Hi Bob,

I love John Boylan.

His blog about the recording of “Roll With The Changes” and our ‘Tuna Fish’ album, and the genius of Paul Grupp, and the enduring support of Epic Records during those golden years of the music industry, and his complimentary comments about the REO band members were all cool, but he left out a huge part of the story: John Boylan.

He didn’t mention the meeting that Gary Richrath and I had with him and some other Epic Brass up at the Black Rock in early 1978. Gary and I came in strong on the heels of our first gold album, ‘Live, You Get What You Play For’, and demanded, or begged depending on your outlook, that we self produce our next studio album. We felt we had the songs, and we didn’t want to take any chances that an another outside producer would fail to understand us.

To our surprise Ron Alexemburg, the president of Epic at the time, actually said yes…with one condition: A member of the Epic A&R staff would sit in with us and make sure that with the inmates running the asylum things would stay relatively sane. We knew of John Boylan’s artist friendly reputation and were big time hoping he was our guy.

After three weeks of recording at Sound City I was not thrilled with what I was hearing and felt like we needed to scrap those masters and go back to SIR for more rehearsal. This was a crazy fucking idea. Our first shot at producing and we are totally blowing it. This could not possibly be happening.

That is when I started to really get to know John Boylan. He had been sitting quietly in the control room, reading, watching, listening, observing our process, answering our occasional questions, and getting to know us. When I got up the nerve to share my doubts about the tracks I totally expected Boylan to tell me I was out of my mind.  But instead something strange and wonderful happened…

John Boylan understood me. He saw my passion and devotion to those songs and he got how important it was to me that we get it right. It was do or die time, and his advice was a resounding: Do. That support emboldened me. It changed me forever. Up until then I had been developing a sense of faith in my instincts, but in that moment I locked into a firm trust in my gut and in letting the songs be my guide. Everything I have done musically since that day has been in total service of The Song. For me, that is the secret to producing records, and I learned it from John Boylan.

There is a post script/fairy tale ending to this story which adds to John’s oxymoronic status as a legendary music business good guy. I feel compelled to share it…

A few months into our sessions at Sound City, John ran into a scheduling issue. Since pressing the figurative reset button, we had fallen horribly behind in our recording. Meanwhile, John had a overlapping commitment to produce Little River Band in Australia. By that time I guess he felt reasonably confident that with Grupp running the board and us getting into the flow of making the record, he could give us our wings. It was a huge vote of confidence, and off he flew to the land down under. But here is the amazing part..

John had been charged by Epic to be part of our production team, and be compensated accordingly. We understood there was a pie to be split up fairly among Gary, our drummer Alan Gratzer, John, and myself. Okay, the amazing part…

When John told me he had to leave for Australia, and that he trusted us to take charge, he also told me that he was giving us his production points…yes, you heard me right. John Boylan voluntarily gave us back his production points! ‘You Can Tuna Piano, But You Can’t Tune A Fish’ went on to sell four million plus world wide and still counting, so those points have added up to some pretty groovy mailbox money.

Do any of you know anyone who on their own gives up points on a record which they spent months of their life involved in? To this day I know of only one…John Boylan.

I recently heard that John is healthy, nurturing young artists, and making new music…as it should be. My warmest, fuzziest thoughts go out through cyberspace and hopefully reach you John. Please say hi to our mad genius friend The Grupper, and thank you for all you have taught me.

Kevin Cronin, REO Speedwagon

PS. The songs from the Tuna Album continue to be “lighter/iPhone in the air” moments of every REO show, so you and Grupp are with us in spirit every night.

PPS. Yo Bob, I appreciated the straight shooting in your recent blog in the wake of my friend Gary Richrath’s passing. I am totally cool with fair criticism balanced with credit where it is due. Keep telling it like it is bro.

From: John Boylan
Subject: RE: Rhinofy-Roll With The Changes

Hi Bob,

“Roll With the Changes” was on REO’s breakthrough studio album, “You Can Tune a Piano, But You Can’t Tuna Fish.” Some background: the album was recorded mostly at the legendary Sound City Studios in Van Nuys, engineered and co-produced by my longtime friend and frequent collaborator, Paul Grupp. “PG,” as we called him, was a superior engineer noted for scrupulous attention to detail, and he should get lots of kudos for the sound of the record. Paul is still active today despite three bouts of cancer, all of which he beat with the same tenacity he brought to his studio work.

REO was a classic rock band, working their asses off on the road, building a fan base, and constantly improving their art and their craft. The combination of Kevin’s writing, singing, and leadership, together with Gary’s guitar and the masterful playing of Neal, Bruce, and Alan was one of those happy combinations that added up to wonderful rock and roll experience – blue-collar, Midwestern music at its best.

The REO story could never happen today. I was in the A&R Department at Epic Records during this time, and we nurtured this band through several albums before they finally broke through. No current record company would keep the faith for anywhere near that long, and that is the real tragedy of the 21st century music industry (or what’s left of it).

Best,
John Boylan