“As AC/DC put it, it ‘Ain't No Fun (Waiting Round To Be A Millionaire)’,” Little Caesar singer Ron Young tells BraveWords. “My career was meteoric as I was plummeting in a three-four week window in the music business.”
He calls it their “14 minutes of fame”, Little Caesar fetching the biggest recording contract for a new band in music history, then within a few weeks everything imploded, even while their hit cover of Aretha Franklin’s massive chart topper "Chain Of Fools” was being played on radio stations across the country. And they had even scored an opening slot on KISS’ Hot In The Shade tour in 1990.
Ron Young is our guest this week on BraveWords' Streaming For Vengeance, airing Saturday, March 25th at 3:33 PM EST. In his new book appropriately titled Judge This Book By Its Cover, he talks about getting signed by Geffen Records, having Jimmy Iovine and John Kalodner in your corner and Bob Rock producing your debut album. All the planets were aligned. And then the proverbial shit hit the fan.
In an excerpt from our chat, the singer talks about that short-lived KISS tour and what the band taught them. And what they didn’t.
“They taught us how to play on the big stage,” Young reminisces. “How to work a big stage. What they didn’t teach us was how to get ready for the big change which came and swept everybody including them away. At this time Gene Simmons was giving me crap for wearing a goatee. And then six weeks after we left the tour Gene has a goatee! (Laughs). To the master heeding his own input. But we learned a lot. The funny thing is that some of these things that I learned is that Gene doesn’t have a sense of humour about a lot of things. He used to come on our bus and scream at us for watching Spinal Tap. He didn’t think that was a funny movie at all. He thought it was completely insulting to him and everything he held dear. Which we thought was hysterical.”
BraveWords: I think one of the key things to having longevity in the music business is having a sense of humor.
Young: “Absolutely. I agree. I don’t badmouth anybody. I do note the people that are really great. After all these decades of being in the business and being behind the scenes as a production manager. I’ve met and worked with all of these people. Everybody from Prince to Van Halen, Bon Jovi all the way down through the ranks. All the hair metal bands. And it’s the guys that that got it early on that this is all kind of goofy. All kind of a joke and not not to take it very seriously. And not to let their egos get in the way. And the ones that really stayed down to earth and being able to laugh at it all other ones that are still successful to this day. They are content and they’ve got a life that is in balance.”
BraveWords: You may recall that infamous moment when a journalist in South America was interviewing the band on TV and he was wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Gene was quick to ask him to remove it and wear a KISS one. Not cool.
“Yeah, there are a lot of stories like that. Especially Gene, not as much Paul, but Gene is the one that gets really offended by things. I think he does a lot of it to just get people like you and I talking about something that is ridiculous. He’s a master at that. He could care less about what anybody thinks about him. And the reality is I’ve seen him be incredibly warm, funny and generous. And kind. And then I’ve seen him become this complete nasty tempered scumbag. The fact that both people can exist is really kind of bizarre to figure out. I think he’s way more of a master of his own personality then people can figure out.”
More tales are told when Ron Young guests on BraveWords' Streaming For Vengeance, airing this Saturday, March 25th at 3:33 PM EST.
You can order copies of Judge This Book By Its Cover at this location.
(Little Caesar live photo by Jennifer Bartram-Schmitt)
