Bob Rock resurrects the Payola$ with Paul Hyde and sets up a helluva three-night benefit for B.C.’s Children’s Hospital

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED IN THE GEORGIA STRAIGHT, DEC. 8, 1994

By Steve Newton

When the time comes to interview Bob Rock about the recent resurrection of the Payola$, the prospect is particularly appealing. Rumour has it that the big-time Vancouver producer (the Cult, Bon Jovi, Mötley Crüe) is to work with Metallica again soon, and I’m thinkin’ that hobnobbing with the kings of metal down at Little Mountain Sound while getting the scoop on Rock’s reunion with Paul Hyde wouldn’t be a bad way to spend the afternoon.

No such luck, though, because Rock isn’t scheduled to produce Metallica until January. In the meantime he and Hyde are in Hawaii, where the two tunesmiths—former Juno co-winners for composer of the year—are writing their first songs in eight years. Not surprisingly, Rock sounds happy when he rings in from paradise, eager to chat about the developments that led to the reunion of one of Vancouver’s most influential punk-era acts.

“I was actually here in Maui last year,” he says, “and my mother gave me all the Payola$ albums on cassette for Christmas. There’s not great radio on Maui, and I just kept playin’ them, and I thought, ‘These are great songs!’. So I phoned Paul and I said, ‘Have you listened to any of our stuff lately?’ We got to talkin’ about the idea of putting out a Greatest Misses CD, which would include all the Payola$ songs that the record company—those brilliant people that were guiding our career at the time—wouldn’t let us put on our albums.

“Then we just thought, ‘Why don’t we go play?’. We don’t have a record company, we have no management—Bruce [Allen] manages me, but the Payola$ don’t have a manager—so if we played these songs, it would just be for the fun of it rather than business and careers and shit. So that’s what we did, and we had a blast.”

Besides founders Rock and Hyde, the version of Payola$ that’s been ripping up local clubs of late includes bassist Alex “A-Train” Boynton, keyboardist-vocalist Richard Sera, and former Loverboy drummer Matt Frenette, who takes over the skins from longtime Payola$ member Chris Taylor, now a cameraman for Shane Lunny Productions. (Taylor was also the drummer for Rockhead, the melodic ’70s-inspired hard-rock group that Rock put together in 1992, but which broke up in the summer of ’93 after releasing and touring behind its eponymous debut CD.)

“I think Chris is pretty much doing the video thing full-time,” says Rock, “and at this point he couldn’t blow off another career or job to play. So we got Matt, and he and A-Train together are just brutal. Paul and I can be as sloppy as we ever were and get away with it.”

Anyone who’s seen the latest Payola$ in action can attest to the vibrant vibe rolling offstage. It helps that the group has such great old tunes as “Soldier” and “In a Place Like This” to get its rejuvenating message across with. Then, of course, there’s that classic Canuck-rock gem “Eyes of a Stranger”, which helped the band claim four Junos back in 1983.

“That was nice in a way,” says Rock of the one-time trophy shower, “because it finally kind of legitimized my musical career for my mom and dad. I know that sounds bizarre, but seein’ that on TV, they just kinda went, ‘Well, I guess he’s not a bum after all.’

“But what pissed me off is that I was workin’ that night, so I couldn’t go, and Paul [accepted] four Junos that night. He didn’t mention me once. He didn’t even thank me or anything. He just said, ‘Where’s the beer?’ I thought that was really nice of him.”

Although the Payola$ hit Juno pay dirt in ’83, their career petered out just two years later following the release of the lightly rocking, David Foster–produced Here’s the World for Ya.

“The band had already fallen apart at that point,” recalls Rock. “At that point we didn’t admit it, but…David had to come in and try and keep us going. It was basically like, ‘Okay, let’s get the American producer to write songs with them.’ I mean, at that point we were so confused that we had to do it, but that was just the ultimate bad thing to do.”

Although he has some regrets about how the Payola$’ career ended in the mid-’80s, Rock says he’s very proud of what the band accomplished on the songwriting front. Anyone else with fond memories of the group in its heyday can rekindle them at the Town Pump next Tuesday through Thursday (December 13 to 15) when the Payola$ perform as part of a three-night benefit for B.C.’s Children’s Hospital.

More than 15 other local acts will take part in the event, which Rock decided to organize after his six-year-old son Jonathan was treated at the hospital for a stroke last year. When the illness struck, certain of Rock’s wealthy friends and associates—from Jon Bon Jovi to the then-president of Elektra Records—offered private jets to whisk the ailing youngster to wherever the best medical aid in the world could be found. All the offers were turned down, though, as Rock ended up “basically living at the hospital for two weeks” while various local doctors did their thing.

“I got my lawyer to look into where Jonathan should go,” says Rock, “and everybody said the same thing—that we were already in the best place he could possibly be. And being the eternal pessimist in a lotta cases, I was just shocked to find that we had five of the best neurologists from around the world that lived in Vancouver, and they were helping my son get better. I never needed that kinda help in my life, and when they helped so incredibly, I had to do something. I did it last year on a personal level, and then I thought it would be great if I could do a little more.”

The Christmas Medicine Ball, as the benefit is being billed, was originally planned as a one-night affair, but at Bruce Allen’s urging—and with support from CFOX and the powers that be at the Pump—it quickly turned into a three-nighter. At press time, the long list of performers included Ginger, Rymes with Orange, Daytona, the Blue Shadows, Loverboy, and the Payola$ (Tuesday); the Odds, Art Bergmann, Damn the Diva, Rose Chronicles, and members of Spirit of the West (Wednesday); and D.O.A., Econoline Crush, Copyright, Age of Electric, Colin James, David Gogo, members of Skid Row, and the Payola$ again (Thursday).

“Some great people are along now,” says Rock, “just a real assortment. And there’s a couple of surprise guests that shall remain nameless until they arrive. Everybody’s doin’ it gratis, and we’re gonna be able to give [the hospital] a really good chunk of money if it all works.”

Surprise guests, eh? Hmmm. Maybe there’ll be some hobnobbing with Metallica after all. Even without those Bay Area string bashers, you can’t complain about the talent that’s been lined up—or the cause they’ve come together to support. And there’s no denying Bob Rock is entitled to the Swell Guy of the Week prize, even if he’s uncomfortable with the do-gooder role.

“I kinda feel funny doing this,” he admits. “It’s not really my bag, and there’s so many charities and so many great causes. But if you can’t invest in your kids—and kids in general—then we’re all fucked anyway, right?”

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