October 30, 2024 • 40 mins
Just down the road from the house Brandon deWilde owned was a small building that stood up a winding driveway. That building – which was built in the 70s after deWilde sold his house – was a recording studio named "Suntreader Studios," which was founded by John and Jerice Bergstrom. John and Jerice's studio was state of the art compared to what else was available in the region, even Boston. It was so good, it attracted producer Nick Jameson, who brought the band Foghat there to record its album "Fool for the City." That album brought the world "Slow Ride," an iconic song that elevated the band to rock star status. Find out more about the recording of "Slow Ride" from Nick Jameson himself as well as more stories from the studio by its founders, the Bergstroms.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
When you find yourself traveling along an old dirt road in your town, or even in a place
(00:14):
you've never been, try to imagine the things that have happened there and who might have
lived there.
The dirt road you're thinking of might be tree-lined, bordered by thick forests and
hills with swamps on either side.
Or maybe it stretches off forever in a straight line through a dusty desert.
Your imagination probably doesn't take you to actors, rock stars, and even drug traffickers.
(00:35):
But there's a reason they say truth is stranger than fiction.
My name is Anthony Cerdelli.
I'm a journalist.
Well, a sports journalist living in Southern California.
I'm about to tell you a story about the dirt road in Vermont that I grew up on.
When I found out the truth behind the urban legends about this small part of Sharon, Vermont,
(00:56):
the place where I spent a lot of my childhood, my mind was blown.
This is True Stories from an Old Dirt Road.
(01:18):
As you heard in that last episode, the old dirt road in Sharon, Vermont that I grew up
on and my house specifically saw some interesting characters visit in the mid-1960s.
Brandon DeWilda and his buddies used my house in Sharon as a country escape from the lights
and pressure of show business.
If that were it, this story would be interesting enough.
(01:39):
But it's not.
It's not even close.
Because a decade later, about a quarter of a mile down the road, another group of soon-to-be
world-famous musicians visited the house next door to the one we would eventually move into,
where DeWilda and friends hung out.
It was all thanks to a young couple by the name of John and Jerese Bergstrom who opened
(01:59):
Sun Treader Studios.
Sun Treader was the recording studio where the band Fog Hat recorded its hit song Slow
Ride and the entire album it was released off of called Fool for the City.
You probably know Slow Ride from the local Classic Rock station.
Well, actually that's kind of outdated now.
If you listen to Classic Rock, Spotify, or XM radio, Classic Rock stations, that's
(02:22):
how you'd know Slow Ride.
Or, equally likely, you know it from the 1993 comedy Dazed and Confused, which follows a
group of Texas high schoolers on their final day of school before summer in 1976.
Dazed and Confused was studded with classic 60s and 70s songs, but Slow Ride has perhaps
the most memorable moment.
(02:43):
Right before the movie ends, freshman Mitch Kramer, played by Wiley Wiggins, gets home
after experiencing his first high school keg party, among other things, and his mom confronts
him.
Mitch very unconvincingly denies everything, lies down in his bed, and pops on his headphones.
And right then, Slow Ride fades in as Mitch closes his eyes with a satisfied look on his
(03:04):
face.
And who could blame him judging by what he'd just experienced?
The movie closes with Slow Ride blaring as we get the final scene.
Randall Floyd, David Wooderson, Ron Slater, and Simone Kerr, played by Jason London, Matthew
McConaughey, Rory Cochran, and Joy Lauren Adams respectively, ride off into the sunrise
the next morning, high-fiving and laughing.
(03:26):
Have you been drinking?
No.
Are you drunk?
No.
Slow Ride.
(03:49):
Take it easy.
You might be wondering why a couple opened a recording studio in the middle of nowhere.
Well I interviewed Jereese and her husband John to get all the details about their experiences
working with Fog Hat and many other bands.
(04:10):
Unfortunately, Jereese passed away a while after I interviewed her.
I didn't know her all that well, but from our interview, you'll be able to tell she
seemed like quite the firecracker.
It was my husband's idea.
John has a background in engineering and I have a background in music, so this was back
in the early 70s.
(04:31):
Nonetheless, we had those backgrounds and he was sitting in the room one day and he
said, you know, I'd like to have a recording studio.
So we figured it out and found a couple of friends who were also interested and the four
of us started Sun Trader Studios.
What was your background in music?
I was a trombonist and there weren't too many female trombonists and it was not really,
(04:55):
I was not encouraged to continue.
So I didn't and I went on to entrepreneurial ships and that was it.
When you and your husband decided you want to do a recording studio, was there anything
there already?
Like, did it exist already?
Did you build it from scratch?
We built it from scratch, but we had a foundation already because we were going to, it was 115
(05:16):
acres and we were going to build a house there.
So we had a 52 by 32 foundation and then the builder up and left with our money.
So we were just stuck with a foundation for a couple of years and then we decided, well,
that's where we'll put the studio and we figured out how to do that.
It took cajoling and coaxing of banks and other money people and there we had it.
(05:41):
How did you go about building a business there?
Like Sharon strikes me as a pretty out of the way location.
Yeah, well, I thought that was a, if we were going to put it there, we'd have to market
it as being out in Oak Sticks out in Vermont in the middle of nowhere as an alternative
to being in the city where almost all of the recording studios were other than Nashville.
(06:06):
It was LA, San Francisco and New York.
There were one or two in Boston, but not really anything of note.
Reading the bands that recorded there, how did you kind of go about making the connections
and making people aware of this recording studio and Sharon?
Well, we had a lot of luck.
There's a musician named June Millington and she was in the group called Fanny, F-A-N-N-Y,
(06:33):
which was semi-popular at the time.
It was not widely known, but it was known to us.
And she was on her way back from Maine to where she lived and I think still lives in
Western Massachusetts.
For some reason she heard about it and stopped by and she started telling her friends, oh,
she at the time, I'm sorry, she was living in Woodstock, New York.
(06:54):
She now lives in Western Massachusetts.
And in Woodstock, New York, there's a lot of bands like The Band and many other musical
types.
And one of them was Nick Jamison.
He went on to produce Thaw Cat at our studio a couple of times and his own solo recording
and he touted us to everybody that he could and he was very good to us that way.
(07:20):
Another producer named Craig Leon was done, he was in Miami and he was working with Criteria
Studios down there and he was done with Miami.
Came up and tried it and liked it a lot.
He gave us a few, several acts recorded there too with him.
And it just sort of blossomed from there, you know, it just word of mouth mostly.
(07:44):
We didn't do too much advertising, as I recall.
Here's something I wondered when I started hearing these stories.
You might be wondering the same thing.
It can't be a coincidence that famous musicians and an actor who wanted to be a musician chose
the same small town and not just that, the same road to hang out and play music.
(08:08):
But that seems to be the case.
I asked Ian Dunlop of the International Submarine Band if he knew anyone from Bearsville or
knew anything about Woodstock, New York.
He said his brother had lived in Woodstock, New York, but never mentioned anything about
Bearsville records.
Shockingly, it seems like a random coincidence.
I also spoke to Nick Jamison, who played bass for Fog Hat and produced Fool for the City
(08:31):
along with a number of other projects at Sun Treader.
I was there with Fog Hat.
We went there for about a week and then we came back and did another month there.
Then I did my solo record there and I was there for quite some time.
A better part of a year, I don't know.
Then I did a record by a guy named David Anderson there and we were in and out for a few months.
(08:54):
I spent a good amount of time there.
For my solo record, I actually lived there in the studio.
I've been a musician pretty much all my life.
Then I got into engineering.
I was in Philadelphia.
I built a little studio in the warehouse that my band used to practice in.
Then I got a job at Albert Grossman's studio, Bearsville Records, Bearsville Studio.
(09:15):
He had the company Bearsville Records too.
I started as an intern, worked my way up to engineer.
Then I started co-producing and then producing.
Then Fog Hat wanted me to mix some things on their first album, which I did.
We started a good relationship.
I ended up producing their third album, Rock and Roll Outlaws.
Then they asked me to join the band, which I did.
(09:37):
I said I'd do it for a year.
We did Fool for the City.
I think June Millington, yeah, it was definitely her, of the group Fanny, the first girl group
in the 60s, the first girl rock band.
They were quite good.
Told me about Sun Treader.
I don't think anybody was doing anything up there yet.
They had this state of the art beautifully designed room.
(10:00):
We went up to take a look at it and I thought, oh man, this is great.
Because I had a big pretty live room and I was getting into using room mics and stuff
like that.
Before a lot of people, I might say.
Way before Zeppelin and all that stuff.
I was attracted to that.
They had an API console, which I thought was a great rock and roll console.
I just generally liked it.
(10:21):
We liked the idea of being up there in the country.
I think Roger and I went up there to take a look at it.
Then we went up and we cut three songs.
We cut Savior Lovin' from Food for the City and Slow Ride and a song called Going to the
Mardi Gras, which we ended up never using.
Then we went on tour with Rod Stewart and came back and finished the record.
(10:46):
What was your first impression of that part of Vermont?
I thought it was beautiful.
I thought it was gorgeous.
I mean, Sharon was very small.
I mean, it didn't really, it wasn't a town as so much as a diner and some houses.
I liked it.
River running right by.
It was a small stream really.
You used to walk around there.
It was gorgeous.
I can't remember what time of year it was.
(11:08):
It wasn't winter though.
It was pretty nice.
I think it might have been summer or late summer.
We rented a house outside of Sharon a little bit.
A great big house.
It was lovely.
We really liked being up there, recording up in the woods.
My impression of Sharon was this is great.
Right across the way from Hanover, New Hampshire, which is great, you know, bookstores and restaurants
(11:32):
and stuff like that that I liked.
So I was impressed.
By the time Fog Hat recorded at Sun Treader, they'd already put out four albums.
Three of them had been certified gold, but nothing would compare to the success they
had from Fool for the City.
They hit it big with us, but they were moderately known.
They were their most recent before they came to us album was Rock and Roll, which was a
(11:57):
picture of a rock and a picture of a roll.
And it was not terribly successful, but it was successful enough that Bearsville Records
wanted them to continue.
And so they did.
And Dave Peveret, who was lead singer at Fog Hat and also a guitar, all guitarist, he had
been successful along with their drummer, Roger Earl.
(12:21):
They had been successful in a group or two in England, which names are escaping me.
But I believe he was one of the co-authors of the hit.
It's a summer time and the weather is so.
I think that he either wrote it or his brother wrote it or something like that.
I can't remember now.
It was a little while ago.
(12:42):
And so because they had sort of established themselves semi when they came to us, they
were really gobsmacked because we had a 24 track studio in the middle of nowhere, which
the only other place there was a 24 track studio nearby was in Boston.
And that was a wreck.
It was not a very good one.
So they were happy with it and spread the word.
(13:05):
Did that technical kind of cutting edge equipment have to do with your husband's engineering
background?
Yes, I would say.
The slow ride, we had come up with that in Long Island.
Dave came in with like an acoustic demo and I kind of arranged it and we played it through
once and taped it.
(13:27):
And we just improvised basically everything that we hadn't figured out.
And it came out great.
Then we didn't play it again.
We went up to the studio.
We fooled around with it a little bit.
Then we did one take and the power went out.
On the record, it's quite a long song.
You have the song and then it breaks down into a sort of a bass solo and then a big
(13:53):
build up, all of that.
The power went out before we got to that.
The power went out right after the song part, the basic song, the single version you could
say ends.
And we couldn't play it back for about five, six days.
We just hung out in the Holiday Inn and all thought it sounded good.
What do you think?
Sounded great to me.
No, no, no, we might have to do it again.
(14:14):
We had no idea.
Then after the blizzard led up and we were able to go up there again, we played it back
and that was it.
That was the take.
When we came back to Sun Treader, we recorded the second half and spliced it on.
So it was a snowstorm that caused the power outage.
Yeah, huge blizzard.
I mean, it was major.
(14:34):
We weren't the only ones that had our power cut.
We literally couldn't do anything for almost a week.
Also you mentioned the Holiday Inn.
How did you bide your time during that blizzard?
You remember what you did to kill time?
Yeah, every night we'd go out and see Monty Python movie.
I think it was Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was.
(14:56):
We just saw that like just every night.
Other than that, we just hang around and jam and write songs and whatever.
Gotcha.
Did you have a...
Was there...
I mean, that might have been it, but a least favorite part of working in that area, whether
it was remoteness or anything that you remember just being like, oh man, this is kind of annoying.
Not really.
(15:17):
The available food in Sharon was not the best, but there were nice restaurants around there.
Roger used to cook up food at the place sometime.
I can't say I have any negative memories of it at all.
It was really idyllic.
Speaking of food, there was one quirk that Jereese was shocked by.
I do remember that we were surprised and ill prepared for them to all be, not all, they
(15:42):
were vegetarians and we didn't understand how rock and roll stars would be vegetarians.
Also, they were very hard working.
All of the successful bands at the studio were very hard working.
Rock bands got a bad rap, I think, for being sort of druggies and stuff like, you know,
(16:04):
just sort of fuck off.
But they were not.
Although, I mean, there were plenty of acts who came to us that were druggies and fuck
off.
So I understand that.
For the Bergstroms, hearing Slow Ride on the radio was great.
But because they also knew what went into the recording, they were overly critical about
(16:25):
the quality sometimes.
John and I high five each other, but we know every, or at least I know, every note in every
song that we ever recorded.
So I can tell when, for instance, the fidelity isn't quite up to it or the fidelity is better
(16:47):
or somebody chops it up a little bit.
It's easy for us to tell or for me to tell the radio edit from the album edit, you know,
stuff like that.
Yeah, I read the radio edit was shortened to like four minutes.
The album was seven or eight, right?
Something like that.
Yeah.
(17:07):
I know that Nick Jameson, the producer and bass player for that, he went out, he took
the master recording and put it on a cassette and went out or, yeah, it was a cassette,
went out to a car to listen to it to see what it would sound like in a car.
And we had never, nobody had ever done that before.
So that was kind of interesting.
Yeah, that's smart.
When he recorded Bug Hat Live at our studio, actually he mixed it at the studio, he recorded
(17:32):
it live, obviously.
He put in the crowd sounds first and then, and then he made the album so that it would
all sort of gel.
And it does sound like it's all in one.
One performance.
I did ask Nick about the shotgun incident involving Bob Mason, Dennis Mason's dad.
Remember?
(17:52):
A classmate of mine, Bruce Jager, was over there and he was a technician type for a musician.
And they put the speaker on the end of the house, on the gable end, looking right this
way.
And my dad liked to be quiet in the little yellow house.
(18:15):
And they had it on at night because they'd be partying and drinking, smoking, whatever
they did.
And he'd go over and he says, you guys better find a quieter pastime than that.
And they said, well, no, it's pretty tough.
And he says, I'm telling you, keep it down or I'll be over with my hunting rifle.
Oh boy.
So whatever he said, it was probably kind of a smooth blend.
(18:38):
So they got the idea.
It was more of a veil thread.
And I guess they changed their pitch, they sent the music another way.
Although he didn't remember that incident specifically, he said he did put the speakers
outside, but not for partying purposes.
I don't remember the neighbors doing anything.
I do remember that was me putting speakers outside.
(19:01):
I used the big room for the drums and put everybody else in little rooms.
I think I put Rod's amp in an attic upstairs.
I put Dave's amp in the kitchen.
I was in a closet, my basement.
We were all standing in the same room, but our amps were different places.
And then when we'd overdub, I was just so into using natural spaces because in those
(19:21):
days we didn't have all that fancy ambience and reverb you have now where you can create
any kind of space you want.
We just had an echo plate.
So I think what you're referring to is when I put an electric guitar amp outside for Fool
for the City, that song.
I put it outside.
I mic'd it and then put another mic about 40, 50 feet away and it just gives this great
(19:43):
kind of openness to the sound.
But yeah, I did acoustic guitars out there too.
For the vocals, I would use room sound in the vocal too.
I came up with this trick of compressing the vocal and not compressing the room sound.
So when Dave would sing loud, it would get roomier sounding.
That kind of became the trademark sound of my fog head productions.
(20:03):
I'm trying to think of what other spaces in the room we use.
Pretty much every square foot of that room got used for something and the outside too.
And of course the parking lot.
But neighbors, I didn't even know we had neighbors.
I don't remember the neighbor incident.
After hearing the details about Fog Hat recording Fool for the City, the most memorable story
for me came when they tried to record a sound effect for the song Drive Me Home.
(20:28):
In those days, we didn't have samples of sound effects.
We didn't have access to huge sound effects libraries on tape.
So if we wanted the sound effect, we had to make it.
We'd already done on Rock and Roll Outlaws the sound of a jaguar roaring past a microphone
for the song Eight Days on the Road.
And this one, we wanted somebody drunkenly driving around a parking lot.
(20:54):
So we just got ourselves a cheap car and drove it around the Sunstrider parking lot, crashing
it into trees and rocks and just we beat the hell out of that car.
But it sounded great.
You know, it was very percussive sounds.
You know, I still get a kick out of hearing it.
It was the song Drive Me Home.
It was the Fog Hat song Drive Me Home on their Fool for the City album.
(21:17):
And they wanted to have a crash.
So we had a bulldozer and they bought a piece of shit Fiat and they ran it down that driveway
and smashed into it as hard as they could.
And they didn't wreck the car the first time, so they did it the second time.
And it was they recorded that whole thing.
And it's actually in the song.
(21:52):
And I think if I'm not mistaken, the Fiat is still out there.
I'm not sure in the field if there is such a thing anymore there.
That was a in the septic system is where it ended up.
Roger Earl, the drummer, he had a Lamborghini and he drove that up to the studio, which,
you know, we were all amazed because dirt, you know, probably still is dirt.
(22:18):
And we, you know, offered to crash his Lamborghini into the bulldozer, but he was not really
too interested in doing that.
He was trying to make light of that.
He was, you know, yeah, I gotcha.
From the sound of it, Earl had a lot of fun driving his Lamborghini around the dusty dirt
roads of Sharon in a 2010 Motor Trend feature on Earl by KS Wang.
(22:41):
The Lamborghini was mentioned in that article.
Earl says his favorite road trip was Sharon, Vermont.
That's quite the compliment because Earl seems to be a bit of a gearhead.
Here's the section from Wang's article Celebrity Drive, Fog Hat drummer Roger Earl.
Under the subheading favorite road trip, Wang wrote, quote, Of course, one of Earl's memorable
(23:03):
road trips included driving fast in the middle of the night.
This time it was on a country road in the middle of Sharon, Vermont in 1976 while Earl
was recording the Fog Hat Live album, which would later go double platinum.
Earl gave Motor Trend a play by play of his late night drive through Sharon, saying, quote,
Myself and our lead singer at the time, Lonesome Dave, had just finished doing some mixing
(23:26):
on Fog Hat's live album.
We were up in Vermont and I was in the Lamborghini Miura SV.
There was no radio, the heater didn't work very well, and there was no AC and no seatbelts.
They finished up at the studio at 4 a.m. and headed back to Long Island.
Wow, that's quite the drive.
It was a beautiful night and the roads up there are really nice.
There was nobody around and I had a couple of radar detectors, so I felt fairly confident
(23:49):
that things would be all right, Earl says.
He was driving 130 to 140 miles per hour and it started to rain.
Earl said, quote, So I decided maybe I should slow down a bit.
These early Lamborghinis didn't have brilliant electronics and the rain got inside and all
the lights went out.
He laughs.
We were in the mountains doing 130 by now and I said, Dave, push the door open.
(24:10):
That way we go with the solid yellow line.
I figured the yellow line is where the shoulder is.
It was pretty exciting.
Earl drove in the pouring rain.
It was pitch dark and the headlights on the Lambo were out.
He drove along the yellow line in the mountains until they could pull over.
I get the flashlight out.
We opened up the front of the car where all the fuses were.
Dave's holding the flashlight for me and we put a piece of silver foil alongside the fuses
(24:33):
and lo and behold, the lights all come back on.
It was probably one of the more exciting moments.
Earl laughs.
Having grown up there, I can tell you driving 130 miles an hour.
Even if it's on the interstate is totally nuts.
Doing it without headlights in the rain, in the dark is tempting death.
(24:53):
For having been the location where a song that's popularity has transcended decades
was recorded, it's hard for me to believe that Sharon isn't as well known for that
as it is for being the birthplace of Joseph Smith.
If I were the people who ran the town, I'd at least make it the town motto.
Something like, welcome to Sharon, where life is a slow ride.
Or something corny like that.
(25:13):
Sorry, that's my dad humor.
And while Fog Hat was their most famous band, there were still some other well-known artists
to record there.
Folk singer Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, recorded music at Sun Treader as well.
Although Jareese didn't have many interesting stories about him, there is some interesting
stuff I found while I was trying to figure out what he recorded there.
(25:34):
It's not listed on any of the databases, but I think I know.
It seems like Guthrie recorded part of his 1979 album Outlasting the Blues at Sun Treader.
That's listed as being recorded in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, but as we heard, Sun Treader
was state of the art, so it makes sense that Guthrie may have traveled up I-91 or I-89
for a couple of hours to get to Sharon if he needed to do something he couldn't do
(25:56):
in Massachusetts.
In order to figure that out, I went back and looked at a couple music industry trade magazines
from the time.
Specifically, Cash Box.
A November 1979 article confirmed Guthrie would be recording at Sun Treader.
Outlasting the Blues was recorded just a few months later, so it stands to reason that
Guthrie traveled to Sharon to record at least part of it there.
(26:18):
But there was another crazy coincidence in that article.
Literally, the sentence above it announces a live album from Who Else but the Flying
Burrito Brothers.
The band, Graham Parsons, started before his death and after visiting Brandon DeWilda at
my house in Sharon, which was next door to where Sun Treader would open about half a
decade later.
Obviously, this seems like a complete and total coincidence, but it is a little eerie.
(26:40):
I'm going to do some more reporting on that.
I'll let you know if anything ever comes of it.
One last thing that made me laugh during my research.
That same Cash Box article mentions that Guthrie was recording at Sun Treader at the same time
as Gino Socio, or Sochio, not sure how to pronounce his last name.
He was a disco producer from Quebec, a famous one.
I'm not sure if he was working with Guthrie, but according to Cash Box, they were both
(27:04):
there.
Sochio has a major claim to fame, at least to me.
He was the executive producer of the self-titled disco album Le Fleur, which was Montreal
Canadian star and Hockey Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur's disco album.
In 1979, Lafleur recorded this album, which was bizarre to say the least.
In it, he just spoke, like spoken word, about his career and how to be good at hockey with
(27:28):
a jaunty disco background tune.
He wasn't singing.
I'm not kidding, listen.
Remember that backhand shots are more difficult because of the curve stick.
When attacking a goaltender, never carry the puck in front of you, because he knows you
(27:51):
cannot shoot from that position.
The goalie takes one look.
He reads, deke or pass, and he backs up.
Don't tell him what you're gonna do.
Don't give him the additional advantage.
The goal and goal is tough enough without giving the goalie the edge.
Carry the puck beside you.
Now you have him guessing.
I grew up playing hockey, loving hockey, but as a Bruins fan, hating the Montreal Canadians.
(28:18):
So seeing that the producer of Guy Lafleur's album worked at Sun Treader during that same
year made me laugh.
Was he working on Lafleur's album there?
Probably not, but a man can dream.
In addition to Guthrie, Moon Martin recorded at Sun Treader as well, including his debut
studio album Shots From A Cold Nightmare, and his most successful album Escape From
(28:38):
Domination, which reached number 80 on the Billboard 200.
That album features Rowling and No Chance, both hits of Martin's.
(29:12):
I kind of recognized Rowling when I heard it.
Not No Chance.
If you haven't heard of Moon Martin, don't worry.
You mentioned some other, I think I read Arlo Guthrie and Moon Martin.
What were some of the other bands that performed and recorded at Sun Treader?
(29:33):
I was afraid of this question.
That's okay.
You know, a lot.
Well, Aerosmith came and the name of that car, the cars came and Bonnie Raitt.
Wow.
I'm sorry.
No, that's okay.
She's a wonderful person, by the way, Bonnie Raitt.
(29:53):
Yeah.
I mean, those two names alone, there's kind of a list of online.
There's like a database of the bands that it says recorded there, but I don't think
it's a complete list or maybe it has to have some certain qualification for it to be on
the list.
But I had no idea that Aerosmith and Bonnie Raitt recorded there.
(30:14):
What were they recording at the studio?
No, I don't remember that.
I mean, I'm sorry.
And probably it was only, you know, a track or something like that.
It was probably not anything big.
Also, Melanie recorded there, but she never paid, so I don't want to talk about her.
Yeah.
Wow.
What was the artists reaction about Sharon, like Fog Hat and Aerosmith?
(30:38):
Do you remember?
Well, Aerosmith was fine about it because they kind of live in the area, but Fog Hat
and most others were like, this is the middle of nowhere.
You know, they'd walk out of the studio at night and it was dark and they couldn't understand
how come it was dark, you know, because it's from the cities or something.
And it's always light there.
(30:59):
But they walked out of the studio and they say, how come there's no lights anywhere?
A bunch of idiots.
They weren't a bunch of idiots, but you know, it's just like completely different worlds.
City slickers.
They didn't.
Yeah, exactly.
There were some I didn't care for.
I didn't like Melanie because they rang up a huge tab and then they didn't pay.
(31:21):
So, you know, you kind of don't like those kind of people.
Yeah.
OK, I'm sure you might be hung up on some of the bands named in there.
Aerosmith, The Cars, Bonnie Raitt.
Some people remember Moon Martin.
More know who Arlo Guthrie is.
Thanks to Slow Ride, many more know Fog Hat.
But Aerosmith, The Cars, Bonnie Raitt?
(31:43):
Those are legends.
Rock and roll Hall of Famers.
Icons.
How did no one know that these bands recorded in Sharon?
Well, it's not quite that simple.
Unfortunately, soon after I interviewed Jereese, she passed away.
I was able to follow up with her husband, John, and their son, Theis.
You'll hear both John and Theis in this interview, along with my own son, who happened to be
(32:05):
in my arms when they called back.
That's life as a Stay at Home Dad podcaster.
Bonnie Raitt, yes.
Matthew at Purple Times.
The most amazing speaking voice.
Just like in one way.
It would sound like a song as she spoke.
She was visiting, right?
(32:26):
That's right.
Oh, OK.
Got it.
She was visiting.
She was a friend of Nick Jameson.
So it sounds like Bonnie Raitt was indeed there, but didn't record.
I asked Nick Jameson if he remembered Aerosmith visiting, and he confidently said they did
not and that he'd have remembered.
Still, it's not impossible that a member of Aerosmith did visit.
(32:47):
Same with The Cars.
We're not quite to the true crime chapter of this podcast yet, but we can play a little
detective for fun.
Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry met as kids in Lake Sunopy, New
Hampshire.
In fact, the Lake Sunopy area in New Hampshire played a key role in the formation of Aerosmith.
It's where the band played together in its early days.
(33:09):
Steven Tyler had, and I think still has, a home there.
I've seen it called a compound.
Lake Sunopy is less than an hour's drive from where Sun Treader was.
Not only that, but until just a few years ago, Joe Perry owned an old farm named Sleepy
Hollow Farm in Palmford, Vermont, which borders Sharon.
Finally, Fog Hat and Aerosmith played together on a few occasions.
(33:30):
In spring 1975, they played back-to-back concerts at the Boston Garden.
It's not a stretch to think that Joe Perry or Steven Tyler, or even another member of
Aerosmith, had heard about the studio from someone in Fog Hat, or even from their record
label, and went to check out the studio, especially if they were in Lake Sunopy already.
There is also a Vermont connection to the band The Cars.
(33:52):
The Cars also originated in Boston.
Their co-lead singer, co-founder, and bassist Ben Oar lived in Vermont.
According to Joe Millican, author of Oar's Biography, he didn't move there until the
late 80s, when Sun Treader had already closed up shop.
The fact that he liked Vermont enough to move there, Bellows Falls, Vermont to be specific,
suggests that maybe he'd been to Vermont before.
(34:15):
Bellows Falls is also slightly less than an hour's drive south of Sharon on Interstate
91.
Speaking of the end of Sun Treader, Jareese Bergstrom said Sun Treader's demise was
tied to a major change in the recording industry.
Towards the very end of the 70s, the beginning of the 80s, the music business changed, and
(34:39):
the big labels, which were our clients, our customers, they wanted to record in-house.
They wanted to build their own in-house studios for the up-and-coming groups, which is what
we appealed to.
We weren't there for the Beatles or anything like that, or the Rolling Stones.
We were there for the up-and-comers, and the recording studios wanted to record them on
(35:02):
their own.
Since it was a technology-driven business, that meant that we would really have to stay
ahead and yet have less and less income to do that.
We saw the handwriting on the wall, and that was it.
We sold most of the equipment to the Air Force, believe it or not.
(35:24):
Do you know what they were using it for?
For surveillance or for... No, I have no idea what the Air Force was doing.
They probably didn't go around telling you.
No, I don't think so.
Were the neighbors aware of who was there, that there were big rock bands around, or
that they were up-and-coming rock bands?
I don't think so, Anthony.
I think that they pretty much everybody kept to themselves.
(35:47):
The groups didn't really want publicity.
There were one or two, Rod Price, for instance, in Fog Hat.
He was a real blowhard, but I mean, he's deceased now.
But at the time, he wanted to be the top cock, and he might do things like that.
But almost everybody else just was very nose to the grindstone.
(36:12):
So that was that.
But according to Nick Jamison, if a couple things had been different, Sharon might be
better known today as an even more historic place in music history, kind of like Muscle
Shoals Alabama or even Nashville.
I think the last time I was there was David Anderson's album.
We mixed the Fog Hat live album there, too.
Or actually, I did.
I don't think the other guys were around.
(36:33):
And it worked out great for that, too.
The last time I was there would have been David Anderson's album, which was back in
the 80s.
And then I heard that it was closed, and I was kind of sad about that.
But I don't think John and Dries, they weren't really business marketing type people.
They were just a couple of nice people who liked recording studio.
I liked the idea of having a recording studio.
(36:55):
And if they'd had somebody, I think, to publicize it for them and really work it for them, they
could have been huge.
Because that was about the time when people were doing things like living in studios.
This whole concept of a studio that you go away and live in for a month and make your
record was just starting to hit.
They could have done it.
I mean, they didn't have living quarters like a lot of these studios now.
(37:18):
We did a Fog Hat reunion record recently in Nashville at Dark Horse.
You know, they had bedrooms and a kitchen and all that stuff.
There was a small kitchen and a sun-treader with a microwave.
That was about it.
So they didn't have that.
But this whole idea of going to the country and hibernating was just about to take off.
And I think if they had a shrewd business person, they could have been huge.
(37:40):
So I was kind of sad to see it go.
It was a beautiful room.
It was designed by Bolt, Berenick, and Newman, who designed concert halls.
I don't know if they'd ever designed a recording studio before.
But to me, that gave it a very warm musical sound.
The room was live, but it didn't sound echoey or boomy or nasty.
(38:02):
It just sounded really nice, you know, the way Disney Hall or some place like that sounds.
So miniature Disney Hall.
Yeah, that's the last time I was there.
It was in the 80s.
Gotcha.
The reference I have for what you're talking about with people living there was the movie
about Queen and Freddie Mercury, where they all live in that farm in England where they
record the album with Bohemian Rhapsody.
(38:22):
So we went to that farm too.
Yeah, yeah, we we use that farm to really rock field.
We used it for the third album.
They recorded the first album there.
Actually, it was really primitive then.
And then when we did third album, still pretty primitive.
We stayed in a farmhouse, little farmhouse hotel near there.
But yeah, Rockfield, it was a working farm.
(38:44):
And again, I used every single space possible and recorded vocals outside, court slide guitar
in a pig shed, all that kind of stuff.
I think they they went upscale.
They got they modernized it.
In fact, I'm pretty sure it's like a state of the art place.
But at the time, it was very primitive, had an old broadcast console that would just distort
(39:04):
like mad.
If you listen to the first Foghead album, you can hear a lot of distortion.
Some of it not intentional.
The lead vocal on Just Wanna Make Love to you.
I think Dave Edmonds was kind of out of it that day.
But you know, you pushed the board too hard.
That's what you got.
(39:27):
There you have it.
If you ever thought your hometown was boring, you never know what history you might be living
right next to.
In my case, I was living across the street from music history.
So next time you're out walking through the woods and you come upon something you think
is some old rusted piece of junk, take a closer look.
Maybe it's the remains of a fiat some rock stars once beat to a pulp.
(39:48):
You never know.
And if you do find something and it's connected to someone interesting, do the research and
get in touch with them if you can.
What you find out could be fascinating.
You can find this podcast on every major hosting site like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more.
If you like it, please share it with others.
(40:08):
It's a story I'm passionate about telling and I'd love as many people to hear it as
possible.
Finally, if you can, please give it a good rating so more people can discover it.
Until next time.
When you find yourself traveling along an old dirt road in your town, or even in a place
(00:14):
you've never been, try to imagine the things that have happened there and who might have
lived there.
The dirt road you're thinking of might be tree-lined, bordered by thick forests and
hills with swamps on either side.
Or maybe it stretches off forever in a straight line through a dusty desert.
Your imagination probably doesn't take you to actors, rock stars, and even drug traffickers.
(00:35):
But there's a reason they say truth is stranger than fiction.
My name is Anthony Cerdelli.
I'm a journalist.
Well, a sports journalist living in Southern California.
I'm about to tell you a story about the dirt road in Vermont that I grew up on.
When I found out the truth behind the urban legends about this small part of Sharon, Vermont,
(00:56):
the place where I spent a lot of my childhood, my mind was blown.
This is True Stories from an Old Dirt Road.
(01:18):
As you heard in that last episode, the old dirt road in Sharon, Vermont that I grew up
on and my house specifically saw some interesting characters visit in the mid-1960s.
Brandon DeWilda and his buddies used my house in Sharon as a country escape from the lights
and pressure of show business.
If that were it, this story would be interesting enough.
(01:39):
But it's not.
It's not even close.
Because a decade later, about a quarter of a mile down the road, another group of soon-to-be
world-famous musicians visited the house next door to the one we would eventually move into,
where DeWilda and friends hung out.
It was all thanks to a young couple by the name of John and Jerese Bergstrom who opened
(01:59):
Sun Treader Studios.
Sun Treader was the recording studio where the band Fog Hat recorded its hit song Slow
Ride and the entire album it was released off of called Fool for the City.
You probably know Slow Ride from the local Classic Rock station.
Well, actually that's kind of outdated now.
If you listen to Classic Rock, Spotify, or XM radio, Classic Rock stations, that's
(02:22):
how you'd know Slow Ride.
Or, equally likely, you know it from the 1993 comedy Dazed and Confused, which follows a
group of Texas high schoolers on their final day of school before summer in 1976.
Dazed and Confused was studded with classic 60s and 70s songs, but Slow Ride has perhaps
the most memorable moment.
(02:43):
Right before the movie ends, freshman Mitch Kramer, played by Wiley Wiggins, gets home
after experiencing his first high school keg party, among other things, and his mom confronts
him.
Mitch very unconvincingly denies everything, lies down in his bed, and pops on his headphones.
And right then, Slow Ride fades in as Mitch closes his eyes with a satisfied look on his
(03:04):
face.
And who could blame him judging by what he'd just experienced?
The movie closes with Slow Ride blaring as we get the final scene.
Randall Floyd, David Wooderson, Ron Slater, and Simone Kerr, played by Jason London, Matthew
McConaughey, Rory Cochran, and Joy Lauren Adams respectively, ride off into the sunrise
the next morning, high-fiving and laughing.
(03:26):
Have you been drinking?
No.
Are you drunk?
No.
Slow Ride.
(03:49):
Take it easy.
You might be wondering why a couple opened a recording studio in the middle of nowhere.
Well I interviewed Jereese and her husband John to get all the details about their experiences
working with Fog Hat and many other bands.
(04:10):
Unfortunately, Jereese passed away a while after I interviewed her.
I didn't know her all that well, but from our interview, you'll be able to tell she
seemed like quite the firecracker.
It was my husband's idea.
John has a background in engineering and I have a background in music, so this was back
in the early 70s.
(04:31):
Nonetheless, we had those backgrounds and he was sitting in the room one day and he
said, you know, I'd like to have a recording studio.
So we figured it out and found a couple of friends who were also interested and the four
of us started Sun Trader Studios.
What was your background in music?
I was a trombonist and there weren't too many female trombonists and it was not really,
(04:55):
I was not encouraged to continue.
So I didn't and I went on to entrepreneurial ships and that was it.
When you and your husband decided you want to do a recording studio, was there anything
there already?
Like, did it exist already?
Did you build it from scratch?
We built it from scratch, but we had a foundation already because we were going to, it was 115
(05:16):
acres and we were going to build a house there.
So we had a 52 by 32 foundation and then the builder up and left with our money.
So we were just stuck with a foundation for a couple of years and then we decided, well,
that's where we'll put the studio and we figured out how to do that.
It took cajoling and coaxing of banks and other money people and there we had it.
(05:41):
How did you go about building a business there?
Like Sharon strikes me as a pretty out of the way location.
Yeah, well, I thought that was a, if we were going to put it there, we'd have to market
it as being out in Oak Sticks out in Vermont in the middle of nowhere as an alternative
to being in the city where almost all of the recording studios were other than Nashville.
(06:06):
It was LA, San Francisco and New York.
There were one or two in Boston, but not really anything of note.
Reading the bands that recorded there, how did you kind of go about making the connections
and making people aware of this recording studio and Sharon?
Well, we had a lot of luck.
There's a musician named June Millington and she was in the group called Fanny, F-A-N-N-Y,
(06:33):
which was semi-popular at the time.
It was not widely known, but it was known to us.
And she was on her way back from Maine to where she lived and I think still lives in
Western Massachusetts.
For some reason she heard about it and stopped by and she started telling her friends, oh,
she at the time, I'm sorry, she was living in Woodstock, New York.
(06:54):
She now lives in Western Massachusetts.
And in Woodstock, New York, there's a lot of bands like The Band and many other musical
types.
And one of them was Nick Jamison.
He went on to produce Thaw Cat at our studio a couple of times and his own solo recording
and he touted us to everybody that he could and he was very good to us that way.
(07:20):
Another producer named Craig Leon was done, he was in Miami and he was working with Criteria
Studios down there and he was done with Miami.
Came up and tried it and liked it a lot.
He gave us a few, several acts recorded there too with him.
And it just sort of blossomed from there, you know, it just word of mouth mostly.
(07:44):
We didn't do too much advertising, as I recall.
Here's something I wondered when I started hearing these stories.
You might be wondering the same thing.
It can't be a coincidence that famous musicians and an actor who wanted to be a musician chose
the same small town and not just that, the same road to hang out and play music.
(08:08):
But that seems to be the case.
I asked Ian Dunlop of the International Submarine Band if he knew anyone from Bearsville or
knew anything about Woodstock, New York.
He said his brother had lived in Woodstock, New York, but never mentioned anything about
Bearsville records.
Shockingly, it seems like a random coincidence.
I also spoke to Nick Jamison, who played bass for Fog Hat and produced Fool for the City
(08:31):
along with a number of other projects at Sun Treader.
I was there with Fog Hat.
We went there for about a week and then we came back and did another month there.
Then I did my solo record there and I was there for quite some time.
A better part of a year, I don't know.
Then I did a record by a guy named David Anderson there and we were in and out for a few months.
(08:54):
I spent a good amount of time there.
For my solo record, I actually lived there in the studio.
I've been a musician pretty much all my life.
Then I got into engineering.
I was in Philadelphia.
I built a little studio in the warehouse that my band used to practice in.
Then I got a job at Albert Grossman's studio, Bearsville Records, Bearsville Studio.
(09:15):
He had the company Bearsville Records too.
I started as an intern, worked my way up to engineer.
Then I started co-producing and then producing.
Then Fog Hat wanted me to mix some things on their first album, which I did.
We started a good relationship.
I ended up producing their third album, Rock and Roll Outlaws.
Then they asked me to join the band, which I did.
(09:37):
I said I'd do it for a year.
We did Fool for the City.
I think June Millington, yeah, it was definitely her, of the group Fanny, the first girl group
in the 60s, the first girl rock band.
They were quite good.
Told me about Sun Treader.
I don't think anybody was doing anything up there yet.
They had this state of the art beautifully designed room.
(10:00):
We went up to take a look at it and I thought, oh man, this is great.
Because I had a big pretty live room and I was getting into using room mics and stuff
like that.
Before a lot of people, I might say.
Way before Zeppelin and all that stuff.
I was attracted to that.
They had an API console, which I thought was a great rock and roll console.
I just generally liked it.
(10:21):
We liked the idea of being up there in the country.
I think Roger and I went up there to take a look at it.
Then we went up and we cut three songs.
We cut Savior Lovin' from Food for the City and Slow Ride and a song called Going to the
Mardi Gras, which we ended up never using.
Then we went on tour with Rod Stewart and came back and finished the record.
(10:46):
What was your first impression of that part of Vermont?
I thought it was beautiful.
I thought it was gorgeous.
I mean, Sharon was very small.
I mean, it didn't really, it wasn't a town as so much as a diner and some houses.
I liked it.
River running right by.
It was a small stream really.
You used to walk around there.
It was gorgeous.
I can't remember what time of year it was.
(11:08):
It wasn't winter though.
It was pretty nice.
I think it might have been summer or late summer.
We rented a house outside of Sharon a little bit.
A great big house.
It was lovely.
We really liked being up there, recording up in the woods.
My impression of Sharon was this is great.
Right across the way from Hanover, New Hampshire, which is great, you know, bookstores and restaurants
(11:32):
and stuff like that that I liked.
So I was impressed.
By the time Fog Hat recorded at Sun Treader, they'd already put out four albums.
Three of them had been certified gold, but nothing would compare to the success they
had from Fool for the City.
They hit it big with us, but they were moderately known.
They were their most recent before they came to us album was Rock and Roll, which was a
(11:57):
picture of a rock and a picture of a roll.
And it was not terribly successful, but it was successful enough that Bearsville Records
wanted them to continue.
And so they did.
And Dave Peveret, who was lead singer at Fog Hat and also a guitar, all guitarist, he had
been successful along with their drummer, Roger Earl.
(12:21):
They had been successful in a group or two in England, which names are escaping me.
But I believe he was one of the co-authors of the hit.
It's a summer time and the weather is so.
I think that he either wrote it or his brother wrote it or something like that.
I can't remember now.
It was a little while ago.
(12:42):
And so because they had sort of established themselves semi when they came to us, they
were really gobsmacked because we had a 24 track studio in the middle of nowhere, which
the only other place there was a 24 track studio nearby was in Boston.
And that was a wreck.
It was not a very good one.
So they were happy with it and spread the word.
(13:05):
Did that technical kind of cutting edge equipment have to do with your husband's engineering
background?
Yes, I would say.
The slow ride, we had come up with that in Long Island.
Dave came in with like an acoustic demo and I kind of arranged it and we played it through
once and taped it.
(13:27):
And we just improvised basically everything that we hadn't figured out.
And it came out great.
Then we didn't play it again.
We went up to the studio.
We fooled around with it a little bit.
Then we did one take and the power went out.
On the record, it's quite a long song.
You have the song and then it breaks down into a sort of a bass solo and then a big
(13:53):
build up, all of that.
The power went out before we got to that.
The power went out right after the song part, the basic song, the single version you could
say ends.
And we couldn't play it back for about five, six days.
We just hung out in the Holiday Inn and all thought it sounded good.
What do you think?
Sounded great to me.
No, no, no, we might have to do it again.
(14:14):
We had no idea.
Then after the blizzard led up and we were able to go up there again, we played it back
and that was it.
That was the take.
When we came back to Sun Treader, we recorded the second half and spliced it on.
So it was a snowstorm that caused the power outage.
Yeah, huge blizzard.
I mean, it was major.
(14:34):
We weren't the only ones that had our power cut.
We literally couldn't do anything for almost a week.
Also you mentioned the Holiday Inn.
How did you bide your time during that blizzard?
You remember what you did to kill time?
Yeah, every night we'd go out and see Monty Python movie.
I think it was Monty Python and the Holy Grail.
Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was.
(14:56):
We just saw that like just every night.
Other than that, we just hang around and jam and write songs and whatever.
Gotcha.
Did you have a...
Was there...
I mean, that might have been it, but a least favorite part of working in that area, whether
it was remoteness or anything that you remember just being like, oh man, this is kind of annoying.
Not really.
(15:17):
The available food in Sharon was not the best, but there were nice restaurants around there.
Roger used to cook up food at the place sometime.
I can't say I have any negative memories of it at all.
It was really idyllic.
Speaking of food, there was one quirk that Jereese was shocked by.
I do remember that we were surprised and ill prepared for them to all be, not all, they
(15:42):
were vegetarians and we didn't understand how rock and roll stars would be vegetarians.
Also, they were very hard working.
All of the successful bands at the studio were very hard working.
Rock bands got a bad rap, I think, for being sort of druggies and stuff like, you know,
(16:04):
just sort of fuck off.
But they were not.
Although, I mean, there were plenty of acts who came to us that were druggies and fuck
off.
So I understand that.
For the Bergstroms, hearing Slow Ride on the radio was great.
But because they also knew what went into the recording, they were overly critical about
(16:25):
the quality sometimes.
John and I high five each other, but we know every, or at least I know, every note in every
song that we ever recorded.
So I can tell when, for instance, the fidelity isn't quite up to it or the fidelity is better
(16:47):
or somebody chops it up a little bit.
It's easy for us to tell or for me to tell the radio edit from the album edit, you know,
stuff like that.
Yeah, I read the radio edit was shortened to like four minutes.
The album was seven or eight, right?
Something like that.
Yeah.
(17:07):
I know that Nick Jameson, the producer and bass player for that, he went out, he took
the master recording and put it on a cassette and went out or, yeah, it was a cassette,
went out to a car to listen to it to see what it would sound like in a car.
And we had never, nobody had ever done that before.
So that was kind of interesting.
Yeah, that's smart.
When he recorded Bug Hat Live at our studio, actually he mixed it at the studio, he recorded
(17:32):
it live, obviously.
He put in the crowd sounds first and then, and then he made the album so that it would
all sort of gel.
And it does sound like it's all in one.
One performance.
I did ask Nick about the shotgun incident involving Bob Mason, Dennis Mason's dad.
Remember?
(17:52):
A classmate of mine, Bruce Jager, was over there and he was a technician type for a musician.
And they put the speaker on the end of the house, on the gable end, looking right this
way.
And my dad liked to be quiet in the little yellow house.
(18:15):
And they had it on at night because they'd be partying and drinking, smoking, whatever
they did.
And he'd go over and he says, you guys better find a quieter pastime than that.
And they said, well, no, it's pretty tough.
And he says, I'm telling you, keep it down or I'll be over with my hunting rifle.
Oh boy.
So whatever he said, it was probably kind of a smooth blend.
(18:38):
So they got the idea.
It was more of a veil thread.
And I guess they changed their pitch, they sent the music another way.
Although he didn't remember that incident specifically, he said he did put the speakers
outside, but not for partying purposes.
I don't remember the neighbors doing anything.
I do remember that was me putting speakers outside.
(19:01):
I used the big room for the drums and put everybody else in little rooms.
I think I put Rod's amp in an attic upstairs.
I put Dave's amp in the kitchen.
I was in a closet, my basement.
We were all standing in the same room, but our amps were different places.
And then when we'd overdub, I was just so into using natural spaces because in those
(19:21):
days we didn't have all that fancy ambience and reverb you have now where you can create
any kind of space you want.
We just had an echo plate.
So I think what you're referring to is when I put an electric guitar amp outside for Fool
for the City, that song.
I put it outside.
I mic'd it and then put another mic about 40, 50 feet away and it just gives this great
(19:43):
kind of openness to the sound.
But yeah, I did acoustic guitars out there too.
For the vocals, I would use room sound in the vocal too.
I came up with this trick of compressing the vocal and not compressing the room sound.
So when Dave would sing loud, it would get roomier sounding.
That kind of became the trademark sound of my fog head productions.
(20:03):
I'm trying to think of what other spaces in the room we use.
Pretty much every square foot of that room got used for something and the outside too.
And of course the parking lot.
But neighbors, I didn't even know we had neighbors.
I don't remember the neighbor incident.
After hearing the details about Fog Hat recording Fool for the City, the most memorable story
for me came when they tried to record a sound effect for the song Drive Me Home.
(20:28):
In those days, we didn't have samples of sound effects.
We didn't have access to huge sound effects libraries on tape.
So if we wanted the sound effect, we had to make it.
We'd already done on Rock and Roll Outlaws the sound of a jaguar roaring past a microphone
for the song Eight Days on the Road.
And this one, we wanted somebody drunkenly driving around a parking lot.
(20:54):
So we just got ourselves a cheap car and drove it around the Sunstrider parking lot, crashing
it into trees and rocks and just we beat the hell out of that car.
But it sounded great.
You know, it was very percussive sounds.
You know, I still get a kick out of hearing it.
It was the song Drive Me Home.
It was the Fog Hat song Drive Me Home on their Fool for the City album.
(21:17):
And they wanted to have a crash.
So we had a bulldozer and they bought a piece of shit Fiat and they ran it down that driveway
and smashed into it as hard as they could.
And they didn't wreck the car the first time, so they did it the second time.
And it was they recorded that whole thing.
And it's actually in the song.
(21:52):
And I think if I'm not mistaken, the Fiat is still out there.
I'm not sure in the field if there is such a thing anymore there.
That was a in the septic system is where it ended up.
Roger Earl, the drummer, he had a Lamborghini and he drove that up to the studio, which,
you know, we were all amazed because dirt, you know, probably still is dirt.
(22:18):
And we, you know, offered to crash his Lamborghini into the bulldozer, but he was not really
too interested in doing that.
He was trying to make light of that.
He was, you know, yeah, I gotcha.
From the sound of it, Earl had a lot of fun driving his Lamborghini around the dusty dirt
roads of Sharon in a 2010 Motor Trend feature on Earl by KS Wang.
(22:41):
The Lamborghini was mentioned in that article.
Earl says his favorite road trip was Sharon, Vermont.
That's quite the compliment because Earl seems to be a bit of a gearhead.
Here's the section from Wang's article Celebrity Drive, Fog Hat drummer Roger Earl.
Under the subheading favorite road trip, Wang wrote, quote, Of course, one of Earl's memorable
(23:03):
road trips included driving fast in the middle of the night.
This time it was on a country road in the middle of Sharon, Vermont in 1976 while Earl
was recording the Fog Hat Live album, which would later go double platinum.
Earl gave Motor Trend a play by play of his late night drive through Sharon, saying, quote,
Myself and our lead singer at the time, Lonesome Dave, had just finished doing some mixing
(23:26):
on Fog Hat's live album.
We were up in Vermont and I was in the Lamborghini Miura SV.
There was no radio, the heater didn't work very well, and there was no AC and no seatbelts.
They finished up at the studio at 4 a.m. and headed back to Long Island.
Wow, that's quite the drive.
It was a beautiful night and the roads up there are really nice.
There was nobody around and I had a couple of radar detectors, so I felt fairly confident
(23:49):
that things would be all right, Earl says.
He was driving 130 to 140 miles per hour and it started to rain.
Earl said, quote, So I decided maybe I should slow down a bit.
These early Lamborghinis didn't have brilliant electronics and the rain got inside and all
the lights went out.
He laughs.
We were in the mountains doing 130 by now and I said, Dave, push the door open.
(24:10):
That way we go with the solid yellow line.
I figured the yellow line is where the shoulder is.
It was pretty exciting.
Earl drove in the pouring rain.
It was pitch dark and the headlights on the Lambo were out.
He drove along the yellow line in the mountains until they could pull over.
I get the flashlight out.
We opened up the front of the car where all the fuses were.
Dave's holding the flashlight for me and we put a piece of silver foil alongside the fuses
(24:33):
and lo and behold, the lights all come back on.
It was probably one of the more exciting moments.
Earl laughs.
Having grown up there, I can tell you driving 130 miles an hour.
Even if it's on the interstate is totally nuts.
Doing it without headlights in the rain, in the dark is tempting death.
(24:53):
For having been the location where a song that's popularity has transcended decades
was recorded, it's hard for me to believe that Sharon isn't as well known for that
as it is for being the birthplace of Joseph Smith.
If I were the people who ran the town, I'd at least make it the town motto.
Something like, welcome to Sharon, where life is a slow ride.
Or something corny like that.
(25:13):
Sorry, that's my dad humor.
And while Fog Hat was their most famous band, there were still some other well-known artists
to record there.
Folk singer Arlo Guthrie, son of Woody Guthrie, recorded music at Sun Treader as well.
Although Jareese didn't have many interesting stories about him, there is some interesting
stuff I found while I was trying to figure out what he recorded there.
(25:34):
It's not listed on any of the databases, but I think I know.
It seems like Guthrie recorded part of his 1979 album Outlasting the Blues at Sun Treader.
That's listed as being recorded in North Brookfield, Massachusetts, but as we heard, Sun Treader
was state of the art, so it makes sense that Guthrie may have traveled up I-91 or I-89
for a couple of hours to get to Sharon if he needed to do something he couldn't do
(25:56):
in Massachusetts.
In order to figure that out, I went back and looked at a couple music industry trade magazines
from the time.
Specifically, Cash Box.
A November 1979 article confirmed Guthrie would be recording at Sun Treader.
Outlasting the Blues was recorded just a few months later, so it stands to reason that
Guthrie traveled to Sharon to record at least part of it there.
(26:18):
But there was another crazy coincidence in that article.
Literally, the sentence above it announces a live album from Who Else but the Flying
Burrito Brothers.
The band, Graham Parsons, started before his death and after visiting Brandon DeWilda at
my house in Sharon, which was next door to where Sun Treader would open about half a
decade later.
Obviously, this seems like a complete and total coincidence, but it is a little eerie.
(26:40):
I'm going to do some more reporting on that.
I'll let you know if anything ever comes of it.
One last thing that made me laugh during my research.
That same Cash Box article mentions that Guthrie was recording at Sun Treader at the same time
as Gino Socio, or Sochio, not sure how to pronounce his last name.
He was a disco producer from Quebec, a famous one.
I'm not sure if he was working with Guthrie, but according to Cash Box, they were both
(27:04):
there.
Sochio has a major claim to fame, at least to me.
He was the executive producer of the self-titled disco album Le Fleur, which was Montreal
Canadian star and Hockey Hall of Famer Guy Lafleur's disco album.
In 1979, Lafleur recorded this album, which was bizarre to say the least.
In it, he just spoke, like spoken word, about his career and how to be good at hockey with
(27:28):
a jaunty disco background tune.
He wasn't singing.
I'm not kidding, listen.
Remember that backhand shots are more difficult because of the curve stick.
When attacking a goaltender, never carry the puck in front of you, because he knows you
(27:51):
cannot shoot from that position.
The goalie takes one look.
He reads, deke or pass, and he backs up.
Don't tell him what you're gonna do.
Don't give him the additional advantage.
The goal and goal is tough enough without giving the goalie the edge.
Carry the puck beside you.
Now you have him guessing.
I grew up playing hockey, loving hockey, but as a Bruins fan, hating the Montreal Canadians.
(28:18):
So seeing that the producer of Guy Lafleur's album worked at Sun Treader during that same
year made me laugh.
Was he working on Lafleur's album there?
Probably not, but a man can dream.
In addition to Guthrie, Moon Martin recorded at Sun Treader as well, including his debut
studio album Shots From A Cold Nightmare, and his most successful album Escape From
(28:38):
Domination, which reached number 80 on the Billboard 200.
That album features Rowling and No Chance, both hits of Martin's.
(29:12):
I kind of recognized Rowling when I heard it.
Not No Chance.
If you haven't heard of Moon Martin, don't worry.
You mentioned some other, I think I read Arlo Guthrie and Moon Martin.
What were some of the other bands that performed and recorded at Sun Treader?
(29:33):
I was afraid of this question.
That's okay.
You know, a lot.
Well, Aerosmith came and the name of that car, the cars came and Bonnie Raitt.
Wow.
I'm sorry.
No, that's okay.
She's a wonderful person, by the way, Bonnie Raitt.
(29:53):
Yeah.
I mean, those two names alone, there's kind of a list of online.
There's like a database of the bands that it says recorded there, but I don't think
it's a complete list or maybe it has to have some certain qualification for it to be on
the list.
But I had no idea that Aerosmith and Bonnie Raitt recorded there.
(30:14):
What were they recording at the studio?
No, I don't remember that.
I mean, I'm sorry.
And probably it was only, you know, a track or something like that.
It was probably not anything big.
Also, Melanie recorded there, but she never paid, so I don't want to talk about her.
Yeah.
Wow.
What was the artists reaction about Sharon, like Fog Hat and Aerosmith?
(30:38):
Do you remember?
Well, Aerosmith was fine about it because they kind of live in the area, but Fog Hat
and most others were like, this is the middle of nowhere.
You know, they'd walk out of the studio at night and it was dark and they couldn't understand
how come it was dark, you know, because it's from the cities or something.
And it's always light there.
(30:59):
But they walked out of the studio and they say, how come there's no lights anywhere?
A bunch of idiots.
They weren't a bunch of idiots, but you know, it's just like completely different worlds.
City slickers.
They didn't.
Yeah, exactly.
There were some I didn't care for.
I didn't like Melanie because they rang up a huge tab and then they didn't pay.
(31:21):
So, you know, you kind of don't like those kind of people.
Yeah.
OK, I'm sure you might be hung up on some of the bands named in there.
Aerosmith, The Cars, Bonnie Raitt.
Some people remember Moon Martin.
More know who Arlo Guthrie is.
Thanks to Slow Ride, many more know Fog Hat.
But Aerosmith, The Cars, Bonnie Raitt?
(31:43):
Those are legends.
Rock and roll Hall of Famers.
Icons.
How did no one know that these bands recorded in Sharon?
Well, it's not quite that simple.
Unfortunately, soon after I interviewed Jereese, she passed away.
I was able to follow up with her husband, John, and their son, Theis.
You'll hear both John and Theis in this interview, along with my own son, who happened to be
(32:05):
in my arms when they called back.
That's life as a Stay at Home Dad podcaster.
Bonnie Raitt, yes.
Matthew at Purple Times.
The most amazing speaking voice.
Just like in one way.
It would sound like a song as she spoke.
She was visiting, right?
(32:26):
That's right.
Oh, OK.
Got it.
She was visiting.
She was a friend of Nick Jameson.
So it sounds like Bonnie Raitt was indeed there, but didn't record.
I asked Nick Jameson if he remembered Aerosmith visiting, and he confidently said they did
not and that he'd have remembered.
Still, it's not impossible that a member of Aerosmith did visit.
(32:47):
Same with The Cars.
We're not quite to the true crime chapter of this podcast yet, but we can play a little
detective for fun.
Aerosmith lead singer Steven Tyler and guitarist Joe Perry met as kids in Lake Sunopy, New
Hampshire.
In fact, the Lake Sunopy area in New Hampshire played a key role in the formation of Aerosmith.
It's where the band played together in its early days.
(33:09):
Steven Tyler had, and I think still has, a home there.
I've seen it called a compound.
Lake Sunopy is less than an hour's drive from where Sun Treader was.
Not only that, but until just a few years ago, Joe Perry owned an old farm named Sleepy
Hollow Farm in Palmford, Vermont, which borders Sharon.
Finally, Fog Hat and Aerosmith played together on a few occasions.
(33:30):
In spring 1975, they played back-to-back concerts at the Boston Garden.
It's not a stretch to think that Joe Perry or Steven Tyler, or even another member of
Aerosmith, had heard about the studio from someone in Fog Hat, or even from their record
label, and went to check out the studio, especially if they were in Lake Sunopy already.
There is also a Vermont connection to the band The Cars.
(33:52):
The Cars also originated in Boston.
Their co-lead singer, co-founder, and bassist Ben Oar lived in Vermont.
According to Joe Millican, author of Oar's Biography, he didn't move there until the
late 80s, when Sun Treader had already closed up shop.
The fact that he liked Vermont enough to move there, Bellows Falls, Vermont to be specific,
suggests that maybe he'd been to Vermont before.
(34:15):
Bellows Falls is also slightly less than an hour's drive south of Sharon on Interstate
91.
Speaking of the end of Sun Treader, Jareese Bergstrom said Sun Treader's demise was
tied to a major change in the recording industry.
Towards the very end of the 70s, the beginning of the 80s, the music business changed, and
(34:39):
the big labels, which were our clients, our customers, they wanted to record in-house.
They wanted to build their own in-house studios for the up-and-coming groups, which is what
we appealed to.
We weren't there for the Beatles or anything like that, or the Rolling Stones.
We were there for the up-and-comers, and the recording studios wanted to record them on
(35:02):
their own.
Since it was a technology-driven business, that meant that we would really have to stay
ahead and yet have less and less income to do that.
We saw the handwriting on the wall, and that was it.
We sold most of the equipment to the Air Force, believe it or not.
(35:24):
Do you know what they were using it for?
For surveillance or for... No, I have no idea what the Air Force was doing.
They probably didn't go around telling you.
No, I don't think so.
Were the neighbors aware of who was there, that there were big rock bands around, or
that they were up-and-coming rock bands?
I don't think so, Anthony.
I think that they pretty much everybody kept to themselves.
(35:47):
The groups didn't really want publicity.
There were one or two, Rod Price, for instance, in Fog Hat.
He was a real blowhard, but I mean, he's deceased now.
But at the time, he wanted to be the top cock, and he might do things like that.
But almost everybody else just was very nose to the grindstone.
(36:12):
So that was that.
But according to Nick Jamison, if a couple things had been different, Sharon might be
better known today as an even more historic place in music history, kind of like Muscle
Shoals Alabama or even Nashville.
I think the last time I was there was David Anderson's album.
We mixed the Fog Hat live album there, too.
Or actually, I did.
I don't think the other guys were around.
(36:33):
And it worked out great for that, too.
The last time I was there would have been David Anderson's album, which was back in
the 80s.
And then I heard that it was closed, and I was kind of sad about that.
But I don't think John and Dries, they weren't really business marketing type people.
They were just a couple of nice people who liked recording studio.
I liked the idea of having a recording studio.
(36:55):
And if they'd had somebody, I think, to publicize it for them and really work it for them, they
could have been huge.
Because that was about the time when people were doing things like living in studios.
This whole concept of a studio that you go away and live in for a month and make your
record was just starting to hit.
They could have done it.
I mean, they didn't have living quarters like a lot of these studios now.
(37:18):
We did a Fog Hat reunion record recently in Nashville at Dark Horse.
You know, they had bedrooms and a kitchen and all that stuff.
There was a small kitchen and a sun-treader with a microwave.
That was about it.
So they didn't have that.
But this whole idea of going to the country and hibernating was just about to take off.
And I think if they had a shrewd business person, they could have been huge.
(37:40):
So I was kind of sad to see it go.
It was a beautiful room.
It was designed by Bolt, Berenick, and Newman, who designed concert halls.
I don't know if they'd ever designed a recording studio before.
But to me, that gave it a very warm musical sound.
The room was live, but it didn't sound echoey or boomy or nasty.
(38:02):
It just sounded really nice, you know, the way Disney Hall or some place like that sounds.
So miniature Disney Hall.
Yeah, that's the last time I was there.
It was in the 80s.
Gotcha.
The reference I have for what you're talking about with people living there was the movie
about Queen and Freddie Mercury, where they all live in that farm in England where they
record the album with Bohemian Rhapsody.
(38:22):
So we went to that farm too.
Yeah, yeah, we we use that farm to really rock field.
We used it for the third album.
They recorded the first album there.
Actually, it was really primitive then.
And then when we did third album, still pretty primitive.
We stayed in a farmhouse, little farmhouse hotel near there.
But yeah, Rockfield, it was a working farm.
(38:44):
And again, I used every single space possible and recorded vocals outside, court slide guitar
in a pig shed, all that kind of stuff.
I think they they went upscale.
They got they modernized it.
In fact, I'm pretty sure it's like a state of the art place.
But at the time, it was very primitive, had an old broadcast console that would just distort
(39:04):
like mad.
If you listen to the first Foghead album, you can hear a lot of distortion.
Some of it not intentional.
The lead vocal on Just Wanna Make Love to you.
I think Dave Edmonds was kind of out of it that day.
But you know, you pushed the board too hard.
That's what you got.
(39:27):
There you have it.
If you ever thought your hometown was boring, you never know what history you might be living
right next to.
In my case, I was living across the street from music history.
So next time you're out walking through the woods and you come upon something you think
is some old rusted piece of junk, take a closer look.
Maybe it's the remains of a fiat some rock stars once beat to a pulp.
(39:48):
You never know.
And if you do find something and it's connected to someone interesting, do the research and
get in touch with them if you can.
What you find out could be fascinating.
You can find this podcast on every major hosting site like Apple Podcasts, Spotify and more.
If you like it, please share it with others.
(40:08):
It's a story I'm passionate about telling and I'd love as many people to hear it as
possible.
Finally, if you can, please give it a good rating so more people can discover it.
Until next time.
Popular Podcasts
Are You A Charlotte?
In 1997, actress Kristin Davis’ life was forever changed when she took on the role of Charlotte York in Sex and the City. As we watched Carrie, Samantha, Miranda and Charlotte navigate relationships in NYC, the show helped push once unacceptable conversation topics out of the shadows and altered the narrative around women and sex. We all saw ourselves in them as they searched for fulfillment in life, sex and friendships. Now, Kristin Davis wants to connect with you, the fans, and share untold stories and all the behind the scenes. Together, with Kristin and special guests, what will begin with Sex and the City will evolve into talks about themes that are still so relevant today. "Are you a Charlotte?" is much more than just rewatching this beloved show, it brings the past and the present together as we talk with heart, humor and of course some optimism.
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com