{"id":28053,"date":"2024-08-30T05:30:57","date_gmt":"2024-08-30T09:30:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=28053"},"modified":"2024-08-27T10:12:29","modified_gmt":"2024-08-27T14:12:29","slug":"38-special-rockin-into-the-future-part-2-of-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2024\/08\/30\/38-special-rockin-into-the-future-part-2-of-2\/","title":{"rendered":"38 Special: Rockin\u2019 Into the Future (Part 2 of 2)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"The band\u2019s peak began and sustained once you started writing with Jim Peterik. How did that relationship come about?<\/b><\/p>\n

Our label at the time was A&M Records; they\u2019re very artist oriented. That\u2019s why we went with them, because they would have patience. They\u2019d have an A&R [Artists and Repertoire] department that would try to help you out, bring you material.<\/p>\n

John Kalodner had resurrected the career of Aerosmith and several other bands. Well, the band Survivor \u2013 who no one had heard of yet \u2013 had done an album, and they had a song called \u201cRockin\u2019 Into the Night\u201d that they didn\u2019t put on their album. But John said, \u201cThis song, it\u2019s got some legs. It might have some potential. Do you think that 38 Special might be willing to try it out?\u201d<\/p>\n

At that point, we\u2019d already had the record execs fly out to the studio. They would take us to dinner and all that: \u201cHey, great to see you!\u201d And then they\u2019d fly back to L.A. and we\u2019d get the call to our manager: they \u201cdon\u2019t hear a single.\u201d<\/p>\n

And I said to Donnie, \u201cWhatever it takes at this point, because we\u2019re going to lose this record deal if we\u2019re not delivering.\u201d And it was Donnie who made a suggestion that I sing a few songs. It was that kind of thing where it doesn\u2019t matter who carries the ball as long as we\u2019re winning as a team. And so Donnie said, \u201cWhy don\u2019t you try?\u201d<\/p>\n

We were desperate, so we went to the studio and put \u201cRockin\u2019 Into the Night\u201d together, and it worked out enough. It was a Top 40 song; it didn\u2019t change our life or anything. But it did open the door to radio a little bit. So that was the beginning of a little road to success.<\/p>\n

And then our manager said, \u201cWould you like to write with Jim Peterik, the guy who wrote \u2018Rockin\u2019 Into the Night\u2019?\u201d Sure! We flew up to Chicago. Jeff Carlisi and I had several ideas we brought to him.<\/p>\n

We didn\u2019t realize he was the 17 year old who wrote a #1 hit, \u201cVehicle\u201d by Ides of March. I was in high school or something when that came out. But we soon realized this guy was the real deal; he\u2019d already had a long career.<\/p>\n

Anyway, we sat at the breakfast table staring at each other, and Jim asked us, \u201cWhat\u2019s going on with your lives?\u201d I was going through a bad time in a marriage relationship. I had been thinking, \u201cWhat is it about people that can\u2019t seem to tolerate their differences? They try to change the other one or keep them under their thumb, or they\u2019re jealous of what they\u2019re trying.\u201d I had my little notebook of song lines and titles, and I had written down a title.<\/p>\n

So I said to Jim, \u201cWhat do you think about this title: \u2018Hold on Loosely.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

And he said, \u201c…But don\u2019t let go.\u201d And that\u2019s the first thing that came out. I thought it was an absolutely perfect couplet for that piece of advice. And we were off to the races. Two hours later, we had written our first song together, and it turned out to be the biggest anthemic song of this band\u2019s career. Two hours later!<\/p>\n

We wrote a lot of other songs while we were there. But that one, the very first one, was magic. We found the chemistry with him, the three of us.<\/p>\n

Does that songwriting partnership continue to this day?<\/b><\/p>\n

Yes! I was just at his house about a month ago. We\u2019ve got some new songs. The chemistry is still there all these years later. We sat around, went to dinner and had a lot of laughs. We were cranking them out; we\u2019ve got some good stuff coming up here.<\/p>\n

We\u2019re putting together a legacy package for our 50th anniversary next year. It\u2019s going to be a box set with one CD of all the hit songs over the years, and then the other CD has new songs and some previously unreleased ones.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve been touring like an animal all these years, and Jim was the one who said, \u201cYou\u2019re an artist, you\u2019re a writer. You\u2019ve got to keep at it.\u201d I brought him these ideas; really rocking stuff. We took a little nod back to the old style. We decided, \u201cWe\u2019re just going to do what we do. So there\u2019s a little nod to all the melodies and all the great choruses and good bridges and all the good songwriting through the years. And I\u2019m really happy with the songs.<\/p>\n

What will the shows on this tour be like?<\/b><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve lined up all these songs; we bang them up against each other. We take the audience for a ride. We start with an explosive opening, and we keep climbing and climbing. We\u2019ve always gone after it like a football team: we\u2019re out there to win. And when we were an opening band, god help who had to follow you because we were going to throw down. We were going to put everything we got. It means everything to us. And we still go out there like a team, to win.<\/p>\n

Years from now, when people talk about the band, how would you like 38 Special to be remembered? <\/b><\/p>\n

As guys that gave 110%. We always have tried to be the best at what we do. You\u2019ve gotta think you are the best band in the world; that\u2019s what your attitude has to be, and that\u2019s how we always approach it.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s funny. We\u2019ll play some of these big fairground grandstands. There\u2019ll be 10,000 people out there. And [in the audience] you\u2019ll see a guy probably my age, and he\u2019s letting himself get old. He brought his wife to the fair, and he\u2019s sitting there with his arms folded.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m playing to that guy. I\u2019m gonna transform that guy.<\/p>\n

And at the end, that guy is standing up, clapping. And it\u2019s inspiring to him. He thinks, \u201cI know that guy\u2019s my age. If he<\/i> can do that, I got plenty of life left in me.\u201d Those guys, those naysayers? I play to them. I want to transform them.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… The band\u2019s peak began and sustained once you started writing with Jim Peterik. How did that relationship come about? Our label at the time was A&M […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":28059,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[41,62],"tags":[5500,5501],"class_list":["post-28053","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interview","category-rawk","tag-38-special","tag-don-barnes","cat-41-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28053","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28053"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28053\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28061,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28053\/revisions\/28061"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28053"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28053"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28053"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}