Episode #9 Bill Wadhams from Animotion

Interviews

Jan 29

Welcome to Living A Vocal Life: A Podcast For Singers!

Welcome to the Living A Vocal Life Podcast, where I interview singers who have succeeded in creating a life in music. You’ll hear from vocalists of all genres, in different stages of their careers, including singers who’ve been on the Billboard charts and those who are teaching the next generation. What do they have in common? They're all performers with amazing stories to tell and experiences to share.

In our conversations, you’ll learn what inspired them to become a singer, the kinds of challenges they’ve encountered, and how they've overcome them. I'll also share what I've learned on my own journey as a singer and educator — practical tools and insights that will help you to live your best, most authentic vocal life.

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Bill Wadhams from the 80s band Animotion performing onstage with a guitar.

This month’s guest on Living A Vocal Life is Bill Wadhams, one of the lead singers from the 80s synth-pop band, Animotion whose song Obsession landed in the top 10 in countries around the world in 1984.

I’ve known Bill for years, but recently we had a chance to get to know each other better on a tour he’s dubbed, The Genius Insanity Tour, otherwise known as Lost 80s. In 2018 alone, our band’s played 22 cities together in three months. As he puts it, “The genius part is getting all the bands together. The insanity part is what happens when all the bands get together.”

Bill is a multitalented artist. Since his MTV days, life has been a series of creative projects, from his work as a songwriter, to stints as a graphic designer with companies like Nike and Citigroup. His latest foray is into the world of musical theater, where he’s found a home both as a singer and creator. Whether he’s performing, composing, or telling a great story, Bill is a natural.

“Try to find people that you can trust. And then, once things start moving, trust your gut and trust your bandmates. Define what you’re doing and where you’re going as best you can. And then go forward being as true to yourselves as you can. ”

— Bill Wadhams

Links:

You can find Bill on: Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter

Or at these websites: Bill Wadhams, Animotion.

The songs from this episode are “Raise Your Expectations” and “Everything,” and are from Animotion’s CD Raise (used with permission.) To listen or download, go HERE.

For information about the online course mentioned in this episode, just head to Becoming A Singer.

Please join me on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.

Theme music for the Podcast was composed by John Smith. He edits all the podcast episodes too. (Thanks honey!)

Valerie Welcome to another episode of Living a Vocal Life. My guest today is Bill Wadhams, one of the lead singers from the 80s synth-pop band, Animotion whose song Obsession landed in the top 10 in countries around the world in 1984.
I've known Bill for years, but recently we had a chance to get to know each other better on a tour he's dubbed, The Genius Insanity Tour, otherwise known as Lost 80s. In 2018 alone, our band's played 22 cities together in three months. As he puts it, "The genius part is getting all the bands together. The insanity part is what happens when all the bands get together.".
Bill is a multitalented artist. Since his MTV days, his life has been a series of creative projects from his work as a songwriter, to stints as a graphic designer with companies like Nike and Citigroup. His latest foray is into the world of musical theater, where he's found a home both as a singer and creator. Whether he's performing, composing, or telling a great story. Bill is a natural. Thanks for joining me on the podcast today, my friend.
Bill Thank you so much. Valerie Wow. You make me feel really good.
Valerie You've done a lot of different things, but I'm going to take you in the Wayback Machine to the origin story of you as a vocalist. What's your first memory of singing?
Bill Well, I sang with my family. I come from a musical family that started out as the family that sings around the table — sings on the way to grandma's house in the country squire station wagon. And my mother used to sing lullabies to me. She was also in a women's singing group called Sugar and Spices. And they did record one album, but it was not released to the public. It was one of those things where you go into a studio and record, and then they cut a vinyl, and you walk away with it. This was probably in 1962. Something like that.
Valerie Wow. Do you have the records still?
Bill I do have the record. And at one point, I converted it to cassette tape, and now I believe I have digital copies.
Valerie Oh, that's great.
Bill Yeah.
Valerie I would love to hear that. Actually, sure, it'd be fun to play it behind this little bit here.
Bill You know, my mother was singing lead on Lemon Tree. Very pretty. And the lemon flowers. You know.
Valerie Nice. Yes, nice. Well, we kind of have that in common, actually, because my mom and dad sang and we sang in the car all the time. You know, harmony parts and stuff. Yeah. What was the part that you sang? Did you sing lead, or did you sing harmony?
Bill Oh, I sang harmony. I actually liked harmony. And my mom would usually take the melody. And my dad was also kind of taking the melody maybe an octave down and a little off-pitch. But what he lacked in pitch, he made up for in enthusiasm.
Valerie That's great. You got to have the enthusiasm in there, too.
Bill Yeah.
Valerie Well, did you feel like you were a natural singer, or did you have to develop your voice?
Bill That's a good question. When I was in something like second grade, my second-grade teacher, Mrs. Sauer, was teaching us to sing This Land is Your Land. And when it came around to this part, "from the redwood forest to the Gulf Stream water." Well, you know, I just yelled that. "Whoa!" And got pretty high up, too. And she said, Billy, was that you? And I said, yes, Mrs. Sauer. She goes, "Whenever we get to that point in the song, you sing that again. Okay?"
And she really encouraged me throughout my entire elementary school career up until when I was in seventh grade. She was having me direct the class, singing, "Consider yourself..." You know, I was up in front of 'em of conducting. So she really made a huge difference in how I thought about myself as a singer.
Valerie Teachers can make all the difference, right?
Bill Absolutely.
Valerie Wow. That's incredible and great to have that kind of encouragement as a young person. Yeah. Everybody remembers their first gig.
Bill Yeah.
Valerie I read that yours was in Rochester, New York, at Eddie's Chop House. What do you remember about that gig?
Bill I remember that I was in eighth grade, and some kids in my class were forming a band. They knew that I played guitar, one of the founders of the band, he owned the P.A. address, so he was the lead singer. And he had an uncle or a father that owned a restaurant called Eddie's Chop House, which was a manly place for manly men with a manly, you know. So our first gig was at Eddie's Chop House in kind of a downstairs room, kind of off the main floor. And I remember that we played Gloria, G-L-O-R-I-A Gloria and then we tried to play Last Train to Clarksville, but it was too complicated, too many chords. So we had a meeting in the bathroom. What are we going to do? Let's play Gloria again. OK. We came out and played Gloria, and that's all I remember about that gig.
Valerie That's a great memory, though. I mean, when in doubt, you know, just repeat.
Bill Do What you know.
Valerie Yeah. I love that. So did you know from an early age that you wanted to be an artist of some kind of — a musician, a singer?
Bill Yeah. My brother Tad and I both loved playing guitar. And we would play, we would jam, learn songs together and sing in choir. I was in my first band I mean The Banned. And it was B.A.N.N.E.D. A really great name for a first band, I must say. The Banned. I have a picture of us with that on the drum. You know, the kick drum.
So from that point, I was in bands right all the way up to Animotion. I was always in a band. So I wasn't sure that that would earn a living for me. As a matter of fact, when I was in Potomac, Maryland, while I was going to school, I was driving a school bus for emotionally disabled children, emotionally and intellectually disabled children. You know so that I was earning a living. But I had plenty of time to rehearse and play with my band. And so I was always in a band, and I really wanted to make it in music, but I had no idea how to get there other than just keep playing and hope to be noticed.
Valerie So was this job that you had as a bus driver when you were in college?
Bill Yeah, actually, I wanted to go to the Berklee School of Music, and I was actually taking guitar lessons from an instructor from the Berklee School of Music who was back home during the summer months. And he was helping me prepare myself to go to the Berklee School of Music. But my parents, they thought it was a new and not very credible school, so they didn't want me to go to it. They would tell you if they were sitting here, that it's their one only regret with me, in raising me, was that they did not support me going to the Berklee School of Music. But as I look back, you know how things go. If I had gone to the Berklee School of Music, I would not have had a hit with Animotion. I'm sure that. I would have gone somewhere else and ended up somewhere else.
So, instead of going to the Berklee School of Music, I went to community college for a couple semesters. Then I dropped out and drove the school bus for a year. I went back to school for another couple of semesters before I went to Los Angeles. So.
Valerie It's interesting how life's twists and turns can take you in a totally different direction. And what looks like, you know, the biggest bummer when it happens, which I bet that felt huge to you not being able to go to Berkeley turned out to be the best thing ever.
So how did you end up in L.A., and what's the origin story of Animotion? How did you come to be in that band?
Bill OK. I moved to L.A. in 1979. I had a one-year-old child and wife. And when I got there, I started painting houses. Painting houses was my day job. I ended up having my own company, and everyone in the crew was a musician.
Valerie What was the name of the company?
Bill I think I called it Chap's Painting Company. I wanted it to sound like an old English Chaps. Bill Wadhams, Painter. You know, Chaps, I don't know what that means. Like we're good old chaps, you know. We had funny little this funny little white caps that to me looked kind of, I don't know, English or something old school. So we're like, hello, you would like some chaps to paint your house.
Valerie That's hilarious. But you're all musicians in this.
Bill We're all musicians. Dwayne Shaqua went on to play with Glen Frey, and one of our other painters, Rick Nayer, went on to produce a lot of people and did some recording with Prince. Another guy who was my main man painter was David Arkenstone. And he is a huge new age, new age, not New Wave, New Age star named Arkenstone, you know?
Valerie Yeah. Wow. So all of these guys got their start in your painting company?
Bill Well, all of us were struggling and trying to make our way in the music business and find our place in it while we were painting houses.
Valerie So, instead of me being an actor working in a restaurant, you were a musician working in a painting company that you owned. I mean, this is interesting to me because it seems like from the very beginning, you've been very entrepreneurial.
Bill I guess so. Yeah, I am. And how I got to Animotion, I was in a coffee shop wanting another job, a different. And I saw an ad that said wanted someone to work in a recording studio. Honestly, it was as simple as that. And there was an address. I don't think there was a phone number. There might have been a phone number. But anyway, you're supposed to go down there to the studio. It was on the corner of Sunset and La Cienega in an old building where The Doors used to rehearse. It was actually a Doors rehearsal place. And it had a picture of an upside-down tuba player on the wall of the building that looked like something from Peter Max or Yellow Submarine. Real wacky painting for the upside-down studio.
And I walked in. And to make a long story short, I met someone there who introduced me to someone else, who introduced me to someone else, who introduced me to Astrid. So it really, if I hadn't have walked in that door, I wouldn't have met an engineer who introduced me to another engineer who had a studio. And in this studio, they were teaching engineering, and they used me as a guinea pig band. So, in other words, they would record me while they were teaching their students.
Valerie Oh, that works out well. So you didn't have to go the Kris Kristofferson route where, you know, he went to Nashville and then ended up in the studio there, sweeping floors. You were actually at least being recorded.
Bill You know? Yeah, I was. And then, one of the students was managing Astrid and a band she was in. And then that band, which was called Red Zone. That band broke up, and they were looking for someone to play guitar and sing with Astrid and write the songs. Because at the time, Astrid wasn't writing any songs. No one in the band was writing any songs. And so they needed a songwriter, singer, guitarist.
And at first glance, I thought, this is not really my group, my tribe. I'd actually seen that band play, and I thought, They're cool. And I liked Astrid. And I thought she was very dramatic and theatrical on stage. And so I thought, OK, these guys, they have a manager, they had a music lawyer. They were willing to invest money in recording my songs with this new band. I'd been pursuing my own career sort of as a solo artist. I changed my name from Bill Wadhams to Billy Bond, and I had the Billy Bond Band, but I wasn't getting any attention from record companies.
As soon as I started working with this group with Astrid, we were signed to a record deal in less than a year.
Valerie Which is kind of miraculous.
Bill Which is kind of unusual. But even though you mentioned 1984, we did record our album in 1984, and it was actually released, but it kind of languished. It kind of didn't do anything for nine months or so, until one of the biggest stations in Los Angeles picked it up after throwing us into a battle of the unknown bands. So they played Obsession against some other unknown bands. And we won that little battle of the bands five nights in a row. So they added it to their playlist.
Valerie Wow. You know, I did a bunch of research trying to figure out your origin story. And it's complex. First of all, because of the way the song was written and then you guys picked it up and recorded it. I never came across that battle of the bands story. Another kind of moment that again, if that hadn't happened, everything else that followed wouldn't have happened. And it must have had that song must have had a special something because it well, because it won. But it just you know, there's some music that just kind of pulls people in right away. And it's not like you guys paid to play, you know.
Bill That's right.
Valerie And you didn't pay to get it on the radio station. You were just in this battle of bands, and it actually connected with an audience.
Bill That's right. You know, I think every artist needs an advocate. Every artist needs someone that is going to promote them or push them in. Whether it be your brother, your best friend, your husband, your wife, or a manager, somebody. And I think one of the people who really made a huge difference was, her name is Jean Johnson. And Jean Johnson was a promo person at Polygram Records. And so she's probably the person who got us into this battle of the bands thing. And then once it started to go into the top ten on that station, she made sure that stations around the country took note of this song that had risen up in one of the biggest markets in the country. So that's how it went from L.A. to Miami to Seattle to New York City to, you know, London. It went on from there. But a lot of times it takes someone saying, hey, did you hear this? Have you seen this? You know.
Valerie Yeah, you know, who knows how to work it and has the relationships themselves to get people to listen to it. You had a record deal within a year after you and Astrid joined forces.
Bill You know, I'll add one little bit to that is that we were lucky that an A&R man named Russ Regan came down to see us in our rehearsal studio, and that's how he decided to sign us. He'd worked with Neil Diamond, The Beach Boys. Signed Elton John. Signed Kiss. I mean, he's a legend in the business and an easygoing guy. And he comes down to our rehearsal studio. We played four songs, and he said, Alright, guys, gather round. Have a seat. He said, look, here's what I'm thinking. She sings, he sings. Could be like a Fleetwood Mac for the 80s. What do you think? You know. And it was based on just, I think I can sell this as a Fleetwood Mac for the 80s. And that was that.
Valerie Wow. Yeah, that's some good company. So you go to the studio, you get introduced to Astrid. You do this battle of the bands thing. The right people are there to help you get a record deal. What happens between the time that the record comes out, and it's just kind of languishing? You went back to painting, didn't you?
Bill Once the record is very successful, I was on Entertainment Tonight being interviewed. And I told a story about how I was painting a house after the record had come out. And our video was not on MTV, but it was being played by a local video program called Video One. And. And this was in Los Angeles. And Richard Blade, who we work with even today. And he was with KROQ, he was a creator of this video program. And so I'm painting a house, and I heard Obsession coming from the TV in the living room of the house I was painting. And I'd never seen it on TV. And I knocked on the door. I said, Excuse me, do you mind if I come into your living room? I think I'm on TV. And she says to me, If you're on TV, what are you doing, painting my house?
And I... I told... Yeah. And I told that story on Entertainment Tonight. And the funny thing is that after that, people would stop me in the grocery store and say, Hey, you're that house painter who sings. They knew they didn't even know the name of the song or the band. They just knew You're that house painter that sang that song that became a hit, and you were still painting. You know.
Valerie The story became famous.
Bill That's right.
Valerie I love it. So then how long was the band together? How long was Animotion together? And, and what ultimately happened with you guys?
Bill Well, the first album went well, and we toured. We had a great time. We opened up for Depeche Mode on multiple shows. We toured with Howard Jones. We had a really good time going into the second album.
Well, when the second album was done, the president of Polygram Records was under investigation for payola.
Valerie Oh, boy. What year was this?
Bill 1986. And front-page Wall Street Journal, Polygram Records under investigation for payola in the music business. And our first single called "I Engineer" was climbing the charts just the same way that Obsession was. Like, entered at like ninety, went to eighty, went to seventy, and then disappeared. And we asked the record company what happened. They said, We are boycotting independent promotion, and we really don't have the internal resources to get your record every place it needs to be.
So it's falling off. And that was kind of that we put out one other single in a video. MTV was giving us world premiere status. They were really pushing us. But the record company just didn't have the resources to get us into radio. And they were at the time having to make a choice of who are we going to prioritize with the resources we have. And yeah.
Valerie That was an interesting time period, actually. First of all, maybe we should back up a little bit and just talk about what payola is. So can you talk a little bit about what independent promotion is about and how it works in the record business?
Bill Record companies, artists, singers, managers, we're all trying to be heard on the radio. And part of it has to do with who do you know at the radio station and do they believe what you're saying? So if my manager calls up a radio station, says, Hey, I want to talk to the program director about my new artist, Valerie Day. And they go, look, man, the guy that knew you here is gone. You're gonna have to send in a submission just like everybody else. And you go back into the pool of, you know, the endless pool of things that people aren't going to really pay attention to.
In other words, it's who you know and what independent promoters had relationships. So an independent promotion company, a network, it might be a half a dozen guys that travel around the country. And they have buddies at the radio station, or they've developed a relationship with people at the radio station. And they just advocate their artists. And they come into the radio station. They say, Hey, man, do me a favor and play this new record. I'll make it worth your while. And so there's different ways to make it worth your while. There's books about this stuff.
Valerie Yes, there is. There's a great book that we read after our band days called "Hitmen" that really describes, Hitmen, describes it really well. And I wish we'd read that before we got a record deal. That would have been very helpful.
Bill Yes. Seriously, as a matter of fact, the guy who was the president of our label is featured in that. The whole story about what happened with him is in Hit Men. I've got a copy myself.
So sure enough, we were you know, so it's people investing a certain amount of money in people that could get stuff done or even right into the radio station. There's some kind of, some kind of help support money, something coming into the radio station in exchange for breaking an artist, playing an artist.
Valerie We had a little run-in with that very thing in 1986 when this payola investigation was going on through the FBI. Our song happened to squeak in without any kind of independent promotion because there was a gap because there weren't a whole bunch of records right then being pushed by money. And so a few of us with songs that people liked got heard. And then kept getting heard because we weren't crowded out by all the rest of the money that was happening.
However, when we released our second single, we were told, you know, now you gotta play the game. And, and we're back. These independent promotion people are back. So and by the way, they end up on that list of money that you have to repay the record company for. You know, like all the hamburgers you eat during the recording session. The independent promotion, the videos that you make, are all recouping all by the record company. So, yeah, it's interesting.
But you know, what's interesting to me about this, too, is that even without the money part even, it is all about relationships. And when people ask me, you know, what's the most important thing that you learned through this process? That's the thing I would say. You know?
And so it's not just a relationship with business people, but it's also relationships with your bandmates. You know, like when you finally find people that you can make music with, that you really are about the same kinds of things in terms of what you value and why you're doing it. And all of those things. It's a miracle. It's like finding somebody to get married to except there's like four or five of them.
And so, speaking of which, people always thought that you an Astrid had a thing going on, but you didn't. In fact, as far as relationships go, you've had a really interesting relationship with her over the years. Tell me about it.
Bill Well, when I first met Astrid, as I said, she was theatrical, attractive, and young. She was about 24 years old. She came from a suburb of London. She hitchhiked from New York City to Los Angeles, where she met some musicians and got into her first band, Red Zone. She'd never been in a band before. So she's a very adventurous young woman.
Valerie No kidding.
Bill And so we started to sing together. I think that pretty soon I found that we had different tastes in music. We had different tastes in music and fashion. So we were kind of at odds. And we were at odds throughout our career in the 80s. And, you know, it took me a couple decades to look back and realize that it was our differences in some respects that made us interesting.
And now, when we're performing, we allow each other just at whatever she wants to wear, whatever she wants to say, sing, whatever is fine with me because she also grants me the gift of just whatever I want to bring to the stage. You know, as long as I'm not doing something that in some way, is, you know, abrasive or aggressive or I mean. We will play a cat and mouse game on stage, we will just allow each other to be who we are.
But back in the day, it wasn't that comfortable. And part of the reason was, is because when you're having this rush of success, everybody is starting to think, oh, my gosh, how are we going to keep this going? And then you look over, and you think, my bandmate is screwing this thing up. She's going to take us down the wrong alley or something. She wants to be more like The Cure and The Smiths. I want to be more like The Police, you know? And so, there was this going on, and at a certain point when we had had an unsuccessful second album, we're looking at the third. It was make or break it. And we got new hard-ass managers. And the managers said, You guys need to replace Astrid, and we have someone in mind. That's why the band broke up because new managers came in and said, this is what we think you need to do.
And so the guitarist, keyboard player and myself, we walked into Astrid and her boyfriend, the bass player, and said, we are breaking up the band, and we're taking the name. And it was, you know, it was a coup. We took over the band. We bumped them out. When we got back to the manager's office, we found out that they actually had another singer in mind already. And it was Cynthia Rhodes. And Cynthia just happened to be the girlfriend of someone they were managing named Richard Marx. And because of tensions within the band at the time, I was open to replacing Astrid. I didn't know that they were going to push Cynthia on us.
So it was really disorienting. And it was kind of, you know, looking back. One thing I would just throw in as a statement of how to be in a band is like, stick with your mates, stick with the people within the band because everybody on the outside is going to try to tear you apart or remake you. And if you've got something that's working, try to keep working with what's working. In our case, we tried to rebuild the thing and the guitarist Don and keyboard player Greg and I, we thought we had an idea about what we wanted to do. The management company had a different idea. I went along with it for a while. I liked Cynthia. I recorded with Cynthia. She's a lovely person. But when we got down to choosing songs, we had a new A&R guy, and he wasn't accepting the songs I was writing. He wanted to remake Animotion. He said he wanted us to be more like Heart and Starship. And if you knew anything about Heart and Starship in the 80s, they were giving up their original sound in favor of having their songs written by Hollywood songwriters. And, matter of fact, Starship came out with a song, We Built This City on Rock and Roll. Rolling Stone readers called it the worst song of the 80s. I just saw that the other day. But the thing is, is that we built this city was lyrics were by Bernie Taupin, who wrote the lyrics for our second album, first single, "I Engineer." Again, the record company saying, well, we think this song is better than anything you have in your playlist written by Bill or whoever. So we're going to lead with this single.
Valerie This is a story that I keep hearing over and over again. And there are so many factors from the musicianship in the band to the songs, of course, to your management and your manager's ability to have, you know, a good relationship with the record company. And it is easy to look around at your bandmates and go, Oh, you must be the problem, you know? And then, yeah, bands break up because of musical differences, personalities that rub each other the wrong way or money.
And so if you were talking to someone who was putting together a band for the very first time, what would you tell them about how to pick musicians, how to structure the band, how to keep band politics from interfering with the creative process?
Bill You know, you just really have to trust your own instinct that you're in the right place with the right people. I've been working here in Portland for a couple years with someone named Paul Trubechick. And Paul and I are so musically compatible, and he is also very supportive of what I write. I also try to be supportive of what he writes. If I make a mistake and I drop a verse or something when we're performing, he will immediately correct his direction, he'll be right there with me. You just need to find allies. You need to find people that you think are compatible musically. If you can possibly find people that you think are even better than you musically, that's great. It's like, you know, this old saying of like if you want to learn how to play tennis. Find someone who plays better than you and just up your game.
Valerie That's great advice.
Bill You know, I would just say find people who are very good and who have something unique that you don't have. And then try to find people that you can trust. And then, once things start moving, you have to trust your gut and trust your bandmates and try to define what you're doing and where you're going as best you can at all times. And then go forward being as true to yourselves as you can. [23.3s]
Valerie That's good advice. Speaking of advice, if you could go back in time and give your younger self some advice on how to work best with Astrid, what would you say to him?
Bill Oh, I think that what I would say is, find out what Astrid really wants to do here. Find out what her dream is.
Valerie Ask more questions?
Bill Yeah. Well, really, find out what she loves and what she wants to do and help her do that. You know, and ask her to help me get to where I want to go. I wish that I had spent more time listening when she started playing me like The Smiths. I remember I hadn't listened to the Smiths a lot and she played me a song. She says this is the kind of lyric that, you know, this is the kind of song that Charles and I, her boyfriend, like. And I remember the lyric was, "And if a double-decker bus runs right over us." You know, and I was like, What the hell? You know, so. But I didn't listen to enough of the Smiths. There was a lot of great stuff with the Smiths and also with The Cure. And I think that if instead of going, Yeah, but that's not my bag. You know, that's not... And you know what Astrid? I'm the writer of the band. I'm the writer of the band. And so, you know, go with me on this.
I was really a massive fan of Peter Gabriel and what he was doing with the So album. I think a lot of people were. So, yeah, I would just say to my younger self, you know what? Right around the time I first met Animotion, I was thinking about leaving the band. It wasn't really my jam. And every time I came to rehearsal to say I'm going to quit, something would happen. Like they'd bought a used amp for me. I used guitar, and I was, you know, in between amps and here they gave me a wonderful amp. And so I thought, okay, I'm not quitting today, you know? And then another day would come, and I stuck with it. But at a certain point, I think you have to take a look and go, OK, there's a good reason to stick with this. I don't know what it is, but my gut is telling me... And well, in the case of Animotion, there were things happening. We were getting calls, you know, from a producer, from a record company or something. And that had not been happening with my own band, partially because I had no contacts, you know, zero. I was just playing at the Troubadour and playing at Madame Wongs. But so now I was in the world of managers and lawyers and things like that. And things started to click. And I think that the best advice I could give to my young person who was launching this thing with Animotion, I'd say, Just close ranks with the band. You've got a good band. Just tighten up and work with everybody to do the best job you can.
Valerie That's some hard-won advice. And the great thing about it is that you guys have a great relationship now. Talk about the band getting back together. How did that happen?
Bill Well, we had had a bloody breakup. Right. The coup.
And then 14 or 15 years went by. And I contacted Astrid and Charles to say, Hey, would you like to just get together and have a beer, glass of wine and talk? I really had no agenda in mind, but they said yes. And we went, and we sat down.
And what really helped was that they had formed a couple bands after Animotion. And I was the leader of the band, musically speaking, in Animotion. They had agreed that I would be the musical director because at first, I was the only writer in the band. And early on, we would have some conflicts about how this song should be realized. And I said, look, guys, I'm only going to be in this band if I can, if I'm bringing in my own songs. You have to go along with me the way I want them played, you know? I mean, I'm not going to tell you how to play every note, but I'm the musical director. So along the way, I wanted to fire the drummer because the drummer... I wanted a different drummer. I wanted a better drummer in my mind. That's what we needed to make the songs what they needed to be.
So we cut to 14 years, 15 years later, I'm sitting with Astrid and Charles, and they're saying we finally understand what you were going through, and we were giving you such a hard time. Now we know when we have a vision, and we start up with it created. They created their own band, and the people would come in, and then they found that they were getting the same kind of friction from their bandmates that they were giving me in Animotion. So they forgave me. They understood why, you know, I might have been treating them poorly. And they... I don't know that enough water had been under the bridge. They're like, wow, we had a good time together. We had some great times together. And we kind of understand why you were, you know, crazy about certain things or why this or that happened. And then we just agreed that if an opportunity came up, that we would consider playing together again.
And then out of the blue...
Valerie An opportunity came up, and then you started playing together, and you still are. You're still doing these shows, which is, you know, it's been really fun to watch you go out on stage and do your thing. And you guys throw down. I mean, you really, you really do. It's fun to watch.
I think it's so interesting these shows that we do together, these Lost 80 shows and more because when you're on the on stage with all these different bands coming up and doing their thing from years ago, I have this feeling like we all just know how lucky we are now. You know, when you're younger. When I was younger, I felt like, yeah, we were lucky, but I still had so much to prove. And I don't carry that kind of I have to prove myself chip anymore, which is such a wonderful thing. I can just relax a little bit more and have fun, and appreciate the moment and the audience and, you know, the other people on stage. And just... It feels like a high school reunion where everybody's dropped the stuff, all the stuff that they carried around, and just are glad to be alive.
Bill I think so. But I would say, when you're telling me this, it sounds like you're so relaxed about everything. But, but I know how much you prepare. You and John both prepare for these shows. You're very professional, even though it may seem, and it does seem, from the audience that you're very relaxed and at home up on stage. But I think that all of your years of experience go into the current performance. The current stage, you know, what we're putting out on stage. We spend a lot of time thinking about how we can do this, especially getting up, doing a few songs, getting, you know, all that stuff.
Valerie And as you said, you know, Astrid had only been in one band before Animotion. Right. Right. And so, you know, all these years go by. And she's had, and you have also had, a whole bunch of different experiences with different people. And you build that professionalism layer by layer by layer through experience. But, you know, all the other stuff is worth it. I think. Yeah. It makes the performance richer and better and more fun. For sure. Yeah.
So you got back together. You've been playing again for what now, 14, 15...? How many years?
Bill Well, actually no. We got together in 2001. So we're, we are 19 years.
Valerie 19 years! Wow. And then you decided to create, or you decided to make another record. And in 2017, you released Raise. Why did you decide to do a new album, and how did it come about?
Bill Ever since we got back together, we always talked about how could we do another record? And we had a few times when we would go into a studio where here's some song ideas. We would go into a professional studio, we'd flush them out. Then we think about how to finish them. And we didn't have enough for an album. And we sometimes people in the band would say, well, OK. We recorded those songs, but I don't love them. You know, I mean, sometimes, you know, it just. We would get down the road, and then something would pull the plug on it. Either one of us, or two of us, or just energy, or somebody would go somewhere. You know, it just...
Valerie It's tough to get everybody together.
Bill Right. A lot of false starts. And then a little label in London called Invisible Hands asked us to make a new record. They're like, you guys make a new record. We will put it out. And they gave us a budget. And, you know, I called up my original guitarist, Don, who has been playing with Rod Stewart for the last 15 or 20 years now.
He's been with Rod Stewart this whole time, traveling around the world every year. I mean, if you look at Rod Stewart's schedule, it's absurd how this guy can keep going. He just had a number one record in the UK. He has... It's phenomenal. And it's a very professional band. I told him, I said we have a record deal. And he said, We should have Rod Stewart's musical director, Chuck Kentis produced the album.
So Chuck has had a studio in Los Angeles, and they said, OK, well, where are the songs coming from? And I sent them some demos that I'd had or things that Animotioin had recorded. What we ended up doing was Rod Stewart was in residence at Caesar's Palace. So I flew to Las Vegas, and I spent some days with the producer, Chuck, who's also a keyboard player, and with Dawn on guitar. And we wrote together, and we recorded in a hotel room at Caesar's. And we came up with, like, I don't know, in four days we came away with most of an album.
Valerie Wow. That's kind of different than the old days, huh.
Bill Yeah. Oh, yeah. It was great. And then we went back to Chuck's studio in Los Angeles. Astrid came down, and she had written some songs. She submitted some things. We encouraged her to complete those songs. She had some songs on the record. And our original keyboard player Gregg came in and played. Once we had a budget and a record company saying, let's get this going, we pulled it together and put it out in January 2017.
Valerie So what would you say was your biggest takeaway from making a record now compared to years ago?
Bill I was very fortunate to have a producer who was really skillful with me in the singing in the recording booth, especially. And having everybody in the band being very supportive of the words that I wanted to bring to it. The voice that I wanted to bring to it. I just felt very supported as an artist.
Valerie What a lovely feeling. I feel like good producers are like good doctors that have a great bedside manner, you know? They know how to bring out the best in you, and not everyone does.
Bill I was gonna just give an example of we were working on the record, and usually, almost all of the background music was done by the time I'm singing the vocal. And so I'm hearing the record. It's exciting. And the producer would say, okay, just go at it any way you want. So I'd come in, and I'd do what I think is like I'm going at this song, Bam! And then. He says. All right. I want you to take a deep breath. The next time you sing it, I want you to have more air. I want you to breathe. I want you to get your air in your lungs before you sing each line or whatever, not every single line. But he just essentially just said to me, put more air in your voice. And that, something real subtle like that, made the difference. And, you know, and then and then I would go, OK, and sing. And then he'd say, OK, you're singing — it sounds like you're a little bit angry as you're singing this. Just soften for me on this next take. Things like that.
Valerie Oh, so helpful because you can sing a line so many different ways. It sounds like he's kind of directing you like theater director with the emotional content is he knew how to pull that out of you. How cool is that? Well, it's a lovely record, by the way.
Bill Thank you. Thank you.
Valerie It's a really lovely record. I was just listening to it yesterday. And I especially like Everything. And I can hear that breath that you're talking about in that song and then and then Raise Your Expectations is just really fun. It came out really well.
MUSIC: Everything
Valerie Most people don't know that you're a working graphic designer and that you've done it for years doing design for companies like Nike and Citigroup. How does that fit into your life? And do you consider yourself, you know, an artist as well as a musician? [14.3s]
Bill I see myself more as kind of a journeyman graphic designer. In other words, I'm not... There are so many great cutting edge graphic designers in Portland, Oregon. And I've had a chance to work with some amazing groups of people. But to me, it's some skill sets that I learned way back when some of these graphic programs first started showing up in the 80s with Freehand, and, you know, this is even before Adobe stuff came out. So along the way, I've just been really lucky to get jobs that were kind of fun and creative and doing mostly magazine ads, working on graphics for some television commercials, things like that. And eventually, websites.
Valerie And does your graphics work, support your musician life? A lot of people listening are thinking that they haven't made it in music unless they're working full time in music.
Bill You know, you and I both did music full-time for a bit, you know, for a while or a few years or something. For me, when I left Animotion in the 80s, I got a job at NBC TV in Burbank, and I was having such a good time, I hardly could be bothered to try to get back into the music business, which was full of... It... For me, at the time, the music business was like a bunch of pirates just treating each other badly. I'm working at NBC and cruising around, smoking a joint with the vice president of NBC at lunchtime, you know. And then just going back and working on ads for the Golden Girls while I'm buzzing. You know, it was so much fun.
Valerie How fun. That sounds way more fun than the music business.
Bill And so along the way, the graphic design has paid my bills for years and years. But I think that having your basic needs taken care of, whatever your job is, as long as it in my case, it's never stressed me out or rung me out so much that I couldn't go play music in the evening, you know. Or take a three day weekend and go travel with the band or something. Take a vacation and go travel with the band, or go somewhere, or play with some musicians. I've always been able to keep up my being a musician while I'm working my day job, you know.
Valerie Nice. And it's a day job, it sounds like, that you enjoy. That's great. Yeah. So are there things that you've learned from being in graphics design that have helped your music career and vice versa?
Bill I think the main thing is just that I've been able to create little posters. You know, I've been able to do my own graphics and build my own website and things like that so that, that helps.
One of the things that I learned from the advertising business that I wasn't really into before was revising. Like when you know, it's a lot of us as songwriters, we write something, we're like, That's so precious. I can't believe I came up with that wonderful thing.
Well, you know, when you're in a creative team at an ad agency, someone you'll come and say, I've created this wonderful thing. And they're like, yeah, that's pretty good, Bill. But let's make it better. Know what, it's all wonderful, except for this whole side here is ugly. You know, where some of this whole thing here, it doesn't make any sense. So you've got a good idea. Yeah.
When I was working at Weiden & Kennedy, I met one creative director in particular named Jelly Helm. And Jelly would take a look at what I had done and say, this is great, Bill, but I want you to spend the afternoon revising this part. Think more about this one part of it. Is there something else you can do to make this better, to make this communicate more clearly? Or to look better?
So I've learned to revise. And then in the last year, I've taken two classes at Portland State University on writing. And both of them, again, are really helping me write. And I think revision is something that I didn't really do a whole lot of as a young person, and I'm getting more into it now.
Valerie And it sounds like you've learned how to how to relax into it instead of, like you said before, being precious about the thing you created. So I dare not touch it. You know.
Bill I think I've also gotten more in tune with when something is really shining that, the kernel, you know, you don't mess with the core of the thing. It's everything else that kind of is around it and how you're framing it... You know, sometimes we used to have like, oh, that's a great chorus. And then the verses we're just you know, just you just like threw a bunch of stuff out there. And it just didn't make any sense or, you know. So.
Valerie In 2012 ,I saw you in Artist Repertory Theatre's production of the Pulitzer Prize-winningplay Next to Normal. That powerful musical about a family struggling with the effects of mental illness. And you played the father opposite another guest of this podcast, Susannah Mars. And I was just — I was really impressed with your performance. How did you get involved with the production ,and what did you learn from doing it that was different than being in a band?
Bill I got into it just because I had run into a musical director named Rick Lewis here in Portland. Just met through friends of friends. He was aware of me as a professional singer from the pop world. And Next to normal is a rock musical, five-pieceband. Even though it's got a cello, it's a mostly kind of rock music ,and they were looking for the right voice. And so he called me and asked me if I would be interested. And I had studied acting in Los Angeles, but I hadn't really put it to use much. So he said, Would you be interested in this? And I said, Yes. I had to do a video audition for the sort of acting part of it. So I did a monologue ,and they hired me. And then boom, I was five weeks of rehearsals and 42 shows. And I loved it. I loved it.
Valerie You're a natural. Yeah, you're a natural.
Bill Well, but the hardest part about it was for me was that I had to actually sing beyond my own range. I'm glad we got to this because I did want to talk about a couple of teachers. I know you're a teacher ,and a teacher can make all the difference in the world. I was lucky to study with someone named Roger Love in Los Angeles. He was a protege of another acting teacher who I think his name is Seth Riggs. And Seth Riggs was Stevie Wonder's singing coach and George Benson. And all these amazing...
Valerie Oh yeah, I've heard of Seth.
Bill ....singers who could go way up into their head voice. So when I first started learning the songs for Next to Normal, I was doing exercises that I'd been taught by Roger Love to try to extend my range. And then I discovered through the Berklee School of Music, a teacher named Anne Peckham, and I got from her a CD with vocal exercises. She... what's it called? The Singers Handbook. Anne Peckham, P.E.C.K.H.A.M. And man, I love her exercises. So I would spend almost an hour before every show back in kind-of like the workshop area, and I mean where they build sets of the theater. Nobody else in the cast was having to do this, as far as I know. Maybe they did a little bit of warm. They did a little bit of warm-up. But I had to spend an hour just coaxing my voice to get up there because at one point I had to sing an A. And that I mean, I would typically, I'm comfortable singing E and F, F sharp maybe. Once I get to G, I'm not so sure I'm gonna hit it tonight.
And then A was out of the question. But there was a point in the play where I had to look at this young woman and just out of thin air, you know, right up there, just hit that note. I even said to the musical director, How am I supposed to do this? I don't think I can do it. And he just kept saying, you'll get there, you'll get there.
I don't know. I just loved the experience and. Then afterward the musical director said, You should write something. Because there aren't that many parts for you know, I mean at the time I was 50 something, now I'm 60 something. And so I've been desperately, not desperately scratch that word. I've been conscientiously, working at writing something that I could sing, you know. And it's funny that now I've got a musical done. My writing partner didn't want me to sing any of the parts because she wanted me to be objective. As we're working on this in progress and the part that I wanted to sing, now we've got a guy. I love him singing this part so much that I kind of don't care. I'm playing in the band. I'm playing in the backup band for the musical and I'm really into it. Yeah.
Valerie So tell us a little bit more about this musical. I mean, I know you've been writing and producing songs for it for the last two 3 years now. Is that right? Yeah. And the thing that's remarkable about it is that it's based on a true story about a rock festival that took place in Oregon in 1970. And I just love the story. So tell us a little bit about what it's about and what's going to happen next with it.
Bill Sure thing. I can tell you that I've built a website that is Vortex 1 Musical. Like it sounds vortex V-O-R-T-E-X, the number one, and the word musical dot.com. And there's some background information, a little video with one of the songs in it.
In 1970, it was the Vietnam War era. And in Portland, Oregon, the American Legion was coming to town with Richard Nixon as their keynote speaker. And the FBI approached the governor and said, we are expecting 50 to 100,000 protesters to confront the American Legion in 1970 at their convention. And what are we going to do? What are we going to do here to avoid violence? Kent State had just happened. There were protests all over the country.
And at one point, Tom McCall's assistant, a guy named Ed Westerdahl, said these hippie protesters want to create a concert like Woodstock. They want to have a concert. They're asking us to give them a park. Somebody came up with the idea to give them a park 45 minutes outside of town. It's a beautiful park. River. We'll give them the park, let them have a concert out there. It'll draw them away from the downtown core. And that will be our solution. Well, a lot of the protesters didn't like that. So there's conflict within the free people and the People's Army Jamboree, these different groups of young people that were protesting. And then you have the business people and the American Legion.
So there's all kinds of wrangling that was going on and it was all meant to avoid violence happening on the streets of Portland. And eventually ,they sanctioned a rock concert in Estacada outside of Portland. And they told the police, don't bust anybody. If they're smoking pot, if they're drinking, if they're naked, do not throw them in jail. Just as long as they stay out there at the park and nobody's getting hurt, let them do their thing.
Valerie Remarkable for that time period. I think it's still to date the only state-sponsored festival of its kind in the country. And what a brilliant idea. It worked. It worked.
Bill It worked. And people were saying to the governor, Tom McCall, this is political suicide because you're sanctioning a pot party. And he was a republican. Now, he was a moderate Republican, but he wanted to, you know, avoid violence. And this turned out to be the best possible solution. And it did, in fact, work for everybody. But, you know, we have him singing a song about political suicide is one of the songs he sings — A Bullet to the Temple of a Promising Career. Because he thought, I'm going to do this for the good of Portland, even though I might lose my career over it. And he was actually reelected. So it was... It was it turned out good for him. Yeah.
Valerie It worked out. Yeah.
Bill And so what we do is we're looking for a company to produce it here in Portland. And how we do that is we put it up on stage with all our actors, 12 actors and a five-piece band. And we perform it, and we get as many people that can say yes to some kind of production to come down and see it and get some support. We've performed it once on stage, and now we're about to do it a second time. This time will be the full thing. First time was a partial performance.
Valerie And when's that happening? February 3rd here in Portland. February 3rd, it's a Monday night at a place called the Village Ballroom in North Portland.
Bill I'll also be at alleged in the first week in February.
Valerie In February cool. So two more questions. Super quick ones. How has the word success changed for you since you first started your career? What does success mean now, and what did it mean for you then?
Bill I think my idea of what I thought success would be in the music business would be that I would have a performing and recording career that would support me financially and support a family. I'd seen a lot of other artists that, even though they weren't very successful for a long time, they hit it big enough to essentially set them up for life financially and support their life. You know. In my case, I had fame without fortune. And for me, success is being able to support myself in life however I can.
And in this case, it's from multiple streams of income, from graphic design, from some sometimes performing, sometimes royalties, multiple income streams. So it's just for me, success means finding a balance in my life between work and play, home, family, friends, and everything in moderation.
Valerie I love it. That's great. So perfect. Besides Vortex, what's next for you?
Bill Well, when I was in Next to Normal, in 2012 a prominent director of musicals, whose name is Bill Fennelly, he actually was the first director for Jersey Boys in New York, he launched Jersey Boys. And he's done a whole bunch of projects all over the country. He saw me in Next to Normal, and he expressed interest in working with me.
The first idea I had for a musical was kind of autobiographical about a guy who's kind of lost in space. He's kind of lost his religion here and there. He's been through two divorces. As I... I'm on my third marriage. The winding road of my life. That was my first idea for a musical. So over the last couple of years, simultaneously with working on the Vortex, I've been working on what could be a one-man show, or it could be a one-man with a backup band. It's similar to Springsteen on Broadway in that it's stories and songs, and it chronicles the turning points in my life, the ups, the downs, and the songs that I wrote along the way. That's why I was taking these classes at Portland State. We're developing it. The first draft is essentially done. I've created a SoundCloud playlist that has all the stories and all the songs. And now we're kind of at that stage where we're shuffling those things around and trying to figure out what's really the best version of this before we try to get it put into a theater.
Valerie How lovely. You have a lot going on, Mr. Wadhams.
Bill I do.
Valerie I love how there's actually this connective thread, this thing that kind of, I don't know, ties it all together. And you just don't stop and continue to create no matter what.
Bill You know, I got advice from a karate teacher once, which is kind of off the wall. But right before I moved to L.A., I said, I'm sorry, I'm going to have to quit the class because I'm moving to L.A. I'm trying to make it in music. And everybody says, Oh, yeah, you'll go to L.A., and they'll chew you up and spit you out, and you'll be coming back home with your tail between your legs like everybody else. But he said to me, You know what? Everybody gets a break. You just have to be sensitive to when your break comes. Don't stand there with your mouth hanging open, you know, grab it and make the best of it.

And I think really, even though I looked at what was going to become Animotion, I was like, I don't really... This isn't what I thought I would be doing. But there was a door opening, and it was really opening, and there was momentum behind it. And I think that everything that I do, there's someone sort of cheering me like, Hey, Bill, how would you like to do this? What do you think about this? And then as I start going down the path of doing like my personal show, this guy in Philadelphia, the director is helping me out. And then I take a class, and the students say, Yeah, we want to know more about your brother, Tad. You know, it's just it. I have momentum. But the momentum comes from people supporting me. And for me, listening to people around me and helping guide me to go down the right track. You know.
Valerie That's really cool. I love it when you have an idea, and you put it out there, and it sings back to you like that through other people. And that does help you keep going.
Valerie Well, I can't wait to see what you do next Bill Wadhams.
Bill Thank you, Val.
Valerie: It's been really a wonderful thing to talk with you today.
Bill Thank you, Valerie. I appreciate your interest, and I look forward to getting back on stage with you and John on one of our wacky tours.
Valerie Yes. Me, too.