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The Graphic Interview: KENNY LAGUNA
from: thegraphicweekly.com
by Maggie Peterson, Graphic Staff Writer
KENNY LAGUNA has worked in many facets of the music industry from the time of WMCA Good Guys through today.
A producer, songwriter and performer, Laguna will be on stage playing the keyboard with JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS when they hit Petoskey Jan. 25.
He chatted with The Graphic about some of his favorite people to work with, starting his own record label and how some things have come full circle since his start.
Graphic: How did you get started in the music industry?
Laguna: ... I started learning classical music and then I saw an Elvis movie and it just blew me away ... I got this really fine jazz guy to teach me piano, and then in school I was learning electric bass ... I was very young, and I learned all the songs because that's all I cared about. And by the time I was 12, I was working with the WMCA Good Guys ...
G: Who have been some of your favorite people to work with?
L: Well, Joan (Jett) for sure. She's fantastic. And there was a fellow named Peter Anders ... (and) Bill Medley from The Righteous Brothers was fantastic.
G: Besides being a producer, you also do some songwriting. What inspires you when writing?
L: When I was much younger, any girl that I met would inspire a song. Every good date, I'd write a song so I could go sing it to the girl ... I wrote a couple of really good songs when Bobby Kennedy got killed because I was overwhelmed by that. But now, I can create scenarios in my mind and write about them ...
G: What have been some of your favorite albums to produce and why?
L: "Bad Reputation" because it was like, a lot of angst, and it was kind of raw, just raw energy. That was done when I first met Joan (Jett) ... Working with Darlene Love from The Blossoms, and "He's a Rebel" and "Da Doo Ron Ron" ... I did a soundtrack to Andy Warhol called "Lonesome Cowboys," and when I look back that's a really wonderful part of my career and life. At the time I hated it though because they were really way out there ...
G: Could you talk a little bit about starting up BLACKHEART RECORDS 25 years ago?
L: ... and so Toby (Mamis) calls me, now he's in California and he says The RUNAWAYS have broken up and there's a movie company and they'd agreed to do a soundtrack ...Ê they had one week and the movie company was threatening to sue them and put them out of business. Movie companies have no sense of humor. And Joan (Jett) stayed behind, the only one ... So I went out there, I got some ideas on the plane, and I arrived and with her I wrote eight songs, recorded six of them, got them out of their lawsuit. And I fell in love. When she sang -- there's a song on the "Bad Reputation" record, "You Don't Know What You've Got" -- it was the first thing we recorded ... at that moment I went wow, you're great, I'm going to get you a record deal ... But when I went into the world to try to get her a deal, I couldn't get her a deal ... the tape that went out had "I Love Rock 'N' Roll," "Crimson and Clover," "Bad Reputation," "Do You Want to Touch Me" and "You Don't Own Me" ... we have 23 rejection letters from the most important people in the record business. But what they did was they made us into a label because we just went out there ourselves and we sold it out the back of the car, for real ... we gradually get this little network of people helping us who didn't even work for us, and the next thing you know we have the biggest record on earth.
G: You've been in the music business for years and worked in different facets of it. Have you noticed many changes?
L: ... When I started with my music, albums were just starting to happen ... But before that we sold maybe 3 million "Yummy Yummy" singles and 10,000 albums. And then all of a sudden this thing happened where the albums were big sellers and there were no singles ... That was an amazing change. Instead of selling a $1.50 item, we were then selling a $17 item, or whatever it was, $14. And the record business became a multi-million dollar business ... right now iTunes is bigger than the whole collective record business. And we're all in it because there's no other choice ... we're selling singles again, kids are making their own albums.
Laguna will be performing with JOAN JETT AND THE BLACKHEARTS 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 25, at Odawa Casino Resort in Petoskey. Tickets for the 21-and-up show are $25 and $35, and available at www.starticketsplus.com.
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