I was really fortunate to get my foot into the music production scene – aka the jingle business – in Chicago. It was fiercely competitive, and there was plenty of backstabbing to go around, but most of the people I worked with were supportive and welcoming to the new kid. But I had my eye on LA and after about ten years with Chicago tugging my sleeve LA started tugging harder.

Chicago had a pretty good rock and funk scene at the time. Styx, Survivor, Speedwagon, and Cheap Trick all had hits. Ohio Players used to record at Paragon and they had a lot of hits. But I wasn’t into any of that. All the music I and my friends were listening to was coming out of the players and studios of LA.

So I got this idea to compete for the gig in Chicago, then produce the track in LA. If it was a big budget national commercial there was a good chance it was going to get shot and or edited in LA, so the clients would already be there. As you might expect, this was a lot easier to sell in January and February.

In ’82 and ’83 that’s what I did. I’d produce in LA if I could swing it, otherwise Chicago. Then I got a nice gig. McDonalds sponsored the ’84 Olympics in LA and booked their annual owner-operator show at the Shrine auditorium in May. That’s 6,000 people who own or operate McDonalds restaurants all over the world.

I got the music director gig and we decided to pre-record a lot of the music, then have a 20 piece pit orchestra play along. That band was Tris Imboden on drums, CJ Vanston on keys, Bruce Gaitch on guitars and me on bass, at Artisan Studios in Hollywood. Multiple long days in the studio with McDonalds paying the bill. Living the dream.

Artisan was famous as a mastering room but it had a nice tracking room, too.

But that’s not the Steve Vai story.

Not long after that gig I got a Pepsi radio commercial. This one came through Dick Orkin – Dick and Burt – who I met and worked with in Chicago but by then had split from Burt and relocated to LA to start Radio Ranch in LA. Tris had this half-time shuffle thing that he says came from Bernard Purdie but imo Tris perfected it. So I wrote the Pepsi music in that groove.

Sidebar – my favorite “demo this for the client” movie scene is in Broadcast News, where the two guys sing the new news theme to the producer. I can’t do it justice – go watch it. Sidebar over.

So I present this groove thing to Dick and he likes it. Now it’s time to put the band and singers together. I booked KenDun in Burbank which was a hot room for funk/fusion. Tons of songs you know were cut there.

Tris was the key to it, so I started with him, then got Mike Porcaro on bass, Michael Boddicker on keys, and I wanted to play guitar. But I had been in sessions where I was on guitar and that left the client alone in the control room. And if there was a problem I needed to be in there to fix it. So somebody said I should hire this amazing new guitar player named Steve Vai. And I did. Then added Larry Williams on sax.

Then I got Bill Champlin and his wife Tamara to sing, and two Chicagoans who had also relocated to LA, Tampa Lann and Peter Hix.

I’ll never know if they would have taken this gig for a guy they never heard of if it wasn’t a Pepsi commercial being tracked at KenDun. That was the glitter.

The session goes great. Dick was supposed to be there – after all the show was more for him than me – but he got busy and said “Call me when you’ve got something for me to listen to”.

Garry Elghammer tracked it, and it sounded great. Monster groove and cool vocals. Except the guitar part. I take the blame – I should have called Paul Jackson or some notorious rhythm guy, not the million notes guy. He’s a brilliant player when he’s doing his thing, but on the Pepsi track every time Garry would try and sneak the guitar back in it just didn’t work. I would have played it myself but it really didn’t need guitar.

So I’m probably the only guy who ever hired Steve Vai then muted him.

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