Sidetracked

Once he had commercial success, Todd Rundgren decided he’d had enough of that.

After the 1972 album “Something/Anything?” scored him two hits — “Hello It’s Me” and “I Saw the Light” — he recorded “A Wizard, A True Star,” a stream of consciousness album featuring nods to a variety of genres.

Needless to say, his label had expected something different.

“Oddly enough, the reaction was not uniformly negative,” Rundgren told me recently.

While some at his label (Bearsville Records) were annoyed that Rundgren had turned in an album with little commercial appeal, label founder Albert Grossman was actually amused.

“I think he liked the idea of his artists going rogue,” Rundgren said. “Like Bob Dylan going electric — I think that’s the way he looked at it.”

Rundgren is performing the entire “A Wizard, A True Star” album live — complete with 12 costume changes — in a mini-tour of California that begins today. The closest it will come to San Luis Obispo County is at the Majestic Theater in Ventura Saturday.

Like Jeff Lynne of Electric Light Orchestra, Rundgren has achieved acclaim both as a songwriter and a producer, having worked in the latter role for Hall & Oates, Meatloaf, The New York Dolls, and the Band, among others.

“It used to be my bread and butter, and my records were my hobby,” Rundgren said. “Now that everybody’s got a studio in their bedroom, I’ve got to make an honest living, and I have to play more than I used to.”

As a producer, he had to offer technical expertise, but he also had to offer musical suggestions, sometimes even suggesting lyrics. And sometimes, he said, a producer has to act as a peace maker.

“Often you are dealing with a group in which there are all sorts of things in play, dynamics within the group that you have to deal with without appearing to take sides,” he said.

One good example of that occured when producing the XTC album “Skylarking.” The sessions became known for tensions between Rundgren and the band.

“There were a lot of dynamics going on in that band,” he said. “Even though there were only three guys, these are three very strong, very musical personalities. And trying to find that happy medium in there was just a constant challenge.”

Rundgren knew going into the project that it would be difficult.

“I know that their producers were not finishing the records,” he said. “The producers were essentially being run into the ground until they quit or until they just ran out of time and had to go on to another project. And I declared that I was going to finish the record — and that they were not going to wear me out or drive me off in any way.”

Despite the turbulence in the studio, “Skylarking” turned out to be the band’s most succesful record.

Even as Rundgren became a top-notch producer in the 80s, Rundgren was still performing his own songs. His video for “Time Heals” was actually the second video to air on MTV.

“I just lucked out on that one,” said Rundgren, a visionary who opened a video production company in 1979 — two years before MTV.

Two years after “Time Heals,” he released “Bang On the Drum All Day,” which was a minor hit at the time. But eventually radio stations across the country began playing the tune with its popular refrain — “I don’t want to work, I want to bang on the drum all day” — on Friday afternoons. Soon it was also a regular at sporting events.

“It’s always good to be somewhere in the public consciousness,” he said. “You’ve done something that very few people have accomplished, which is to find a place in the culture, more or less, that transcended anything that you originally tried to accomplish. All you’re trying to do is get a record on the radio. Now stadiums full of people know the song by heart.”

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Other Todd Rundgren tidbits:

* Rundgren’s songs have been covered by numerous artists. Check out John Legend’s cover of “Hello It’s Me.”

* He scored some episodes of “Pee Wee’s Playhouse.”

* His songs have been used in several films, including “Vanilla Sky,” “Dumb and Dumber” and “The Virgin Suicides.”

* He used to perform with a Gibson guitar Eric Clapton played in Cream.

Photo: Carl Lender

Posted on December 1st, 2009 by Pat
Filed under: Music