Over at Atlantic, I met with Steve Ross, the COO and future CEO of Time Warner. After a friendly, informal discussion, he said, ‘I’d love you to meet with Ahmet. I want him to show you what you could do with his Atlantic group of companies.’
I had met Ahmet Ertegun before, and I knew about his legendary contributions to the music business as the founder of Atlantic and the man who signed The Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, Aretha Franklin, CSNY, and loads of other legends.
‘You’re the hottest person out there,’ Ahmet said. ‘Obviously, the Warner Music Group would love to have you, and I’ll have your back,’ he added, which was assuring. Then, he said something unlike anything I had heard in a meeting with a top music exec. ‘You just have to know that one day I’m not going to be here, so you better have people around you that will support you. You’re on the top of the world and things are going great right now. But sometime in the future, you won’t be. So, make sure that you hire people that will know what’s going on—and will tell you.’
This was very sage advice—and advice that he didn’t have to give me. I was impressed. Ahmet sold me hard on coming over to the Atlantic family of labels. After wooing me with the promise of running my own company with my own team and making big money, he made a generous, unusual offer. ‘Derek, you’re a hard worker. You need a little time to unwind. I want to send you and your family over to Turkey for a vacation at my villa. I’ll be there to show you around.’
It was an offer made without conditions, so I accepted. Ahmet’s people arranged for his private jet to fly us to Istanbul and for us to stay at the Hilton. He was there with his second wife, Mica. I went with Sharon and our kids, who were still quite young. After we finished sightseeing, we all had dinner at an incredible restaurant, where Ahmet was treated as royalty, a king with subjects who fawned over him like Solomon. In Ahmet’s case, with great power comes great indulgence.
After dinner, Sharon tended to the kids in the corner while Ahmet and I talked shop. ‘When the wives have gone home, we’ll go out somewhere special,’ he told me in confidence.
It was getting late, so Sharon took the kids back to the hotel. I told her that Ahmet wanted to speak with me privately and that I’d be home later. Ahmet’s limo driver picked us up, and as soon as the doors closed, we were whisked away to a private disco. I’m sure it had a name, but the only applicable term I can come up with is the Whore’s Club. There were beautiful girls of all nationalities wearing practically nothing. Ahmet introduced me, and within seconds these girls were throwing themselves at me like I was Sean Connery in his early Bond days.
‘You’re such a handsome man,’ one blonde woman said, licking her lips. A brunette grabbed me and said, ‘I hope you’re having a great night. I can make it even better.’ An exotic Asian woman slid two fingers down my chest. ‘Relax and let me take care of you.’
My eyes shot around the room seeking an escape. If I wasn’t happily married, maybe I would have rolled with it …but nah, paying for sex—even with someone else’s money—was never my style. As it was, cheating on Sharon wasn’t even an option. The situation was completely surreal. Ahmet had gone from Solomon to Caligula. He was surrounded by women who were clearly intimately familiar with him and chatting away as they rubbed oil over his bare torso.
‘Wow, you know, I’ve got to get up early in the morning for a meeting,’ I feebly sputtered. I walked over to Ahmet and thanked him for a great time and his incredible generosity. I told him I was still jetlagged and exhausted and I needed to get back to the hotel.
‘Derek, it’s just us,’ he cooed. ‘You, me, the girls. Let’s have some fun. If you want, we can have Sharon and Mica come over and join us.’
Ahmet seemed to be suggesting that if I wasn’t okay with just being with him and these girls, maybe our wives could be driven over to take part in some kind of wild orgy. Maybe Mica would be okay with that, but it wouldn’t have flown with Sharon, and it wasn’t anything I could fathom. I stuck to my story about being jetlagged, adding I had an upset stomach, which wasn’t far from the truth. Ahmet shrugged as I left and was driven back to the hotel. I checked in on the kids, who were sleeping, hugged my wife, and we went to bed with our arms wrapped around one another.
My lack of interest in polyamory didn’t sour Ahmet on hiring me, and he acted as if nothing had happened. In actuality, nothing did. He took us to his boardroom and set up a two-day tour of Turkey for Sharon and the kids. Then he took me to his villa in Bodrum, where his chefs prepared an amazing dinner for us. We were joined by former ABC News anchorman Peter Jennings and his wife and kids. I had a good time with Peter. We spent more time than was necessary talking about cricket, but we laughed and enjoyed one another’s company. Ahmet put us up in a guest house, which was like a palace, and after dinner, Turkish music performers played at an amphitheater outside of his estate. I don’t know if Peter was being offered the same amenities as I was, and I didn’t mention anything. When he wandered off, however, Ahmet said, ‘When the guests have gone, we can go to another special club.’
I don’t know if Ahmet was bisexual or if he wanted to intimately know the people working for him. It was beyond anything I could comprehend. One of the female guests brought over a silver appetizer tray. She opened it, revealing a huge mound of cocaine. Someone else offered me Turkish hash. Again, I had to wriggle out of the situation. For a second, Ahmet looked at me perplexed. Maybe he thought I was gay, or maybe a narc or a former addict. I was a high-stakes player in rock’n’roll, and I was turning down top-quality drugs and wild sex? For him, that didn’t compute. He was doing his best to win me over by offering me things he valued, and I kept turning them down.
I think Ahmet figured I would enjoy the booze, drugs, prostitutes, and untethered hedonism because these indulgences were byproducts of wealth and power, and almost every other record executive reveled in the opportunity to indulge. He was a brilliant man, and he wasn’t about to question my personal quirks.
‘I understand,’ he smiled, even though he didn’t. ‘I will have my driver take you back to the hotel.’
We flew back to New York. Sharon and the kids returned to their daily lives, and I ping-ponged back and forth between corporate label offices as I weighed my future. There could never be enough meetings, and all of the top executives competed to outdo one another. ‘Well, what did they offer you?’ was a phrase I sometimes heard from execs willing to outbid their competitors. It reminded me of wealthy people at an auction paying top dollar for a rare painting, and it wasn’t too different from the way some of these guys battled to sign the biggest bands in the hottest genres. I’d learned the game at PolyGram. No matter what was on offer, I knew not to say yes or no. I listened and heard what everyone had to say, as well as what they could promise, and how the job would fit the next step I wanted to take with my career.
Back at Columbia, we were talking about that subsidiary label I told them I might want to run. Walter hired a private jet, and we went to New Orleans to see some great Cajun music, enjoy some of the local cuisine, and talk over the possibilities. Once again, Yetnikoff pulled out the old hookers-and-blow playbook. Unbelievable. The music business had accepted straight-edge artists for decades, but a clean and sober record company executive? Out of the question!