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The Broncos 'oice, November 1992. ^ 7 j j ^ j
Entertainment
Mother’s Finest
comes home to heavy
metal
Interview by Barbara Beebe
Heavy metal rock and roll emanat
ing from an all-Black band is the last
thing anyone would expect to hear and
see on the stage of the Empire Mine, a
large, mine-decorated C&W club in
Wilmington, N.C. But, tonight, the
conservatively-dressed, predominandy
white crowd is in for a blast that will last.
Mother’s Finest is touring, promoting
their latest Scotti Brothers’ release,
BLACK RADIO WON’T PLAY TfflS
RECORD. Unlike the infectious grooves
of “Baby Love” and “Love Changes,”
Mother’s Finest has progressed and
found a home ..in heavy metal. Mother’s
Finest have long-traveled the tumultuous
road of rock and roll, each leg of the
journey defying the stereotypes and
unwritten rules of race and musical
expression. Their latest is not only a
long-deserved kick to the frigidity of
Black radio, but a kick to Classic Rock
and AOR formats as well. As Joyce
Kennedy, lead singer and ‘range goddess
of rock’ quipped, “White radio won’t
necessarily play it either.” I caught up
with the members of Mother’s Finest
after the show to chat about their latest
release, race, music and their past.
Q. Who thought of the title for this
record? ^
Joyce: It came out of the air. When we
heard the record, we said, “Well,
Black radio won’t play this record.”
Q. Putting “Like A Negro” as the first
tune was a very brave move. Whose idea
was it?
Glenn: We thought it was kind of nice
for someone to see Black Radio Won’t
Play This Record and turn it over and
see “Like A Negro” and think ‘I gotta
hear this shit’
Dion: Or be scared to death of it.
Joyce: When we sang the lyric “nig
gers can’t sing rock and roll,” the
NAACP and a lot of people were
yapping, because they didn’t under
stand where we were coming from.
Same concept with “Like A Negro.”
Q. Wyzard, you wrote the song “Move
(Get Outta My Way).” Who is that
directed to?
Wyzard: That’s just about getting past
obstacles.
Q. You mean like record executives?
Joyce: Listen, when you finally wake
up to the oppositions that you have in
life - whether it’s the music industry,
whether it’s film, whether it’s being an
author or a writer - there’s always
obstacles, there’s always somebody
that’s always saying you can’t do this
because you’re this way or you’re that
way. You can’t do rock because you’re
female, you can’t do it ‘cause you’re
black - it’s like when you finally
commit to doing it you say ‘well, move
muthafucker. I’m coming through.
Q. Joyce, what do you think it will take
for the rock and roll industry to take
female vocalists seriously?
Joyce: For us to be there all the
time...to be relentless. To keep doing
it.
Q. If you notice with Melissa Etheridge,
they tried to feminize her by putting her
topless on her record cover..
Joyce: It’s just another obstacle. We
had this meeting..when the title was up
Black Radio Won’t Play This
Record...we had a real power-out with
the President of the company. And
what he told us was this: The way the
industry is now you have to come out,
and you have to say something. It has
to be an event With the band having
been together so long and people
knowing so much about the band, it
had to be an event, because now we
weren’t the only ones. There were
more bands, more black bands, doing
heavy music. Second of all, this is the
only band that has a female counter
part in heavy music. So, that’s another
obstacle to climb over. The next thing
is - we weren’t selling sex, we were
selling talent. It wasn’t like one band
has either got talent and they don’t
look good, or either they’re real cute
and got no talent, or either the girl
can’t sing, but she looks good, she got
big tits. We were selling music, we
were selling ideas, we were selling
social statements. The sexuality was
there, but it wasn’t blatant.
Wyzard: We’ve always done that. Like
when we got together, we didn’t put
this group together fi-om a contrived
ideas, by saying we need a girl or a
boy, we need this or we need that.
We’ve always gone for what works.
And, when we started, this unit
worked. After we started getting out in
public, people started saying you’ve
got this and you’ve got that.
Q. Joyce, you were quoted as saying
“rock and roll was originally black
music.” It’s been said before, but how do
we hammer this home? In this country,
we seem to have an Elvis complex.
Joyce: I don’t think tliere’s any one
way to do it. I think us being there and
being an example and having roots
there without having to compromise
one way or the other is a way.
Glenn; That’s what “Like A Negro” is
about.
Q. Dion, you have a quote on the CD that
says, “What shall it avail our nation if we
can send a man to the moon, but we
cannot cure the sickness of our cities?”
Why this quote?
Dion: I watched this move called
“Heatwave” about the Watts riots and
it really hit home. It hit me hard and
opened my eyes. That quote is just
about racism which is the sickness of
our cities. Black people don’t have a
strong leader like Martin Luther King
or Malcolm X. But, I don’t think
anyone wants to stand up there,
because every time someone does
stand up, they kill them. There are a
lot of people who could speak for the
black community.
Q. Have you ever played in front of a
predominantly black audience?
Wyzard: Back when we first met, we
used to always play in front of a black
audience. When we first started, we
would do a tour with AC/DC, then we
would do a tour with Parliament
Funkadelic. Then we’d tour with
Black Sabbath, then the Commodores.
We used to always be right down the
middle. Then our music went a little
more rock. Now we’re getting heavier
and more brittle. But you know, I
think the black audience is getting
ready to go this way, too. We’ve
always been ahead of our time. And
we still are, even though we try to fall
into what’s happening. We always
seem to be ahead.
Joyce: As far as black audiences are
concerned, we used to get more
opposition from black audiences than
we did from white audiences playing
the music that we were playing. We
headlined the Capitol Center in D.C.
That’s when Mother Factor was out
and we had “Love Changes” as a hit.
We sold the place out. We went
onstage and played 20 minutes into the
set. Then we did “Love Changes.”
After we did “Love Changes,” every
nigger in there got up and left. I’m
being real, because we’ve been in the
middle of the road and we’ve had
opposition from both. It ain’t only
been from whites, but from blacks,
too, because they weren’t ready until
Living Colour came out and said it’s
all right for you to do that. Our
evolution has come about as well. So,
as far as playing in front of all black
audiences, no - there were not very
many because we were not accepted by
them. Because they figured we were
playing all white music. I remember
when we went to Columbia, S.C. We
played a campus, then the word
spread like wildfire. Then we went
back to the same market and played
this little place. This cat didn’t even
have a club, he made a club and
brothers started coming. We used to
have lines around that place. They
called it “electrified funk.” They
didn’t consider it rock and roll. It was
electrified funk.
Glenn: It started out, we played there
a week - they had a beer bash and it
was mostly white. Then, when Monday
came around, there was nothing but
mostly brothers. They were very, very
curious to see what was going on. We
have pleasure playing - especially in
the Carolinas, up in the D.C. area and
in New York. You know, there’s some
hard brothers that come out there.
When we see some of our own people
in the audience, it makes us feel good
that they’re open enough to be able to
come out and see if they dig it. If they
don’t dig it, fine, but at least give
themselves a chance and not be as they
have • in someone else’s ass about
what kind of music they should listen
to.
Joyce: Our music has never been
racial. When we played with P-Funk,
the Commodores, AC/DC, Atlanta
Rhythm Section, we played the same
set. We didn’t change it. The set stayed
the same no matter who we were
playing with, because that was us.
And, it wasn’t racial - we transcended
racial lines. That’s why audiences a lot
of the time are 99% white - because we
were accepted on that level of just the
music standing on its own. Now we’re
having to fight the battle with radio.
And that’s what got frustrating when
we split up m ’83. That was so hard to
break down, because we were standing
alone. We were the only ones doing
what we were doing. There was P-
Funk, but our stuff was so electrified.
They didn’t have that hard edge. We
have that hard edge. Plus, it was a
mfaced band at the time. It wasn’t all
black. So, in the ’70s that was not the
genre of music that everybody was
playing. We were the only ones doing
that kind of stuff.
Wyzard: If everybody had been
playing it, then there wouldn’t have
been any problems.