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Since I was now unemployed, I had a lot of free time on my hands. I was doing a lot of songwriting with Hoss* and took to hanging out at all the industry spots, where I would likely run into some record producer, label executive, or artist.

I could recognize A&R people** from Sony, Curb, and Columbia Records on sight. I remember sitting in a restaurant on Nashville’s famous Music Row*** at lunch on a Tuesday afternoon, with Tony Brown (head of Sony Nashville) at the table behind me and Mike Curb (head of Curb Records) on my left. It got a little too surreal when Shania Twain entered the patio area where we were seated, hugged Hoss, chatted with us for a few minutes before joining another table across the room.

Allow me to take a moment to try and briefly explain the Nashville culture… it is a very very VERY close-knit dysfunctional family. At the time, (and it’s probably true today despite some labels pulling out of Nashville) there were perhaps 12 extremely powerful, influential non-artists in town. These were the guys that made everything happen… mostly heads of the labels, a couple of A&R guys, and a marketing director or two. They all knew each other, spent time together playing golf, drinking beer, even secretly sharing underage boys by many accounts.

Consequently, when a label had any new talent in the wings, or some new project brewing, it wasn’t very long before the story would be all over Music Row. People would talk about it in hushed tones around their power lunches as though they were the only ones in on the secret, yet every table would be repeating the same story. There was even a weekly newsletter that was sent via fax to all the offices around town containing the latest in industry gossip. It was called “The Buzz” or something similar, who remembers?

Anyway, shortly after I left the radio station Devon O’Day gave me a copy of that week’s Buzz that mentioned our project:

Rick Blackburn at Atlantic Records has something up his sleeve, a five piece male vocal group aiming to take Alabama and the Oak Ridge Boys on a run for their money. Rumor has it Delious Kennedy from the Atlantic pop group All-4-One has gathered some hot talent, including two “unbelievable” singers. We also hear that producer Tony Smith has signed on to produce the as yet unnamed “Good Ole Boy Band.”

While it wasn’t really specified, Matt and I knew who the two “unbelievable” singers were. And we were quite pleased with ourselves for getting even a tangential mention in The Buzz.

Keep in mind, we hadn’t yet put a single note on tape in the studio. There were some video tapes of rehearsals floating around, and I’m sure that Atlantic Records had viewed them. Delious was keeping us under wraps. We hadn’t yet met with anyone from the label, and Delious had actually made it pretty clear that we were not going to meet the label until our agreement with his production company was in place.

We were still waiting for the contracts.

Matt and I started researching contract law, especially concerning artist’s rights and licensing agreements. We spoke to the rest of the band and decided that we would seek an independant attorney to examine and negotiate the contract when it finally came. Everyone was on board. It only made sense to protect ourselves from making the same mistake artists like Dr. Hook or TLC had made early in their careers.****

* More on this later.

** A&R people are responsible for discovering new talent and presenting them to the label. These are the guys that you have to blow to get anywhere.

*** Music Row is basically just a couple of blocks in the West End area of town. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, you will miss it. The labels, recording studios, lawyers, and management offices are set up in old houses in an average-looking neighborhood. If not for the occasional sign outside, you would think these buildings are inhabited by couples in their early sixties who like to garden. It’s just another one of those Nashville culture things… serious business dressed up with a front porch swing.

**** Two examples of bands who basically signed their lives over to their production company… they received an “allowance” and were provided with housing, but all the profits from their recordings went into everyone else’s pockets. I met the ex-manager of Dr. Hook. He told me that when it came time to sign a new contract or renegotiate a deal, he would walk into the conference room, throw a big bag of cocaine on the table, and announce, “As soon as you sign these papers, you can have this bag.” It worked like a charm.