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Fame & Fortune: Drummer Carl Palmer
Wild drummer for ELP and Asia invested conservatively |
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Carl Palmer: The only
way you can make money is by getting the art and the format correct.
Once you know what you want to do, then you have to be able to sell
it. I don't think you can make music just for money. I've been so
fortunate to make the music I like and be able to sell it. One of
my biggest successes in America was with a band called Asia. The
album was No. 1 for nine weeks; the single was No. 1 for nine weeks
also. Asia was a funny situation, because that was put together
to fit the media, and the music was kind of designed around it.
So in a way, we were a corporate band. We made our introductions
no longer than 20 seconds because we were told DJs couldn't speak
more than that, and we made every second and fourth line of the
chorus rhyme. So in a way, once we were in control of the art form,
we were also in control of what the media needed.
The original Asia is getting together in September,
and it will obviously be financially driven. It's musically driven
as well, but the financial rewards are very good. This is something
a business guy would look at and say, yes, they are doing this just
for the money. The show we're putting together is a history of progressive
rock. Asia will be playing the whole of the first album, but we'll
also play something from YES, something from ELP, something from
King Crimson and MTV's very first video, which was by Geoff Downes,
"Video Killed the Radio Star." So we're packaging the
whole thing in a very strong musical concept. But yes, of course
we're doing it for money. That's how it is.
Larry Getlen is a regular contributor to publications
including the New York Post and Maxim. His next book, "The
Complete Idiot's Guide to Jokes," comes out in September through
Alpha/Penguin. Find him online at www.myspace.com/larrygetlen.
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