I remember our first interviews at the Capitol tower. These magazine people were asking us things like 'What's your favorite color?' and 'What do you like to do on a date?' I'd ask, 'Where are you from?' and they'd say, 'Fave' or 'Rave' or whatever. We wondered, 'When do the real writers get here?'
I was known as a ballad singer who sang melodramatic heavily produced ballads. I'm not known as a mid-tempo singer who does fun songs. I'm not going to do a song like 'Dancing on the Ceiling.'
I've always thought, since the beginning of my career, that it was better to take your time and write some good stuff and then go in and not be pushed or forced into just crankin' stuff out, whether it was great or not.
As luck would have it, my voice is best when it's kind of blown out.
Our aim was to be playable on both AM and FM radio - something no one had done in a while.
As a writer, I'm always looking for what I call the universal, something everyone has felt and they can identify with. That's the reason for the success of 'All By Myself.' Who in the world hasn't felt that way in some point?
I've had a great luxury in my career in that I became a very successful songwriter, which made it unnecessary for me to have to just consistently crank out albums and run off on tour for the sake of supporting myself.
When I was 12 years old and first decided I wanted to be a songwriter, the people that I always looked up to were Rodgers and Hammerstein, Leonard Bernstein, and people like that.
Democratic foursomes don't work in the '70s like they did in the '60s, when there were fewer musical directions.
We didn't want to be tied to that damn teenybopper market. We tried to convince our record company that we could do more than silly AM hits, but they wouldn't listen.
Our audiences were always the most bizarre mix. You'd have a thousand screaming girls in the front of the stage and then ten very serious rock critics in the back of the room going, 'Uh-huh, I think we understand this.'
It was not hip for people to like us, because their little sister liked us.
In the beginning, we were a real good, straight rock 'n' roll band. We were writing quality tunes.
There was nothing wrong with having teen-age fans, but we were hoping to appeal to a much broader audience than the 13-to 17-year-olds.
When I was in the studio doing 'Hungry Eyes,' we had to make it an '80s record, but we wanted it to feel like the '60s.
I wanted girls to scream at me. I wanted to be a rock star.
When the second album came out, everybody gravitated immediately to the three and a half minute rock tunes and ignored the ballads. They thought all the Raspberries were was players of high-energy rock songs.
It gets very lonely out on the road some times.
The Raspberries were together two years for one century. It was a very successful failure of a group.
In Mexico they think I'm Mexican. In Italy they think I'm Italian.
