Transcript
Speaker: Hi, it's Dan here and I wanted to let you know that this is a very special episode of the show. Some glimpses from my chats with four previous guests. You'll hear about 10 minutes of each guest's 60 plus minute conversation, which will give you a small idea of the many topics that we covered. Also, you can listen to the entire conversation at either linernotes .ca or on any podcast platforms. Just search for liner notes revealing chats with Canada's retro music makers. Enjoy.
Speaker: Today, I'm very honored to have as my guest musician, composer, Cliff Edwards, best known as a member of the very popular 60s and 70s group, The Bells, and also a successful solo artist. We got to play a lot of great places, and we used to play in Saint -Sever, in the ski resort north of Montreal, every Sunday. And we were there for the whole winter, playing Sundays, and all the other bars would kind of close down and come over to our bar on Sunday afternoons and dance all afternoon. And that's how this whole bells thing started, because the two girls, Ann and Jackie, Ralph, were sisters. And they were singing in another bar with the Martin Butler, who's no longer with us. yeah And they were called the Raymart Trio. And they came to our bar to dance.
Speaker: And somebody came up to me and said, you see those two girls? here Why don't you come up and ask them to come down and ask them to come up and sing a couple of songs with you? So I went and talked to them and they said, well, we'd like to come up. Could you ah learn one of our tunes? And I said, yeah, what would that be? And they said, can you play Downtown by Petula Clark?
Speaker: I said, well, we'll learn it. ah Great song. I love it. and we did we We did learn it, and the next week we asked him to come up. and We had a manager at the time, and he heard the two girls with our band. and As we drove home, he said, gee, Cliff, did you ever think about you know adding these girls to the band?
Speaker: And that's when this whole thing started because that's when. And you talk about happenstance. I mean, that's the ultimate happenstance story. Hey, when he, you know, wow. to So how, and I see here on the counts for you did a TV show to something called hurting songs. Is that correct?
Speaker: Yeah, we were ah ah very briefly, yes. Okay. ah Well, I was wondering about that because, you know, again, the path that people take, you know, like some things just come along and you try it, but you you know, you're your kids still, right? You're still barely out of your teens, right? Or in your teens. And we were at a great time in music, as you probably know, because the early 60s into the mid 60s is a wonderful, wonderful time to be playing music.
Speaker: It was fun and it was rock and roll and it was, you know, clubs were filled up all over the place. It was really, really wonderful. I'm very, very grateful that I was around for that and that I could experience that. In fact, when I first started playing music, the only music that was being played that I remember on the radio as a kid was big band music and country music.
Speaker: And that was it until Blackboard Jungle and Rock Around the Clock came out and went, oh my goodness, what's happening here? And so it you know changed everything, right? Well, you make a good point because it really was a golden age. And I've asked many of my guests you know how much of what you did was a function of the time that you lived in. you know and And most have um to a person says, yeah, well, it was a golden age. It was that time that we were born at the per that the right time to be able to take advantage of that.
Speaker: Absolutely, we we certainly were and we just grew from it, you know. Then there were jobs available everywhere. So it was really extraordinary and great fun, you know. Yeah, for sure. And so just as a quick aside, I have to ask you about your brother, Brian, who ended up being in Mash McCann, right? He was a singer. And the bass player, yeah. And the bass player. So he was your older brother, right? No, no. Okay, I wasn't sure about that. No, he was my younger brother. Okay. He was two years younger than me.
Speaker: And when we had the bells going recording wise, he had mashed McCann. ah with, you know, Jerry Mercer was in that band. And then the other people, wine guys. Yeah. yeah and And so as our record stay a while was hitting, so was Mash McCann's as years go by at the same time. And so it was very interesting that my brother who who was playing music after me,
Speaker: um got into his band and started a different kind of music, as you know, compared to what we were doing, because we were very pop -oriented, kind of club band, and they were kind of a rock band. you know yeah It was very interesting that both of us got recording things happening around the same time. Yeah, well, I wanted to ask you about that, because you know the family sort of played music together. I assume you guys grew up somewhat together playing music and being interested in music, and I just wondered what the connection was.
Speaker: Well, it's interesting because we didn't. I was playing music and he wasn't. hu and And I was playing all through high school, as I said, and early and following high school. And I didn't know that I was playing everywhere. My brother started to learn to play at the same time. So I didn't know all that until suddenly I realized after a while, oh my goodness. And the strange thing is, is that we did try to play together in a band.
Speaker: called The Dominoes. And I remember I was on guitar, and he was playing bass. and And they had just formed this band after he learned how to play bass and sing. And so I played guitar for a while. And then we there was a rehearsal call. And I remember I went to the rehearsal, but they had already been rehearsing. So I wondered, that was curious. And I said, gee, Brian.
Speaker: um i didn't get I thought the call was for this time, but you guys seem to be rehearsing. Yeah. Sorry, Cliff, we have to tell you that we found another guitar player. like brother My brother fired me from my first band. I never held it against him, however. or Well, it's it's funny because I i had a ah younger brother who was four years younger than me and I played with him and he played bass too, but I had kind of big brother syndrome and i I didn't really handle it that well. So sometimes that can work. And sometimes like, I mean, you look at the Everly brothers and stuff, they ended up hating each other. So I didn't want that. And, and you know, the big brother tends to be the big brother, I guess is the way. Of course. Yeah. You know, so I feel bad for that still, but.
Speaker: Do you? oh Well, but we because we both went on to different things after that. you know which is Which is probably a good thing, right? Yeah, it was good. It was early on in our lives, in terms of our musical lives. And I said, OK, I got to get another band going. And he their band continued for a while and didn't stay together too long. And I was just starting to get my thing together. you know OK, well, thanks for sharing that. I wanted to ask you about that. And and of course, Smash McCann was a fairly popular band and it's quite, quite excellent, actually. So then you had the Five Bells, which became the Bells. And you guys were were labeled as a soft rock band from Montreal. Is that accurate? That's that's true. Yeah. Yeah. We were a nightclub act as the Five Bells.
Speaker: And that's how we started. All around Montreal and other places, Ontario, there were nightclubs everywhere. And we developed an act for clubs particularly. So we played, you know, the Copacabana in New York City for three months. The Maricana Hotel in Miami for six months. um we were We were rolling along as an act, as a nightclub act.
Speaker: yeah And so you know we didn't even need a recording at that time yeah because it was a different kind of business. you know yeah um And so we continued along as the five bells.
Speaker: And then um it ended up that I married one of the girls, Anne. yes and And she became pregnant with our first son, Chris. And um so she decided that she didn't want to go back on the road again with our son, yeah of course, newborn. And so we reformed.
Speaker: And okay and we we became six people instead of five and dropped the number and added her sister Jackie and I fronted the band. And then Frank Mills was a piano player and Charlie Clark ah and Doug Gravel on drums and Michael Way on bass, Charlie Clark on guitar really was the bells at that time.
Speaker: okay Charlie and Mike played Ken Tobias, and that's how I found them. Right. Oh, very nice. But the one thing I know, just as an aside, but till one thing I noticed when I watched the footage and stuff, your songs that you had on the radio and the songs that that became hits for the bells were quite soft. But when I see your your club act, you were pretty aggressive and pretty energetic.
Speaker: Yes, that's true. That's true. I think it just happened that way. i mean okay um We seem to be you know easy easy listening kind of sound thing that seemed to suit us. you know yeah The vocal, we love to sing all of us, so we had lots of harmony and we are more into that. you know But when you're in a club setting, you tend to so be more animated, I guess, and more intense, right?
Speaker: Yeah, it wasn't a club. You've got to have a lot of uptempo stuff. And so the act was different. And then, of course, you know you do many different kinds of songs. We didn't write at the time, so we were looking for material all the time. right And we would choose some uptempo rockier stuff and some ballad stuff. It just so happened that the easier stuff kind of became more popular two to the radio folks. you know Today I'm very honored to once again have as my guest, Coral Andrews, who is an independent media professional with a lengthy list of ah interests in the Canadian music scene. She's writing, editing, blogging, social media, interviewing, and radio broadcast at Coral FM, as well as the author of the book, The Back Door, about a very special music venue in Kitchener, Ontario.
Speaker: The last interview we had, we went through the whole book and all the chapters and everything really interesting and about a specific venue in Kitchener, Ontario. And so, uh, so tell us a little bit about that just to refresh everybody that that might not have heard that. Well, there was a ah bar underneath the schnitzel house that I used to DJ in and work in as a waitress and sometimes bartender called the back door. And, uh, over the 20 years that I spent.
Speaker: ah waitressing upstairs and downstairs. we had lots of different the the The bar went through lots of different phases. It was the area's first disco, first punk bar, first comedy bar, probably one of the first jazz bars as well.
Speaker: And and then i i did about I interviewed people that went down there and then musicians that had played there. So everybody from Jane Sibry to the Forgotten Rebels, it was quite an eclectic collection of artists that played down there. And since then, the book has been ah the book has gone across Canada, into the States, into England, parts of Europe.
Speaker: all over a watery region where I live and across parts of Ontario. So it's, you know, the book just keeps on, it just keeps on going. What can I say? No, very cool. So give me a timeframe then. This would be late seventies into the 20 years you were there into the nineties. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, around 1978 to 1995. So it was quite the, uh, quite the experience.
Speaker: as you said in the book, things just kept rotating very quickly. And you were kind of holding on for a dear life, I guess, in in some ways as things shifted around you. Yes. Yeah. You could say that because it was a, it, um, it was a Beatles bar at one point as well called the cavern. Yeah. And, uh, you never knew what was going to happen next. And it has a lot to do with the people that went down there. And, you know, since the, I did the book launch.
Speaker: And it was sold out. In fact, past sold out. And a lot of people that went to the back door came to the book launch. cool I did it in a theater. I had a ballet dancer, Tara Butler. She's so from ballet Jorgen and now has her own dance company. And she did the dance of the sugarplum fairy.
Speaker: Because the one night we had a poetry night and we had a guy named James McAuliffe who actually did a poetry slam in Vancouver. And he read an x -rated version of the Sugar Plum Fairy. So Tara said she would dance to a rock and roll version of the Sugar Plum Fairy. So it was quite the night.
Speaker: That's interesting. Well, cause that's what struck me too. and I had Erica M on the podcast and I asked her about, you know, how she sort of processed the experience at the time. And she said, everything was moving so fast. You don't really think about it so much. You're just getting onto the next thing and working and your, your experience sounded similar. Like you're, you're in the midst of it and you're just doing it and going day to day. And then, so how is that different? When you reflect back on it, you get to sort of put it all together and kind of have an overall impression of it.
Speaker: Well, you know what? i My pal and I, Tracy Jackson, who worked down there, we were called the Slum Sisters, we don't know how we survived. Like at times, at times, you know, I go down the stairs, ah you know, I go to, I i change from upstairs from my waitressing outfit and, you know, dress up for the back door as Squeaky's aversive. And I'd be going down the back stairs to the kitchen going, what the hell's going to happen tonight?
Speaker: What am I going to find under a table? Like I got to find a, ah you know, ah ah a fricking Mickey of something we don't sell downstairs or beer or worse. I think people used to do, they used to snort Coke at the back table and smash the light out so nobody could see them. yeah It was, it was nuts. It was, it was insane down there sometimes. And I, you know, I can't believe, and a lot of people didn't survive the back door. Actually, they, you know, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. They just died in a, they went in a blaze of glory. What did I say? and And your name was squeaky subversive. and so Yes. that my da Well, apparently, um, I'm ah kind of, I'm squeaking right now actually, sort of, but, um, my, my, uh, when I went in to get the job, uh, waitressing job.
Speaker: at the Metro. the the the guy that the My boss, Milan, res like he was in the kitchen and I was i was i was doing an interview with Karla Kubank. His partner who was managing the restaurant, the Metro Tavern, and he came out the door and he said,
Speaker: What the hell is that? And I was talking to Carla and, and, uh, so I was squeaking apparently. And so that name stuck, that name stuck. So, and then I just thought, well, squeaky from, and then I thought, subversive, subversive. So we used to have a, I would say a theme song for the backdoor.
Speaker: Moscow Drug Club by B .B. Gabor. So one of the ones in the song is where subversive sit and talk. So I thought squeaky subversive. There's my DJ name and it stuck and people still call me squeak to this very day.
Speaker: Well, very funny. yeah And then the other thing that it emerged from when we talked about your book is that it was specific to the back door, but you also got a sort of a broader view of the whole changing landscape of music. And you became sort of a historian in the process because you were gathering information and understanding. And and then of course, writing about it, you started ah doing that. And now you said that your book has has been real popular and you're going out and talking about that and and doing some other events as well. Tell me about that.
Speaker: I have been doing, i did um I went to the Hillside Festival in Guelph and I have been reading segments from the book. I read some there. ah The Kitchener Blues Festival had a workshop, so I read some segments there and I brought in actually John Borra, who used to be in a band called Neon Rome. I think he's on tour out west right now with Carolyn Mark. But anyway, he came in, he had some stories about the back door when he played in a band called a Neon Rome. So he came to town and performed some solo songs and talked about the back door.
Speaker: And then I had another band, ah ah Acid Test, they were Acid Test, a 90s band, and they're in the Bruce McDonald movie, I wanna say Road Kill, it's either Road Kill or Highway 61, Steve Fall and Lucy DeSanto from Acid Test. So they came in and ah performed some live music and talked about their time at the back door. So it was pretty funny. cool it was And we had a good crowd, you know it was a lot of fun, and I i got a, um a Custom a friend of mine that Nadine made me a custom back door t -shirt. There's only one So I've had orders for more. Yeah, it's neon pink and green and yellow and black So so it's it was pretty cool. You know what? I've been at punk markets selling it and other places too. I i was part of a
Speaker: ah Part of an event that my friend Benny Ann Keller did called Rock This Town She's done a music documentary about KW in the 50s and 50s to 70s and it's an amazing piece of it's an amazing piece of work and Everybody came through here at the University of Waterloo from Chuck Berry to Frank Zappa. I kid you not yeah so um Rock This Town 2 is in the works and it's the 80s and 80s, 90s, and the back door is included in the in the upcoming music documentary. So I'm thrilled about that. Very cool. And KW, just for our listeners, is Kitchener Waterloo? Yes. So well, good for you. And and and let's put a plug in again for the book. So the back door and and it's coralandrews .ca is your is your website. Is that correct? Yes, yes. The best place to get ahold of that if people are interested.
Speaker: Today, I'm very honored to have as my special guest at music impresario, Bill Riley, best known as band manager for the 60s bands, the Churros and the Fridge. My mindset was ah one of freedom. It always was because over and above living in the house in England, we also had a 200 acre farm. So I was a ah young farm kid from the age of about 10.
Speaker: learning to ride a tractor or drive the tractor and do all the usual farm chores and milk cows and all that nonsense. And I went through school actually to become a vet. So that all happened in England. So I had that thing of freedom. I never wanted to be cooped up in the quote nine to five a system of government got jobs and I just couldn't bear with it. So basically all the jobs I got, I would last anywhere from two hours to two months, depending on what it was. I just couldn't handle being in a building told to punch a time card and leave at five o 'clock and go to the bathroom at 12. It just, it wasn't me.
Speaker: so yeah Fair enough. I'm with you, brother. I'm with you. Because you you want to live your life, right? I'm not yeah giving my life to somebody else. i worked you know yeah So that's what got me to the village in around nineteen early 1966. I just literally, as did many, dropped out of society per se, as it was, and just said to hell with this nine to five thing and going to work every day, all dressed up in a suit. and But I gained to a conclusion one day that this wasn't for me.
Speaker: And as it coincidentally happened, it was a happening thing in Toronto's village at that time, ah early 60, we phoned, early 65, 66, and I was then drawn to all the music and the bands, and that's how that all became a thing. Well, you obviously got yourself into the scene, and then I see you made friends with David Clayton Thomas and some of the other people that were around at that time, so you found your way. How did you do that? Just work on doors, make friends?
Speaker: No, I mean, when when you were in the village, as just a ah human being walking the street, you naturally would bump into people and talk to people. And at that time, nobody was a somebody. like david um We talked about David just there. David and I are great friends. ah He never considered himself a somebody. He was just a guy that played music. And practically everybody I knew at that time was the same thing from, I know you've interviewed Sylvia Tyson, so Ian and Sylvia, I knew them very well. They were just people. They weren't specialty stars of later years, which is great. But at that time, in 66, 67, we were just a bunch of people having a lot of fun, getting along. It was like going to the family picnic every day. That was it.
Speaker: Yeah. and Nobody was any better than anybody else. We would give each other money or food or clothes or whatever we needed to do to survive. And that was basically it. So that's how that all came about. It just so happened that one out of every 25 people became a star. you know Yeah, fair enough. But you make a good point because, but at that time you didn't really even know that everyone was looking for their formula for success and where can we go and what can we yeah to be successful? But in the meantime, you're all kind of working together and there's the playing field at that point, I guess. Right. I have some really good stories about that time period, but I don't think we have time for all of that. Some of the people that I met and some of the people I hung out with at that particular time later on became superstars of Canadian music. and yeah what you mean Give me a few, let nick name a few, like David Clayton Thomas. I mean, obviously they hit really big, right? Yeah. Yeah. Well, that we had a place that we sort of hung out on everybody, all the hippies that were homeless and penniless and yeah So one, we'd we'd hang out on this church steps. There was an old church. I don't know if you know Toronto very well, but there was a church on Avenue Road in Toronto near Davenport Avenue, which is demolished now. It's a condo. But at that time, it was a church that was only used on Sundays for services. And it has some beautiful steps around it. It was a really old century church. And directly across the road from that was a restaurant, a Greek restaurant. And we used to hang out on the steps. And the guys in the Greek restaurant were very nice, very kind people.
Speaker: And they would come out with bowls of French fries and spaghetti and stuff like that to help us out. And um the musician friends that we sort of developed amongst our community, if you will, used to hang out on a summer night on these steps, practically every night, unless you were lucky enough to get a gig somewhere. And so to go to your question, ah one night I do recall there being on that step, there was Ian and Sylvia, I know that, David, of course, yeah um Gord Lightfoot was there, i John Kay, who was with the spirals at that time, eventually became Steppenwolf.
Speaker: yeah And there were two or three others that I don't recall off the top of my head. nice But yeah, they were, as I say, they weren't like nobodies, but they weren't somebodies either. Yeah. They're still young guys trying to find their way, right? They're just trying to see what clicks. Yeah. And people were playing, don't forget down at that time, people were playing at these coffee houses and clubs in New Yorkville for the door. And mostly the door was like a buck to get in, yeah which which was big money. A buck was a buck.
Speaker: I mean, most average people were making $35, $40 a week if you were lucky in a regular job with a family. So a dollar was, you know, a dollar. And the bands would just play for whatever the door brought in. So if you only had 12 people at night, it was $12 between possibly five to seven to eight people in a band. And that happened all the time until people got a little better and went on the road, obviously.
Speaker: But it's interesting to pick up on the point of the community. It seems to me like when you talk about the village or Granite Village in New York or or the echo goes from the canyon down in LA and stuff, that there was music sort of emerged from this community spirit or feel. I'm not sure what it is. What do you think? Yeah, exactly. And Hightushbury at the same time. Yeah. And ah unfortunately or fortunately, whichever way you want to look at it, I guess some of it was related to the drug scene at that time, ah which wasn't super heavy, but it was around and that it crept in from the United States, I believe, and from wherever. So there was always a a little toad of marijuana in the air, and I think that eventually helped. Well, I know it helped my bands in some way, shape, or form. They weren't bad, but it it helped them think a little differently.
Speaker: than the average plumber. you know Yeah. Well, again, the community spirit of you know trying to, the singer songwriter trying to write songs about your experiences and about the things that are happening in the feel and then transfer that feel onto the record and then get it out through the airwaves. and and yeah It just seems like when you watch Echoes from the Canyon, I think it was, some ah what's his face, his son, Bob Dylan's son, ah Jacob Dylan. I think he narrated that, but he talked about that. you know Stephen Stills and all those guys that ah lived up in Laurel Canyon, and and all the songs and the music that emerged from there, or the village, or again Greenwich Village.
Speaker: Did you ever go down to New York? Did you ever go to the. I didn't go down there. No, I went to Woodstock in 69, but all very manage village yeah I lived in Whitby in 69, but I was too young to go. So I couldn't, but a bunch of the teenagers from our complex where realize they they went. Yeah. And i was I kept asking, what is this? And they said, Oh, it's it's Woodstock. And I said, Oh, so I'm curious. So how did you get in? You got into the scene, but how did you get into the actual management part of it? Cause everyone has, I guess, different affinities, right? Some people play some people like that.
Speaker: how did How did you end up being the band manager really want to deal with that you got five hours okay yeah so short version shit no such thing in my life the short version is i would wonder the streets and go and check out the bands all the time and i kind of if you will became known in the area.
Speaker: ah that I could get into anywhere. Nobody paid i paid me. I didn't have to keep charge. yeah what i You never pay at the door kind of thing. Everybody knew who I was. And I was just a guy, but I was sort of a nice guy and part of the scene. I went to all the bands and watched Luke and the apostles and McKenna mainline, all those guys. yeah And so I was walking the streets one night and as I say in my book, which will ultimately be out people,
Speaker: um I was walking down, I believe it was either Hazleton Avenue or Yorkville, I can't remember which, and I heard what I thought was the Rolling Stones. And I thought that because I had the Stones albums, they were out, yeah the early Stones that is, you know, off the hook. and then off my cloud noise I thought, no way, you know, we're in new Yorkville Village in Toronto, there's no way the Rolling Stones are here, it's impossible.
Speaker: It just couldn't be but I thought it was so that piqued my curiosity So I walked into this club that you may or may not know called Charlie Browns It's a very famous spot in Yorkville. Just a ah converted Victorian house something similar to the one I lived in in England. and In the window was this cramped little space and this band playing, which was the trails. and They sounded absolutely identical. They were doing Mona and stuff like that. It was just unbelievable. so i have To give you the quick story, I have no idea what possessed me. At the end of that particular set, I walked up to them and said, hey guys, would you like a manager? They said, yeah, sure. We shook hands and that was that.
Speaker: well There you go. There's the short version. Well, you know what? It's a good story because most of those bands weren't really capable, of to be fair, of managing themselves and needed a third person to like that person to be in charge of that, right?
Speaker: Well, on average, they were, I believe, at that time 18 to 21, I think. There you go. I was average age and I was about three or four years older at that time. And I had a pretty good schooling, so I was kind of smart. Smart ass. You can figure it out. No, I had some sort of skills, you know, organizations and this and that and the other. And all of a sudden, just out of the blue over that one Period of time that night that day the next day everything came together in a real big hurry I just settled down and started writing stuff down as to what to do grab the yellow pages started calling schools and Halls and this and that the other said hey you guys want a band on Saturday night I got one for you So we started off playing for 25 bucks a night and sometimes less and it worked our way through the system that way and
Speaker: Today, I'm very happy to once again have as my guest, Peter Foldy, a multifaceted talent who has been successful musician, screenwriter, film director, producer, speaker. Peter was nominated for two Juno Awards and has had multiple top 10 hits across Canada and the US, most notably his first song, Bondi Junction, which reached number one on the Canadian charts.
Speaker: I was born in Hungary and I'd sort of had ah another life there. I was born behind the iron curtain and lived through some communist years there. And it was yeah gray and bleak in many ways, although I did have a very big and loving family there, which I miss now. And then fortunately we got out, we snuck out and we escaped basically and yeah moved to Australia where I lived from about 7 to 17. And that was a wonderful place to grow up.
Speaker: you know That's where my interest in in film and music started developing. My first day of high school, I met a kid who said he was a singer and I thought, oh, that's cool. you know And he said he was going to be on television. I thought, that's cool. And then he was on television singing on these Australian music shows.
Speaker: And he called me up some time later and he said, hey, I'm hanging out with these kids and they're really good musicians. You should come over. And I went over and it happened to be, you know, the Bee Gees. So they weren't like super famous at the time. They were performing a lot.
Speaker: And they were on television and ah in Australia, so I knew who they were. But I was pretty blown away by them because they were very precocious. I think I might have mentioned that last year, very precocious kids. They were playing in nightclubs. And, you know, as little 15 -year -olds, they were pretty precocious kids and also ah amazingly talented. I mean, they would break out into song. They would pull out some guitars and start singing Beatles songs. And it would blow your mind. like those yeah harmonies that the beach have you go oh my gosh you know so then for you you know we talked about last time to that how multifaceted you are and how you got into all these different things and then i had asked you know did you think you spread yourself too thin and you you would respond and saying well no because i focused i mean when you're doing a movie
Speaker: You're doing a movie every morning when you get up. That's what you do. But you've done writing like screenplays. I have. So, you know, I had a really sort of decent music career starting in Canada. I got signed by EMI and Paul Dorr and then RCA in the States. And that's how I ended up in Los Angeles, because RCA had me moved down here.
Speaker: And then one day, I think I've told you this, but one day it just all ended. Like it's suddenly, the curtain came down. And I was in Los Angeles and my savings were dwindling. And after about a year, I decided, you know, I have to do something to make money. And I got a job, it's one of my only day jobs I've ever had. I got a job selling chocolate mints over the phone and calling up people going, hey, yeah you know, Peter from Phaser Mints, your mint order is, are about to renew, are you ready to ah order some more mints? And I met somebody at that job ah that was from Canada, from the music business, knew who I was, and tapped me on the shoulder and said, are you Peter Foldy? And I went, oh, yeah. He goes, what are you doing here? I go, I don't know. I guess i guess I'm working here just like you. Anyway, it turned out this kid had a connection to some filmmakers. He had worked on some movies for this company. And he said, they're looking for more scripts.
Speaker: So I wrote a teen comedy and through this kid I sold it and that's what got me you know crazy that's what got me into the film business. I got to be an associate producer on that film. It was a very successful teen movie called Hot Moves, H -O -T. And it made like about $10 million. dollars It was made on a half a million dollar budget.
Speaker: $10 million. dollars Unfortunately, not for me, but for the filmmakers. But you know that's when I was first on a real set and I was an associate producer and I went, wow, I want to do this. yeah So i I pursued that and had a really good run of writing and directing in the 90s. And then again again, that all came to an end at the regroup. Yeah, but you had gone to film school. Is that correct? I did. So I went before I did Bondi Junction in Canada. I went to film school in Toronto. I went to York University and studied film there, but I was also playing in some bands at night and, you know, started writing songs and demoing songs. and
Speaker: Yeah, you didn't come to the the film business unprepared, so to speak. I mean, you had some background. I had a background and a background. I mean, originally when I went to film school, I wanted to be a director and that's what I ended up doing. And yeah, when did we last talk? Was it something like 23 years ago? Yeah, it was November 2020.
Speaker: Wow. So yeah, that's when my mother passed away. That's why I was there. So since then I've done 11 movies, if you can believe that. wow i I produced 11 movies and I've directed four of them. So right before that I'd been hired to ah direct something in Oklahoma and I kind of figured out the the financing system of how to get movies made in Oklahoma using tax credits and and some equity investment and I put my own group of financiers together and we've there' four of us and we've made, uh, we've made 11 movies. Well, the curious part to me though, is ah like being a producer has got its own stress and you know, getting the money together and getting the, you know, I mean, you know, the whole list better than anybody, but then being in the director, I mean, you're in the boss chair that that's a stressful, that's a heavy load.
Speaker: I actually love directing a lot more than producing. Producing is a little bit too much business for me and there's different kinds of producers like sort of exec producers who find the money and come on and take an executive producer's credit. There are producers who are kind of creative producers who ah look for the talent, look for the material, look for a place to get the movie made. And they're ah line producers who are basically on set. They hire the crew. they run They run the day -to -day, the minute -to -minute details. And the sets and everything else, I guess. And that's definitely not me. I mean, I'm more like a creative producer, but I actually love directing. It's just like a real
Speaker: It's a real fun ride. you know you kind of basically You have a vision for what it's going to look like. it's it's In a way, it's like a jigsaw puzzle because you kind of shoot a master's you know a master of the scene like showing up where you are and who's moving where. And then you keep moving closer and closer for closer shots over the shoulder. And then you go to the close -ups.
Speaker: going to inserts of, you know, the hand cutting the steak, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah, because any movie set I've ever been on, I mean, the the director is the boss, obviously, but it's the most stressed to it can be anyway, it definitely can be very stressful. But if you if you have a great crew, and you have actors who know their lines and know what they're doing,
Speaker: Like, um I mean, they say that 90 percent of making a good movie is hiring good actors because an audience doesn't really care about the shots. Oh, like, look at that great pretty shot. They care about can they relate to that performer? Can they follow the story and can they understand what's going on? So having a good cast is really important. And you were a music supervisor, too. You've you've overseen the music on on lots of your the projects you've been involved in as well.
Speaker: Yeah, well, as the director, I kind of get to pick the style of music. i or I have a scene and I think, gosh, a nice slow ballad would be would be good here.
Speaker: And sometimes we'll put in hit records or records by famous people and then try and find things like that. But we usually spot the picture and try different sounding things and see what works best. But yeah I've done that for other films and I do that for my own films as well. I don't call myself a music supervisor. If I'm the director, it's I'm good with a couple of credits. I don't need to be one of those guys whose names all over the movies. Sometimes you can't help it because I'm also a producer and then if I'm the writer and the director as well, I find it a little embarrassing, honestly, to take three credits, but what do you do? I suppose, but you're a musician and you slide in some of your own music too when you can, right? I do when I can. If it fits, but sometimes I go, I don't want to hear myself in this dance. I've got a couple of really good songs I wrote for a movie I'm just finishing up now and I'm out to other singers to see which one fits whose voice fits the music and so I'd rather hear other people. Okay, well cool. And one thing I meant to ask you about last time that I never got to was the fact that you're an avid photographer. Obviously it kind of makes sense but it's just another one of the things and then you've taken some photos of some pretty famous people. I love taking pictures and I've had the good fortune to
Speaker: You know, being in Hollywood to being around some, you know, famous people and I kind of like, I guess I call myself like a street photographer. I'd go to some of these functions and just take a camera. And even sometimes you weren't allowed to take pictures. I'd go screw it. I just pull out the camera and snap, snap pictures of, you know, without being too obnoxious about it. and So I've got some really interesting black and whites of of some really famous people, including Tom Cruise and Bob Hope and Bette Davis and stuff like that. Just well from back in the 80s 90s when I was getting out to more of these functions.
Speaker: i was producing a show called the hotspot reports for a very big radio station here called power one zero six was just a weekend report and we would id had had a girl reporter and we would go to
Speaker: She would say, hey, it's Christine. I'm reporting live from the Academy Awards tonight. So and so has just won. for you know So she was the reporter, and I was just putting the pieces together so we could get the credentials to even go there in the first place. So I would always take my camera. So as part of that job, you would be in a room with the top stars in the world.
Speaker: There was a photography room where ah all you could do is take pictures. Well, I wouldn't go there because then I would be one of 500 photographers standing on ladders just getting that one shot. I would be in the interview room.
Speaker: And so after they did the photography, they would come in and do interviews. You know, John Bon Jovi would be standing there and you could go up and say, hey man, how you doing? Or Tom tom Hanks, really sweet, friendly guy. you know So you could go up and say, hey, and mind if I take a picture? Or sometimes you just don't ask when you see people in some yeah interesting situation, she's a snap away. so Thanks for checking out these short bits from my much longer conversations with previous liner notes guests. Don't forget you can listen to each full interview at either linernotes .ca or on any podcast platforms. Just search for liner notes, revealing chats with Canada's retro music makers. Until next time, I'm Dan here.
