Rick Stevers
Frigid Pink
&
Detroit Vibrations
Stevers was
just one of the neighborhood kids playing drums in the basement and listening
to the funky music on the transistor radio. One day some dude came by and told
Rick that he and his band were too good just to play in the basement. So he and
his pals tuned up with backyard parties, small clubs and anywhere they could
get a gig. Stevers recalls, “In 1965 we played The Chatterbox in Allen Park for
23 weeks in a row. I didn’t even have a driver’s license then.” By 1967 Stevers
and his band mates changed their name to Frigid Pink. He doesn’t mince words
about the band’s management, “They were lying, cheating miserable people. They
trashed the band and in doing so, we were forever behind the 8-ball. If we had
been managed properly we would have been around longer!”
At this
point the band got out on the road and started to make some real money. The
biggest problem was that the band never knew their percentages for their
records or their tours. They knew the gross percentages were high, it was a lot
of money but to this day the money is still tangled up in disputes, paper
trails, litigation and attorney’s fees. “We just didn’t know, said Stevers, we
usually got $5500 per show, but we had a lot of work before we had the hits, and
more money before than after we were famous. We gigged at small bars, clubs and
parties, five sets a night every Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights! We were
getting paid what mid-level great bands like Paul Revere & the Raiders,
Steppenwolf and Buffalo Springfield.”
The money was alot better once Frigid Pink hit
the road but they ended up spending more time on tour than at home and
loneliness was one of their biggest obstacles. The local fan base thought they
were stuck up. Stevers felt he was between a rock and a hard place. “The locals
did not know how hard it was for us because we weren’t hanging out and partying
with them. They didn’t know that instead of playing for 200 fans in a club. We
were out playing for the President of the United States, the Montreal Forum and
other places with big crowds.”
Frigid Pink
toured relentlessly until the polish wore off. They started performing at bars
and other venues like Roller Rinks, Theatres and Concert Halls that held 1000
to 1500 people. Stevers remembers a notable gig with the MC5 and The Up at the
Michigan Theatre (later known as the Michigan Palace).
“We did a
weekend gig there on Friday and Saturday. We would perform and then W C Fields
movies would be shown and then it would repeat and everybody would play again
and they would show the movie again in a never ending loop. It went on for two
days, it was a major pain in the butt. By this time in our career we had played
just about every venue from the Grande, Silverdome, Joe Louis and every place
you could think of locally. The Eastown was a cool place but it had that screwy
stage with the drummer sitting way up high. It scared the hell out of me every
time we performed there because there was nothing to catch you for at least
eight feet or so, it was like a free fall with no net! The scene seemed to
de-evolve with the same acts hitting the same circuit of clubs and venues.
Rick knew that Frigid Pink continued to
go over well during their tours and they didn’t take a back seat to anyone,
even the big acts. “I remember having dates with Steppenwolf down south for a
Toys-for-Tots Benefit. There were two shows an afternoon and two shows in the
evening. John Kay seemed to be in charge. He never talked with us or even look
at us but then we did our first set and we blew them off the stage. It was
puzzling, Steppenwolf worked with small amplifiers and they had a PA company
mic there amplifiers but there was no power to the sound and they were beside
themselves. So Kay asked if he could borrow our amplifiers for the next show.
We agreed and told him we’re from Detroit and we get along with just about
everybody.”
Frigid Pink
led then charge for insisting on good equipment. They used BRUCE amps which was
a leap in new technology. There was a power amp in the bottom of the speaker
cabinet and the control section that went on top of the amplifier. It had a
streamlined look and it had 300 watts of power. Back in the day that was real
good. Stevershas a good memory of the events
that led to the formation of Frigid Pink. “We originally had a group consisting
of local musicians that were primarily just knocking around with no real intent of playing professionally. At about
this time Gary Thompson walked into the Chatterbox day and talked to my old
man. Thompson told him that we had four guys that are better than anyone you have
onstage. So we tried them out and they were phenomenal. We worked them into the
group and gradually let go of the members that weren’t making the grade. There
was a time when we had Thompson before Beaudry and we had a great singer by the
name of Billy O’ Riley but eventually we had to let several of the musicians go
until we had the nucleus of the four original members of Frigid Pink.
Frigid Pink
was an instant hit in the burgeoning teen/young adult market. It helped that
Frigid Pink’s first album was near perfect with memorable classics such as Tell
Me Why and Drivin’ Blues but the monster hit was a hard rock cover of House of
the Rising Son. It sold over a million copies. The second album entitled
Defrosted was an incredible step forward with Gary Thompson and Tom Beaudry
(aka Kelly Green) writing most of the songs including the peace anthem Sing a
Song For Freedom. Rick agreed, “Sing a Song For Freedom sounded very good live.
We did not get too many royalties from that song in the states but to this day
I still get royalties for that song from European countries forty years later.
It got a lot of airplay overseas! Our version of Heartbreak Hotel sold more
than 750,000 copies. Gary Phillips was our keyboard player at the time. Elvis
liked our version and he sent us a Christmas card every year until his death.”
Stevers
gives the inside skinny about House of the Rising Son evolved into the
powerhouse it became. “I played like I felt it. I only practiced it once or
twice with just Gary our guitar player. We didn’t think much would come of it,
it was just filler that we could use onstage. But we were in the studio and we
still had a block of time to record something so the engineer asked if we had
anything else and I told him that we were working on this one cover song House
of the Rising Son. So we counted off 1,2,3 go and the bassist did the bottom
and the guitarist started riffin’ and we did it in one take!”
Stevers
reminisces about his time in the big top. “We played a lot of cool places like
the After Dark Club in Tonawanda in New York; The Magic Bus in Akron was in the
middle of a neighborhood. We would pass all these homes and in the middle of it
was this huge club sitting there like it belonged. By 1972 Thompson and Beaudry
quit. We had just finished our record. If Beaudry would have kept quiet we all
would have made big money. We had a record that our London label just released
called “Music For the People.” It was probably our best record to date and we
were progressing in our sound in the last two years. We experimented with
background singers including Dawn from Tony Orlando & Dawn fame. The last
couple of things we did had no heavy guitar feedback or loudness. In the late
seventies we were on the road a lot but we never made it to then studio
The name
Frigid Pink was kept in the spotlight from 1972 to 1982, releasing two fine
albums, Earth Omen and Pink on the Inside with no original members except for
Rick Stevers. There were several iterations of the band including one lineup in
the late seventies in which Saginaw native Bryant Brewer provided keyboard
work.
Frigid Pink
did perform once at Daniels Den including a show on May 17th1968.
They were paid $180.00.
Frigid Pinks
final performance in Saginaw was on Wednesday April 1st1970
in which they were paid $1000, a hefty raise based on the three big hits of the
band. Tom Beaudry signed the 1970 contract. Mike Quatro signed the 1968
contract and the owner of Daniels Den sealed it with his signatures.
