Gentle Giant never reunited. We went out on such a high note that we didn’t want to do anything to jeopardize our grand finale. We knew there was still demand for our music, and I somehow knew we would re-release our albums at the right time and comb through all of the concerts we had recorded for special editions and box sets. We never could have known that a wide range of future heroes from the emerging hip-hop world and young musicians viewing the band on YouTube would discover and be inspired by Gentle Giant, or that many of them would sample snippets of our songs for their own singles. If I had a crystal ball, I would have been elated to know the spirit of our music would be reborn, decades down the road, and our stamp on the music scene would be deep and clear.
At the time, it was beyond satisfying to say, We’re done. That’s all you’re going to get from us. Enjoy what we’ve put out into the world and maybe use it to enrich your own lives and careers. It was the best move we could have made. Our final chapter was fantastic, but now the story was over. The book was closed, and we were determined not to reopen it.
It’s hard to believe that Ray and I would never play together after that. Maybe we had said all we could as musicians together. Of course, Ray wasn’t close to being done with music. Like me, he went on to even greater success in the music business. He became a renowned producer, discovering and working with The Sugarcubes/Björk, The Sundays, and Echo & The Bunnymen. He then created music for video games such as Privateer and Azrael’s Tear, and, as a tech wizard, he became the ‘go-to’ music remixer & producer for 5.1 and Dolby Atmos remixes for bands including Queen, Jethro Tull, Steven Wilson, Gentle Giant, and many more. We celebrated one another’s achievements as if they were our own and we remained close as brothers until the day he died.
GIANT
STEPS
PART
THREE
FINDING A
NEW PATH
CHAPTER
SEVENTEEN
PLAYING
THE GAME
Sharon and I didn’t stay in LA for long after Gentle Giant came to an end. Yael was now almost two years old, so we thought it would be a good idea to be close to Sharon’s family. We moved to Dallas, where her parents were delighted to help take care of their first grandchild. By then, the euphoria of Gentle Giant’s grand curtain call had faded, and I started wondering what was next. There was no way I wanted to continue as a working musician. I had been there and done that with the best players in the world. But I had no Plan B. Having managed the band, I figured I might be qualified for a job at a record label or management office. I just wasn’t sure if I wanted to do something like that so soon after ending my career as a musician. It was a difficult time, during which I made countless calls to Ray, who was also searching for a new role in life. I also phoned various industry contacts I had made at labels Gentle Giant had been signed with or bumped into on tour.
I was sitting on the couch reading the newspaper when I got a call from Dan Young, who I knew from Gentle Giant’s time at Chrysalis. He knew I had managed the band and how hard I had worked with different departments at the label to make sure we received as much support as possible. He told me that he had been hired as the international manager of PolyGram Records and asked if I might be interested in a job at the company.
Over time, PolyGram would become a powerhouse label for pop, rock, singer-songwriters, and metal bands, but back then it was a strange new hybrid partnership between the Dutch company Phonogram and the German corporation Polydor; they were trying to make inroads in America, but they lacked the leadership, so Dan and his co-workers were looking for people who were knowledgeable about both music and the business of music to guide the label’s different departments.
I told Dan this sounded like a good opportunity, and he had me call Jerry Jaffe, the head of the new rock department, who had been working with bands since 1974. Jerry was receptive to my call, partly since Dan had recommended me, but also because I knew bigtime radio consultant Lee Abrams (who had worked with me on Civilian) and radio consultant/former KCFR music director Jeff Pollack, both of whom were Gentle Giant fans.
Jerry felt that since I had worked as a band manager, fronted two bands, and negotiated deals with agents, managers, and several labels, I had a de facto master’s degree in music business, even though I had never officially worked for a record company. He asked if I would fly to New York for a meeting. We discussed how my experience had exposed me to the business of music as well as the music business, which meant I could relate to signed musicians better than people who had never played in bands and work with them to maximize their public exposure without them feeling like we were from different worlds.
Jerry offered me a job, and in 1982 I relocated to New York. That was the moment when Derek Shulman, for better or worse, was reborn in a whole different light. I was now a record executive—the director of the rock radio promotions department, which, on some level was ironic and a bit absurd. I had gone from being the singer in an experimental band who didn’t like dealing directly with most of the people at record labels to taking a job for the very machine against which I had raged. I was like Luke Skywalker becoming Darth Vader. I was going to the dark side. It was the most bizarre period of my life, but one that would lead to many great discoveries in music, as well as a life of self-sufficiency—something that was never a guarantee as a touring artist. If I could go back now, I wouldn’t change a thing.
I got a three-month rental deal on an apartment on the Upper West Side and lived there while Sharon stayed in Dallas. I felt awkward about abandoning her, but I knew that once I had established myself at PolyGram, she could move to New York City as well.
I started at PolyGram with a salary of $40,000 a year, which wasn’t a lot of money, but at least it was steady work, and there was room to grow. On my first day in the office, Jerry introduced me to the other people in the department, and right away I realized there was a hierarchy in the company. Some of my co-workers were angry that I had jumped the line or felt threatened that I was in an executive role and had the power to overrule them and even let them go. They had a point. I hadn’t paid my dues. I wasn’t just inexperienced—I was clueless about standard protocol at the company and how to do my job in a traditional way. So, over time, I made up my own rules.
I had only worked on my own music before, and I found that it was difficult to promote other people’s music with a team of staffers from different departments, all of whom had their own agendas. Even the people in my department had their own motivations. Some loved radio promotion and wanted to be in the department for life, others saw it as a means to an end—the beginning of a trek up the corporate ladder. And a third group of employees were celebrity gazers who felt alive when they rubbed elbows with famous folk.