Tommy James, The Mob and the Music

Singer, songwriter musician and producer Tommy James, known best for the massive pop hit singles like Mony Mony, and Crimson and Clover stopped by SiriusXM in New York earlier this week to talk with Ron Bennington.  Excerpts from the interview appear below.

Ron Bennington: How many hits did you have?

Tommy James: Well we had 23 gold singles and 9 gold and platinum albums. We had 36 chart records. But 23 went gold

Ron Bennington: Over the years, could you tell if something was going to be a hit or not?

Tommy James:  The truth is no. There are a few records, like, I Think We’re Alone Now, which we really had a feeling about. It had really been through a lot of process. It was a slow song, then it was a fast song, then we added the do-do-do and so we just felt that one was going to really work for us. And of course Crimson and Clover was a big record for us because it was where we started producing our own records.  We burned a lot of bridges and if that record hadn’t have made it, our career would have ended right there. What it allowed us to do was sell albums so we were very fortunate to sort of go from AM top 40 singles to FM progressive album rock.

Ron Bennington: Most of the record companies weren’t looking for more than one hit in those days, right?

Tommy James: When I first got into the business, and I’m talking 1966, there were over three hundred record companies that you could have hits with. Astounding! Today there are three.  And the basic marketing plan was, you put out a single and you saw if it had legs or not. And if it did, you went in and made an album. Somehow that got turned around and they started making albums in the hopes that two or three singles would come out of it.  And that’s why the record business went broke.

Ron Bennington: And you must have felt like as you were releasing the single, a gun was pointed to your head.  You’ve got to make this thing work.

Tommy James:   Honestly that’s true. The whole idea was, we were a radio act. We were created by radio. We did our touring and so forth, but we were really a radio act, and a singles act. When that all happened we were conforming to the industry at that moment. I was very happy to be a singles act, but we kept having to outdo ourselves. The idea was to get as many singles out there as possible. The one thing I loved about Roulette [Records]– and getting paid was like getting a bone from a doberman– but truthfully, if we had been with any other label, if we had been with one of the corporate labels, we would have been handed to an in-house producer and we would have been a one hit wonder with Hanky Panky. At Roulette they actually needed us. We were left alone, and we were allowed to morph into whatever we could become. And I was always very grateful for that because that’s why we had a career.

Ron Bennington: You’ve got the book out which is amazing. I understand that’s a paperback now?

Tommy James: It is..it’s in its 7th printing. I’m just amazed. I’m so flattered and honored that the media and the fans have taken to this book. It’s all true.

Ron Bennington: Any talk about the movie?

Tommy James: A movie and a Broadway Show. The movie is going to be produced by Barbara De Fina who produced Goodfellas, The Last Temptation of Christ, Casino, Cape Fear, The Color of Money. She’s just a little petite lady who makes these incredible mob movies.

Ron Bennington: Here you are making these pop songs, kind of timeless, and the songs always seemed to be light. But the music industry itself was a dangerous kind of ugly place then.

Tommy James: The truth is that Roulette Records was ground zero for a lot of mob activity. We had no idea when we signed with the label what we were getting into.  Of course, the reason for calling the book Me, The Mob and the Music was that Roulette, in addition to being a functioning record company was a front for the Genovese crime family in New York and it was very scary. We were rubbing shoulders with some very scary people and trying to have a career and we couldn’t talk about it. Writing this book was very therapeutic for me because we basically had to wait until everybody passed away before we could really talk about it. So, I’ve been carrying this around for a long time.

Ron Bennington: You’re writing songs while all this is happening. There were no days off back then. So you were recording music, promoting, but then again, you’ve got the same structure–what’s the next hit single. So where are you writing?

Tommy James: We’re doing a lot or writing on road. It was 24/7, there was no break. People used to say, “well what do you do for fun,” and I’d say “nothing, I do this.” We were every week in the studio– I think three days a week, then we’d perform on weekends. This was pretty much our life until we took a little time off in 1970 and then the group never really got together again. We would eat, breathe and drink music 24 hours a day.

Ron Bennington: So oddly, it’s almost like you guys missed the sixties. Everybody else is free love. They’re out in the streets. Were there other bands that you would feel closer to.

Tommy James: We had a lot of good friends. The Rascals were great friends of ours. And even though we played very different kinds of music, we worked together a lot. There were others too, the New York groups that we got a chance to work with.  And the funny thing back then, there was this tremendous feeling of camaraderie. When I first came to New York in ‘66 that 50’s and 60’s Brill Building thing hadn’t really been disassembled yet. So, you’d go down the street and The Lovin Spoonful would be recording over here, and the Rascals would be working over in the other studio. The whole record business in New York was in 6 square blocks, and so this tiny little area in New York City became ground zero for the record business. And even though there was a record business in Nashville and LA, this was where rock n roll was invented. This was where Alan Freed was, and Morris Levy of course .

Ron Bennington: So there was competition but it was friendly competition.

Tommy James: And the number of records you had out over the course of a year was incredible. During the 60s we’d have 5 singles a year out, and they were bumping right up against each other. And then albums– we’d do three albums a year. One of them would be a greatest hits album and two of them would be brand new.   And so we were constantly recording and I can’t tell you how many times we’d go in the studio with nothing and actually have to write something while we were in the studio.

Ron Bennington: Is there one that you wrote in the studio that really stands out for you?

Tommy James: Well you know, Mony Mony was one of those records that was a conglomerate of every party record I had ever heard in my life. It was a little bit Devil with a Blue Dress a little California Sun. It was a real tossed salad and we pretty much put that record together in the studio. We just wanted to do this party rock record, kind of a throwback to the early 60s.  Nobody was making records like this in ‘68. We started with the bass and the drums and we started building on the record, and then we’d start editing. It was sound surgery. Finally the last thing we did was to write the song. The night before we did the lead voice, we had no title. And Richie Cordell, my writing partner and I were trying to come up with a girl’s name, two syllablel….Sloopy and Annie…and everything sounds so dumb. We were at 52nd and 8th in New York, so we threw our guitars down, go out on the terrace and light up a cigarette. We look up and we see the Mutual of New York Insurance Company Sign. MONY with the dollar sign in the middle of the O and we start laughing. It was the perfect name for the song. I’ve often said if we had been looking in the other direction we would have called it Howard Johnsons.

Ron Bennington: So now, you’ve got the Broadway Show and the movie. Is this a simultaneous release?

Tommy James: They’ll be developed at the same time but they obviously can’t come out at the same time or they’ll bang heads. It really looks like the musical will happen out first.

Ron Bennington: And the musical is your story? Or is it about the 60s?

Tommy James: The musical will be from the book, Me, The Mob and The Music. It will be the characters at Roulette. It’s funny because a Broadway Show and a movie– even though they’re the same story– are presented in two totally different ways. The movie will be pretty dark and sinister, like the real story, and the show will be kind of light and have a lot of funny moments. I’m also writing some new songs. We have eight new songs.

Ron Bennington: I think what happens in the Broadway Show too, particularly with songs like yours, is that everybody has their own memories connected with your music.

Tommy James: Including me!

Ron Bennington: Because everyone’s like– oh I met a girl when that song played, or that was the best summer, or that’s when I left school. You become that soundtrack of people’s entire lifetime.

Tommy James: There’s a lot of truth in that. I think that the radio is such a magical device. You get this intimacy between the jock and the fan, and that’s also true between the artist and the fans.  I am so happy that we had the success we had at radio, because radio, like I said, really made us.

Ron Bennington: And when you did radio you had to box it out city by city by city. You had to become a hit in Akron and Chicago. Who put you on first in New York?

Tommy James: That would be WMCA. But followed very quickly by ABC. ABC was really good to us. That was the biggest station in the United States with the biggest market.

Ron Bennington: And they all used to do like 20 shares, 30 shares in that market. So when you got on them…

Tommy James: …and the rotation was unbelievable. When you think about how many people heard a top ten record, back in that day, as compared to now, is just amazing.

Ron Bennington: And it would play so much that you would leave in the morning and by the time you heard Hanky Panky once, you’d hear it fifteen times.

Tommy James: I would get sick of it! (laughs)

Ron Bennington: So great to have you stop by. Seventh printing of the book, and now the Broadway Show and the movie. The legendary Tommy James.

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You can hear this interview and others in their entirety exclusively on SiriusXM satellite radio.  Don’t have satellite yet?  Click here for a free trial subscription.

Follow Tommy on twitter @TJShondells and you can pick up the book at Amazon.com.