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 | | | | Sep30Written by:Bill Park
Saturday, September 30, 2000 6:00 PM  Keep On Growing
But after a while I realised that I wanted to go to another level. I was getting back into pure music for music's sake. I was getting seriously into playing guitar and my songwriting was developing. The excitement of being an underground star was starting to wear off and I found myself going back to my roots, the Frank Zuri and Warren King thing of working your ass off, singing your ass off, playing your ass off. I wanted to be associated with that and I felt like that was where I had to go. I didn't want to be Iggy Pop... a fifty year old punk rock guy... and I started to see that coming towards me. I was extending my horizons. I wanted to write like Frank. I wanted to sing like Frank. I wanted to play like Warren. And my guys couldn't play what I was writing, and they didn't want to practice. They thought that they could just keep making a living doing what we were doing and if I was any good at my job, they didn't have to work or practice, just show up, do the same schtick and collect checks and chicks.
BP: We all miss Nason. As big and imposing as he was, he was always a gentleman unless the situation required different mode of behavior. Can you share any thoughts about Nason?
NN: Nason had more heart, he was a big guy and his heart was as big as he was. I loved him. As time went on and I folded the band, Nason went back to what he was good at, engineering. Nason became a fantastic engineer, and who knows what kind of an engineer he would have become had he lived. He had the personality. He died at a studio in Boston. He worked all day, had a couple of drinks at the end of the session like we all do, went to bed and never woke up. They said that from the way they found him, he didn't know that he died. He just went to sleep, and that was the end of his life.
He had a record with Joe Girtman that was nominated for a Grammy. He was working with Phil Green ('New Kids On The Block'). I only wish that I could have seen him develop. He would have been a star.
BP: There has been a lot of furor about MP3, Napster, Gnutella, and alternative modes of distribution. On top of that, you have the media conglomerates absorbing the radio stations and concert facilities. This is making it harder for a new act to get airplay, or a place on the bill, and harder for a band to make money when the audience expects to download the music for free. Where do you see the future of music distribution and access going?
NN: It's getting harder and harder, babe! I don't have any angles on it. I've been strictly a talent development and content development guy. When it comes to distribution, I need to make some new friends!
BP: A couple of our contemporaries have just been inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Joe Grushecky and Billy Price. Both very deserving, I'm not trying to take away anything from those guys. But where is Norman? What does Norman think of that? You must have had conflicting emotions. These are guys that you have been in the trenches with for years and years.
NN: Of course I am happy for those guys. We've all known each other forever. But I do have conflicting emotions. I am so used to the struggle, and I've tried so hard, and one of the hardest things that I have tried to do is to learn how to be a bigger and better person. I have to try to accept the fact that I'm just me and I'm not the only guy that's clammoring for attention and I'm not the only guy that's fighting the battle. Where the word "TRY" comes into play, that obviously indicates that I'm struggling with that. And that is the honest answer to it.
BP: I read a Billy Price interview in which he said that he considers himself, Joe Grushecky, and you to be "The Triumverate of aging blues-inspired Pittsburgh rock stars who were popular in the eighties."
NN: (laughing) That's good! I like that.
I do feel as though I have been left out of many things in my own home town, though.
BP: Do you find that to be a curious aspect of the Pittsburgh music scene? I do. You can have unbelieveable success elsewhere, it doesn't matter how good you are, the Pittsburgh media doesn't really seem to give the due to the local musicians that it seems they should. Because we have killer players here that don't get accepted here.... like it's not cool for the media to recognise us.
NN: Oh, my God, yes. Kenny Blake. Billy Price, Eric Dolphy, Trio Grande... I really would like to be a part of changing that so much. Steve Earle wrote a song called 'Nothing Can Tear You Down Like Your Own Home Town', and it's so true. It hurts.
BP: The local audiences seem to appreciate us. So it seems to me that the trick is all in how the media covers us and treats us.
NN: Yes, yes, yes... I could tell you some horror stories with people from the press in Pittsburgh who have rejoiced in finding ways to make local musicians look small. There was a time when the young hot bands were us, 'B.E. Taylor', 'the Silencers', 'Billy Price and the Keystone Rhythm Band', 'Joe Grushecky and the Iron City House Rockers', all those guys, and the radio stations used us for the All-Star Charity Jam. Then we got a little older, and the radio stations decided that we were too old to get a deal, and they started using the Grafitti bands like 'The Clarks' and 'Kids After Dark' instead. And I investigated this, because I wanted to know why we weren't allowed to play these gigs anymore, when we were the original bands. And I was told that I was too competitive. And I said, wait a minute. Isn't this the town that the Pittsburgh Steelers come from? If we're ever going to be World Class, don't you want the guy that is the most competitive leading the charge? If we are going to battle with bands from Boston and bands from New York and bands from LA for top spots in the charts, don't we want to field our best teams? I have always worked with younger bands, by producing, writing, and nuturing these kids, so it is not that I have a problem with them. But we were better. Imagine what we could have done if we had one ounce of support for the radio and the media in this town? If we are ever going to have a World Class band come out of this town, competition has to be a big part of it, and I AM the competitor.
When I talk about the negative things that have happened to me in my carreer, I am not saying them for me, I am saying them for the next generation. If you are in radio and you are in the press, consider what you say about an artist, consider how you treat an artist, consider what you do for an artist, and think about how lonely it must be to be carrying your own cross through the music business struggles. Before you rip somebody a new asshole, or exclude somebody, or trash them....before you do those kind of things, consider the ramifications.
Make It Real... Compared to What?BP: For me, the excitement about live music has always been in the small clubs away from the intelligent lighting and smoke machines. I like to see four or five guys thrashing their hearts out on the stage, thinking that they have come up with something new. There's a kind of honesty there. You've gone the 'Big Show' route, and now you're just running a stripped down three piece. Do you miss the glitz and the big tours?
NN: No. Playing the small clubs keeps you real. It might not be the right thing to say, but if you can't do that, in my heart of hearts I must say that you don't deserve anything bigger. That route is the route that teaches you who to be and how to be, and that's not just the music, it's personal. Being and growing as a person and keeping it real is important. The acts that make records and go straight to radio, somehow I can't believe in. What you just said is a big deal. Earning it through people. Bands that go straight to radio... that does not mean that you know what you are doing when you get on stage.
BP: Well, a recording artist is not necessarilly a performing artist.
NN: I'm in favor of knowing what you are doing. If you are getting to the people it is your responsibility to know what you are doing, and know how to read somebody'e face, and know that what you are putting into their system is positive and righteous. It's the only way to continue and to thrive and have the kind of a career that can be meaningful. The art, the human touch, the magic in this art is one soul touching another soul. What I give a shit about is that human touch, and that is what I am here to glorify.
BP: In all of the years that great music has been coming out of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh has never been able to provide a unified front to the rest of the country, like Seatle, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Memphis, Nashville and others have been able to do. They all made their mark, and the industry went knocking at their doors, asking for more. But Pittsburgh, in spite of all the talent, has never been able to make that happen. Why do you think that is? There has been great music coming out of Pittsburgh since the 40's, perhaps earlier.
NN: I'll take blame for my generation. Maybe we have not had someone who was man enough. Maybe I wasn't the guy who was man enought to lead the charge. Believe me, I wanted to be. It was in my mind at all times. When I became 'Norman Nardini' in 1979 I did it because I wanted to be the producer that created the bands that made it. Maybe the reason that I couldn't get the radio behind me and the press behind me is because I wasn't the right person. Maybe I made mistakes. Maybe who I am and how I am, and who I was and how I was, wasn't the right guy. I've tried to make changes and adapt to things as I've become older... I'm begining to feel as though I am in a position to do much more than I was ever able to do before. And I hope that there are other guys like me that are doing the same things as they get older, and that when that same question is asked of them or they ask -themselves- that question they have an answer....because I ask myself that question and have asked it for almost thirty years. Maybe Tom Cossi was a guy that could have done it. Billy Price had the talent and the charisma to do it. Maybe Joe Rock could have done it. Bob Mack, Clark Race, Bill Cardille might have been the guys to break Pittsburgh music nationally, but they didn't get it done. Maybe there are a couple of other guys who never crossed paths with me who could have done it. I probably wasn't a big enough person for it to happen around me or through me. Maybe it's Corbin and Hanner now. It could come in any area, but if it breaks at all, it's going to break all over.
BP: Over the years you have had a great deal of success, particularly overseas. I remember a Wall Street Journal article about you. You must be proud of that.
NN: You know, I don't think that any of the media in Pittsburgh picked up on that story. I don't remember any of them calling me to see what my take was on the piece.
BP: Norman, two of the many things about you that stick in my mind... you always have stayed here and promoted the East End rather than moving to another city like LA or New York; and you have been with the same woman for almost as long as I haver known you. Neither of these things is what I would consider to be standard operating proceedure in rock and roll.
NN: I have friends all over the world. The East End is where things turned. We were the first around to stand up and play our own music and to take a stand as playing our own original adult music. I am a Pittsburgh guy. I started using the term 'Pittsburgh Rock and Roll' in 1975 and I still use it today for what I do and all the things that I touch. My parents are both alive. I am my parents' child. The family connection is strong. As long as my parents are still alive, I will live here... that's the rule. If something great happens for me tomorrow, I will still live here.
About Kathy.... I stumbled into the most feminine, lady-like woman 25 years ago who is everything that a woman should be. Early in my carreer I stumbled into the best woman that I could, and I have been lucky enough not to have blown it or chased here away from me. At this point in my life I am so thankful that she has stood by me. I'm very much in love. And I wish that for other people. I know what it is like to have the right woman.
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