Kasim Sulton talks about Todd Rundgren, Meatloaf and his upcoming PPV

Butch, thanks for getting this out there.

 

No problem,mate. It was fun talking to Kasim about things. Man, I could have gone over to Staten Island to do the interview since I go there so much BUT hey it was easier this way. I've done two more interviews with two other Utopians...be on the lookout for them!

 

Hey, I was born in North Babylon, LI and lived all around the tri-state area. No wonder I get Utopia!

 

North Babylon is a town right next to where I live in West Islip! Heck no wonder you grok Todd.I liked Todd when he wasn't fashionable really. I remember my English professor in college talking about Acapella(it had just come out) and people were so non respondent to his musings on the album.

 

Very very cool

 

Thanks for the PM. Finally finished it and what can I say...Great Interview! The funny thing for me is I was into Utopia right up to the Network album and still didn't own any Todd records yet. I do now but at the time considered them a totally separate entity and preferred the band to Todds solo stuff.

I would have loved to see Kasim do Libertine. It's my favorite Utopia track. I played it for a girl with the preface that the song reminded me of her. She got ticked with "When she walked in the room, you could faint from her cheap perfume" line. I told her it was because she was such a tease.

Anyway great read, I look forward to his webcast.

 

......then you got the shaft from Libertine.

 

Strong perfume.

Love that tune. Saw them at Alpine Valley in August 1982, one month before that album came out. They did most of the album, including songs that were dropped from the setlist later in the tour (like "Neck On Up" for example). "Libertine" was a stand-out, to be sure.

 

No problem mate. I always saw Utopia as being intertwined with Rundgren for better or worse really. I've always liked what both entities have had to offer along the line BUT it all comes back to Todd in the end. As someone who has played with Todd recently told me,they would only get something like 12 people to show up if Todd wasn't playing with them!

 

Speaking of Libertine.........

http://www.metacafe.com/watch/yt-Tces7Qg0xh0/kasim_sulton_libertine_at_johnny_ds_5_27_08/

 

Saw them (same month) at the Philadelphia Zoo, of all places. Not sure why they couldn't get the album out in time for the tour, but I knew I was hearing a new album being played and was a bit dismayed that I didn't know it in advance....I enjoyed the music but it was all kind of blowing by.

 

I hope this quote from the interview sheds some light on perhaps why they had problems getting the record out! :

What led to the disillusion of the band?


Like anything you do it a long as you can,nothing lasts forever, it kind of petered out around 1983 after we couldn't get any record deals. We had problems. Every record company we signed with would fold after we signed with them. People would leave..it became difficult to maintain the career ,simply because we weren't that successful... we were semi-successful, it was a time with record companies where the bottom line was much more important than artist development.

 

Forgot to mention.....at the gig, Todd announced that Utopia was now recording for Network, and with the classic Todd deadpan snarl, he said, "Don't be looking for us on that Bearsville label anymore". I got the distinct vibe that they had fallen out with Albert Grossman.

 

Yes I know!

Was listening to the disc on the way to work this morning and knew I blew the line.

Oh well she was still a pain in the neck.

 

Todd had the Ever Popular Tortured Artist Effect album around the same time which I think was a strong hint that all was not well between him and Bearsville.

 

While this is partly true, interviews at the time also put a lot of the blame on Wilcox wanting more of a producer role and wanting to use a drum machine.

 

Wilcox is a very talented drummer and an articulate guy, he'd be an asset in almost any capacity. There might have been creative differences in that regard for sure. BUT ultimately it was a case of not moving units in the end that played a huge role in things. Remember that the music business is 99% business and 1% music!

 

I have a vague recollection - it may have been from Musician Magazine - that Swing To The Right was held up because Bearsville was more interested in Todd albums than Utopia albums, and that they finally agreed to release it if Todd gave them another solo album, which ended up being EPTAE (which came out after the three-sided Utopia for Network).

 

Great interview.

 

The late lamented Musician eh? What an amazing magazine that was wasn't it? Now that was a reputable source even though they were owned by Billboard! You hear so many stories from different people about how something happens. And one of the other interviews I've done has facts that are different from Kasim's! Sometimes facts are not just the official story,but something more than that....it depends whose perspective you look at.

 

I was gonna hold off on this for the Todd/Utopia album by album thread but I can't wait.

The record company must be at fault of Utopia's "we weren't that successful... we were semi-successful..." They did almost everything right. Four singers and songwriters. They could harmonize their vocals really, really well. They all had personalities and they fit well into a four member band motif. Kasim had stand out vocal abilities (imo). They toured a lot. Made a ton of cool videos before MTV. Their lps were all different sounding. It makes no sense, so it must be the record company.

 

I'm not quite sure if the above post is serious or sarcastic, but I'll respond as if it was serious

This misses the major luck factor in scoring a big hit. You could say most of the above about countless bands that were less successful than Utopia (due to the lack of a true star), with the exception of:

"Made a ton of cool videos before MTV."

which probably did nothing to enhance their chances of success and

"Their lps were all different sounding."
Which probably hurt their chances of success. And was also the MO Todd used to shoot his own chances at greater success in the foot.

Had they just released:
Oops Wrong Planet
Adventures in Utopia
Utopia
I think they would have been more likely to achieve a greater degree of access than they did interspersing those amidst nichier albums like

Ra (a prog album in the new wave era)
Deface the Music (as Kas noted, a Beatles parody album was unlikely to set the world afire)
Swing to the Right (you can usually count on a political album title to alienate at least a third of your potential buyers)

 

Utopia wasn't bigger because Todd didn't want it to be bigger.

In other interviews, Kasim has hinted that it was Todd who killed the chart run of "Set Me Free" just as it entered the Top 30. He had the label stop working it, or else. That's why the guys were so against the Deface the Music project. They wanted to capitalize on the success and Todd wanted to pretend the success never happened. Todd got his way. Eventually Kasim quit for 6 months to do his solo album, only to realize it was a mistake. He then begged the others to let him back in Utopia. They were well into cutting the Network album with Dough Howard on bass. They then gave Doug the boot and let Kasim back in.

 

Ain't that the truth.

I think the piece I'm remembering was a Todd feature from the mid-80s, for which Todd was the source of that info.

 

Nice interview. I too enjoyed the candor on the New Cars. I saw that tour and they sounded fine but Kasim didn't get the best reception in Ben Orr's hometown of Cleveland when he sang Drive. The New Cars idea seems like it was poorly thought out. TR has pretty much described it as a cash grab.

I didn't know about the Joan Jett gig either. Kasim is a great player and this interview is a very nice career summary. He's absolutely dead on...Bat Out of Hell 3 sucked.