobody was accusing Bell biv
Devot of being phony, not many anyway, and and so
it sounded authentically hip hop, and yet it was smooth
like pop. And so if I'm a record executive in
ninety ninety one, I'm like, if Michael Bivens wants to
(28:42):
start shepherding other acts and get me another Bel Bivdavot, Like,
I'm all ears.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
You know a thing I really should have known is
that somewhere in New Haven, Connecticut, a twenty year old
Chrisma Lanfe was watching that Motown Philly video and clocking
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I was and and what's funny about Motown f Philly
when when Boys to Men show up? I remember being
slightly cynical about Boys to Men, even though I love
to Motown Philly the song because I'm like, this video
is just one long branding exercise and.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It's it's their first single, and it mentions other artists.
It mentions ABC and BBD, which is like, it's it's
big of them. Yeah, you know, include other like promos
for other artists in their debut single.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I guess, or it's or it's the price of fame,
you know, the ticket for entry, right is that Michael
Bivens says, I'll record you guys, but you got to
promote my other acts while you're there.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah. And then in the video, as we're getting our
family portraits taken old timey style with the cape and
the the thing that you hold, we meet five young
men and five white shirts and five neckties called Sudden Impact,
and that's the first and last time we see them, right, right,
(30:00):
do you remember that moment? Like, do you remember seeing it?
Do you remember it? In real time?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
All I remember about it, if I'm being honest, to
reiterate something I said a little while ago. Is this
added to my cynicism because okay, correct me if I'm wrong.
By the time Motown Philly hit or dropped, another bad
creation had at least had a hit or two playground
in Aisha Aisha. I think Ayisha was first. Aa was Yeah, yeah,
(30:29):
and they were both top ten hits, So like, okay,
at least they're promoting an act that's actually had a
couple hits in BBD the prior year had been huge.
But like, I'm watching this, you know, Michael Bibvens brand extension,
and I'm sort of like, well, this is a little cheesy,
you know, like he's already promoting an act that doesn't
exist yet. I remembered thinking, like, you know, fair play
(30:52):
to Michael Bibvens, but this is really cheesy, you know, like,
don't hate the player, hate the game.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Except that phrase didn't exist in nineteen ninety one. Glad
we should have invented it. Yeah, I know. It is
an introduction to the Michael Bivens extended cinematic.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Universe, right, another thing that didn't exist in nineteen ninety one,
But that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, let's talk about Chris for a minute. He's taken
his obsessions and made a career out of them, and
so have I. But neither of those careers even existed
when we were twenty. Chris in nineteen ninety one, where
did you see yourself at fifty?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Do you have a clear idea of where you wanted
to go?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I mean, the reason I can't answer this from the
vantage point of nineteen ninety one. I've often said this
is that a lot of things had to be invented
for me to have this particular career. Like, right through
the nineties, I was writing record reviews for CMJ, making
beer money to do that, while I had a a
completely separate day job. But like blogging had to be invented,
(31:52):
podcasts had to be invented, The whole ecosystem of online
journalism had to be invented. And then I discovered, Oh so, actually,
if you write about your nerdy obsession, your nerdy passion
about the charts and dissect them and you know, write
like a critic but analyze the charts, people will want
to read that. But that didn't really catch on until
the late aughts and tends. So, yeah, are you happy?
(32:16):
I mean, I'm real happy with how this whole thing's going. Yeah,
like I said, my brainstorm, My one brainstorm was I
realized that there were critics who didn't really understand how
the charts worked, and there were chart analysts who didn't
write like critics. And so if you could blend the two,
write like a critic but understand how the charts work,
(32:39):
just because out of my own passion I've been following
the charts since the early to mid eighties, that could
be something. And yeah, and so what's great is that,
you know, when folks like you want somebody to talk
at a minutiaal level, like you and I just had
about how the charts function, but then placing it in
a cultural context, folks generally come to me, which is great.
(33:00):
I love playing that role.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So there's today's lesson kids. That thing you love more
than anything, that thing you know more about than anyone,
keep exploring it, keep learning about it. There's a perfect
job for you out there. You're just gonna have to
invent it. But back in the nineties, especially if you
wanted to be a pop star, you needed other people's help.
Powerful people could make you and they could break you.
(33:34):
When we left Hayden, he had just broken up with
Michael Bivens and biv ten Records. After years of waiting
for his moment, he got a new manager and became
a part of a new group.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
He ran into three guys from New Jersey who were
looking for a lead singer, and we ended up linking up.
We got together, we made a demo, and we ended
up leaving Michael Bivens, which I think to this day,
you know him and I had it since then, so
it was it was you know him and I was.
It was almost like a divorce. But that group was
(34:05):
called Signature.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Signature is of course spelled as yg NA t U
r E. I don't know what was going on in
the nineties with the creative spellings, but Signature's manager was
about to become a big deal in his own right
thanks to a daughter who you might have heard of.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Beyonce's dad. Matthews was our manager.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah you heard him, Yeah, Beyonce's dad. And it's nineteen
ninety eight, Destiny's Child is taking off and those Signature
had begun as a vocal group in the style of
the sexy R and B groups of the time like
Jo Deasy and Drew Hill. Matthew Knowles noticed a change
in the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
When Destiny's Child at the time went on tour with
Back three Boys.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
He really changed the direction, right.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah, he saw how good Back three Boys did, and
I think he saw dollar sign that he kind of
changed the direction of kind of what we were doing.
So we were really more of a real R and
B group. So we actually were signed to the Urban
Division of Columbia REQ. So it was right around there,
you know, Carson Daily TRL. I mean we So our
first tour was we were the opening act for Christina Aguilera.
(35:08):
It was Christina Aguilera Destiny Shout. There was another group.
We were like the pre opening act.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Right, Just gonna interject here real quick and tell you
the other group was sole decision. This story just got
so nineteen ninety nine. My tips frosted themselves.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
We didn't ride it toward us, but we were really
close with Destiny's Child. We really we wrote the coattails
of their success because Fiata's dad was our manager. So
we were doing a mall tour and we were doing
like we were doing a teen people mall tour with them,
and then we were doing like outdoor arenas and then
we went overseas to London and Ireland and did some
(35:43):
stuff over there.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
But this chapter in Hayden's career was the same as
the last, more waiting for the record label to push
the album, more trying to get his manager's attention, while
someone else became a superstar of it. This time it
was Beyonce. When Hayden sang for Michael Bivens in that
hotel lobby, he was a now he was twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
We were on tour, we were doing we were singing
with Deptony's Child. You know, we had done this tour,
we had gone to Europe, we had come back, our
album still wasn't being released. I had noticed what I
would say is some shady stuff from Matthew Knowles. I
was seeing some things that I was like, you know,
I don't like not taking money from us because we
weren't making money, but like, what's going on? And you know,
(36:23):
I ended up approaching it. First. I talked to the
guys in the group and said, listen, I'm I'm I'm done.
Like this is two years the album's not released, Like
what are they doing with us? And I said, look,
here's the deal. I'm I'm, I'm going solo, like I'm
going to go do my solo thing. I've talked to
our attorney. He's like, hey, then I got five record
labels that will sign you tomorrow. Ready, you know. And
(36:44):
I said, guys, the minute I make it, I'll put
you on. So I approached Matthew. That conversation did not
go well. It wasn't life the Michael business thing. It
just wasn't in a good conversation. I got on a plane,
I flew home. I was set to go to New
York like the following weekend, and my attorney called and
was like, dude, you're bunny like. Nobody's going to meet
(37:06):
with you like you. There's there's some really bad rumors
about you.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And Matthew Knowles had a lot of power at this
moment in time, with Destiny's Child blowing up, he had
proven he could make you or break you. Just ask
LaToya Luckett or Farah Franklin or Latavio Robertson, and those
are the people he kicked out of Destiny's Child that
we know about. We can't say for sure whether it
was Matthew who started those rumors, but we can say
(37:31):
they worked. Can I take it back? To that call
with your lawyer where when he said, you know, nobody
wants to take a meeting? What what did that feel?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Like?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Awful? Like everything? I mean it was. It was awful.
It was terrible because that's that had been, that had
become my identity, right. I mean I went from like,
you know, I was like I lived in a small
little community in between Akron and Cleveland, and Cleveland's not
that big. When I came back from fifth ten, man,
(38:01):
I mean I was like the shit, you know, like
he had made it. Not many guys, you know, Lebron
James made it, you know what I mean, James Ingram
made it, but like nobody from my era, you know
what I mean, Like I had made it. Like I
had credibility with the urban crowd, with the you know,
and I mean so yeah, man, my pride and ego,
you know, that's what it was devastating. You know. Even
(38:23):
my friends are like, dude, do you need to talk
to someone? And I'm like, I'm good, But deep down,
you know, it was like.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It wasn't good. Hayden was nearly ten years into his
music career and he was out of options. He stayed
in Ohio. He got a job selling used cars.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I went through like a you know, I mean, I
went from playing even though you're the opening act right
playing an Arenas to like I had to go sell
cars and I live in a community where they're.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Like, dude, what happened?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
And I just I would act like nothing was wrong.
But it got it got pretty bad to me, so
I ended up. You know, I started drinking a ton,
just fell into like a really bad like drinking depression.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Things go sideways in a million different ways for everyone.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yep, no matter what it is absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
That you set out to do in life, you know,
jobs go away and plans change, there is a special
kind of I don't know if shame is the word
that the world makes you feel. If your plan was
an artistic one. There is something about, you know, going
back to that hometown after going to the big city
(39:28):
to make your dream happen and having it not pan
out the way that you had planned that can make
you feel a different kind of way.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Well yeah, I mean, you know, shame is Shame's pretty dangerous, right, Like,
you know, you have guilt and shame, right, and you
know you're guilty because you did something wrong, right, But
shame is like the penance that you give yourself for
doing something. So you know, people don't jump off bridges
because they're guilty. They jump off bridges because they're filled
with shame, and shame is like, you know, and that's
(39:59):
I think you're exactly right. I think most of my friends,
if I ask them, what are you really passionate about,
they would say the Cleveland Browns, And I am too right.
But it's not the same when you're passionate about something
artistic people who are like working to you know, I mean,
think about how many people you know who are like
playing in bars and doing local things just because they
(40:21):
love to sing, and they would not trade that for
the world, because it, like it stirs up emotions inside
of you, it feeds your soul. But most people either
have something, but they never want to take the chance,
or they've never even opened up the door the opportunity
to figure out what they're passionate about. So that small
(40:42):
group of people, it's hard. It's hard to go from
like doing that to getting a regular and not that
that's I don't want to say regular, but you know,
I yeah, Like that's why you see so many fame
like sports stars when they retire, they get super depressed,
(41:04):
like I didn't want to do I wasn't built to
be a regular person. There's a lot of shame when
you're artistic and you fail, because it's also like, if
you fail at your job, most of the time, you
didn't create that product. You're selling someone else's product. When
you're an artist, right, or you're a writer, that's your product,
(41:24):
that's you. They're not. So you feel like you're not
only rejecting my I'm in sales now, right, I'm in
sales for a living. It's a company, says, we don't
you know I'm in I'm in a consultant for a
technology company. If they don't like our backup recovery service,
I don't hang up the phone and go, God, why
don't they like that? I'm like yeah, but if they
(41:46):
don't like your song, You're like, wait, why no, no, no,
why don't What don't you like about it?
Speaker 1 (41:53):
You said something that that I want to like push
back on a little bit. You said, you know when
when you when you you know, so go for your
dreams and you fail, a certain thing happens. Do you
think that you've failed?
Speaker 2 (42:04):
No? I don't think that failed. No, I think I
was thrown a curveball or it, just like sometimes I
think it's things just are meant to go, you know,
the way that what our expectations are, you know, expectations
are resentments waiting to happen, right, And you can put
(42:26):
expectations on things. And I think what my expectations were
from when I started to when it ended were very different.
But I don't think it was a failure because I think,
you know, I think that's failure is a strong word.
So I think you're right. I don't think it was
a failure. It just didn't end the way that I
probably envisioned in the beginning. Right, But where I am
(42:47):
now was nowhere where I envisioned. You know, I'm sure
it's the same for you, right, Like what you're doing
now is not at all what you thought you'd be
doing at twenty one.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Sure, right, Yeah, I'm I'm not as rich as I
would like to do, right, But I'm happier than I
thought I did.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Well, yeah, and if you were, Yeah, And happiness has
nothing to do with like how much money you have.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
No, not at all, not at all, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I mean it's nice, you know, like not having to
worry about paying the bill. Ever, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I'm sure that would be lovely, but.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
I would spend it on some crap I didn't need anyway.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I don't think Hayden failed. I don't think Hayden thinks
Hayden failed. And yet as we talk, I keep trying
to figure out how it could still happen for Hayden.
I'm trained to think in those terms, even as we
talk about how small minded it is to think in
those terms. You know, I want to fix it, but
I can't fix it because it's not broken.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I've had some opportunities, Dave, I've pat you know. I
had the executive producer of the Voice called me and say, hey,
you know, I became friends with a guy named Jeremy
Spun who is pretty high up with the show, The Voice,
and he's reached out to me and I sent him
a couple of videos of me singing, and the executive
producer of the Voice was like, hey, you can get
(43:59):
through all the roundings. We'll push you into the TV
round if you want to do it. And I just
I just have no desire, Like it's just I'm just
like I just have really embraced like, you know, first
of all, when you sign that contract, you sign a
contract like you're obligated to them right for a certain
amount of time, And I just I wouldn't do that
to my kids.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Hayden doesn't have the music career he thought he would have.
What he has instead is a life.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I'm coming up to almost eleven years of being sober
at the end of this month. So I think through
all of that and seeing what I have now and
just by the grace of God being sober. I think
for some of it, it's like for me, I look
back and go, you know, I don't know, like I
might not have made it through being an artist. I
(44:45):
don't think I ever wanted the risk going back and
doing that because when you really have sobriety, like nothing
really comes in front of that because you know how
bad it was before. So it's like, I think all
of this was kind of a precursor to where I
am today, and like, you know, having a life and
being over and all of those things, I think has
been much more rewarding than like having a little bit
of fame or something else and then being blessed with
(45:07):
four kids who you know, luckily they've never really seen
their dad like as a drunk. You know, I always
felt like I was. I sort of thought I could
like make a difference, right, And the only way I
thought I could make a difference was by like being
this singer and selling out concerts and being known for that.
(45:28):
And what I've realized through all that is, you know,
I can share my story, my hopes and my share
my story with people, and I can be a difference
that way.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Hayden II do. He survived nearly being famous, he survived
the shame of coming home. He's made his impact, and
he's happy. And that's good because it's impossible not to
root for the guy. In the meantime, I've done a
little more digging on Sudden Impact. I have found one
article about them, and it's not even an article. It's
a stub of an article from a local Virginia newspaper's
(45:59):
web site. It came up in a Google search, and
in the one line that I can read, they mention
a Todd and Noel, but only one full name, Aaron kin.
So I searched for Aaron Kine Sudden Impact, and that
is the guy for sure. That's the guy in the middle,
the guy with the clip on Bowtie who looks like
he's late for his shift at Buca di Beppo. He's
(46:20):
still making music. He's got a YouTube channel, and he's
on Facebook and he's friends with Hayden. So I asked
Hayden to put in a good word for me, and
he says he will. Folks, we are one step closer
to the inside of Sudden Impact. It's happening. We'll see
how we do next time. On Waiting for Impact, a
(46:42):
Dave Holmes passion project. This has been an Exactly Right
production written by me Dave Holmes, produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded,
mixed and sound designed by and Epen. Additional engineering and
assembly by Analise Nelson, Music by Ben Wise, artwork by
(47:08):
Garrett Ross. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark
and Danielle Kramer. Follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and
Twitter at exactly Right and follow me at Dave Holmes.
For more information, go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com. Binge The
show add free on Stitcher Premium for a free month.
(47:30):
Head to Stitcherpremium dot com slash Impact and enter promo
code Impact when you select a monthly plan, listen, subscribe,
and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Let's talk for a minute about Akron, Ohio. It's a
historical site for pop and rock music. It turns out
it's where the Black Keys met and Devo. It's Chrissy
hines hometown, the city she wrote my City was Gone about.
And then that song became the theme for the Rush
Lim Boss Show, and that makes me feel bad. And
somewhere in that city there's a Sheraton hotel lobby that,
(00:25):
for a brief moment in nineteen ninety one, was a
magic portal. You walked into that lobby and if you
sang for the right person in the right way, you
walked out with a life that was changed forever. If
that Nicole Brown sang a song called go Outside in
the Rain for Michael Bivens in that hotel and her
life changed course. And that same night, in that same place,
(00:46):
a young guy who was about to start his freshman
year at Ohio University tried the same thing.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
I sang for him in a hotel lobby at like
two in the morning, and he called me the next
day and he was like, going off for your record deal. Whatever.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
Hayden hi Do was eighteen, a jock with a voice
big enough to fill a Sheriton Hotel Atrium. He sang
for Michael Bivens, and his life took a detour, one
that went right through the East Coast family, one that
lasted about a decade, one that involves Beyonce. He's gonna
tell us about it right now on Waiting for Impact,
(01:22):
a Dave Holmes passion project. While Hayden Hid's life was changing,
(01:45):
so was the rest of popular music. Later in the show,
We're gonna go deep on the pop charts of nineteen
ninety one and why that was the year that changed
everything about what got played on the radio with one
of my favorite writers, Chris Malanfi. You're gonna learn something
really interesting about the week that changed pop music forever,
the week Nirvana's never Mind took the number one spot
(02:06):
away from Michael Jackson's Dangerous. But here's what we've learned
so far about Sudden Impact. We know Sudden Impact was
one of the first artists to join Michael Bivins East
Coast family. We know he got them signed to Motown.
We know Bivins was so enthusiastic about them, so certain
they would succeed like Boys to Men ABC BBD, that
he put them in the music video for Motown Philly.
(02:28):
We know Motown Philly was inescapable in nineteen ninety one.
The three big places you could watch music videos back then, MTV,
VH one, and b ET played it all day long.
We know that after Motown Philly, Sudden Impact changed their
name to White Guys Whytgize, but we don't know why.
(02:49):
We know that, in the wake of Boys to Men's
success in nineteen ninety one, Bivins began expanding the East
Coast Family. He signed rappers, vocal groups, singers, and we
know that one of those singers is someone we now
know as a vet, Nicole Brown, who joined the East
Coast Family after angrily singing and Michael Bivins in that
same magical Sheriton lobby. And we know that in nineteen
(03:10):
ninety two Bivins gathered all his protegees together to record
a single and video called One for All four one.
They did a whole album, actually, East Coast Family, Volume one,
one four All four to one. The song and the
video are pure nineteen ninety two sac The raps mostly
ciggity sound like viggety this because that's what rappers did
(03:32):
that year. It combines elements of the new Jack swing
sound that was hot at the time with the heavy
hip hop beats that were becoming more popular. It's what
we would later call a posse track. Chris Malanfi will
tell you more about this in a little bit. Besides
Yvette and white guys, there are a couple standouts in
this video for me. One a kid who introduces himself
(03:53):
as Bivins's cousin Fruit Punch. He says, yup, my name
means fruit Punch, but I don't get out much, which
is an alarming thing for a child to say. There's
a rap duo called ten ten, two kids who both
look about ten, both with their suspenders on backwards like
Chris Cross was doing at the time, and then about
(04:14):
a third of the way through, the guy that told
me should have been huge, Hayden hiding. He only goes
by his first name, Hayden, a corn fed white guy
with a sport coat over his shoulder, looking every bit
the midwestern fraternity boy. He was one chance meeting away
(04:35):
from becoming Hayden can fucking sing, and with a vet's help,
I got in touch with him. Initially, I'm hoping he'll
be the guy who hooks me up with sudden Impact,
and I still hope that, but once I start talking
to him, I find that I just want to know everything.
He didn't get the fame and fortune he expected when
he got that phone call from Michael Bivins, but he
(04:57):
seems genuinely happy. Maybe what he got was something better.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
I was in the East Coast family, so I was
a solo artist signed to bit ten Records.
Speaker 1 (05:07):
When I speak with Hayden over Zoom, he's in his
basement back in Ohio. He looks about the same as
he did in the video. He's unassuming friendly. The music
business is a memory for Hayden now, and probably a
complicated one.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
When my album was due for release, two weeks before
my album was released, the CEO of Motown, Jerald Busby, resigned,
so they put me on hold, and I was kind
of in a holding patterns.
Speaker 1 (05:34):
But we're getting ahead of ourselves. Hayden Haidu grew up
in Akron, Ohio. He was an athlete, a football player,
but one who also liked to sing. And in the
eighties you were supposed to stay in your lane. Mixing
sports with the arts unthinkable. Zac Efron and Corbyn Blue
hadn't even been invented yet. That's a high school musical reference.
Speaker 2 (05:55):
I sang in choir my senior year. I did a
play by vi Berdie. But this was before you know,
now you have athletes that want to get into acting
because you know, Disney's really popular, and it's the thing
when I was in high school, like, if you played football,
you didn't like do the acting thing, you know, I
mean you were either an athlete or so. I was
(06:15):
kind of, you know, I was kind of breaking a barrier.
Speaker 1 (06:17):
I think Hayden's plan was to go to college, but
he wasn't much of a student and his football career
wasn't enough to get him a scholarship. So he applied
to Ohio University and he sang for them.
Speaker 2 (06:28):
I ended up going to OU and was offered a
vocal scholarship. I went down and sang for them because
I didn't have the grades.
Speaker 1 (06:36):
But late that summer, just before he was about to
start his freshman year, Hayden decided to take bold action.
Speaker 2 (06:42):
Before I went down, Michael Vivins, the Belvit Devo, was
doing a tour and they were in Ohio and Afron, Ohio,
and that was right when Michael Vivins had founded Boys
to Men, So every time he came off tour in
this hotel, there were thousands of people going to sink form.
Speaker 1 (07:01):
Yeah, join that East Coast family.
Speaker 2 (07:02):
Yeah yeah right. And a buddy of mine called and
he's like, dude, you got to get down here in
sink for him.
Speaker 1 (07:07):
When you showed up at that hotel lobby to sing
for Michael Bivens, what did you want? Did you did?
Speaker 2 (07:13):
You know?
Speaker 1 (07:14):
Like, what what did you picture?
Speaker 2 (07:15):
I think, honestly, I was I had no I had
no idea. I was so innocent. I wish I could go,
you know, like I knew I could sing, but I
just got up and just sang, you know, And I
didn't I didn't have any you know. My buddy called
me and I just went up there and all these
people were singing, and actually I was just waiting and
(07:37):
I was like the last person to sing for him,
and he just he wrote down my number on like
the little gum wrapper.
Speaker 1 (07:43):
You know what happened next? Bivins called an Offred Hayden
a record deal. Now you may be asking yourself, how
does Michael Bivins have the cloud to just be tossing
recording contracts out to strangers and share it and hotel lobbies.
It's a good question and we will try to answer
it later in the episode. But Bivin told Hayden, I'll
call you back in two weeks. Write a song. Hayden
(08:03):
had never written a song, but he figured he'd learn.
He actually did go down to Ohio University to start
his freshman year. But put yourself in his shoes. One
of the biggest pop stars on the planet says, he's
going to make you a pop star, and you're going
to focus on Polysi one oh one or whatever. Get
out of here.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
I was wet behind the ears. You know. I was
a Midwest kid from Ohio. Who you know. I mean,
I signed my record deal and then I went off
to OU my freshman year, so I didn't even go
to class. You know. I was like, I'm out of here,
you know. I mean, it was not it was not
a good mix for me.
Speaker 1 (08:37):
I bet was there money involved at that stage?
Speaker 2 (08:40):
Well? Yeah, so when I signed, when I signed the deal,
at first, yeah, they gave me a little bit of
money and then I just went to college and he
was like, look, you know, we got to get things
set up and so it was about seven or eight
months in and then I started going out to LA
quite a bit, and it was just too hard for
me to do both. You know. My dad was kind
(09:01):
of like, are you sure you want to do this?
And I was like, I'm out, you know, at eighteen
years old, get to move to LA and kind of
work on an album.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
Yeah. And then once the ball started rolling and you
got signed, what were you picturing?
Speaker 2 (09:15):
I think in my mind, I thought I was going
to like be a superstar. Honestly, I think I thought like,
and I don't say this in a bragging way because
I'm older now, but but I don't think I realized
maybe the talent that God gave me. And then when
I started working with like real professionals and they were like,
you're You're really good.
Speaker 1 (09:33):
They settled on an image for Hayden. They wanted to
make him like a nineties blue eyed soul man. They
recorded an album, and Bivens kept working on Hayden. If
you know the story of New Edition, you know, these
guys worked their asses off to be the biggest and
the best, and Michael Bivens expected that kind of discipline
from his artists.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
The Big ten label was more. They were really hands on,
right you know Mike. Mike's a different dude. Like, you know,
I would be in an airport and he would be, I, dude,
get on the tart, like, get on the you know,
get up and start singing. He was like old school Motown.
Oh yeah, like embarrassing moments like we did a restaurant.
He'd be like, stand up, start singing and people are like,
(10:12):
what are you doing?
Speaker 1 (10:13):
So wait, so what what does that feel like to
have to do that?
Speaker 2 (10:16):
You're like, you're, well, you don't want to crap your
you don't want to crap your pants because you're you know, yeah,
you're you know, every time you do something, it's like
it's live or die with him. You know, he grew
up with you know, he was from an era where
you know, you worked for everything you you wanted to
make you a real artist. Right, So at the time
you don't know that. You know, at some point you're thinking,
in my am I filling up this guy's ego And
(10:39):
what's the point. What's the point. But then when you
look back, you know, I think he really wanted to
prepare you for you know, you know, I mean new
addition They're one of the hardest work in groups, you know.
You know, they had sixteen hour rehearsals of pain, so
he was all about he really wanted you to become
an artist.
Speaker 1 (10:54):
If you remember, Evet said she loved that Hayden album,
An event does not lie. Hayden's proud of it too.
It's got a cover of Steely Dan's PEG with gospel
group Take six doing the background vocals. They made a
video for the first single, Funhouse, with Hayden kind of
doing a James Dean thing out in the California desert.
Motown was on board. The album was about to drop.
(11:17):
You finish your record, and then then what happens.
Speaker 2 (11:21):
Well, I get home to Cleveland and we shoot a
video and it's like we're ready to go, like we're
looking for a promotional tour two three weeks, and then
all of a sudden, Joe, you know, I get a
call Gerald Busby's resigned. You know, obviously Motown's on hold.
Speaker 1 (11:38):
This is a tale as old as time. A big
executive gets excited about you, signs you to a deal,
invests some time and money into you, and then that
executive goes somewhere new maybe they get fired. Maybe they
just get a new job somewhere else. But you can't
follow that executive to where they go because you're under
contract to the place they signed you too. You're obligated
(11:59):
to the play and not the person. And the new
executive comes in, and that new executive has projects that
they're excited to invest some time and money into, and
you're not one of them.
Speaker 2 (12:09):
Actually, the album we did was it was a really
good album, but it just it never surfaced because you know,
when Jerald Busby left Motown, there was quite a hiatus
for a while.
Speaker 1 (12:18):
I'll say a couple of things here. One, after I
spoke with Hayden, I emailed him to ask whether it's
possible to hear that album anywhere, and as of now,
he hasn't gotten back to me. It might be a
sore spot. I would understand if it were, but I'm
dying to hear that record. And Two, I tried to
track down Jerald Buzzby and he died in two thousand
and eight. But Hayden's album sat on a shelf. It's
(12:41):
nobody's fault. It's just the way it goes. It's actually
the way it goes. A lot.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
I don't think anyone goes in and makes an album
and says this is this is going to fail, especially
then because you know at the time, like you know,
Motown Price spent one and a half million dollars on
my album. I honestly believe that if we would have
released that album, it could have been pretty big because
I would have been like he was kind of marketing
(13:06):
me as like the new version of Elvis in a way,
so it was very R and B. But like we
redid Love Me Tender from Elvis, and it was like
it was you know, it was just a there was
nobody in the industry, you know, that was doing what
I was doing. I always tell my wife, he loves
Justin Timberlake. I'm like, he stole, he stole everything from me.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Man, justin Timberlake cannot catch a break this year, can he.
Hayden's debut album is gathering dust. Motown's not releasing it,
and because he's under contract, nobody else can release it.
So Hayden is in a holding pattern. He's in Hollywood,
collecting a stipend, playing golf, starting to drink a little.
Like his album, He's just sitting there waiting, even.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Just trying to find some side projects for me to do.
And at this point, you know, we're becoming like brothers.
We're really tight because we've kind of been through the
war together. And I think in his defense, you know,
he was pushing this Midwest stern white kid and era
where you know, like you know, there was no cross
pollination of like music, and he's trying to figure out
(14:07):
his way and I'm hammering him like, dude, I'm ready
to go. And through all that, I think we're really close.
But you know, it was like it was like almost
it was a year of just you know, I mean,
I got really good at golf, right, I played a
lot of golf. I mean that year of not doing
anything and get twenty five hundred bucks a month is
you know for a twenty year old kid, it's not
(14:28):
bad when you're living at home. Bad, No, not bad.
So yeah, so I was just put on hold. But
I was still trying to, like I really wanted to
because I had gotten the la bug now, right, So
I'm like, now, you know, before it was like I
just want to go sing. But then you know, I've
seen some pockets of fame, and I'm like, you know,
being famous wouldn't be terrible.
Speaker 1 (14:47):
Hayden was getting frustrated his college years had passed him by,
his hopes had been raised and then dashed too many times.
Something had to give.
Speaker 2 (14:57):
We did a demo and then we we ended up
doing a couple of other songs outside of what he
was having us to do, and eventually we got to
deal with Columbia. That was out, you know, that was
not a part of Michael Bibbins at all. And that's
when our relationship just it ended. And I've reached out
a few times, but how did you leave it? Well,
so I you know, at the time we had hired
(15:19):
an attorney. He called Mike and it was like breaking
up with your It was like the breakup, you know.
It was like, hey, I'm going to sign with Columbia,
I'm not going to view with fIF ten. And it
was like it was sad, you know. I mean I
cried a little bit after that, but you know, look,
I was I had probably been on hold for you know,
I had put my life in Mike's hands from the
(15:40):
time I was eighteen to now we're talking. It was
probably twenty three. So at some point I got to say,
am I going to continue?
Speaker 1 (15:48):
You know?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
And I didn't. I couldn't really see the forest through
the trees. I had to make a tough decision for
myself and what I thought was best. I kind of
moved on. And you know, my attorney was like, that
was unbelievable. He's like, you two grown men. It just
broke up, like two heterosexual males just broke up.
Speaker 1 (16:06):
Now I can't help but notice, as Hayden says this,
that he's not angry. There don't seem to be any lingering,
hard feelings. It may have been a heterosexual breakup, but
as with a vet, it's pretty obvious Hayden still loves
Michael Bivens. The music world turned upside down in nineteen
ninety one as the smooth listen at work sounds of
(16:27):
Top forty radio gave way to alternative and hip hop.
For some more insight on that, I turned to my
friend Chris Malanfy. Now, Chris is a music critic, a
pop chart analyst, the host of the podcast Hit Parade,
But back in ninety one, he was an obsessive just
like me. Who were you nineteen ninety one?
Speaker 3 (16:46):
Let's see a pop fan who also cared about hip
hop and alternative music. A writer for my college music magazine,
A guy who read Billboard every week, because that's the
kind of nerd I am. I've been that nerd since
the mid to late eighties, so that's made great.
Speaker 1 (17:06):
I love it. And now look at.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
You, yeah and my Bowie T shirt. Fifty years old.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
I knew the pop music world that's sudden impact. Evtnicole
Brown and Hayden we're trying to break into really changed
around this time. But I hadn't really thought about how
that all happened until I got a hold of Chris.
It all boils down to a Barcode scanner.
Speaker 3 (17:28):
Ninety one is the year. It's the BCAD moment of
chart following because it's the year of sound scan. It's
the year that SoundScan is added to the album chart
in May, the Hot one hundred in November, and it
utterly changes our understanding of how songs and albums become hits.
Speaker 1 (17:43):
Billboard Magazine is a music industry trade publication whose album
and singles charts are the gold standard. It's the singles
chart Casey Caseum used for American Top forty. That's how
legit it is, and starting in nineteen ninety one, they
began using Nielsen SoundScan data collected from scanners at record
store cash registers. You bought a record, the person behind
(18:05):
the counter wave the wand thing at it, it went boop.
That information went to Nielsen, who sold it to Billboard,
and that's how they compiled the sales chart, which makes sense.
It makes so much sense you kind of have to
ask what had we been doing.
Speaker 3 (18:19):
We had our Billboard had been phoning and faxing retailers
and radio programmers to ask them, give me your top
thirty records this week or whatever, and then they would
rank them. It wasn't as if the system was devoid
of data, but it was very imprecise and frankly fudgeable data.
Fudgeable is my favorite adjective for it, because it suggests
(18:40):
all sorts of nefariousness without actually coming out and saying it.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
So.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
Up until this point, the album and singles charts that
I had grown up following were tabulated by like rumor.
Speaker 3 (18:52):
And what it did was it taught us that the
patterns that we had been assuming albums and singles would
follow were basically all wrong. The simple way I like
to say it is albums open like movies. We used
to think that an album would open somewhere in the
middle of the chart and then rise to number one
or number five or whatever. An album's biggest week is
(19:13):
its first week, and we only learned that through SoundScan.
Prior to nineteen ninety one, there'd only ever been six
number one debuts in the history of the album chart
in like forty years. And I can name him off
the top of my head, Please Don't two by Elton John,
one by Stevie Wonder, one by Bruce Springsteen, one by
Whitney Houston, and won by Michael Jackson. And after sound scan,
(19:38):
the first one was by skid Row, right right. Not
to disparage skid Row, they were at the peak of
their popularity, but.
Speaker 4 (19:44):
Skien were clearly skid Row if you want, like they
were big for hair metal in nineteen ninety one, but
like they were not even the biggest hair metal band
at the time.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
Yet they were the first Scouts sound scan, excuse me,
the first act in the sound scan era to debut
at number one on the album chart. They that's a
record nobody can ever take away from them.
Speaker 1 (20:05):
When skid Row debuts at number one with a record
that doesn't even have a single on the radio.
Speaker 3 (20:10):
You know, the culture is changing, and what it's told
you right away is, oh, this is not special anymore.
This is just going to keep happening week after week.
And now if you look at the album chart most weeks,
you know, call it thirty to forty weeks out of
a fifty two week year. The new number one album
is a debut. It's a brand new album because it
(20:32):
opens like a box office hit. It opens like a movie. Right,
Avengers Endgame doesn't open at number ten and rise to
number one. Avengers Endgame starts at number one and then
gradually drifts down.
Speaker 1 (20:43):
That's how albums open to singles charts the top forty.
You know what Casey Casem used to do. They're a
combination of record sales and radio airplay. And in nineteen
ninety one, Nielsen also debuted Broadcast Data Systems, an early
version of Shazam that listened to and report did which
songs radio stations were actually playing. Previously, Billboard had just
(21:04):
had to take the word of record stores and radio stations,
but now they had the real raw data. The big
sound just before the change was adult contemporary Michael Bolton, Wilson, Phillips,
Amy Grant, which just keep her song Baby Baby in
the back of your mind for later in this series.
You might want to go to YouTube and watch the video.
That's all I'm gonna say. It's possible, and I'm not
(21:26):
making accusations here. I'm just saying it's possible that the
middle aged white men who ran radio stations and owned
record stores might maybe have over represented the middle of
the road white adult contemporary artists that they were comfortable with.
Like Chris says, it was fudgeable until it wasn't. The
pop charts had reflected what record stores and radio stations
(21:49):
said people were buying and listening to. In ninety one,
they began to reflect what people were actually buying and
listening to. How then did the pop charts start sounding different?
Speaker 3 (21:59):
I mean, you're already you're already seeing hip hop make
a run at the charts prior to sound scan, right,
You've already seen everybody from mc hammer to Vanilla Ice
to Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch, you know, make
a run. Tone Lok in nineteen eighty nine got a
couple of top three hits. But what changes is that
(22:21):
now it's much more plausible that rap can.
Speaker 1 (22:24):
Top the Hot one hundred, the.
Speaker 3 (22:26):
Very first this is not a terribly hardcore street rap record,
but the very first number one on the Hot one
hundred the week they flipped the switch towards SoundScan and
BDS is set a drift on Memory Bliss by PM Dawn.
That's a very poppy, catchy, mainstream friendly record, which was
already in the top five before they flipped the switch,
(22:48):
but by the following summer baby got back by Sir
mix a lot. It's hard to picture that record spending
five weeks at number one without sound scan accurately itallying
sales and airplay, and then you know, within a few years,
Tupac is scoring, you know, a number one hit. You know,
Puff Daddy is scoring number one hits. Like all of
(23:09):
that is really you know, Bone Thugs and Harmony score
a number one hit. All of that's kind of unimaginable
before SoundScan. Sound scan makes that plausible.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Like Chris, I was in college that winter when Nirvana's
never Mind went to number one. It was astonishing something
so strange and so seemingly unradio friendly becoming an actual hit.
It was a sea change. I watched it happen, but
it wasn't until just now talking to Chris that I
thought about how it happened.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
So, like, I mean, you know the Nevermind phenomenon, right,
that's unimaginable without sound scan. That's more on the album
chart than the singles chart. Although Smells like teen Spirit
is a top ten hit, it goes to number six.
Speaker 1 (23:51):
Just breaking in here really quickly to tell you, I
could talk to Chris malanfe about what songs peaked at
what position on the chart all day long, and for
all of the terrible things the Internet that has done,
I am so glad it has facilitated this conversation.
Speaker 3 (24:04):
But get this, but that fabled moment that everybody talks
about where Nevermind knocks out Michael Jackson's dangerous that is
entirely due to SoundScan. I actually did a whole Hip
Parade episode about this moment, because it's actually a widely
understood moment. According to Billboard's chart dating system, it happened
two weeks into January nineteen ninety two. The honest truth
(24:25):
is that because there's a lag between when Billboard collects
its data and when they date their charts, what really
happened is that basically all of the teenagers who got
Dangerous or some other album for Christmas went to the
record store and either returned it or used their gift
cards to buy never Mind. Because the data that was
collected the week that never Mind went to number one
was all collected basically like Boxing Day through New Year's
(24:47):
So basically that week that all the kids are home
from school, they at voting with their dollars.
Speaker 1 (24:54):
Teenage rebellion by way of gift card. I love it.
But what we were learning was that the young people
with disposable income who buy records and drive trends and
dictate what gets played on the radio, we're going for
something harder and heavier than what Hayden and Sudden Impact
slash white guys. We're trying to make the market for
a blue eyed soul singer or a boy band who
looks a little like New Kids on the Block was
(25:16):
less friendly than it seened just a few months before.
But let's talk about Michael Bivens and how he found
himself in the position to sign all these acts. Bivin's
story as a performer begins years before this with new addition,
but his time as a record mobile begins in the
spring of nineteen ninety with one song. Do you remember
(25:40):
hearing the song Poison for the first time. This would
have been at the end of our freshman year.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
I probably was working a shift at my campus job,
which was the Durfy Sweet Shop at Yale in New Haven, Connecticut,
and I'm pretty sure that that's where I heard Poison
for the first time. And that record is just catch
as hell and it leaps out of the speakers like
a rap record.
Speaker 1 (26:04):
Poison sounded like nothing that had been played on Top
forty radio before. Bell Bivdevou described their sound as.
Speaker 3 (26:10):
Mentally hip hop smoothed out on the R and B
tip with a pop feel appealed to it.
Speaker 1 (26:15):
It's a mouthful, but it's accurate. And then after Poison,
do Me, a song so filthy you couldn't believe you
were hearing it on the radio in the daytime.
Speaker 3 (26:29):
And the fact that Doomy came right after, and Doomy
was just as huge, and there was I remember, you know,
I was already a Billboard reader in college, and there
were radio programmers kind of fretting a little bit about
do Me, because like, can we play this record during
you know, sort of the homework hour, The hour when
(26:50):
the really young kids are listening, you know, like do
they know what?
Speaker 2 (26:54):
You know?
Speaker 3 (26:55):
Is he doing her hair? I remember this quote in
a Billboard story of like a radio like, you know,
I'm playing the regular version and we haven't done anything
to it because they don't actually curse in it. But
it's pretty filthy, you know, and yet they were playing it,
you know.
Speaker 1 (27:09):
But it was that kind of PG thirteen content, that
hip hop inflected production, that mixture of pop and R
and B that mentally.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Hip hop smoothed out on the R and b's hit
when a Pop Fail Appeal.
Speaker 1 (27:23):
Yeah, that that made Motown take notice.
Speaker 3 (27:26):
I think that Michael Bivens. But the reason he got
away with, you know, playing with house money as it were,
was that a he had had an enormous hit, and
b he had he was helping the labels solve a
problem they were having.
Speaker 2 (27:40):
You know.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
My most recent episode of Hip Parade, the one that
just came out a couple weeks ago, was about Millie Vanilly,
And one of the arguments I make about Milli Vanilly
was that whether you know, fraudulent as they were, they
were important to the hybridization of rap and pop on
top forty Radio in nineteen eighty nine and ninety They
actually even appeared on Billboard's first hot rap single, art
(28:00):
like That. That's a little remembered fact between like Kid
and Play and rob Bas and DJ Easy Rock Like,
they had enough cred for at least a single or
two to appear on the rap single stret And what
the problem that Bell biv Devou were solving by ninety
was that they were much more authentic sounding. Yet they
came out of what was previously a boy band. So
(28:21):
they had pop, but they had hip hop street cred,
and they they you know, nobody was accusing Bell biv
Devot of being phony, not many anyway, and and so
it sounded authentically hip hop, and yet it was smooth
like pop. And so if I'm a record executive in
ninety ninety one, I'm like, if Michael Bivens wants to
(28:42):
start shepherding other acts and get me another Bel Bivdavot, Like,
I'm all ears.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
You know a thing I really should have known is
that somewhere in New Haven, Connecticut, a twenty year old
Chrisma Lanfe was watching that Motown Philly video and clocking
the same thing.
Speaker 3 (28:56):
I was and and what's funny about Motown f Philly
when when Boys to Men show up? I remember being
slightly cynical about Boys to Men, even though I love
to Motown Philly the song because I'm like, this video
is just one long branding exercise and.
Speaker 1 (29:11):
It's it's their first single, and it mentions other artists.
It mentions ABC and BBD, which is like, it's it's
big of them. Yeah, you know, include other like promos
for other artists in their debut single.
Speaker 3 (29:28):
I guess, or it's or it's the price of fame,
you know, the ticket for entry, right is that Michael
Bivens says, I'll record you guys, but you got to
promote my other acts while you're there.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Yeah. And then in the video, as we're getting our
family portraits taken old timey style with the cape and
the the thing that you hold, we meet five young
men and five white shirts and five neckties called Sudden Impact,
and that's the first and last time we see them, right, right,
(30:00):
do you remember that moment? Like, do you remember seeing it?
Do you remember it? In real time?
Speaker 3 (30:05):
All I remember about it, if I'm being honest, to
reiterate something I said a little while ago. Is this
added to my cynicism because okay, correct me if I'm wrong.
By the time Motown Philly hit or dropped, another bad
creation had at least had a hit or two playground
in Aisha Aisha. I think Ayisha was first. Aa was Yeah, yeah,
(30:29):
and they were both top ten hits, So like, okay,
at least they're promoting an act that's actually had a
couple hits in BBD the prior year had been huge.
But like, I'm watching this, you know, Michael Bibvens brand extension,
and I'm sort of like, well, this is a little cheesy,
you know, like he's already promoting an act that doesn't
exist yet. I remembered thinking, like, you know, fair play
(30:52):
to Michael Bibvens, but this is really cheesy, you know, like,
don't hate the player, hate the game.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Except that phrase didn't exist in nineteen ninety one. Glad
we should have invented it. Yeah, I know. It is
an introduction to the Michael Bivens extended cinematic.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
Universe, right, another thing that didn't exist in nineteen ninety one,
But that's exactly it.
Speaker 1 (31:10):
Yeah, let's talk about Chris for a minute. He's taken
his obsessions and made a career out of them, and
so have I. But neither of those careers even existed
when we were twenty. Chris in nineteen ninety one, where
did you see yourself at fifty?
Speaker 3 (31:28):
I'm not sure.
Speaker 1 (31:29):
Do you have a clear idea of where you wanted
to go?
Speaker 3 (31:31):
I mean, the reason I can't answer this from the
vantage point of nineteen ninety one. I've often said this
is that a lot of things had to be invented
for me to have this particular career. Like, right through
the nineties, I was writing record reviews for CMJ, making
beer money to do that, while I had a a
completely separate day job. But like blogging had to be invented,
(31:52):
podcasts had to be invented, The whole ecosystem of online
journalism had to be invented. And then I discovered, Oh so, actually,
if you write about your nerdy obsession, your nerdy passion
about the charts and dissect them and you know, write
like a critic but analyze the charts, people will want
to read that. But that didn't really catch on until
the late aughts and tends. So, yeah, are you happy?
(32:16):
I mean, I'm real happy with how this whole thing's going. Yeah,
like I said, my brainstorm, My one brainstorm was I
realized that there were critics who didn't really understand how
the charts worked, and there were chart analysts who didn't
write like critics. And so if you could blend the two,
write like a critic but understand how the charts work,
(32:39):
just because out of my own passion I've been following
the charts since the early to mid eighties, that could
be something. And yeah, and so what's great is that,
you know, when folks like you want somebody to talk
at a minutiaal level, like you and I just had
about how the charts function, but then placing it in
a cultural context, folks generally come to me, which is great.
(33:00):
I love playing that role.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
So there's today's lesson kids. That thing you love more
than anything, that thing you know more about than anyone,
keep exploring it, keep learning about it. There's a perfect
job for you out there. You're just gonna have to
invent it. But back in the nineties, especially if you
wanted to be a pop star, you needed other people's help.
Powerful people could make you and they could break you.
(33:34):
When we left Hayden, he had just broken up with
Michael Bivens and biv ten Records. After years of waiting
for his moment, he got a new manager and became
a part of a new group.
Speaker 2 (33:43):
He ran into three guys from New Jersey who were
looking for a lead singer, and we ended up linking up.
We got together, we made a demo, and we ended
up leaving Michael Bivens, which I think to this day,
you know him and I had it since then, so
it was it was you know him and I was.
It was almost like a divorce. But that group was
(34:05):
called Signature.
Speaker 1 (34:07):
Signature is of course spelled as yg NA t U
r E. I don't know what was going on in
the nineties with the creative spellings, but Signature's manager was
about to become a big deal in his own right
thanks to a daughter who you might have heard of.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Beyonce's dad. Matthews was our manager.
Speaker 1 (34:22):
Yeah you heard him, Yeah, Beyonce's dad. And it's nineteen
ninety eight, Destiny's Child is taking off and those Signature
had begun as a vocal group in the style of
the sexy R and B groups of the time like
Jo Deasy and Drew Hill. Matthew Knowles noticed a change
in the atmosphere.
Speaker 2 (34:40):
When Destiny's Child at the time went on tour with
Back three Boys.
Speaker 1 (34:44):
He really changed the direction, right.
Speaker 2 (34:46):
Yeah, he saw how good Back three Boys did, and
I think he saw dollar sign that he kind of
changed the direction of kind of what we were doing.
So we were really more of a real R and
B group. So we actually were signed to the Urban
Division of Columbia REQ. So it was right around there,
you know, Carson Daily TRL. I mean we So our
first tour was we were the opening act for Christina Aguilera.
(35:08):
It was Christina Aguilera Destiny Shout. There was another group.
We were like the pre opening act.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
Right, Just gonna interject here real quick and tell you
the other group was sole decision. This story just got
so nineteen ninety nine. My tips frosted themselves.
Speaker 2 (35:22):
We didn't ride it toward us, but we were really
close with Destiny's Child. We really we wrote the coattails
of their success because Fiata's dad was our manager. So
we were doing a mall tour and we were doing
like we were doing a teen people mall tour with them,
and then we were doing like outdoor arenas and then
we went overseas to London and Ireland and did some
(35:43):
stuff over there.
Speaker 1 (35:44):
But this chapter in Hayden's career was the same as
the last, more waiting for the record label to push
the album, more trying to get his manager's attention, while
someone else became a superstar of it. This time it
was Beyonce. When Hayden sang for Michael Bivens in that
hotel lobby, he was a now he was twenty seven.
Speaker 2 (36:02):
We were on tour, we were doing we were singing
with Deptony's Child. You know, we had done this tour,
we had gone to Europe, we had come back, our
album still wasn't being released. I had noticed what I
would say is some shady stuff from Matthew Knowles. I
was seeing some things that I was like, you know,
I don't like not taking money from us because we
weren't making money, but like, what's going on? And you know,
(36:23):
I ended up approaching it. First. I talked to the
guys in the group and said, listen, I'm I'm I'm done.
Like this is two years the album's not released, Like
what are they doing with us? And I said, look,
here's the deal. I'm I'm, I'm going solo, like I'm
going to go do my solo thing. I've talked to
our attorney. He's like, hey, then I got five record
labels that will sign you tomorrow. Ready, you know. And
(36:44):
I said, guys, the minute I make it, I'll put
you on. So I approached Matthew. That conversation did not
go well. It wasn't life the Michael business thing. It
just wasn't in a good conversation. I got on a plane,
I flew home. I was set to go to New
York like the following weekend, and my attorney called and
was like, dude, you're bunny like. Nobody's going to meet
(37:06):
with you like you. There's there's some really bad rumors
about you.
Speaker 1 (37:11):
And Matthew Knowles had a lot of power at this
moment in time, with Destiny's Child blowing up, he had
proven he could make you or break you. Just ask
LaToya Luckett or Farah Franklin or Latavio Robertson, and those
are the people he kicked out of Destiny's Child that
we know about. We can't say for sure whether it
was Matthew who started those rumors, but we can say
(37:31):
they worked. Can I take it back? To that call
with your lawyer where when he said, you know, nobody
wants to take a meeting? What what did that feel?
Speaker 3 (37:40):
Like?
Speaker 2 (37:40):
Awful? Like everything? I mean it was. It was awful.
It was terrible because that's that had been, that had
become my identity, right. I mean I went from like,
you know, I was like I lived in a small
little community in between Akron and Cleveland, and Cleveland's not
that big. When I came back from fifth ten, man,
(38:01):
I mean I was like the shit, you know, like
he had made it. Not many guys, you know, Lebron
James made it, you know what I mean, James Ingram
made it, but like nobody from my era, you know
what I mean, Like I had made it. Like I
had credibility with the urban crowd, with the you know,
and I mean so yeah, man, my pride and ego,
you know, that's what it was devastating. You know. Even
(38:23):
my friends are like, dude, do you need to talk
to someone? And I'm like, I'm good, But deep down,
you know, it was like.
Speaker 1 (38:27):
It wasn't good. Hayden was nearly ten years into his
music career and he was out of options. He stayed
in Ohio. He got a job selling used cars.
Speaker 2 (38:37):
I went through like a you know, I mean, I
went from playing even though you're the opening act right
playing an Arenas to like I had to go sell
cars and I live in a community where they're.
Speaker 1 (38:46):
Like, dude, what happened?
Speaker 2 (38:47):
And I just I would act like nothing was wrong.
But it got it got pretty bad to me, so
I ended up. You know, I started drinking a ton,
just fell into like a really bad like drinking depression.
Speaker 1 (39:01):
Things go sideways in a million different ways for everyone.
Speaker 2 (39:06):
Yep, no matter what it is absolutely.
Speaker 1 (39:08):
That you set out to do in life, you know,
jobs go away and plans change, there is a special
kind of I don't know if shame is the word
that the world makes you feel. If your plan was
an artistic one. There is something about, you know, going
back to that hometown after going to the big city
(39:28):
to make your dream happen and having it not pan
out the way that you had planned that can make
you feel a different kind of way.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
Well yeah, I mean, you know, shame is Shame's pretty dangerous, right, Like,
you know, you have guilt and shame, right, and you
know you're guilty because you did something wrong, right, But
shame is like the penance that you give yourself for
doing something. So you know, people don't jump off bridges
because they're guilty. They jump off bridges because they're filled
with shame, and shame is like, you know, and that's
(39:59):
I think you're exactly right. I think most of my friends,
if I ask them, what are you really passionate about,
they would say the Cleveland Browns, And I am too right.
But it's not the same when you're passionate about something
artistic people who are like working to you know, I mean,
think about how many people you know who are like
playing in bars and doing local things just because they
(40:21):
love to sing, and they would not trade that for
the world, because it, like it stirs up emotions inside
of you, it feeds your soul. But most people either
have something, but they never want to take the chance,
or they've never even opened up the door the opportunity
to figure out what they're passionate about. So that small
(40:42):
group of people, it's hard. It's hard to go from
like doing that to getting a regular and not that
that's I don't want to say regular, but you know,
I yeah, Like that's why you see so many fame
like sports stars when they retire, they get super depressed,
(41:04):
like I didn't want to do I wasn't built to
be a regular person. There's a lot of shame when
you're artistic and you fail, because it's also like, if
you fail at your job, most of the time, you
didn't create that product. You're selling someone else's product. When
you're an artist, right, or you're a writer, that's your product,
(41:24):
that's you. They're not. So you feel like you're not
only rejecting my I'm in sales now, right, I'm in
sales for a living. It's a company, says, we don't
you know I'm in I'm in a consultant for a
technology company. If they don't like our backup recovery service,
I don't hang up the phone and go, God, why
don't they like that? I'm like yeah, but if they
(41:46):
don't like your song, You're like, wait, why no, no, no,
why don't What don't you like about it?
Speaker 1 (41:53):
You said something that that I want to like push
back on a little bit. You said, you know when
when you when you you know, so go for your
dreams and you fail, a certain thing happens. Do you
think that you've failed?
Speaker 2 (42:04):
No? I don't think that failed. No, I think I
was thrown a curveball or it, just like sometimes I
think it's things just are meant to go, you know,
the way that what our expectations are, you know, expectations
are resentments waiting to happen, right, And you can put
(42:26):
expectations on things. And I think what my expectations were
from when I started to when it ended were very different.
But I don't think it was a failure because I think,
you know, I think that's failure is a strong word.
So I think you're right. I don't think it was
a failure. It just didn't end the way that I
probably envisioned in the beginning. Right, But where I am
(42:47):
now was nowhere where I envisioned. You know, I'm sure
it's the same for you, right, Like what you're doing
now is not at all what you thought you'd be
doing at twenty one.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
Sure, right, Yeah, I'm I'm not as rich as I
would like to do, right, But I'm happier than I
thought I did.
Speaker 2 (43:01):
Well, yeah, and if you were, Yeah, And happiness has
nothing to do with like how much money you have.
Speaker 1 (43:05):
No, not at all, not at all, you know.
Speaker 2 (43:07):
I mean it's nice, you know, like not having to
worry about paying the bill. Ever, it's fantastic.
Speaker 1 (43:13):
I'm sure that would be lovely, but.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
I would spend it on some crap I didn't need anyway.
Speaker 1 (43:18):
I don't think Hayden failed. I don't think Hayden thinks
Hayden failed. And yet as we talk, I keep trying
to figure out how it could still happen for Hayden.
I'm trained to think in those terms, even as we
talk about how small minded it is to think in
those terms. You know, I want to fix it, but
I can't fix it because it's not broken.
Speaker 2 (43:38):
I've had some opportunities, Dave, I've pat you know. I
had the executive producer of the Voice called me and say, hey,
you know, I became friends with a guy named Jeremy
Spun who is pretty high up with the show, The Voice,
and he's reached out to me and I sent him
a couple of videos of me singing, and the executive
producer of the Voice was like, hey, you can get
(43:59):
through all the roundings. We'll push you into the TV
round if you want to do it. And I just
I just have no desire, Like it's just I'm just
like I just have really embraced like, you know, first
of all, when you sign that contract, you sign a
contract like you're obligated to them right for a certain
amount of time, And I just I wouldn't do that
to my kids.
Speaker 1 (44:20):
Hayden doesn't have the music career he thought he would have.
What he has instead is a life.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
I'm coming up to almost eleven years of being sober
at the end of this month. So I think through
all of that and seeing what I have now and
just by the grace of God being sober. I think
for some of it, it's like for me, I look
back and go, you know, I don't know, like I
might not have made it through being an artist. I
(44:45):
don't think I ever wanted the risk going back and
doing that because when you really have sobriety, like nothing
really comes in front of that because you know how
bad it was before. So it's like, I think all
of this was kind of a precursor to where I
am today, and like, you know, having a life and
being over and all of those things, I think has
been much more rewarding than like having a little bit
of fame or something else and then being blessed with
(45:07):
four kids who you know, luckily they've never really seen
their dad like as a drunk. You know, I always
felt like I was. I sort of thought I could
like make a difference, right, And the only way I
thought I could make a difference was by like being
this singer and selling out concerts and being known for that.
(45:28):
And what I've realized through all that is, you know,
I can share my story, my hopes and my share
my story with people, and I can be a difference
that way.
Speaker 1 (45:37):
Hayden II do. He survived nearly being famous, he survived
the shame of coming home. He's made his impact, and
he's happy. And that's good because it's impossible not to
root for the guy. In the meantime, I've done a
little more digging on Sudden Impact. I have found one
article about them, and it's not even an article. It's
a stub of an article from a local Virginia newspaper's
(45:59):
web site. It came up in a Google search, and
in the one line that I can read, they mention
a Todd and Noel, but only one full name, Aaron kin.
So I searched for Aaron Kine Sudden Impact, and that
is the guy for sure. That's the guy in the middle,
the guy with the clip on Bowtie who looks like
he's late for his shift at Buca di Beppo. He's
(46:20):
still making music. He's got a YouTube channel, and he's
on Facebook and he's friends with Hayden. So I asked
Hayden to put in a good word for me, and
he says he will. Folks, we are one step closer
to the inside of Sudden Impact. It's happening. We'll see
how we do next time. On Waiting for Impact, a
(46:42):
Dave Holmes passion project. This has been an Exactly Right
production written by me Dave Holmes, produced by Hannah Kyle Crichton, recorded,
mixed and sound designed by and Epen. Additional engineering and
assembly by Analise Nelson, Music by Ben Wise, artwork by
(47:08):
Garrett Ross. Executive produced by Karen Kilgarriff, Georgia hard Stark
and Danielle Kramer. Follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and
Twitter at exactly Right and follow me at Dave Holmes.
For more information, go to Exactlyrightmedia dot com. Binge The
show add free on Stitcher Premium for a free month.
(47:30):
Head to Stitcherpremium dot com slash Impact and enter promo
code Impact when you select a monthly plan, listen, subscribe,
and leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, Stitcher, or
wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Dave Holmes
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