DAVID HULL 9/24/99 Phone Interview

By Mark Blair

How did you get into music and what kind of musical back ground do you have?
Musical back ground well..... Geez the same as everybody else you know. Pop music an rock music filled the space that sports, hobby or career or all the above fill for other people. You don't really kind of choose to do it, If your obsessed about doing it then you do it. I seem to think when people lose that obsession to do it they sort of get out of the music business, (laughs) I just never seem to lose it.
My musical back ground was my dad was a jazz musician an alto player and had a big swing band that was sort of a more modern version of say, Count Basie type of thing called Gene Hull and the Jazz Giants. So I grew up with jazz being played around the house a lot. My father hated rock and roll because rock and roll put people like him out of business. He eventually came around though, especially right around the time the Beatles released Revolver. I would be playing the stuff and he'd be walking through the room and he'd listen to it and he'd say "Hey what's that?". That's the Beatles dad "Gee those guys are actually good aren't they?"
Yeah I guess they finally come around after a while.
Yeah it took him a while..He had to get used to the idea more than the sound of it. Yeah I don't have a musical back ground I mean I took piano lessons as a kid. I took 2 bass lessons and when I realized I know more about it than my teacher did I stopped taking lessons. I'm just pretty much self taught.
Obviously you play bass, do you play any other instruments besides bass?
Yeah. I play a bit of guitar, I mean write on guitar. I had a band called Madame Zonk with this singer named Kathy Worth who put out a couple of things around Boston. "Curve of the Earth" which is a small label & "Monolyth" which is another one. She was sort of alterno girl rock, but great song writer and we did a couple of things.
Was this early on?
No this was about 3 years ago. There's a compilation called "Girl" that has Madame Zonk on it and another one called "Music for the Modern Home". And "Girl "was about 4 years ago and had all the hot female singers from around Boston on it you know Tracy Bonham, Jen Trinen and people like that. Everybody had one cut , we had one cut called "Book of the Dead"
So those were Boston local compilation type things?
Yeah we didn't have a real label or anything. We were mainly doing it for fun you know..we started doing it in the studio and when it came time to putting a band together to play live with, I had played all the guitar on it so it was easier to find a bass player to cover the bass parts than to find another guitar player to play the guitar parts. So I just ended up playing guitar, it's a lot of fun, I like playing guitar, I'm an inspired hack on guitar. And I play a little drums, a little keys....I just get calls to play Bass more, so that's what I end up playing by default and I really love it. But i'll probably be playing more guitar in the near future. I also played in "Modern Farmer" with Reeves Gabrels and Jamie Rubin. I'll probably be doing some playing with Reeves in the near future.
I also noticed you're a song writer and singer and were singing Buzz Buzz live with The Project. Also you wrote some stuff on the Project albums too.
Yeah well Buzz Buzz was a song that had been recorded by the band that I had when I hooked up with Joe it was called Dirty Angels. Buzz Buzz was a song that I sang in Dirty Angels. The main singer in Dirty Angels was this guy named Charlie Karp and I was like the relief singer you know. I'd sing like 2 songs on every record (laughs), I was the bench.
Was Dirty Little Things also from that band?
No, that was written for the project. I thought it would be a good Joe Perry song. I pitched a handful of songs... CBS sent Bruce Botnick out to produce the 2nd record with Joe. So basically we took a couple of days to play the tunes we had, and everybody had alot of tunes. So I played a bunch that I had and Buzz Buzz and Dirty Little Things were the ones of mine that the producer basically picked. Everybody kind of voted "Ah yeah we like this song" that how it happened.
I actually saw a cover band do a pretty good version of Dirty Little things.
Yeah?! Well the criteria for Joe Perry songs were the lyrics. I thought those would fit the overall sensibility of the band.
Well like Pills and Talk Talk kind of fit the sound.
Yeah exactly.
I heard you knew Steven Tyler before you met Joe.
Yeah well I'm from southern Connecticut and I think Steven was from Yonkers.
So you knew him way back?
Way back...When I was a kid I used to see him playing around the circuit there. His band would play in high school gyms. I saw him once open up for Sly Stone I think, he had this band called The Chain Reaction and for part of the time he played drums in it. So I just knew him, I was playing with Buddy Miles. Buddy moved to Boston, I started living in Boston and met Steven through another guy from Connecticut named Henry Smith who went on to become Aerosmith tour manager for years. He kind of ran their operation...So Charlie Karp who also played with Buddy Miles was a friend of mine from Connecticut and a guitarist. He and I were going to start a band with Steven and we actually got together and recorded a tune in Synchro. Which was called Intermedia at the time, a studio on Newbury street. We had recorded the track already, we really didn't have words and so we started rehearsing with Steven and we were using our drummer Jimmy Maher. So Steven wrote the lyrics and sang on it.
And that was your project?
Yeah it was an unnamed band and Steven had already started jamming with the Aerosmith guys. They weren't really formed yet and so I think it was something we were both just thinking of doing. But then Charlie Karp and I left town with Buddy Miles and went on the road. By the time we got done with that Aerosmith was already under way.
So did anything come of that track?
No that master has long since disintegrated.
Wow that would have been some rarity....
Yeah it really is. It was called "I'm Crying" it was pretty cool in a lot of ways it resembled Dream On. Sounded kind of like the predecessor to Dream On.The song was pretty good actually the lyrics were good, the lead vocal was good. The only problem with it was the really out of tune backing vocals. At the end of the night everybody was f**ked up. It was one of these gang back ground vocals and it wouldn't have been bad except Henry Smith., was singing on it way out of tune, and bellowing at the top of his lungs.
(Laughs) Obviously not a singer right?
Nah...we were all just grouped around one mic...It wasn't releasable, but it was a good song.
When you 1st got into The Project how did that come about? Were you talking months before or did Joe Just kind of call you out of the blue?
Well, Dirty Angels were touring with Aerosmith Christmas time I guess 1978. I didn't really know Joe at that point. But during the course of the tour I got friendly with him and it was an odd period for Aerosmith. I mean they were playing ok..But moral seemed to be low. And Steven especially seemed kinda reserved on stage. Ya know? You did'nt get the feeling that they were functioning up to their full strength. But Joe on the other hand seemed to be carrying the band, I mean he was really playing great, playing the best I've ever heard him play. He looked really confident like he was having a ball in front of the crowds. He was just obviously on his game at that point. So we got friendly during the course of the tour, we started hanging out and at one point he said that he expressed an interest in playing together sometime " Hey I'd love to get together and play with you sometime, I love your playing" I thought yeah sure that'd be great, so I gave him my number, I never expected to hear from him and about 6 months went by maybe 8 months. In the meantime Dirty Angels got dropped by A&M and I was looking for something to do, the band sort of ran out of gas. I was over visiting my mother one day and the phone rang and it was Joe Perry. I said hey what are you doing calling me here? He said he was getting ready to do a solo album, that he was still playing with Aerosmith but wanted me to do the record and would I come up to Boston. And let's get together and jam and see what happened.
So I went up there to jam and he was looking for a drummer and I wanted to use the Dirty Angels drummer Jimmy Maher. Because I was used to playing with him and he was great. But Joe settled on Ronnie Stewart who had a bigger drum kit and on balance was the better drummer for the job. We just kind of started, I went up stayed at his house for maybe 2 weeks at a time and we would rehearse every night. Joe was really fired up about doing his own record. Everyday he'd have a new song written. Long, long rehearsals so it jelled really quickly he had Ralph Mormon up there too. We did 'em at the Wherehouse which was in Waltham at the time, it was Aerosmith headquarters they had their merchandising in there,they had a guitar shop in there, a sound stage with PA and lights and offices. Aerosmith's world headquarters nerve center.
Aerosmith weren't rehearsing there at the time ?
No I don't know what they were doing. They were just kind of off. Joe hadn't left the band yet. So at that point I was gearing up to do another Dirty Angels record. We were out shopping and it was looking like we were getting close to a deal. Joe called me up and said "look I'm leaving Aerosmith, so I need somebody who will do this full time." So I had to decide whether or not to do my band or do his band and it was just good timing, I was ready for a change and the jams were really exciting. I mean it was really kickin', I don't know if you ever saw that band but it was really hot. It was kinda like Aerosmith but a little more punked out. I think Joe's icons at the time were like Jeff Beck (Yardbirds era at the time) & Johnny Thunders. So a lot of it was really reckless, he was playing really great, the drummer was great and it was real challenging for me. I felt like It was a situation where I could play at the top of my ability.
Was it the type of music you were into too and did you have to change your sound a lot for the band or equipment to fit Joe's sound?
The only thing I did was switch from fender basses to Musicman basses. Joe had one and I played it one day and feel in love with it. From that point on for years I actually played Sting Rays. They're really great, I don't know if you know about Musicman, but it was Leo Fender's company that he started after he left Fender. It took him a few years to get going, but in the late 70's the Musicman guitars and basses started to hit the market. They made this bass called the Sting Ray which was kind of an active version of a Fender "P" bass, and a really ballsey bass and that was definitely the bass for the Joe Perry Project.
Yeah, Joe really liked that heavy sound I guess.
Yeah they sound really fat and there's a lot of punch, there's a lot of attack, people still use em, Ernie Ball owns it now. But... No, I didn't change my gear, I used the same gear. For awhile I used the gear I was playing through, which was Ampeg. You know tube amps and big speakers, different configurations, you know you always change gear, variety is always interesting.
Are you the type of bass player that likes to just play and it really doesn't matter as long as your playing and playing out?
I think that a lot of people get obsessed with gear an amps. You know tube amps vs. Solid state amps are you gonna BI amp or are you gonna play full range all that kind of non- sense right? But it's the magician not the wand, your gear is gonna be a reflection of your ideas, your technique and your attitude. Rock is all attitude and you can play practically through anything. I've used a zillion different kinds of amps, I don't like to get attached to one thing. The sound comes from your hands and it comes from your brain. I mean I've heard some of my favorite players play the weirdest amps and the weirdest guitars.
Who would some of those favorite players be?
Robert Holmes the guy who used to play in Til Tuesday. Great guitar player, he plays a Japanese Fender Squire Strat.
That's the cheap version of a Stat, right?
Yeah it's his favorite guitar and there's a piece of a matchbook stuck in the nut. I think it's on the D- string that he's left there for years. He gets the greatest tone you could ever imagine this fat buttery beautiful Strat tone and plays great. It's a cheap guitar..
I had a really low end gibson bass for a while. I forget what it was called it's like a Sub EBO with a short scale neck that was my favorite bass for several years. I played a Guild Starfire for two years non stop in rock bands.
What did you use for Joe's Band?
For Joe's band I played Fender Precision's but mainly Musicman and Sting Ray's.
So he never told you what to use or anything like that?
No he handed me the bass one day it was laying there and I said "oh what's this "and he said "check it out" it was as simple as that. He had a Hamer 12 string bass that he had made for him that I used to like to play a lot. It didn't record that great but live, it roared. I'd use it on the more punked out shit like Pills and stuff like that. South Station Blues I think I used it on live.
Early on when The Project first started touring, Joe mentioned offers of touring Japan, France etc. Did any of that ever happen?
Uh uhn ..no we went out and did the states. We went out first and did Orpheum size theaters everywhere you know Santa Monica Civic, The Palladium in New York, Royal Oak in Detroit those kind of venues, Some big clubs, Then we did a bunch of tours with Heart, J Geils stuff like that, a lot of fun.
Joe had mentioned doing Heartbreak Hotel as a single. Did you ever record the song in the studio?
Man...I don't remember.. honestly I think we did track it. But for the life of me I can't remember when. You know it went over great live and he really liked singing it.
What about Pills & Talk Talk
I don't think we ever recorded Pills. Pills was a Bo Diddley song that was kind of one of those Bo Diddley rhumba beats. Joe kind of did a New York Dolls inspired version of it that really ripped live. Talk Talk was recorded by this 60's band called The Music Machine. It was a hit record in the 60's.
It's a small world, the bass player in that band Music Machine later produced the Farrenheit album on Warner Bros. His name is Keith Olsen. Ahmet Ertegun was chairman of the board of Atlantic. He was interested in Farrenheit but he never signed the band. He came up a couple of times to see us play, actually before it was Farrenheit it was The Enemy. The Enemy had this manager named Bo Masci and he cultivated a friendship with Ahmit and got Ahmet up to hear The Enemy. And I think Ahmit really liked it, but to be fair I don't think we really had the direction honed at that point. And he passed on the band. The next year Warner's signed us.
Farrenheit actually had a couple of managers, there was a guy named Peter Lembo who was from Boston. He managed The Stompers they were a Boston band and a bunch of other people around town. Then we were taken over by this guy named Tony Outeda who had managed Foghat, Todd Rungren and people like that. He managed a bunch of big acts and he got us our deal with Warner.
Being in The Project what were some highlights of being in the Project for you personally?
Well to be in a band that's starting to become successful is always a great high. To go out on the road and start playing shows and know your really delivering every night is just great. You get this head of steam up and after you play a lot f nights in a row your always warmed up. You're always ready to start playing really aggressively and that band was a real aggressive sounding live, and just a ton of energy. It was definitely a band where the total was greater than the sum of it's parts, a real strong chemistry. I was really proud of it, especially the 1st year of touring was really great, there was a buzz going on about it and we played some great shows.
One night with Charlie we played the Chicago Fest which is this huge out door festival on Lake Michigan. The audience was on the shore and the band was set up on a barge on the water right next to the shore. It was night and we were playing and I just remember being euphoric because it sounded so good. You know you get this feeling of immense power it's a real adrenaline high. At one point we were playing East Coast West Coast and I looked up in the air and behind us on the cloud banks of Lake Michigan was this huge laser show going on. It was just an unbelievable moment.
You must get asked this question a lot. Were there any real crazy stories or moments in those days for you?
Gee ya know there were a lot of em but (laughs) what can I say, that was kind of the dark age of substance abuse. And a lot gets made out of Joe's drug use at the time and the band as a whole. All I can say is at that point that, that was the norm and not the exception. Any record company office you went into, any venue backstage there would always be drugs out and available. The suits were taking em, the musicians were taking em', the fans were taking em' and I think a lot of us that had obsessive personalities were kind of victimized by this idea that it's ok to do hard drugs on a daily basis. I don't really think that it was that far out of the ordinary as far as the existing standards of behavior were at the time. You know I kind of take this exception to this perception of me as like "Joe's drug buddy" and that kind of thing. The relationship was primarily musical and yeah we got to be really good friends, and yeah we had similar recreational tastes. But it was really about the music and we were very serious about it at the time.
When Ralph Morman was fired The Project got Jay Mala for some shows. How did that come about?
We toured for the rest of the summer as a trio, we did that for a couple of months. Then Jay Mala came on board and did a series of shows with us. He really wasn't the right singer, he really didn't fit in. He had been recommended to us and we were out on tour and needed a singer. So he just kind of stepped in and filled in on some shows. But he wasn't the right guy.
So how many shows did he do like a weeks worth?
Something like that.
Do you remember any special guests coming up to jam?
We played Detroit one time and went out to a club afterwards and Ted Nugent was there and Joe and I and Ted Nugent played. That was a great jam I had never met Nugent but I had played on his latest record it was called Weekend Warriors. I had got called to replace some bass tracks they didn't like. So I went in and did the bass over, but I never met Nugent! It was just me, the producer & the drummer in the studio. So I did a handful of these tunes that came on his record, Nugent was never there. So I introduced myself and he said "David Hull! David Hull! Oh Man! Thanks for saving my record for me man. I swear to god man when I heard those tracks I've never been so riveted in my entire life man! Thanks for saving my album!" (laughs). All the while he's pumping my hand up and down with his eyes bugging out and his face right in mine. And I'm thinking "Oh Jesus...get me away from this guy".
(Laughs) like your thinking I wish he didn't thank me!
Yeah really and to be honest I was never a big Nugent fan. It was just another session gig, I lived in New York and I used to get called for a lot of sessions and that was one of em'.
When we talked before you had mentioned you weren't happy with Bruce Botnick's producing of the I've Got The Rock & Rolls Again. Why was that?
The band was sounding really good, we recorded it live, the tracks were OK. I just think it could have gotten mixed better. I thought he produced it OK, they're are 2 kinds of producers one comes in and sort of directs traffic. He helps select songs, he organizes the songs your gonna record, he makes sure everybody gets paid for the sessions and that the studios booked. You know he makes sure everybody's gonna make it to the sessions on time. When people get tired he says "OK it's time for a break" right? That's the Bruce Botnick type of producer.
The other kind of producer is more creative he's going to be much more hands on. He's gonna have song ideas, you know if you need a bridge he might even write a couple of chord changes and say "Hey do this". He's going to be more fanatical about sound and really making sure it sounds great. Jack Douglas was certainly that type of guy. Here's a story about Jack Douglas, how obsessive he was about sound.One night I left the studio and they were working on a drum sound and it was boring. Hours and hours of moving the mic around in front of the snare drum, changing snare drums, putting a blanket on the kick drum, micing up the drum kit you know what I mean? I was bored stiff and I left the studio about 11 o'clock. I went out to a club, hung out for a while , went back to my hotel and went to sleep. Woke up, had breakfast went back to the studio and they were still micing the same drum kit! They were still trying different mics and different drums, Jack Douglas & Lee Decarlo. When you listen to that record it holds up really well and the recording's exemplary.
But Jack was obsessed with sound, once a friend of his came into the studio. During a break in the session they stated talking about a mutual friend and Jack said "Oh how's he doing?" and his buddy says "Well he's not doing great he's hitting the Jack Daniel's pretty hard in fact I was over at his house for dinner and right in the middle of the meal he smacked his girlfriend right in the face." And without missing a beat Jack says "well when he smacked her was it like a hard cracking sound or was there sort of a low meaty undertone to it also?"
He's a little bit of a nut huh? (laughs)
(Laughs) You could have heard a pin drop in the room everybody turned and looked at Jack. But that's all he thought about, how did it sound.
Is that one of the reasons why you didn't use him again or was he just not available at the time?
I don't really know, I think that the reason why Bruce Botnick was sent out was to kind of bring the album home. You know we had demos in, we were rehearsing, we were playing live, and at a certain point the label said "OK the bands ready" and I don't know who made that decision to use Botnick. I thought he was a good producer but as I said before he was more of an organizer type guy than a musical type guy. He was a traffic director there's nothing wrong with that I don't say that in any negative sense. Honestly that's not a left handed complement. He was good, it's just that different people have different styles. I think a guy like Botnick really relies on the artist to make a good record.
The Project shot two videos for the "I've Got The Rock And Rolls Again" album. What was the reason for that being that MTV wasn't around at the time?
Really it's difficult to say what they were going to do with those videos at the time. They were promotional videos and I never did understand the purpose of them. They're pretty good videos, I haven't see a copy of either one of them in a long time. But it was a professional director and everything, we did them in New York in a big sound stage up in Harlem, and did some out door stuff in Jersey and in I think the Lincoln tunnel or the Holland tunnel.
Oh I always thought that was shot in Boston.
No that was Jersey & New York and I think the Lincoln or Holland tunnel. I wish I could remember who the director was. In fact that was my very first video shoot.
I thought they were pretty cool.
I would have to see them now it's been a few years (laughs).
They were live videos pretty much weren't they?
Ah...Yeah we had gear set up...I guess they were. It was 18 years ago I don't remember (laughs).
It's interesting because my favorite stuff is more from the first year of it when Ralph was the singer, and the reason for that is those are the only tapes I've heard. I've hardly heard any live stuff with Charlie singing, and I always thought the band was a lot stronger with Charlie. I mean at the end of the year the band went off the road, the first record was over we had toured behind it, it sold whatever a quarter of a million and so there were singer auditions. And we did the auditions at the Orpheum it was like this big event. Charlie was clearly the best guy for the job. I remember at the end of the day the band and Don Law had a meeting and they said "so what did everybody think of the singers?". I said well clearly it's that Farren guy we gotta get him he's great, and somebody else said "gee I dunno I liked this other guy" and I said you guys are nuts! (Laughs) If you don't get that Farren guy I'm outta here! It's the only choice !
Was there any big names that had tried out?
No, they were a bunch of people that I didn't know. Mostly from Boston, there were a couple people from other places, but there weren't any big names. I think Joe wanted to get a local guy that he could write with and try to get a writing chemistry together with, like he had with Steven. Which didn't really happen on the 1st record, so right away you had better material because Charlie's a strong writer. You had Joe with great riffs and a really strong singer, also Charlie had his wits about him, he wasn't a drunk, he wasn't a f**k up. He definitely came into it with a level of competence, he was good, he got out onstage and he delivered.
I don't know if you've been in the same room when he sings, in a room without a PA, but he has the loudest voice I've ever heard in my entire life. He's amazing and he was easy to record, he sounded great in the studio. So I'm really sorry that I don't have more live stuff with him in the band. Because it was definitely the superior version of the band. I wish it was as well documented as the 1st version of the band.
What about Farrenheit is there live stuff of that band?
Well Charlie has a lot more Farrenheit stuff. Oh you know who has Farrenheit stuff? Muzz, the drummer. He has a lot of live Farrenheit stuff, board tapes, audience tapes that kind of thing. Some of which are pretty good but most of them are not very good quality.
I remember seeing you guys when you played in Lynn opening up for Aerosmith.
Yeah early version of the band the Lynn show.
Yeah you did a couple of Joe Perry songs at that time too.
Right well we did "Buzz Buzz" that was my song. We did the songs of Charlie's that the Project played "East Coast West Coast" he brought that into The Project pretty much intact, it was already written. I think Joe threw in one chord change to play a guitar solo over, but basically that was Charlie's song. I had one on the 1st album which was just an instrumental "The Break Song".
Oh Yeah the Break Tune.
The Break Tune yeah and I showed that to them (laughs). The writing credit on the record mysteriously turned up as Perry, Hull, Stewart ya know? Which I don't know...
That was something you just jammed on?
It was two riffs strung together, you know. It wasn't the composition of the century or anything, but it was mine.
That's cool, a good way to get a song credit huh?
Yeah share it (laughs). It's not like a big deal.
So have you heard about the new Best Of release?
Just what Charlie sent over to me on the Internet. What's the deal with it, who's the label?
I'm not positive but I think it's Raven, it's from Australia, it's released in Australia. I guess that's how they're getting it out there.
So it's going to be an import here?
I guess all the big Internet music companies are all selling it.
As far as I know...
I wonder how it's selling?
I haven't picked up my copy yet, but I've see a picture of it on the Internet. It's "The Music Still Does the Talking" it has a picture of Joe's face on the cover. It's also got Bone To Bone the b-side of the "Let the music do the talking "(single).
Great! Hot track!
To Be Continued.....