Pat Benatar - Between a Heart and a Rock Place: A Memoir

1979

I KNEW THE SOUND wasnt right.

As I sat there, listening to the playback from my first-ever recording session, I knew that something was off. It wasnt that the speakers were bad or the mics were low. It wasnt that my voice sounded wrong or the drummer was off the beat. It was more subtle than all that, but also much worsenot something that could be fixed by a simple equipment change. The problem was that I sounded like Julie Andrews trying to sing rock.

Part of the issue was that the musicians whom the producers had hired were very precise players. Everything sounded perfectso perfect it was bland. It wasnt working. It wasnt rock and roll. I knew it, the producers knew it, and the record company knew it. But still everyone kept shoving me in the same direction.

For my first record deal, Id signed with a label called Chrysalis Records. Id been knocking on doors in New York for a couple of years when Chrysalis offered me a deal. My manager, Rick Newman, was a comedy club owner with no music experience. Hed discovered me while I was performing at Catch a Rising Star, a club in New York, and he believed in me enough to take on management duties. Early on, what he lacked in music knowledge, he made up for in passion, and hed been fantastic in presenting me to labels. His enthusiasm was infectious. But though he was my biggest cheerleader and the greatest guy, he had to rely heavily on our attorneys, business manager, and the record label for advice. Chrysalis had signed a chick singer, and a chick singer was what they expected me to remain. The result was the all-too-perfect sound of my first session.

I didnt set out to be a solo artist. My dream was to be the singer in a rockin band, like Robert Plant was to Led Zeppelin or Lou Gramm to Foreigner. I wanted a partnership, like Mick Jagger and Keith Richards hadan unrelenting back-and-forth between talented musicians. The sound I heard in my head was raucous, with hard-driving guitars speeding everything forward. I was a classically trained singer with a great deal of musical knowledge, but I had no idea how to make that visceral, intense sound happen. I had to evolve, but I didnt know how to make that evolution happen. And apparently, my record label didnt either.

It wouldnt be enough just to have a backing band who could play it looser. Deep down I knew that I needed a partner, somebody who understood where I wanted to take my music. Somebody to help me get there and be an equal and integral part of the band, a partner in every step we took. Somebody whom I wouldnt have to sit around and try desperately to explain my sound to, but who would just hear my voice and instinctively know. Make no mistake: I was looking for a music partner, not a boyfriend. I was separated from my first husband but still legally married. Im far too traditional to have shrugged that detail off. The truth is, I didnt want any man in my life right then, except for a musical partner.

For its part, Chrysalis had no interest in bringing some dude into the act, except as a backup musician. At first, I didnt know how to react to the record executives, so I listened to them, and for a while, I followed along. Im opinionated and strong, but not really confrontational. I dont pick fights with people unless theyre necessary. When youre young, you tend to let people run your show, especially when those people have been successfully running a lot of other peoples shows. But even as they kept pushing me to fall in line, I knew their way was wrong.

Thankfully, I trusted my instincts. Thats probably the single most important thing anyone can know: trust your gut . Its especially important for young people because there are always going to be older folks hanging around explaining why they know best. I was young and inexperienced when I started out in music, and there were times I bought into the other peoples I know best routine. And when I went against my gut, the decisions turned out to be wrong every time. Somewhere deep inside, you know which is the right path and which is the wrong one. The problem is that so many times we start doubting ourselves, questioning, second-guessing. My advice? Get over it. Remember that this is your career, and you dont get too many shots. If you go with what you believe, you will almost always be a step ahead of the game.

Now, if you do not believe your gut is trustworthy, then find some people whose intuition you do trust. Surround yourself with a few people who inspire confidence and run your ideas past them. As irritating as it was to have conflict with my label, I not only trusted my gut, but I had a few people around me who did as well.

Not being a music man, Rick may not have completely understood my thinking, but he knew that I wasnt going to back down. One fellow at Chrysalis Records understood what I wanted and whymy A&R man, Jeff Buzzard Aldridge. A&R stands for artists and repertoire, and those are the staff members who deal directly with the artists and their music. The A&R guy is your guy. Everyone else is the record companys guy. Buzzard was our day-to-day person, the one I usually dealt with and the one I trusted.

The only problem with A&R representatives is that they are not usually the decision makers. They are not the people who will be marketing and selling your music or setting your promotion budget. Those are the suits, and they could make or break careers, including mine. And musically, those guys werent getting it.

Luckily, after those first misdirected recording sessions, Buzzard convinced the suits to bring in one of the top producers in the business, Mike Chapman. Hed been working with Blondie at the time and didnt even think hed be able to produce a whole record. Still, hed work on a couple tracks with us. Id heard talk that Chapman was difficult, something of a Svengali, because he was very controlling, but his success working with Blondie had Chrysalis foaming at the mouth. Though not a musician himself, Chapman was a very instinctual producer. He wasnt necessarily going to find the sound himself, but he might be able to connect me to people who could.

Initially Chapman was the only person who understood what I was going for, and he navigated a way to get it accomplished. He listened to me explain what I wanted, and started looking around for somebody who fit the picture. I could hear the guitar I wanted, the one that would bring alive what was only in my mind at that point. Id been trying to come up with a partner and a sound for months, to no avail. My frustrations were rising on a dailymaybe hourlybasis. But I knew that Chapman was talented and smart. I want people who work with me to either be smarter than me or be willing and able to work harder than I do. (Thats critical, because I am a working dog.)

Chrysalis set up a time to audition some players at SIR rehearsal hall on Thirty-seventh Street in Manhattan. After they got the initial lineup booked, Chapman had another thought, a twenty-two-year-old kid who had been touring with Rick Derringer.

I think this is the one, Pat. His name is Neil Giraldo. Hes perfectjust what youve been looking for.

Okay, bring him in to audition.

Well, I didnt tell him hes coming to an audition as such. I just told him to stop by so you could meet him. Hes a genius, Pat.

That certainly grabbed my attention. Genius wasnt a word that Chapman used often. Chapman wasnt going to be at the audition, but Buzzard made the arrangements for Neil to meet with us. And so as the time went by that day, I got more interested in meeting this genius. Then I was told that Buzzard had arrived with the guitar player.

Oh, cool, I said, nonchalantly.

I was talking to Rick Newman, with my back to the door, and didnt turn around immediately. When I did, Buzzard was talking to this guy Neil. He stood there looking like Adonis, hair to his shoulders, the most drop-dead gorgeous man I had ever seen in my life. Somewhere in the distance the Hallelujah chorus was playing. Luckily he didnt look at me in that moment, because I froze in my tracks. Something shot through my entire being. Every nerve ending in my body lit up like the Fourth of July, and every hormone in my body went insane. I felt like someone had hit me in the face with a two-by-four.