by Richard Skelly » Sun Feb 04, 2018 11:33 pm
Guess one could say The Payolas, if nothing else, was the “college of knowledge” for Bob Rock to hone production skills that drove his subsequent work with the likes of Metallica and Tal Bachman.
Standing on principle and sticking with the name Payolas cost the band dearly. Even though two decades had passed since the infamous Payola scandal that swept up record companies and deejays, the wounds were still festering. Probably because pay-for-play-in-the-USA never really ended. By 1980 American programmers still didn’t think it was something to be made light of, especially by some brash post-punkers out of Vancouver, Canada!
Coincidentally, The Payolas label—A & M Records employed Lance Freed, son of the original payola-scandal “fall guy” Alan Freed. I believe Lance worked in the label’s Irving Almo publishing arm.
Bob Rock and Paul Hyde later regrouped as Rock & Hyde. To my ears, their R & H material wasn’t near as strong as The Payolas.