One of the songs Tom sent me had a solid beginning but then shot off in an uncomplimentary direction. It didn’t have a strong pre-chorus or a chorus. It was just blah.
‘Tom, this is a great start for a song, I love it, but the rest of it doesn’t hold together,’ I told him over the phone. ‘How would you like to try writing the rest of it with me? I’ve got some ideas I think you’ll like.’
‘I’m open to it,’ he said. ‘Let’s give it a try.’
The ideas I had for the song came from working with other hard-rockers making lighter-raising ballads at PolyGram. We had just worked with Def Leppard on their breakthrough melodic single, ‘Bringing On The Heartbreak.’ It had a similar kind of rhythm to the song Tom sent me, but it had an undeniable B-section that led up to a rousing chorus. To be honest, it had producer Mutt Lange’s signature all over it.
‘Listen to this,’ I said. I played the song for Tom. ‘Now, let’s try to emulate the section that leads into the chorus.’ We both messed around with a couple of ideas and then finessed them into the perfect part (thank you, Mutt), which Tom and I put our own spin on. The song, ‘Nobody’s Fool,’ became one of Cinderella’s biggest hits. The band didn’t credit me for my writing contribution, but that was fine. I was making a good salary at the label, and I had plenty of songwriting credits on my résumé. I was just pleased to know I’d helped them take off.
With a combination of surefire radio hits and raucous rockers to work with, I put the band back in the studio with Andy Johns to record a full album. He wanted to work at Bearsville Studio in Woodstock, New York, so the band drove out there from Philadelphia to find Andy in full-on rock’n’roll mode. He’s a hard-living, indulgent English producer who had worked with The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, and Van Halen, so we were lucky to have him on our team. But when he was in the zone, he went into method-rocker mode, ingesting as many drugs as his peers, downing anything that would keep him flying, and injecting every ounce of unstable creativity into the production. He had brilliant sensibilities, but he was as volatile as crypto coins, which frightened the hell out of Tom.
From the start, it was clear that Cinderella’s drummer, Fred Coury, wasn’t cutting it. Either he didn’t know the songs or he was intimidated by Andy. Whatever, he was off the beat, and he couldn’t match the energy level of his bandmates.
In the middle of one song, Andy walked over to the kit and started punching the snare and kicking the bass drum. He yelled at poor Fred and practically tore him away from the set.
‘You’re ruining everything,’ Andy shouted. ‘You’re fucking up the band!’
Fred was kicked out of the room and Andy called in session drummer Jody Cortez, who had toured with Boz Scaggs. Cortez wasn’t a metal drummer, but he could hit hard and kept a steady beat, which galvanized the rest of the band. With a new, reliable rhythmic pulse, Cinderella were playing like seasoned professionals. Now, in the middle of a banging session, Andy started screaming with delight.
‘Man, I love this so, fuckin’ much I’m going to cut my wrists and use my blood to write love and hate all over the speakers!’
Tom thought Andy was using some kind of English euphemism, so he laughed and raised a fist in the air. Then Andy grabbed a razor blade he was using to cut tape, slashed his wrists, and did exactly what he said he would do.
I wasn’t there at the time, but my phone rang and I saw it was Tom, so I picked up.
‘He’s killing himself!’ Tom cried. ‘You have to come over!’
‘What’s that?’
‘It’s Andy. He’s hurt himself, and I think he’s bleeding to death!’
I rushed over to the studio, and when I got there Andy was still in a manic state, his wrists wrapped in wet white washcloths stained red. His eyes were bulging.
‘Derek, I love this so much, I’m giving my blood!’ Andy exclaimed.
‘Wow, okay,’ I said. ‘Just stay in control, mate. Don’t go overboard. We’d hate to lose you.’
If Andy’s studio behavior was psychotic, his production was anything but. Every instrument had its place in the mix, Tom’s vocal performance was insanely good, and the energy level was intoxicating. Night Songs sounded unbelievable and was everything I hoped it would be. Not only did Tom’s heartfelt vocals and penetrating guitar ooze with charisma, but he imbued Cinderella with a sound that was missing from the rock and metal world. His blues influences—the same ones that initially made me second-guess his ambition—crackled through the mix, giving the band a vibe somewhat reminiscent of AC/DC, which hadn’t released an album in a while. In a weird way, Cinderella filled that hole, combining bluesy riffs with simple arrangements and a great vocal.
Jon Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora, who became good friends with Cinderella, sang background vocals on ‘Nothin’ For Nothin’’ and ‘In From The Outside’ and appeared in the video for ‘Somebody Save Me,’ which lured in the MTV music programmers. The station put Cinderella into rapid rotation, and Night Songs debuted at #3 on Billboard. Slippery When Wet was at the top, beating out Bruce Springsteen’s Born In The USA. I had signed bands with the #1 and #3 albums in America. Bon Jovi was the new Jersey sensation, topping the old Jersey legend. I could live with Cinderella taking a back seat to Bruce, and they were fine with it as well. It was their first album, after all. We were all off to the races.
Connections are everything in the music business, and I’ll always owe a nod of gratitude to Doc McGhee. Of course, I was the one who convinced Jon Bon Jovi to go with him instead of David Krebs, but Gene Simmons introduced me to Desmond Child, so it has been a symbiotic relationship. And I would never have discovered Cinderella if Bon Jovi and Larry Mazur hadn’t mentioned them to me.
My experience with another rock success, Kingdom Come, also began with a tip-off from Mazur. Their original vocalist, Lenny Wolfe, had been in the German band Stone Fury, who were on MCA when they broke up.
‘So, Lenny is great,’ Larry told me. ‘He’s managed by this guy Marty, and they’re putting a new band together.’
Larry played me Stone Fury, and man, Lenny had a striking, multi-octave voice that was pitch perfect. With Larry’s help, he assembled a group of musicians that included drummer James Kottak, who consistently played a hair behind the beat in the vein of drummer John Bonham, giving the music a propulsive sound. (Kottak would later replace Herman Rarebell in Scorpions and stayed with them until he died in 2024.) Lenny’s tendency to sound a lot like a combination of Robert Plant and David Coverdale only cemented the comparisons to Led Zeppelin, but they sounded like a great Zeppelin (in contrast with the multitude of bad ones). And, in the absence of an active Zeppelin, I viewed that as a positive.
I asked Bob Rock if he would produce the Kingdom Come album. This would be his first big solo production gig, preceding his legendary work with Mötley Crüe, Metallica, and others. Kingdom Come flew out to Little Sound Studios in Vancouver and knocked out their self-titled album, including the ballsy, swaggering ‘Get It On,’ which helped propel the album to #12 and cement its gold status. Before the label released the song as a single, Bob convinced us to print up vinyl copies without any writing on the record or jacket and send them to radio. Many radio programmers and disc jockeys thought it was Led Zeppelin, which is what we were hoping for. It reminded me of when Simon Dupree did ‘We Are The Moles’ and it was mistaken for The Beatles.