'Try Anything': The Return of a Friendly Card
Alan Parsons is Back on Arista After 6-year Absence
Billboard, November 13, 1993
By Paul Verna
NEW YORK -- Ask Alan Parsons what he's been up to for the six years since
his last record as head of the Alan parsons Project, and he rolls his eyes
like a man trying to make a long story short.
"I spent what seemed like an entire two years just deciding what I was
going to do, and that involved a decision to move to America in 1990," he
says. "I sold my house [in England], my studio and my London flat."
Parsons also helped his former partner in the Alan Parsons Project, Eric
Woolfson, mount a musical-theater production called "Freudiana," which
received critical acclaim and commercial success in its stage run in
Vienna.
But musical theater was not for Parsons, and neither was America. He
decided to move back to England and pick up where he left off in 1987 with
"Gaudi," the last Alan Parsons Project record.
By October of 1992, he was ready to record the material that would become
his new Arista album, "Try Anything Once," with many of the players who
made up the Alan Parsons Project--except for Woolfson, who is still doing
theatrical work.
"The Alan Parsons Project was a duo, with Eric Woolfson and myself," says
Parsons, explaining why he decided not to call the new group the Alan
Parsons Project.
Nevertheless, Parsons' new crew for the Oct. 26 release is made up of APP
stalwarts like vocalists Chris Thompson of Manfred Mann's Earth Band and
Eric Stewart of 10cc, guitarist Ian Bairnson, keyboardist Andrew Powell,
and drummer Stuart Elliot.
Among the newcomers are Jacqui Copland, who has worked with Duran Duran,
and Ambrosia's David Pack. Both make critical vocal contributions.
Once the album was completed, Parsons set out to find a record label to
release it, since his contract with Arista Records had long since expired.
The first and obvious choice was to go back to Arista, which had taken APP
albums like "I Robot," "The Turn Of A Friendly Card," and "Eye In The Sky"
into platinum territory, according to the RIAA.
Arista president Clive Davis says of his reunion with Parsons, "We really
got [the deal] because [Parsons] called up and said he had completed the
album. I didn't know he was even involved in anything new. I was going
to be in Europe, so I met him at AIR Studios, where I was greeted at the
door by [legendary producer] George Martin."
It didn't take Davis long to make a bid for Parsons' recording services.
"There was very strong competing interest by other labels," says Davis.
"We didn't outbid; we just had to match other offers, and he went with
us."
Parsons says he chose Arista because the company "seemed hugely
motivated...The opportunity was there to go elsewhere, but I'm very
comfortable with Arista."
The label began its promotional push for the record by producing a "video
postcard" that senior VP Jack Rovner describes as "an audio-visual bio of
Parsons' entire career, spanning [his apprenticeship with] the Beatles to
[his engineering work for] Pink Floyd...to the Alan Parsons Project, and,
of course, the present."
The first single for "Try Anything Once," "Turn It Up," is an uplifting
pop/rock track that is being pushed at album rock and album alternative
radio. A clever clip for the song--which is sung by Thompson--has gone to
all the major video outlets, says Rovner.
Aside from refamiliarizing Parsons with his legions of fans, Arista also
hopes to tap the audiophile customer. To that end, a limited-edition,
20-bit-mapped version of the CD was produced for the high-end market, and
Parsons has done a flurry of interviews with audio publications.
But of all the marketing tools at Arista's disposal, the most important is
the first-ever tour by Parsons and company.
Though he admits the tour plan is "very much a blank sheet of paper at the
moment," Parsons has already signed ITG as his booking agent to the U.S.
leg, which should take place the first or second quarter of 1994.
He says he also has ideas about making the tour different from any rock
concert ever staged.
"I want to write an interactive piece that involves the audience," he
says. "I don't know quite how we're going to achieve that, but I'd like
the audience to go away saying that they've experienced something which
only happened the night they were there."
Even though Parsons is one of the few producers of note who attaches his
name to the records he produces, he says he is "just another record
producer in terms of the way I actually make the record. It's just [that]
the way I market it is different."
** Inset photo of a group of Arista executives, with Alan in the center
(towering over them all), has a caption which reads:
Arista Records executives celebrate the release of Alan Parsons' first
album in six years at a party for "Try Anything Once." Pictured, from
left, are Rick Bisceglia, senior VP of promotion; Milton Sincoff, senior
VP of production and manufacturing; Roy Lott, executive VP/GM; president
Clive Davis; Parsons; Tom Ennis, VP of product management; Ken Levy, VP
of creative services; Steve Schnur, VP of rock promotion; Jack Rovner,
senior VP; and Len Epand, VP of film and video.
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