You know, they wanted to do a Broadway album and every show was kind of a bomb. There was no music at all.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
I did the Broadway album unfortunately in a year when there were no hits.
Somewhere along the line, a concert became a variety show. It was no longer enough for four dudes to play together in front of some guitar amps. Costume changes, an army of dancers, and Broadway theatrics suddenly became standard for a 'concert.'
My desire was never to put out albums; it was to do musical theatre!
Not that there weren't great shows, and not that there wasn't plenty of fine music played. It's just that the consistency and the height of where we could take it, with the help of the audience, was less, I felt, in the '90s.
I think with musicals, it's much more part of the script. They don't want songs that would stop the show; they need songs that keep the plot moving.
Back in the day people made music to go on tour. They didn't make music to make a video.
It was 100 percent music. There was no ego involved, no attitudes, no black and white, it was pure music.
I grew up in a time when the only musicals were animated musicals because nobody wanted to see people to break into song.
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.
And there was no money in Chicago for a band.