The band couldn't have happened anywhere else in the world but New York. That was the catalyst.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
It couldn't have happened anywhere but in little old New York.
And there was no money in Chicago for a band.
It was a really interesting time in New York in the late 70s and early 80s, and the music scene was really, really interesting because you didn't have to be a virtuoso to make music, it was more about your desire to express things.
New York had this wild beat that anybody could dance to. It was very nurturing to young people.
It's very expensive to bring a band to New York.
Something happened in the nineties. There was a shift. I don't want to blame it on grunge or the rise of indie - but that was basically it. It was seen as dirty and kind of ignorant to have these ambitions, to want to be a big band.
When I moved to New York, I had to let my band know that I couldn't play anymore, and that was difficult to leave that behind.
When we moved to Seattle, everybody kind of disappeared into different corners of the city and it was a very difficult time for the band.
The first time that I came to New York to work properly was the mid-'80s, but I was doing eight shows a week. You have no life. Going to a punk rock club - or whatever the music was at that time - would not have been on my agenda.
You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all.