Excerpt from Interview with Jock Bartley of Firefall
Posted on November 3rd, 2008 by Simon Barrett in Interview, Music Reviews, Reviews
http://www.bloggernews.net/118466
What went wrong, what happened to Firefall, and what brought about reassembling the alumni after so many years
Firefall burned brightly for 4 or 5 years, we had some albums that went Gold and Platinum, plus a string of singles that charted well.
Maybe one of the greatest thrills for me was being the opening act for Fleetwood Mac, we did that for about 6 months. There I was, sharing the same stage with the worlds most famous band. There are not many people that can claim they have played in front of a 100,000 crowd. Yes, looking back, it was luck and timing. But we had hit the big time.
We also gradually self destructed. three of the band members had drinking and substance abuse issues. That combined with being screwed by our record label made for a bad situation. The record business was an ugly one back in the 70’s, it didn’t seem to matter that you were selling millions of albums, we had sold something like 5 million, yet we were still broke, in fact we owed money!
The labels were taking 90% or even 95% of the revenue, sure, they supported you on tours, but then you had to repay them, and that was coming out of your 5%. The average hit band was living in poverty!
The bottom fell out before we even knew it. Atlantic wanted money out of us, even though they had made millions from us, we had sold over 5 million albums, and done who knows how many concerts. With this as the backdrop the group disintegrated.
When we created Firefall as a legal entity we had included a rider that should any member leave the band they lost the rights to use the name. It was not long before I realized that I was the only one left!
The 80’s saw a big change in the musical landscape, Punk, Disco, and various other styles really put a brake on rock music. The fans were not there, and neither were the labels or backers. But I decided to soldier on, and have assembled a great team of players. And best of all, we are friends, and we have fun playing together.