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GROUP 87
Remembering The First Group 87 Album

An Interview With Group 87 Founder 
Mark Isham


Listen to a RealAudio Sample 
from the 
Group 87 CD
Magnificent Clockworks 

 

 

Part 2
continued from previous page

Mark Isham (MI)
Robert Silverstein (RS)

RS: By the way, I always wanted to know how you came up with the Group 87 name. I thought you were thinking that the group would keep going to at least 1987!

MI: Later, when we’d chosen the name, we realized that was an invitation that could be read into it. The name of band originally was Metropolis. And then we did a search for a copyright on that and somebody owned the rights to that name and they wanted alot of money to relinquish it, and that was something we didn’t have. So we said, ‘we’ll just have to come up with another name.’ It took us a long time. Eventually, I found a reference. I was researching literary history. And I found a reference to Group 47, which was a group of writers in post-WWII Europe, that had banded together to fight censorship. Supposedly right after the war, the Allies censored all literature in Europe to insure that any anti-Semitic propaganda wouldn’t arise. But it also meant that Thomas Mann and alot of the great writers of that time weren’t published and were censored. So, a number of them banded together to fight that censorship and they called themselves Group 47. And I just thought it looked great on the page. I was sitting in the library looking for any sort of idea that would stimulate a name and this just jumped off the page at me, Group 47. So I thought, how could we steal this and make it our own? And so 87 seemed to be the choice.

RS: The album really had a futuristic sounding name to it. I thought the name was great.

MI: Yeah, we were very happy with it and it seemed to do the trick.

RS: It seemed rather unfortunate that the success of Group 87 hinged on some A&R guy at a record label.

MI: Well the truth of the matter is that we never got ourselves organized as a band. We never had management. We were doing all the work ourselves. And it just never jelled organizationally. The truth of the matter is, if you want to get a group of guys on the road, making records, making any sort of an income out of it, you have to have some sort of an organization to do that. And we could never put that there for ourselves. We never found a manager that held on. The first record deal, basically from a business point of view, was not managed well because we didn’t have management. And it became just a question of the practical logistics of life. I mean that’s basically why Patrick didn’t do the second record, because he couldn’t afford to. In the period of time between the two records, he had to make a commitment to Terry Bozzio and Missing Persons just for the aspect of making a living. Peter Maunu has always been a superlative session musician. His solution out of this was that, ‘well, I’ll just go back and work in the studios and then I’ll have time to do the band on the side’. Back in 1982 I was working with Van Morrison. I’d been working with Van Morrison during that whole period. I started in 1978 with him and that had been my solution and then in 1982 I was offered the chance to start scoring films. So Group 87 did survive I think, through the Fall of 1984, we kept it going. We were actually touring in America.

RS: Group 87 toured as well?

MI: Yeah, not alot, but some. Up and down the West Coast. But at a certain point it wasn’t financially tactical anymore.

RS: By the way, what ever happened to Bobby Colomby?

MI: Bobby Colomby...basically he lost his position of influence at Capitol. Back then, Capitol called us down for a meeting and basically said, ‘unless you guys change direction and give us a hit, we’re not interested.’ And Peter and I discussed it. I’ll be very honest with you. I think just the idea of running a communal band without an outside objective party just got too rough. In other words, you have an organization of which everyone is an "equal member". Without an outside person, like a manager, to sort of run objective input, it’s hard. Things don’t necessarily get done. And I found that to be the case from the very inception. Because I was starting to get enough success in my own career where I could just make a decision and follow through and do something. I found Group 87 just got too unwieldy, because that same make a decision, do something and get it done, didn’t happen. It took so much longer because of this communal thing that had to be gone through. And sort of lack of leadership therefore.

RS: What sort of things didn’t get done?

MI: Well yeah, there was no airplay. I mean that’s one method of making a band’s music successful. Through the radio. The other is just touring constantly. And again, without a management team in place, who knows how to do that, that didn’t work for us. The third method is just that the record company itself blasts through the media. And of course the record company didn’t do that either. So the three methods that historically can break a band: radio, touring or just pure media blitz didn’t take place. It’s that simple.

RS: How important was the album producer Ed E. Thacker to the Group 87 sound?

MI: Well Ed was sort of like us. He was a young engineer who had a few credits to his name. He’d put in a lot of time working with more famous engineers. But he was up and coming and he was obviously going to do great things and had done enough great things that the record company trusted us, basically an inexperienced band, in his hands. He was experienced, he was great. He did a very, very good job. He brought in all the awareness of recording techniques of that time. He had all of those at his disposal. He’d come up through the ranks and knew how to make a great sounding record.

RS: I know you’ve recorded on several occasions with both Peter Maunu and Patrick O’Hearn over the years.

MI: Yeah, I work with Peter all the time. In my latest touring project, The Silent Way Project, Peter’s been a major part of that. There’s been several different versions of the band, he’s been in all of them. He’s on the record. He just did the last two European tours with us. I mean Pete lives here, not too far from me, and we work together all the time. Patrick moved to the East Coast and I just don’t have the opportunity to see him. When he comes out here, we have dinner. That’s about the only chance I have to see him.

RS: Do you ever think there’ll be a Group 87 reunion, perhaps a Group 2007 CD?

MI: I doubt if there ever would be to be honest with you. It was discussed one time around 1987 actually (laughter). It might have been a little after, maybe 1988 or ‘89. Terry, Pat, Pete and I sat down and thought about it. We’re all a lot older, we all have kids. It’s a question of how do you do this sort of thing? How do you take a band like that? It’s confronting the practical side of it. The world hasn’t changed that much. You sell a record, once again, by one of those three ways. And usually it takes a combination of all three. Really, strategically and tactically applied. And I’m not sure what music the three of us would put together as a group that would have any impact on the marketplace today. And whether you could get cooperation from a record company or either management to follow that through. Management would be easier. But I’m finding record company attitudes today to be so one dimensional. First of all if they would even be interested in a record made by three guys over the age of forty, y’know?

RS: Terry Bozzio has this recent album on Magna Carta Records with his group Bozzio, Levin & Stevens that’s a bit reminiscent of Group 87.

MI: I haven’t heard about this. Is this something recently they’ve done?

RS: Yes from earlier in 2000.

MI: Huh, I’ll have to pick that up.

RS: Why did it take so long for the Group 87 to come out on CD? It first came out on Lp on Columbia in 1980. Does Sony still own the rights?

MI: Sony owns all the rights. And to be honest with you the last couple times that I asked...I’m going to have to go back and look as to who actually went back on my behalf to look into this, ‘cause I honestly don’t remember. It’s definitely been a while. The responses that I remember that we got was, we have no idea who that is, where it is or anything about it. That there was nobody at Sony left that had any knowledge of this project or awareness of it. So I guess it shows a great deal of fortitude on Michael Craft’s (of One Way Records) part to have gotten in there and forced somebody to open up the files.

RS: What about the original Group 87 tapes?

MI: See in those days, a lot more went into the mastering session then these days. Just due to mixing technology, the mastering session of a record in the ‘70s was a much bigger deal in terms of the overall quality. It isn’t just compressing it and packing it on as much as possible. We did alot of sonic manipulation of the mastering.

RS: I know you’ve done music for a lot of soundtrack albums over the last 10 years. But don’t you ever miss being in a band like Group 87?

MI: I miss it, but I have my own...The Silent Way project is the most current recording and touring project. And that, at this point, is fulfilling that aspect of things. And I’m still actually, personally signed to Columbia Records, believe it or not. And once again, we’re sort of at that step where it’s a question of well, what’s the next project for Mark Isham?

RS: So Mark you must be happy to see the Group 87 album on CD after all those years?

MI: I don’t think I have anything to say about it. I’m basically pleased that it’s happening. My one vinyl copy is getting on and may not play! (laughter) The fact that somebody’s taking a couple grand out and going to do this is actually good news. So please don’t get me wrong. It was more out of shock. This sort of came out of the blue. I appreciate that.


 
 

Special thanks to: Mark Isham and Mike Craft and Eddie Wilner of One Way Records.

For audio samples you'll 
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Listen to a RealAudio Sample 
from the 
Group 87 CD
Magnificent Clockworks 

 

 

 

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