JIM SULLIVAN-BACKSTAGE AND BEYOND-COMPLETE

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
This is Later with Lee Matthews the Lee Matthews Podcast
More what You Hear Weekday Afternoon's on the Drive.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Jim Sullivan has spent twenty six years writing about music
for the Boston Globe. His works also appeared in USA Today, Boston,
Harold Trouser Press, The Boston Phoenix. I thought the Globe
and the Phoenix were competitors, Jim Sullivan.

Speaker 3 (00:27):
There they were. The Phoenix went down in the mid
twenty fifteens, I think it was. I wrote for the
Globe from seventy nine to two thousand and five. I
left then and after that I did some freelancing for
other outlets. So yes, I became a competitor of my
old workplace.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
Oh there was a joke that went around and if
you well, did you read it, then the Phoenix will
know it was in the Phoenix. That's why I didn't
read it. It had been in the Globe, I would
have read it. Maybe you've heard that bandid about.

Speaker 3 (00:57):
I will say this, well, just quickly. One good thing
about Phoenix was I think because they had some very
good writers. I think it pushed us at the Globe
to be better and to write more. Yeah, I mean
and to cover more things that were off the beaten trent.
And you know, it was a good competitive relationship there.
As a matter of fact, even when I was with
the Globe, I played with the Phoenix softball team, so

(01:18):
you know there was a lot, a lot of a
lot of camaraderie out there.

Speaker 2 (01:22):
Well, Jim Sellivan's written a new book, and I love
this kind of stuff. The backstage and beyond complete forty
five years of rock chats and rants, and it is
out now everywhere where you get books. You've put together
all of these conversations you've had with many of these
artists over the years, and I imagine it must have
been difficult to narrow down.

Speaker 3 (01:41):
Yeah, it was. I mean there's I think there's seventy
two chapters all told in this ebook that just you know,
out an expanded version of the first two volumes, and
you know there are outtakes. I mean there's a Pink
Floyd chapter that I didn't write yet, could have. There's
an Ram chapter haven't done yet. And when I was

(02:01):
thinking about adding things, it was sort of like, Okay,
who haven't I done that? I want to get in here. Well,
Ringo was one of them the time I spent with him,
Kiss Stevie Wonder, the Rascals, Judy Collins, Enya Rayuchi, Sakamoto suicide,
you know, there were you know. So it was like
once I got done the the first two, the hardcover books,

(02:22):
it was like and we were doing the e book,
my publisher, editor Ira Robins, said, you know, I do
you want to add anything? And I was like, oh, yeah,
we can do that, can't we? And I said, yeah,
let me do it. So yeah, I spent a month
or so and you know, made those choices and there
could be more to go.

Speaker 2 (02:38):
Any of these people when you were sitting down to
talk to them where they were reluctant to speak. You
don't have to name names, but I mean I know
what it's like to be on a press junket with
with some of these people and they're like some of
them are really into it and really understand the role
that it plays, and some of them just could care less.

Speaker 3 (02:56):
No, none of these really were press junkets. I mean,
these are all one on one situations. And I think
what happened was, I mean I did this for quite
some time and with a lot of these people, established
a connection maybe early on at a level of trust,
and as you can see in the book, these things
are more conversations than they are interviews, I guess. I

(03:18):
mean there are interviews obviously, and they've done for a purpose,
and they're transactional, no question about it. But we get
into things. I did so with Bowie, I did so
with Bryan Ferry, Robert Fripp, you know, where I'd throw
something out, they throw something back, and sometimes it would
go off track in terms of not just talking about

(03:38):
their music or their ways album or tour, but into
something very interesting that both of us would pursue. And
I think that's one of the strengths of the book
is that there are stories here that are not just
what you would read in a maybe a standard kind
of QA with a rock star, if you will.

Speaker 2 (03:55):
Jim Sullivan's backstage and beyond complete forty five years of
rock chats and so this is complete. Was there is
this a more complete version than a previous version?

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Well, it just means this. There were two books that
came out last year, Volume one, Volume two roughly divided
into eras, and this was the opportunity to add to it, basically,
to give if you will, more value for money for
the e book and uh, you know, I had more material.

(04:26):
And for the reason I stopped the first time was,
you know, I and I were talking about this and
he said, my god, well you've written some great stuff here,
but it's so big it's kind of like a doorstop.
So we broke it off into two books, and you know,
at one point he said, okay, we probably got to
stop now because it's getting, you know, getting to be big,
and we did. And then it was because it's an

(04:48):
e book here with the added chapters, you know, that's
not a limitation how big it is. And I just said, well,
I've got more great stuff. I'm going to go for it.
I've got a Ringo star sitting here that we haven't
got into. And that was fun. I had done what
was really a fairly brief interview with Ringo, but I
expanded that to talk. I raised the question with Ringo

(05:10):
a lot of For many years, people considered him the
lucky beetle. He was only an average drummer, and Ringo's
and never averaged him. No, not average, and I kind
of asked a lot of other drummers about Ringo's talent
as a drummer. Chris Franz I know was in there
from talking heads, and they were very good about explaining
how good Ringo was with what he did, and that

(05:32):
to me was fascinating. I mean it's, you know, the
inner workings of what other musicians think about Ringo stuff.

Speaker 2 (05:40):
And you have lots of other stories. Were a lot
of these stories already electronically transformed. You have to go
back to some of your notebooks.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
Oh, I went back to notes previous stories. I reworked
a lot of things that had shown up in certain
other forms, you know, in brief maybe or just not yeah,
just not as complete as what you'd have here. And
I think what I did too for these books is
admittedly I put myself in the stories more than I
would have as a journalist writing for a newspaper and magazine,

(06:11):
because there were a lot of interpersonal relationships, and I
think part of what I wanted to do was to
show how those relationships developed, how the conversations worked, and
how I made some of the choices I made to
ask or not ask things. I remember when I had
dinner with Tina Turner and was doing a story about

(06:31):
her life and what was ahead of her. You know,
I made the conscious choice not to ask about the
iconteena days because it had been covered so many times
and so well, and I didn't want to drag her
back into that. So that's an omission in the chapter.
And it's fine. You can see you can read or
see plenty about that. And you know, that was just
one of the you know, sort of writer's choices about

(06:53):
things to do or not do, and that was what
I did not do. Well.

Speaker 2 (06:56):
I was about to say, a lot of these are
no longer with us, and there may be words that
they say in these conversations that nobody's heard before.

Speaker 3 (07:04):
Yeah, exactly, there there are. I think I mean this,
I think there's some pretty great insight into you know,
it was a time, you know, when artists were more
free about what they wanted to say. I think that's
tightened up considerably over the years. I think artists have
more handlers, they had more PRP. I was fortunate. I
mean I got a lot of you know, backstage access

(07:26):
and a lot of free wheeling back and forth, sometimes
with a glass of booze two for them for me. Uh.
And you know there was a casualness to it that.
I mean, it was professional certainly, I'm writing, you know,
there's no question that this is not just a fan conversation.
I mean I have a certain agenda. But you know

(07:48):
it was it was not scripted, and it was not
limited to time, and a lot of it happened sort
of impromptu after the gig. Do you have time, Yeah, sure,
come back. And you know some good things come out of.

Speaker 2 (08:03):
That backstage and beyond. Jim Sullivan is the author and
the book is out now. Everywhere you get to e books,
it's electronic books and uh, lots and lots of writing.
You must have had one hell of a warehouse to
keep all these notebooks.

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Uh. The basement is full of the note the computer,
the computer. I mean, let's face it, a lot of
them were bounced over to the computer, so that made
life a little easier than ferreting through the basement notebooks.
But they were used to and uh, you know, I
kind of wish I'd been a little bit more orderly
about what I kept and where I kept them. But

(08:40):
I dug out what I needed to dig out.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
Was there one? Was there?

Speaker 3 (08:43):
One?

Speaker 2 (08:43):
Was there? One? Big surprise? When you were putting all
this together.

Speaker 4 (08:49):
Trying to think, I guess talking to I don't know.
I picked Motorhead for an example.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
I guess no surprise exactly, but I've sort of forgotten
about all exchanges we've had over the years, me and Lemmy,
and you know, they were just you know, to kind
of put them end to end and saying, yes, here,
here we were at this situation, in that situation, and
stringing them all together and putting you know, a complete

(09:17):
package together what Motorhead and Leming mean to the world. Yeah,
so that was kind of fun to go. Yeah, we
had some depth there, and you know, there may be
the perception among Motorhead and Lemmy that he wasn't that right,
and he was. He was terrific. He was sharp, he
was witty, he was terrific. And you know, sometimes people
think bands like Motorhead, heavy rock bands, whatever you want

(09:40):
to call him, you know, not the brightest lights on
the planet. But Lenny really was. He was a joy
to be with and just funnyest.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
Health And it will be a joy and funny as
hell read for you, especially if you love this backstage
stuff like I do. Jim Sullivan's Backstage and Beyond available
everywhere you get your ebooks, and we thank you for
joining us.

Speaker 3 (09:58):
Jim, thank you. I appreciate the time.

Speaker 1 (10:02):
Thanks for listening to Later with Lee Matthews, the Lee
Matthews Podcast, and remember to listen to The Drive Live
weekday afternoons from five to seven and iHeartMedia presentation