Swerve Magazine: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Incidentally, you are the first artists to be interviewed by us for our new monthly 80s feature.
John Smith: What was the question? Just kidding. We’re honored that our 80s work has become a permanent part of the culture, and in a way, a sort of brand name. The 80s were a great time to be young and alive and to have a band. We actually made a living with a nine-piece band for seven years before Atlantic signed us. Not so sure we could do that now.
SM: I caught a clip somewhere online of a show from the 80s that described you and your husband as hippies when you first met. Were/are you guys really hippies?
JS: We met at a hippie commune called ‘The First Cosmic Bank of Divine Economy’ or ‘cosmic bank’ for short. It wasn’t a cult or anything, but we were all teenagers, reading Yogananda, and Castaneda, Herman Hesse and B.F. Skinner. Valerie was the responsible one. She knew how to balance a checkbook. We called her the ‘hippie with a checkbook.’ I always embraced hippie values musically. We came up in the era where Coltrane could fill up four sides of an LP with one song! It was sort of the precursor to the extended dance remix! I wanted to mix the angry psychedelia of Hendrix with the magic paisley harmonic carpet-bombing of ‘Trane and Charlie Parker. Of course in the end, Nu Shooz didn’t come out anything like that.
SM: When did you guys form Nu Shooz? How did the name of the band come about?
JS: You know, when I was young I used to practice being interviewed. I thought I’d be all evanescent and mystical like Hendrix. ‘Yeah, dig brother…no buttons to push…didn’t even rain.’ Or maybe I’d play with people’s heads like Bob Dylan. (“I think of myself as a song-and-dance man.”) When we finally got somewhere in show business, we got asked the same three questions over and over:
A.) How did you get the name of the Band?
B.) What’s it like to be married and in a band.
C.) something something ‘I Can’t Wait.’
So you see, the parameters of Modern Show Business don’t allow for any of the shenanigans Dylan and Hendrix used to get away with. No beat poetry,
just the facts. I guess we’re living in a non-poetic age.
But to answer the question…
Valerie and I played in Latin and African bands in the late 70s. This was before they called it ‘World Music.’ I arranged and played piano for a salsa band called Felicidades. Valerie played congas and African drums with Ghanaian master drummer Obo Addy. By 78 Felicidades was breaking up. I took a trip to New York and had an artistic epiphany there. I’m not from Cuba or Puerto Rico. I’m an American. I want to do ‘American Music.’ There was this mystic happening, a God thing. I found an abandoned Motown songbook on top of a battered upright piano, sat down and started playing through it.
So, by the time I got back to Portland I knew I wanted to do a soul band.
Nu Shooz was started by me and Larry Haggin, the front man for Felicidades. We had an upcoming gig at a park, and needed a name for the group. This was in the spring of 1979. Larry and I were in the kitchen of the house where we practiced. There was this contact paper on the walls printed like an 1890s newspaper. We looked over at the same time and saw some shoes…those buttonhole shoes.
“Hey, we could be the Shoes!”
The rest is…um…History.
For years afterward I walked around thinking, I wish we’d spent like, five more minutes on it and come up with something cooler, something like…Megadeth. Now, after thirty-three years I have to admit it’s grown on me. Oh yeah, and the spelling evolved over time. I give credit for the spelling to Jim Hogan, our original bass player.
I recall him saying, ‘Spell it with a ‘Z,’ it looks more rock.’
SM: How did your sound and style come about? Was it basically doing what was the sign of the time?
JS: Sign of the time? Hah! We were the Counter-Reformation! Let me back up. I knew I wanted to do a soul band with horns. After Felicidades I
always had to have horns. But the first Nu Shooz band was just two guitars, bass, and drums. And it was a democracy. One guy wanted to do Eric Clapton. Someone (who won’t be named) brought in ‘Silly Love Songs’ by Paul McCartney. It was a mess. It taught me the value of Benevolent Dictatorship. There has to be one hand on the tiller. The Shoo-Horns came on in 1980, four horns: trumpet, tenor, ‘bone, and ‘Bari, a big fat sound. Valerie joined in 81 after a year in music school. By then we were one of the happening bands in Portland Oregon.
Now back to the Counter-Reformation thing. When I was in New York in 78, I saw the early punk movement happening and I hated it. Punk just sounded stupid to my ears, stupid and irritating. I loved the heavy Philly-soul production of Gamble & Huff, with the horns and strings and congas. To me that sound had dignity. I liked disco, but disco was devolving into all those bad Casablanca records, ‘Disco Beethoven’s Fifth’ and all that crap. So then came another epiphany. If I hate punk and love disco and Philly soul and Tower of Power and Earth Wind and Fire, maybe there’s other people out there like me.
The answer was yes.
So, Nu Shooz in a big way was me shooting back at the Punk Invasion. But beside that, I just dug arranging…those big sheets of music paper, the math and art and science of it. In the mid-70s I started listening to arrangers like Toshiko Akiyoshi and Papo Luca. So, another side of the story was that I wanted a band like Miles Davis
had on ‘Birth of the Cool,’ nine horns, a jazz laboratory. ‘We’ll play pop music on the side, then write these beautiful charts…’ It didn’t turn out that way.
SM: ‘I Can’t Wait’ (ICW) received regional airplay in your native Oregon. At the time, how cool was it that your song was on the airwaves? Did you ever fathom that it would blow up into a worldwide hit and one of the defining songs of the decade?
JS: Ask anyone and they’ll tell you it’s impossible to know whether a song is a hit or not. All I know is, of all the songs we were recording in the winter of ’84 that one sounded the most real, the most like an actual record. Then it took six months to make it work in the studio.
Valerie Day: I’ll never forget the first time I heard it on the radio. It was April and the sun was out - a miraculous sunny spring day in Portland OR. I was in my little 79’ Toyota Corolla station wagon driving up Weidler Street. My radio was dialed to Z100 – the station that had first played the song and recently put it into regular rotation ( a miracle for an unsigned band – but that’s another story!). And then there it was. I cranked the volume up and started singing along. Then it hit me - I was
actually singing with myself on the radio! I rolled down the window and wanted to shout it to the world – hey – that’s my voice! That’s our band! That’s our song! It was an incredible feeling. But I never dreamed that I would become - as you put it – one of the defining songs of the
decade. Miraculous.
SM: How did the remix of the song, the version that the world knows, come about?
VD: We had a regional hit with the song first, but couldn’t get arrested when it came to getting a label to sign us. Even though we were getting all kinds of airplay on radio throughout the Pacific NW, they thought it was a fluke that the songs success wouldn’t translate to other markets. Warner gave us a demo deal but then turned us down saying “We already have Madonna.”
While we were busy being turned down by all the majors, a DJ label called Hot Trax approached us about putting ‘ICW’ on a 12” going out to club DJ’s. We said sure. Long story short, that record was found in an import bin in Holland by a remix artist named Peter Slaghuis. His version (with the infamous emulator chirpy sound on the front) came back to the U.S. as a Dutch import and was found in a NYC dance club by a young guy named Bruce Carbon who had just started working in the Dance department at Atlantic Records. (Thanks Bruce!)
SM: You guys were up for a Grammy the year ‘ I Can’t Wait’ came out (in 1987, for Best New Artist). How cool was that? Were you present at the awards show and, if so, did you take a look around at all the artists there that night and think, “Wow.”
VD: That was an amazing moment. Sitting in that auditorium in L.A. with Whitney Houston, Bonnie Raitt, Janet Jackson…it was too much. We had a feeling Bruce Hornsby was going to win the award, (which he did) but there was still that pregnant pause when the envelope was being opened that I wondered if my antiperspirant would hold up to the strain!
SM: Did everything hit you too fast…in terms of popularity, promos, touring etc. after the releases of ‘I Can’t Wait’ and ‘Point of No Return?” How did you guys deal with sudden fame?
JS: Um…We played for seven years before we ever got near a record label, so when the fame thing happened, we could definitely get up and play. Then we were too busy for it to really sink in. We took the band on the road and played seventy cities in seventy-three days. On our three days off we did laundry.
SM: Who did you guys tour with in the 80s? Any interesting stories?
VD: We toured with Morris Day and the Time, The Jets, Billy Ocean, The Fat Boys, Tina Turner, The Pointer Sisters…speaking of which, have you ever
seen “This Is Spinal Tap”? I think pretty much everything that happened in to the band in that movie happened to ours except for the getting stuck in the egg bit.
When we opened for the Pointer Sisters the whole band got lost in the bowels of the auditorium we were playing in just as we were about to go on. The voice of the announcer “And now ladies and gentlemen…” was bouncing off the pipes as we raced around trying to find our way to the stage. We made it, but the pause was VERY pregnant between the announcement and our rather rushed entrance.
SM: What was the cause of Nu Shooz falling back into relative obscurity as the 80s wound down, even though you put out several more albums? Was it because of the changing industry, record labels, or some other driving force?
JS: It was a combination of things. First of all to make it in the record business as it was at that time was a miracle, something like putting acamel through the eye of a needle. The people at labels change all the time, so by the time our third Atlantic record was done the people who signed us were long gone. And let’s be honest, they’re not in the business of trying to understand you as an artiste. They have their cookie-cutter ways of doing things and God bless ‘em, sometimes it works. But I’m not
here to complain about the label.
The other factor was, I was moving on musically. I didn’t want to make the same record over and over. And I sure as hell didn’t want to go out on the
road and play the same record over and over. By 1988 I was studying Bach and Charlie Parker and learning to write film scores. On the pop side, I was getting bored with R&B and electronica and listening to 60s psychedelia, ‘Incense and Peppermints’ and all that. Making another ‘I Can’t Wait’ was the last thing on my mind. So it’s no surprise that the label lost interest in us.
Success in pop music is a blessing and a curse. The public embraces a band, then expects them to stay the same. Only a few groups in history were allowed to grow. The Beatles are the best example, but then radio wasn’t so tightly formatted back then. Would the Beatles be allowed to go from “She Loves You,” to “I Am The Walrus” today?
I was determined to stay true to my interests. That’s what got us as far as we got. And what I saw of show business turned out to be…not very interesting.
SM: Looking back at what you accomplished in the 80s, do you guys hide from it or embrace it? Do you get sick, or at least become weary of “I Can’t Wait” and/or “Point of No Return?”
JS: Well, I never liked “Point of No Return” that much, especially the remix. After ‘I Can’t Wait’ all the remix guys tried to do the same quirky sampler thing on our stuff, except for Mantronix who did a brilliant job with “Should I Say Yes.” Incidentally, we get e-mails all the time from Zimbabwe and Uganda saying how much they love that song. I can totally picture it playing in some African club on a hot night. The version of ‘Point of No Return’ on ‘Pandora’s Box’ is closer to how I wanted the song to sound. ‘I Can’t Wait’ I’m still very proud of. It’s twenty-seven years later and it still sounds fat and funky. Thinking back to when I wrote it, it was probably the moment when I felt the most sincere and engaged by funk music. The 80s were an exciting time, when drum machines were new and fresh sounding. That said, I can’t imagine doing that kind of music now.
SM: What have you guys been up to? I know you released several albums over the years. Without the burden of a large record label, do you guys make the music you want to, so to speak?
JS: Actually we only released one album since 1992, a jazzy orchestral record called ‘Pandora’s Box.’ It was probably too esoteric for the average Nu Shooz fan, but it was definitely what we wanted to do at the time. We also reissued ‘That’s Right,” which used to be available only on cassette! Are we making the music we want to? Absolutely. As artists we have a responsibility to follow the path wherever it might lead. For me that path led into the world of Classical film scores, and the French
Impressionist composers of the Fin de Siecle, Debussy and Ravel. After I discovered Debussy it sort of wrecked everything else. A lot of fans ofour old stuff had trouble following us into this strange new world. That’s cool, they can listen to the old records and I guess, dream of simpler times. The label never really told us what to do. They just gave us enough rope to hang ourselves, and we did!
VD: There are a couple of other albums that made their way out there in the last decade though…I recorded a Big Band CD as a fundraiser for the arts in schools that John did transcriptions for, then a jazz duet CD with smooth jazz pioneer Tom Grant. John also did the orchestrations for a multi-media cabaret/concert/science lecture that I wrote and produced with jazz pianist Darrell Grant and filmmaker Jim Blashfield (who directed the video for ‘ICW’ back in the 80s) about the neuroscience of romantic love – “Brain Chemistry For Lovers”.
SM: It’s pretty amazing and rare that you guys are still married after being together for a long time and working together for a long time. What is the secret to your success?
JS: My secret? I’m still excited to be in a relationship with this woman. Also, we had it easier than some of our band members. At the end of the day, we knew what we’d been through. After the Shooz, we both went off and did our own thing. Valerie was an in-demand session player. She played congas and Latin percussion on every jazz record coming out of Portland for a few years. And she taught voice lessons. I worked in advertising, doing infomercials for exercise machines and boat motors, and also scored a bunch of indie films. When we came back together to record ‘Pandora,’ we both had more to bring to the table.
VD: John is one of the smartest, funniest, most creative people I know. Give us a cup of coffee or a martini (or both!) and we can talk for hours and never get bored. It helps that even though we’re very different, our preferences in music and art are similar. He’s a bit more of a traditionalist and I’m a bit more of a modernist, but that makes it all the more interesting, you know?
SM: Any plans for touring? If so, would it be part of one of the ‘80s artists lineup, or do you guys prefer to go alone and perform music from throughout your career, not just the 80s?
JS: If you ever see me on the ‘oldies circuit’ you have my permission to shoot me. I’ve always thought of the nostalgia thing as The Elephant Graveyard. I have no interest in going out with a bunch of hired guns and pretending to be Nu Shooz. That was a certain time and place that’s gone forever. Right now I’m applying for a grant to write a new score for the 1928 silent movie ‘Nosferatu,’ for the Portland Chamber Orchestra. And I’m working on a graphic novel called ‘Evolution.’ Those are the kinds of things that interest me now. Fans of our ‘80’s stuff will always have those records to listen to. There’s a lot of love out there for what wedid back then. For that we’re extremely grateful.
VD: Touring would be great, but playing the 80s material is just not something I feel compelled to do right now. Plus, there’s no time! We’re working on a NU SHOOZ CD of material from our 80’s “vaults” that no one has ever heard. “Kung Pao Kitchen” will be out in early 2012. I’m also teaching at Portland State University, performing with a jazz quartet, and looking forward to recording some more NU SHOOZ Orchestra records. John and I are parents too. Our son Malcolm is 16 and only has a couple more years of high school to go. He’s an amazing visual artist and a wonderful person. We want to make sure we don’t miss a minute of the years he’s still with us.
SM: Thanks for taking the time to do this interview. Hopefully we’ll see you guys, or ‘yinz guys’ as they say here in Pittsburg, one day.
JS: My mom was from Pennsylvania…Slippery Rock to be exact. Never been there myself. I’m from the Middle East too... Cleveland, Ohio. Anyway,
thanks for listening.
VD: Thanks for asking us…and yes! If we’re out in Pittsburgh someday, we’ll be sure to let you know.
Photo: Valerie Day
Swerve Magazine: Thank you for taking the time out of your busy schedule to do this interview. Incidentally, you are the first person from Europe that we've interviewed for our new monthly 80s artist feature.
Marcus Lillington: Not sure what the question is here but I'm honored :)
SM: How was it growing up with your fellow band members, knowing each other practically your entire lives, culminating in reaching worldwide success together?
ML: I guess because I don't have an alternative to compare to, it was just how it was. At the age we were when it all kicked off I would say that it brought a camaraderie that meant we could deal with the things that were thrown at us. For example, we took TV and radio interviews in our stride that we may not have done had we not known each other so well. But, there are disadvantages too. In later life, I've often advised that you shouldn't go into business with your friends because it can be doubly unpleasant if things go wrong. Though we didn't see it that way at the time, we were in business together.
SM: There were several years between when you guys first recorded demos and when "All That Jazz" was finally released. How were those years? Did you ever envision the success that was to come?
ML: No, not at all. Before "Hands to Heaven" finally broke, we all took the view that having a hit record was something that involved some kind of witchcraft and we were never going to be told the secret!
SM: How awesome was it when "Hands to Heaven" and "How Can I Fall" were at the top of the charts? Was it a relief, or was there a sense of pressure around the band to write follow-up songs that could match the success of those two singles?
ML: When they were hits we were doing a lot of promotion work in the US (and nowhere near enough live work) so we were in the thick of things. Exciting times. I remember receiving a call from the record company informing us that the record had gone gold (500,000 copies) which was the first time that I really felt what was happening was real. Imagining half a million people walking into a record store and buying your album was pretty humbling.
SM: With the success of "All That Jazz," did you guys tour extensively? If so, with who? Any good stories from out on the road?
ML: As I alluded to previously, we didn't do nearly enough touring. None in the US at all. We supported Belinda Carlisle in the UK where we played some of the major venues but that was pretty much it. If I've got any regrets, this is it. We're talking about over 20 years ago, so any "interesting" stories must have slipped my mind ;-)
SM: The single "Say a Prayer" had success from the "Peace of Mind" album. What happened there after? Was it the record label?
ML: We kind of fell apart as a band during the making of Peace of Mind. In my mind, that was the principle reason for it not breaking like the first
one. We just weren't into promoting it in the same way as ATJ. I could point the finger at the record company for focusing too much on David but other than that I don't think they were at fault. I also don't think the songs were quite up to the standard of the first album.
SM: It seems that you guys hit the top almost right out of the gate, and, at the same time, disappeared at almost the same rate. How did you guys handle the sudden success, and at the same time, the disappointment after "Peace of Mind?"
ML: I would say that David and Ian didn't handle it very well at all. I was lucky enough to be laid back enough to cope. I accepted a few years after we split that the music biz stuff was over and I needed to move on. Having a wife and kids helped me focus on a new career!
SM: What lead to the break-up of the band? I know you and Phil Harrison have played together since, do you guys still talk?
ML: I'm still playing with Phill now as you know but that's really just for fun these days - which is no bad thing, playing music to make a living can take the fun out of it. I haven't spoken to David for years. Not because I don't want to necessarily, rather that he's on the other side of the world and doesn't appear to have embraced the internet and all the communication options it brings.
SM: The story of David Glasper is tragic. If you can, and want to tell, what led to his current status? When was the last time you spoke to him, as rumor has it, he doesn't have a phone or Internet access and he's practically cut off from the modern world.
ML: I haven't spoken to David for probably about 5 years. Though I don't really know what's happened to him out in the Far East, even if I did, I think that's his story to tell.
SM: What year did you start your company? Was it due to you wanting to get away from the music industry as a career? Do you still play, or is it basically something you have done in the past.
ML: We started Headscape in 2002 off the back of the company we were working going under. We were left with a bunch of clients with projects half finished so we asked them if they would continue to work with us under a new guise. The majority said yes and we've been going strong ever since. Our latest project to go live being the US-based environmental charity EDF at www.edf.org. I still play a lot and love it.
SM: Looking back, is there anything you would've done differently in your music career? Any hard feelings? Are you grateful that you were part of a band that left behind two of the more enduring late 1980s ballads?
ML: Generally speaking, I think I was very lucky to have been a part of the band. I do have a few hard feelings about some of the decisions made during the making of and release of the second album where I think some big mistakes were made, but I think a lot of the reasons why that happened were because I didn't stand up for what I thought was right and just took the easy route of inaction. So… my fault really.
That said, I don't lose sleep over it and, as I said, the whole experience was something I can feel very lucky to have been a part of.
Swerve Magazine: First off, take us back to the heyday of soft rock.
Certainly, those days will never come back or never be repeated.
Graham Russell: It was certainly an exciting time because everything just
was more real, especially the music industry. Nowadays it seems to be
driven by money. Back then there was a passion to it. Now, everybody wants
to be famous. I am not saying that the current music industry isn't good
now, but it just seemed to be a lot more exciting during that time. Maybe
I am saying this because I was a lot more younger. We just came from
Australia and we were suddenly successful. That was exciting, certainly.
You look back at the music industry in 1950. It was a lot different before
Elvis. If you think about it, a 30-year period in music is quite a long
time. Things change. In some cases, things must change. I can't imagine
what 2042 will look like in terms of music.
SM: You guys carry the banner, so to speak, of the soft rock era. Do you
carry that banner willingly, or is it something that comes with the
territory of owning all those hits?
GR: It was certainly our time. We were one of the biggest bands in the
world for a few years, no denying that. Then again, we don't want to rely
on that era and be just another 80's band. We don't do shows like 'Here's
our songs from the 80s,' play them, and walk off of the stage.
SM: From 1980 through 1983 you guys equalled the Beatles' run of
consecutive Top 5 singles with seven. Were you aware of the feat at the
time? Looking back, how amazing was that feat, and to be in the same
company as them.
GR: You know, every time I hear that or see that in print somewhere, I am
still a little shocked. It is certainly an accomplishment, especially
since I am the world's biggest Beatles fan. Whenever I see that we're up
there with the Beatles in terms of those hits, I always feel like it is
someone else and not us. I always feel like we haven't done enough to be
mentioned in the same breath as them.
SM: You also broke barriers by being the first western pop group to tour
China and a few other Asian countries.
GR: Looking back, it was a great thing. Obviously, a lot of bands before
us wouldn't have done it because China was and still remains a very
Communist country. Bands just didn't want to go for it. We wanted to see
the Great Wall and the country itself, since at that time it was like a
big unknown to the rest of the world. It is funny, when we first went over
there, we were interrogated in front of a tribunal of generals in uniform.
They listened to all of our songs, even though they couldn't understand a
word. We passed that test and now we go freely in and out over there.
Going over there opened a great door for us. The fans over there embraced
us. The Asian market is huge in terms of music. The audience over there is
just as passionate about music as everywhere else. We still have many
loyal fans over there, and I'd like to think that that's because of us
going there before any other western group did.
SM: With the majority of mainstream/terrestrial radio stations no longer
playing your songs, or any song from that era, how important is the
Internet for a band like Air Supply?
GR: Again, today it is different in the music industry, definitely a
different time. The Internet is very interesting because it allows us to
reach out to our old fans and to make new ones. Our website is a nice way
to keep in touch with our fan base, and get to interact with them. At any
one time during the course of the day, there are 500,000 people online on
our site. That's pretty amazing. I'd like to think that the Internet
created new fans for us and increased our fan base.
SM: So, the Internet does help "older" groups.
GR: Yes, but the Internet does have its downside, though, for newer bands.
There are a lot of bands and artists out there telling people how great
they are. Really, but are they? Most of them never played live, been on
the road and living out of a bus for nine months straight, and been in the
trenches. Take a look at the Beatles in Hamburg. They went there when they
were teenagers. A year or so later, they left ready for the world. Now,
that is an extreme example. Today, bands want to become famous before they
put in any work.
SM: Certainly the demographics for your shows have changed over the years.
Do you still find it odd or amusing that you have several generations of
fans in your audience now?
GR: Oh my, there are a lot of young kids at our show. I am talking about
9-and 10-year olds and teenagers. I have grandchildren now, and they are
all over our music. Our music appeals to all ages. Really, no matter who
is in the audience, we just want to play great music.
SM: On a lighter note, approximately how many 20 or 30 something year old
people are walking around now that were conceived either during an Air
Supply song or after an Air Supply concert?
GR: Seriously, probably lots. We do meet and greets after our shows. There
are people in their 20s coming up to us and I can tell they never seen us
before. I ask them if they ever saw us. They are like 'No, no I haven't.'
I tell them, 'Look, I bet your parents made love to our music.' They look
and they are like 'Really? You think so?' I tell them, 'I KNOW so.' It
just that generation's love songs.
SM: You guys were parodied a few years back on "Saturday Night Live." Did
you know that the skit was going to take place? How did you like it?
GR: (laughing) Oh my, I thought it was great. It brought us to a whole new
audience, most of which haven't seen us for quite some time. I remembered
it got incredible coverage. It is even on Will Ferrell's greatest hits.
SM: You can never go wrong with free publicity.
GR: No, no you can't.
SM: Well, thank you once again for taking time out for this.
GR: You're welcome. I'm looking forward to coming to play over there in
Pittsburgh.
Graham Russell (L) and Russell Hitchcock (R)
Throughout music history, there are very few artists whose band name is synonymous with a certain genre of music.
Chances are, if one were to say "soft rock" out loud, the very first group to pop into another's head would be Air Supply.
The legendary duo, Russell Hitchcock and Graham Russell, are well into their third decade of performing hits that defined the soft rock boom of the late 1970s/early 1980s.
Still touring, the Australian duet will be playing at the Rivers Casino on Saturday, January 21st.
Expect to hear "All Out of Love," "Even the Nights are Better," and the countless other top ten hits the band has recorded.
Graham Russell recently took the time to conduct an exclusive phoneinterview with Swerve Magazine in advance of the Pittsburgh show.
Perhaps no other decade of music brought us pop tunes that, still to this day, can make one smile ever so easily.
We all have guilty pleasures, we all have songs that we may feel embarrassed to like.
"Waiting For a Star to Fall" by Boy Meets Girl is one of those feel-good
80s pop songs that may instantly put you in a happy mood, or not, depending on your taste of music.
As one poster typed on YouTube, responding to the song's video, "This stuff right here will make a grown man cry from nostalgia overload."
Yes it does.
Shannon Rubicam and George Merrill, the-then husband-and-wife duo that was Boy Meets Girl also made their mark on the 80s by writing both "How Will I Know" and "I Wanna Dance With Somebody (Who Loves Me)," both huge hits for a young Whitney Houston.
They also wrote songs recorded by Deniece Williams and Bette Midler and
sang backing vocals on Williams' hit, "Let's Here it For the Boy," of original Footloose fame.
Even though now divorced, the duo still are close and recently took the
time to conduct an email interview with Swerve Magazine.
