Devils & Blue Dresses: My Wild Ride as a Rock and Roll Legend

club owners, bartenders, and street people, some of them known as fans.
    Now Tom was excited and he saw a real chance to make something happen. And since it had nothing to do with the sixties, I was happier than I had been in a long time. But, in all honesty, the thrill of seeing and learning about Germany played more in my mind than the success of our appearance.
    We returned to do an extended tour in the winter. Because of our triumph, we were getting a lot of record company and booking agent support, and our transportation was what one could consider normal. We actually had a bus with a driver, instead of tiny rented vans. We had tour jackets with thick lining and our individual names sewn on the front. But most importantly, we were doing kick-ass shows, getting blasted, and having a ball. Because drugs were not as easily available as they were, and still are, in America, we drank a lot. It seemed to enhance our performances and we were using the audience reaction as the barometer. I had to remember that the boys were now becoming stars in their own right, and were not the next parade of the Detroit Wheels, which is more or less what they were seen as back home, in spite of the lack of a band name.
    We had gotten a good reputation after our first tour, and the sales of Vacation and
Naked But Not Dead
were close to, but not quite, the kind of sales expected froma group that was getting much positive feedback from the street and concerts. I was very happy to hear that Tom and Uwe agreed to make another recording in Germany. It had to come, for financial reasons, at the conclusion of the next tour, and it occured in the little village of Wilster.
    I was concerned because my voice would more than likely be torn up pretty good after any tour. Our tours were almost always long strings of one-nighters, with no nights off. I had written about six tunes before I knew we were coming back to record, and I trusted myself to come up with the other songs during the tour. That training, or position of chance, became important to me. I very much like writing under pressure. I think if you have all the time in the world to create, you end up with enough time to second guess yourself. My difficulty was making sure I was always going to be in a studio, and if you don’t make hits, that is a hard goal to achieve.
    By the time we hit the studio we were beat and under the effect of a full winter storm. We each had a room of our own at the studio, and everyday there were big meals served by an on-sight cook, a woman, which was a headache since we were out in the country and some of the guys liked sex more than they liked music.
    Where the Vacation and Naked albums were crafted over many months, we enjoyed no such luxury with this project. We only had two weeks to complete it, and Christmas was just two and a half weeks away. Everyone wanted to be home for Christmas. During the recording process, I was up all night writing, and then spent the days in the studio. While the band waited for the next tune, they got drunk (sometimes) and their frustrations came boiling to the surface.
    One night I received a long-distance call from Kimberly, who had stayed behind. The media in Detroit wanted a quote from me regarding the assassination of John Lennon. I was stunned and speechless. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It was the only contact we made with the outside world while we were recording, and it had to be that. I don’t remember what I told Kim to say on my behalf, but after the call was over I went to my room and cried.
    I remembered how that beautiful man had made room in his busy life to save me from psychological ruin and destruction those many years earlier in the London countryside. He was the most human and accessible of all the members of his band. It was a great loss. “Mr. Lennon, Mr. Lennon,” and bang! Gone forever. I wanted to say something about guns and the mentality of some of their users, but I also wanted to address the issue of war, which was equally as stupid as an individual murder, but a concept still embraced by the world. So I wrote the song “Bang Bang.”
    As the album neared completion it became harder and harder to keep the band focused. I didn’t have the time I needed to deal with the band’s emotional needs and still keep things on track. The band had too much idle time. It was in this pressurecooker when Wilson Owens, our gifted and talented drummer, forced to the surface an issue I had long