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Tom Scholz, the leader of multi-million-selling rock act Boston, is not a man to be hurried. It is now 50 years since the band’s self-titled debut album was released – and in all that time, Scholz has created just five more Boston albums.
He is an obsessive perfectionist who created that classic first album almost entirely alone in a home studio he designed and built himself in his basement. And as the sole constant in Boston’s long history, he has continued working in isolation and at a glacial pace.
In a 2013 interview with Classic Rock magazine, Scholz discussed his approach to recording and the creation of the sixth Boston album Life, Love & Hope.
He began by talking about the studio where Life, Love & Hope was recorded.
“It’s in my basement,” he said. “It’s a nicer basement that the one where I made the first album. But it’s still a basement! It’s actually a little smaller than the one that I used when I made the second and third albums [Don’t Look Back and Third Stage].
“I downsized a little bit. Since I work alone, I realised I was better off having things close so that I could reach as many things as possible without having to wander around.
“I have one large control room that has all of the keyboards in it and a drum set. Most of the time I don’t even bother with headphones. I just play a track over the speakers and play along to it.”
Scholz weighed up the pros and cons of operating as a one-man band.
“As opposed to a typical recording situation where there’s a producer, an engineer, a tech guy and maybe a half dozen musicians, when I work it’s just me,” he said. “So that means that everything that goes wrong, I have to deal with. Every decision I have to figure out, everything that doesn’t work I have to think of a new way to do it.
“So the work in the studio is very high pressure. And there aren’t any breaks.”
He recalled the challenges of recording in the ’70s.
“It was a little more difficult back in the old days,” he said. “On the first album I avoided doing a lot of cutting on the tape. I did it, but I did it as little as possible.
“I spent more time trying to get the part played as close as I could. The problem is, I always change my mind with an arrangement, so there’s always gonna have to be a razor blade and tape handy.
“On the first album, if I wanted to replace a snare drum hit, I had to punch in and out of the tape without leaving a noticeable spot, and I had to either play to it over and over to get it on the spot, or I had to sync up a second tape with the original – by hand. I’m much faster today because the equipment that I have able to change the drum track is way better than what I used back then.”
Scholz reckoned that he was his own harshest critic.
“You know, working alone on something for so many years, I have no idea what anybody else is gonna think of it,” he admitted. “Nobody else hears it. My wife hears pieces here and there, but that’s it. So I have no idea.
“Basically I put it out there and I’d say I hold my breath, but honestly there’s nothing I can do about it, so I just wait and wonder what’s gonna happen.”
He added: “I think I’m a pretty tough listener. I don’t buy albums but I hear things on the radio when I go places, and I don’t like most of what I hear. So I think I’m a fairly tough critic, and I’m satisfied with what I’ve done.”
There was one exception – Boston’s 2002 album Corporate America.
“I’ve been trying to forget about that record for the last 11 years,” Scholz sighed. “I deviated from what I knew was the right thing to do. It was the only album where I involved other people – there were other musicians and other people in production and recording work, and it was just a disaster.
“I will say that there were a couple of songs on the album that I liked. I actually like the song Corporate America, even though it was out of character for Boston. But that’s one album that I don’t listen to.”
He said of Life, Love & Hope: “I didn’t set out to make a concept album. Nor do I think that it turned into one. It’s simply a collection of music that I feel should belong together.
“But there is a thread or a relationship between the songs. They are all about everyday life and how we can make things better. There was a lot of heart and soul that went into this record.
“Most of the music I write is fairly personal. I’m not saying that all of my songs are about precise experience, but they are observations about life.”
Scholz said of his creative process: “From the beginning my only measuring stick for whether the music was any good was if I liked it or not. For many years I recorded music and no one cared about it. And since I wasn’t necessarily expecting anyone else to care about it that much, I had no other reason except to record music exactly the way I liked it. So it was a pleasant surprise to find out that other people liked it too.”
He concluded: “I still feel I’m very, very lucky to be able to record music and have anybody else care about it. And you know, if I wasn’t actually making a record that somebody was gonna buy, I’d still probably be recording music. You know, this is what I do.”
