Bridge 9 – 1991 Magazine Promo Piece for “Scene of the Crime”
An inside look at The Scene
By Hank Brooks
To say it’s a tumultuous time for Nigel Rodgers seems a bit redundant. When you’re the manager of one of the most successful and combustible rock bands in the world it’s always a tumultuous time. Whether or not this creates the energy leading to the band’s success has long been a point of discussion, but it certainly seems Rodgers knows no other way to function at this point except in the eye of the storm.
It’s 10:00 AM on the set of The Scene’s newest video single, a song called ‘Hammer it Home’ from their upcoming release ‘Scene of the Crime’, an homage to the band’s original name. The director, Hershel Frenzt, and his crew are already on set getting ready for the day when Rodgers shows up in a limousine, which seems a little extravagant for a manager travelling all by himself. “You have to present yourself as successful if you ever want to be successful. I always try to tell upcoming managers and bands that. It’s a mindset” he tells me when I ask him about his mode of transportation.
Rodgers asks a stagehand to get him a bottle of water and a muffin, then approaches Frenzt. This is the 3rd video that Frentz has directed for the band, but the first in 4 years. “I know what my role here is’ Frenzt tells me “I concentrate on the shots, Nigel deals with the guys”.
The video concept is fairly simple. A floating camera style of shooting, tight on the players and designed to highlight the intensity of the performance. The background will look like a warehouse though it’s actually a set on a Hollywood lot. Naturalistic lighting and blue hues are present, and apparently the band will have a toned down look to accompany the harder edge of the song. Rodgers is certainly all in on pitching the hype. “The guys are really excited for this album. It’s got a real grinding edge to it, really showing the evolution of the band. I can’t wait for the fans to hear it.”
This speaks greatly to the pressures of the music industry. 16 months ago The Scene released their self-titled 5th studio album, “The Scene’. Despite debuting at #2 and staying in the top 20 for a remarkable thirty-two weeks the album ultimately has settled in at just over 6 million copies sold. While for most bands this would be the peak of their success and a tremendous feather in their cap, The Scene are somehow battling the image that they’ve already peaked.
“6x platinum. The last album went 6x platinum. And it’s a disappointment in the eyes of the media.” Rodgers laments, clearly frustrated. “Why don’t you ask almost every band in the world if they’d like that kind of a ‘failure’, because I bet they’d like to fail half that bad”.
Still, Nigel Rodgers can’t deny what’s at stake here. Sure, it may be unfair to compare any album to the unprecedented success of 1987’s smash ‘Behind The Scenes’. That album has surpassed 15x platinum and featured a #1 song in ‘Swing for the Fences’ and the bittersweet ballad ‘Your Hazel Eyes’ about songwriter Gil Jupiter’s girlfriend who lost her life in a skiing accident when he was 17. “You can’t set out to write a song like that. Gil held onto that for years, not having closure about losing Jean. When he finally was able to express it properly, well, it was just so beautiful.” T.K. Grace once told me. “I just didn’t want to blow it singing it, I wanted to do it justice”.
I ask Rodgers if he thinks there’s any songs like that on the newest album. “There’s a beautiful ballad, ‘Heart on Home’, but honestly I don’t know if it’s going to be a single. The guys really want to re-establish their reputation as guys who can rock, and it is a little weird. It’s a ballad but not with a catchy chorus, it’s kind of is just a bunch of verses, but then leads into some incredible acoustic work by Gil, followed by an extended guitar solo by Kyng that you won’t believe. Still, it clocks in at just under 8 minutes, so I don’t know if radio stations will play it”
There’s no question The Scene has to feel the presence of some of the newer bands nipping at their feet. Blades n’ Pearls has established a sleaze metal genre that harkens back in some ways to the punk style of 1970’s acts like Iggy Pop & The Stooges or The New York Dolls, yet still features the bombastic and highly singable choruses of The Scene and their fellow hair metal brethren. “Fuck them” Kyng Mobb tells me. “We’ll see if they last, I’ve seen a lot of bands come and go, and we’re still here, and we will be for a long time”. One has to wonder though, especially after seeing how the group members are interacting with each other on this day.
The first band member to show on this day, as I understand he usually is, is the bassist Rod. He seems to be in good spirits, and takes his time to nod politely and say hi to people. “Rod’s been great since rejoining the band almost 3 years ago” , says Rodgers. “He’s given the band a real shot of positive energy, which was great after all the shit that went down with Jerry”.
I ask him about that, about how much damage Jerry Amber’s drug problems were creating for the band “Yeah, I think it’s pretty well documented what happened, so I don’t want to get into it too much. Jerry just wouldn’t stop though. God bless him, we all figured he was going to die. And I know he’s still really struggling, and bitter, but we didn’t have a choice”.
Kyng Mobb, as he usually does, put it much more bluntly “I thought not only was Jerry going to die, but I thought he’d take out one or two of us with him. He never wanted to get high alone, and you know what, I hate heroin. Cocaine is fine, I can do it and not get addicted, but heroin is for fucking losers ”.
Kyng Mobb is an interesting character. Dressed all in black, with long dark black hair, he’s always been the least “glam” member of the band. Add to that his height and intensity and he can be a bit of an imposing figure. He and drummer Stevie “Sticks” Strider showed up together shortly after Rod and about the same time as TK Grace.
“A lot of people talk a lot of shit about Kyng, and I get it. I’ve seen his bad side many times. But there’s also no more loyal person in the world than Kyng, and I mean that. He’s my brother” is how Sticks described The Scene’s lead guitarist to me “I’d go to war with him”.
With the arrival of Gil Jupiter, the entire band is on set and getting ready for the shoot. Hair, makeup and clothes are as important to the look of the band in this video as they are to the cast of any major Hollywood studio production. Nigel emerges from the back, he heads over to a P.A. and gives some orders. He seems stressed.
“There’s a little problem with the wardrobe. The guys knew it wasn’t going to be as colorful as they’re used to, but TK and Gil think it’s too far. They want a bolder look.”
Nigel walks off to talk to Kyng who’s sequestered himself in another area of the set, to tell him about the problem. Sticks is with Kyng, of course, and Rod is with TK and Gil. Apparently Tk Grace and Kyng Mobb aren’t talking now, which would seem to be a problem on the surface. “You get used to it” Nigel says “It’s happened before that someone in the band isn’t talking, and it’ll happen again. You learn to work around it”.
Nigel is a little less forthcoming about the issues between Grace and Mobb when I push him on it “Oh, it stems from the recording of the album I think. TK thought Kyng was coming in a little early on the solos”, I ask him if that’s the whole reason for a fight that lasts this long? After all, the studio time wrapped up 3 weeks ago. “Yeah, that’s it. They’re artists you know? They can get emotional”.
Rod was more open when I questioned him about the fight “Oh shit, yeah. I guess TK banged the little sister of the girl Kyng’s been seeing, and she was pissed off because she’s pretty young” Rod laughs, shaking his head “And Kyng’s a little sick of it, because this type of stuff has happened before. But that’s just TK man. He’ll bang your little sister, your big sister, your mother. Shit, TK would bang your grandmother, that’s just who he is. He’s a fucking machine”.
Nigel emerges from Kyng’s room, looking a little shell-shocked. It’s understandable given the tongue lashing he just took. I’d ask him what was said but the truth is you’d have to have been deaf to not hear it. Kyng Mobb feels TK wanting a more colorful look than the other members of the band is his way of trying to steal the spotlight. It’s hard to argue he’s wrong.
“This is what I get paid for” Nigel tells me, “to find a solution to this”. I wish him luck, but Rodgers just laughs “Wish me more than that”.
Rodgers and the director Frentz gather the other members of the band. The discussion lasts about 15 minutes, with Rodgers and Jupiter doing most of the talking, though I can’t quite make out the specifics of what’s said.
When the discussion ends, Sticks and Rod go back to Kyng and TK respectively, and after a few minutes they all emerge again. Neither Jupiter or Rodgers will tell me the details of what was said. Frentz provides a little insight: “Well, he appealed to them to do what’s for the best of the band”. It seems the sceptical look on my face was obvious. “And do you think after all these years Nigel doesn’t have some shit on them he can hold over their heads when he needs to?”
One can only wonder, given the wild stories of debauchery already out there regarding The Scene. What sorts of things could Rodgers know that would embarrass these guys? It’s definitely a story that bears further investigation down the road.
The remainder of the day is fairly uneventful yet overly long. Given the seeming simplicity of the shoot it still is almost 10 hours of repeated takes. The band is fairly quiet for most of the shoot, in fact there’s very little communication happening at all, even among the members who’re still getting along. It seems this is just another day of work to them, punching the clock, at least when the camera isn’t rolling. Only Gil Jupiter seems overly concerned with the product at this point, complaining that he believes camera time is uneven and stopping with Frentz and Rodgers to discuss the shots and look back at the film.
It’s a long and tedious process, lip synching and air guitaring over the same track over and over, which makes the next observation all the more amazing.
Despite all the issues among band mates, and the repetitive nature of video making, and the fact that I heard it played far too many times over the course of the day, “Hammer it Home” remains one of the strongest songs in The Scene’s catalog. It drives a heavy but melodic beat that seems at once fresh but is instantly memorable. I can see teenagers in schools across the country singing along with it as it shoots to the top of the charts.
And that’s the undeniable fact about The Scene. As bored and disinterested as the members seem, once the cameras roll, magic happens. They come alive, playing to the camera with an energy and presence that‘s undeniable. These guys are stars, and they know it.
We’re all impressed by a car that goes 0 to 60 in less than 6 seconds, but The Scene goes 0 to 60 in a millisecond. In person, it’s amazing to see.
After the shoot most band members leave quickly, and have little to say. “It was a long day but I can’t wait to see the video” Rod shares “The mood of the band and song was really captured”.
Similarity Sticks remarks “I wouldn’t want to do it again, but that was a good shoot. Trust me, we’ve had way worse”
Almost the entire crew has filled out at the end, but Rodgers remains. In fact he seems just as energetic as ever, and spends time asking the remaining crew how their day was, and if everything was alright. Even if he’s just doing it to keep up appearances, they seem to appreciate it. Still, I’d prefer he cut it out, after all, he’s my ride.
“You look tired,” Rodgers says as he approaches me. I ask him how he isn’t. “Are you kidding? This is it, this is being alive. I’m working with people, creating, being on the front line with the greatest band in the world. Everyone should be so lucky”
And then perhaps the greatest insight into Nigel Rodgers of the day is given. That In many ways he seems to need the band more than they themselves do.
“Honestly, I don’t know what I’d do with myself without The Scene. Hopefully I’d find something. More hopefully I’ll never have to find out”
I hope so for your sake too Nigel. I doubt it, but I hope so too.