Todd Rundgren Does Exactly What He Wants...
The Further Adventures of a Wizard, a True Star

Rundgren: First of all, Utopia has a separate professional life than I do in terms of who they sign with. Utopia was originally on Bearsville only because of the fact that I was on Bearsville. Then Utopia got off Bearsville and went to Network. Then Network reorganized.

Rundgren: Yeah. We did one album for them [Utopia] and then that reorganization happened, so we got hip to that. We got really discouraged about record companies in general, so we went the independent route and do our distribution through Passport. And we have had two albums out on that deal [Oblivion, POV'] and we can put out as many records as we want, essentially. At this point, we're kind of laying back and studying the terrain for a while. The individual guys [are] getting their careers together. Everyone spent the last nine months pretty much exclusively working on Utopia, so it's time for everyone to get back to their own houses.

Rundgren: Well, we knew how many we were gonna sell at least, in the bottom line.

Rundgren: Eh, it's about 100,000 records. You know you're gonna sell that, so you might as well... and as has been traditionally the case with us, just because of bad timing, Arbitrons, this, that, and the other thing, that every time we come out with a record, you know, there'd be some kind of string of excuses why no single was broken off that. So we just like withdrew from records altogether, and [decided to] just make records that we feel like making, and the record company will put it out. They'll do just as much promotion as we ask them to do, and charge it back to us, and then we don't have to deal with all that other overhead. We have to deal with the artistic overhead. [We don't have to deal with] someone telling us what kind of record to make in the first place and then [being financially responsible] for all the other overhead, record company modus operandi. So from that standpoint it's been good, but then again we don't have any hopes of getting to a larger audience. We've been playing to the same people for so long, it's pretty much a closed system. It'd be nice to have a different audience -- that's the reason we went out with the Tubes.

Rundgren: [Laughing] We've always thought that, too.

Rundgren: No, it's just that we know it when we hear it. It's usually a question of trying to keep an overall balance on the record.

Rundgren: Very complicated. It'd be nice to say it was very simple, in which case we could just fix that one thing, ya know, and then it would be different, but it is very complicated. I think, for one, there's a bottom-line thing that I have no desire for fame in and of its own sake. Just "fame" has no appeal to me, because it has so many negatives that go with it. Maybe if your ego is such that being recognized by other people makes your day, then I guess that's a possibility. But, it also means, at a certain level, you can't go out and be a regular person. It also attracts people of questionable mental stability to you and things like that -- and shit like this -- having to do interviews, having to do "press days" Ya know, some people feel they have something to say. Personally, if I have something to say, I make a record about it. I never enjoy going over the details of the mechanics by which I come up with the ideas. So if anyone says to me, 'Do this and you'll be famous' odds are, unless I see it as a vehicle to express something that I think is important, I just don't get involved. Also, historically, I have very little concern for the selling aspect of records. I'm overly concerned with the making of records.

Rundgren: Well, in a certain sense, I do them for completely selfish reasons. I do them solely to please myself. Maybe that's the single reason, that I'm playing to an audience of one. It's remarkable that more people than that are even interested. From a bottom- line standpoint, I'm only interested in hearing what I want to hear. I don't really care about anybody else. If there's a single, or something that resembles a single, it's only because sometimes I hear commercial music that I like. Very occasionally, but on rare occasions, I might hear something that coincidentally becomes a commercial success.

Rundgren: Always much less than when you first got into music, before you were in the business, before you had an opportunity to get all the records in the world. When you're 17, there just aren't enough things to listen to. Problem is, you haven't caught up on the old backlog of things, too. I remember when I was 17, [there were] all these English import records, things like that to absorb. Now, you know everything. "All those records, heard 'em all!"

Rundgren: Naw, you don't hate 'em. At a certain time, there were just a handful of artists that could sell a million -- it was a remarkable thing to sell a million records. Subsequently, a lot of people would be in [the music business] simply because they made good records. Then, when people started selling miillions -- mega-millions -- of records, everybody in the record business suddenly thought that this was the way it was supposed to be. This was always meant to happen. Once something starts making a lot of money, you're gonna attract a lot of people who are just interested in the money part. Subsequently, they reduced music in general down to a simple, easily digestible formula, mostly for the benefit of the audience, but to make everyone's job easier. The program director doesn't really want to re-educate himself every six months about music. They will cling to a formula, a format, as long as they possibly can just to avoid having to take the chance of guessing wrong. And record companies are perfectly willing to ser vice that, because it makes their product more recognizable and easy to go for, once you establish some manufacturing formulas. I've unfortunately been involved with productions with people who think that way, people who profess to be musicians but always think in terms of other people's musicianship. In other words, "I want the drum sound from this Foreigner record and the keyboard sound from this Sheena Easton record:" All external points of reference.

Rundgren: Well, it's one thing to be obsessed with another artist, but it's another thing to pick the commercial bones of everything that's successful. You know, if you do it solely on the basis of commercialism…

Rundgren: I can't stand going for the fortieth take. By take five, I'm already getting antsy. I like it to be as close to the first take as possible.

Rundgren: Well, things are definitely oriented toward production. That, to me, is the L.A. method of making records.

Rundgren: Well, to a certain degree, that's why people ask me to produce their record. [I emphasize] certain things on the record that they want: attention to vocals and vocal sound and placement of the vocals relative to the instruments. In terms of sounds, I don't think it's so much a sonic thing as other production values. It's not so much the sound of the drums or the sound of the bass, but more a musical ambience as much as anything else, attention to certain musical things as much as sound things. Making sure that the ideas that the artist is trying to bring out are at least clear in everybody's head.

Rundgren: Well, there's a certain basic way of doing it. You can get radical about miking drums if you want. I'm sure some people think they've stumbled on some world-beating technique of doing it, but for the most part, there's only so many ways you can do it. I've tried to improve it and make my job easier by changing certain things if the drummer will put up with it. Like, because of the way that my studio is set up, I found a way to have drums recorded without the bottom head on the drum and mic the drum on the inside, but still make it sound big and full and not flat like it usually sounds. From my standpoint, that increases isolation -- there's usually a lot of bleed of cymbals and hi-hat through tom-tom mics and snare mics. Minimizing that is usually an important thing so you can really mess with the sound. Since I started doing that, I have much more latitude with what I can do with the individual drums, so that's a technique I favor now, but that could change as well, 'cause it's only just recently [that I've been using it].

Rundgren: People can become very opinionated about sounds -- I don't mean people in general, but people who make records become very opinionated about sounds and think that the sound they create is the only way that a sound should sound. I'm not like that. I hear records where I think it'd sound better in a different way, but I also realize there's a lot of taste involved, that there is no one acceptable way for a record to sound.

Rundgren: I'm saying the general audience does not have extreme opinions about sound and sound quality. The average guy doesn't listen to a record and say, 'It doesn't have enough 200 Hertz:' They don't listen to it on that level. Nine times out often, I think most people that listen to records are listening to them on Walkmans or speakers that don't approach, at all, flat or studio quality or anything like that, and nine times out often, they crank it up so loud that the amplifier's clipping, and wrecking all that meticulous sound sculpting that you put in there; most of this gets totally blown away by most people who buy records. It's so hard to keep track of, so hard to keep an eye on. It's like Thriller, the biggest-selling album of all time, has some unbelievably horrible drum sounds on it. The pissiest, most piddling drum sounds you'll ever hear. So obviously, that is not the predicating factor in why people enjoy it. People are listening to something else.

Rundgren: Spinal Tap. We have a lot to be annoyed about. I think [the Tubes] have more to be annoyed about than even we do. We at least have had some control, some handle on our career. They just got kinda fucked over royally recently by an inept record label, and that's a drag. I would probably never record an album for Capitol again -- I don't care who the artist is. Well, unless they change personnel again, ya know, but I found them to be completely deceitful, opportunistic bullshits. And to not even have the grace to wait until the end of the tour to drop the band; I mean, to drop the band in the first two weeks of the tour -- that is despicable. It's completely insensitive, and they deserve the worst that can possibly happen to them for that.

Rundgren: Bearsville essentially took that long road down to final oblivion.

Rundgren: There is no, is no. Rest in peace.

Rundgren: I don't know what happens to it. They'll probably do something stupid and ignorant with it like they have done with everything else they've touched. Bearsville -- essentially, its erratic course is determined by one erratic individual [Albert Grossman]. Unfortunately, he's got the back catalog.

Rundgren: I don't know whether they'll have the opportunity to do that. I imagine, though, he could be offered a lot of money for it, and just depending on what situation he's in at the moment, he may go for it or not go for it. There's no way to tell what the hell he would do; it's not based on any kind of logical, humanoid thinking.

Rundgren: Yeah, it would have been up, except that fucking around with me was another Bearsville thing -- happened for about the third time. Ya know, just as I had satisfied the contractual obligations, they'd look for something -- a hook -- and fuck with me some more. Mostly because Albert likes publishing, he likes to get the publishing. And, there'd be no way he'd get the publishing if I signed with a new label.

Rundgren: He has almost all of it, yeah.

Rundgren: Well, it just, eh, worked out. They made a substantial offer that nobody else was willing to make, and also we managed to work out some revolutionary concepts in the contract that satisfied me.

Rundgren: I suppose. Maybe they don't want everybody trying this, ya know, whatever, but, [I have a] history of not following a particular course, as you mentioned before. I make records that I feel like making. In my own way, I'm as erratic as Albert Grossman. Recognizing that, the deal calls for a certain number of albums that Warner Bros. likes and if I deliver them the albums they like, then the contract is satisfied. But, if at anytime in the contract I deliver an album that I really like that they don't like, they'll put it out anyway; it just won't, be counted as one of the contract albums. But I get the record out, so the record gets exposed. I get what I want, which is all I care about. It eliminates any kind of pressure for me in terms of making a record. I don't want to make records under the circumstance of "Will they accept it or won't they accept it?" I don't have to think about that. Just make the record, they might accept it; if they do, fine, if they don't, it'll come out anyway. It just extends the life of the contract, and the bottom line is, I usually don't care who's putting out the records as long as they get out. I should feel privileged, I see so many artists who lose it altogether.

Rundgren: It's been done for a year-and-a-half.

Rundgren: For me....