Robert Fleischman has one of the most unique careers in rock. He was the first choice as frontman in Journey and was forced out in favor of Steve Perry, he was the vocalist on the debut record of Vinnie Vincent Invasion and was later replaced by Mark Slaughter. He has had multiple solo records and other projects and is getting ready to release a new record called Emotional Atlas.
Please press the PLAY icon below for the MisplacedStraws Robert Fleischman interview –
On the long wait between solo albums – Well, actually, I did a record called The Sky, I had a band called The Sky. So that I think that was like six years ago, I think, possibly. So I haven’t been dormant for 20 years. I’ve done a lot of solo albums. All that stuff will be available soon. I’m orchestrating all my publishing and getting it out on a digital platform getting it organized so that people can buy the CDs and all that stuff. So that’s taking place as we speak. But Emotional Atlas is for six years, I did nothing but paint. During that time really a sad situation. My wife got cancer. So a lot of the time I was with my wife and she passed away four years ago. Yeah, so after she passed away people kept saying, “You got to do another record. Why aren’t you going to do another record? “And I said, “No, I’m just painting. I’m kind of burnt out”. So one night I come home after these people telling me what I should do. I get home and I get on the couch and I grab my acoustic guitar and I just plunk it. I’m just like, “I’ve had it. I can’t do this”.
Every album starts with guitars and the whole format of everything is guitars. You go to a bar, guitars, radio. guitars. So in the early eighties, I got into electronic music, like when (Brian) Eno started out with Music for Airports. And so I just dug really deep into that. I just really loved that whole concept. So I bought a couple of synthesizers. I borrowed synthesizers. I had a 16-track recorder, tape recorder. I did an ambient album and a sort of like a little techno one, one’s called Kinetic Phenomena and Electric Raindrops, which was an ambient one. So, I always wished I had done vocals over these things. So, I decided I want to revisit that template of music. So, that’s what I did. I went out and bought a bunch of Moog synthesizers and keyboards and all that, and I decided to do an Electronic album in a song structure.
On creating a new style of music – It’s the most adventurous thing I’ve done. I just had such an artistic satisfying pleasure out of it after completing each song and then building the string of pearls. I probably wrote about 18 songs or more, and then I picked 10 out of them. So that’s Emotional Atlas. I tried to not take a musical approach to it, almost sort of put on a painter’s hat. Some songs are very abstract in the sense because I would do these, I would put a layer of drones. Like these tones, and then I put another one on top of it and put another on top of it. There was no real chord structure. It was these just as pads, these landscapes, sonic landscapes. So I put on the headphones and I would hear these harmonics going on in it, and I would follow the harmonics and build a melody over the harmonics instead of chord changes. Most songs are a verse, a B section, chorus. I mapped it out lyrically like that structure to give it a song form. There are no chord structures. It’s just a floating thing over it. But it gives it the impression that there are chord structures under it.
We just finished mixing the album and mastering it. It took some time because you have these oscillating frequencies and they have a tendency to bleed into each other and the thing was to just corral those synthesizers, each layer of tone so that it would have definition so we could stack on top of each other like a layered cake. It was a real sonic puzzle.
On how he started with Journey – There was a booking agency in Chicago and I lived in Los Angeles and the booking agent there happened to know somebody that knew me and heard my tape through that person. His name was Bruce Glattman. He gave it to a guy named Frank Rand who became a record executive with Epic Records, I believe. Anyway, he heard it. He calls me up, he asked me to come to Chicago. He said, he was booking these bands and he had seven bands and he goes, “I just want you to come out here, check out these seven bands, pick out which one you want to be in and do it”. During that time in LA, it was paid to play, there was nowhere to play and get paid and here was an opportunity to go and get paid and play at different clubs and travel around and all that. So it was a great experience for me in the sense of it just kind of got me ramped up to be in Journey. I practically played every night in front of people so I had my legs. I got a call from a guy named Barry Fey, who was a big promoter from Denver, and he heard the tape called me up and it was like, “Hey kid, you want to come to Colorado and hit the big time” or something like that. I go to Colorado spent some time with them.
He asked me if I wanted to do a showcase for CBS and they were going to be there in three weeks. Within two and a half weeks, I assembled a band in Denver with help from people and I wrote, I think I wrote like six to seven songs. Playing guitar was Roger Linn, who invented the Linn Drum Machine. He and I are good friends. I was with him when he invented the Linn Drum Machine, and all that stuff. I’ll tell you about that later. So it was a snowy night. We didn’t even know if everybody’s going to show up. They did show up, which was fantastic. I did my songs, three days later, I was asked if I were to fly to LA where I’m originally from, and have a meeting with CBS execs. Then they told me they had this band called Journey and that they were a jazz-rock fusion band that played 15-minute songs. They wanted to know if I would go in and be the pop rock songwriter, singer. So I did, and the rest is history.
I was with them for I don’t know, like 40-something dates. We played throughout the United States and Canada. We opened up for Emerson Lake and Palmer, and that’s where I became friends with Emerson, Keith.
On how it ended with Journey – What was happening behind the curtain was there was a guy from CBS who was paying and championing Steve Perry at CBS, he was paying for his demos and stuff. So he kept calling Herbie Herbert and saying, “Hey, you know, if you take Steve, we’ll get you airplay, we’ll get you a producer, we’ll get you more tour support. We’ll do all that.” It was the Godfather, you know? Give you an offer you can’t refuse. So that’s what happened. It wasn’t like I was kicked out or anything like that. The band was very upset when this all happened. I, I just kind of like, “What can I do? There’s nothing I can do”.
Fortunately, I wrote “Wheel in the Sky”, “Anytime”, “Winds of March”, “All for You”, some other ones. They had those songs and it’s been 46 years or so, something like that. I’ve been getting royalties for 46 years and with that and it’s given me the, the giving me the space to just be experimental musically. I’ve never really loved being on stage so much. I love being in the laboratory. I just like writing a song, taking it from A to Z, listening to it, then the next one. But each album that I’ve ever done, if they’re all different from each other, there’s nothing the same, That’s what I think true musicianship and true artistry should be.
A lot of bands, they get their first deal and then their second album comes, which they’ve spent years on that one album, until they got it to the point of development and focused and everything, where people go, “Yeah, that’s really great”. Then the second opportunity comes and they try to repeat it. I just go, “Why repeat it? Why don’t you just try to tap into where you are at today at this moment, and take it from that in present time mode, instead of going back and try to duplicate this thing”. You don’t get the magic like in the present and developing it in present time. Then they do the second album and it kind of flops and then boom, you’re out. But at least if I was going to do a second album I want to take a fucking swing at it instead of being complacent.
On playing with Vinnie Vincent – Vinnie was writing songs with Paul Stanley and Paul used to write with a guy, oh man, I can’t remember his name. He’s written many songs with this guy Paul has and this guy, I knew him and he knew me, and Vinnie asked him if he knew any singers. He recommended me, so Vinnie called me up, told me what was going on. I said, “Come on over to my house”. Comes over to my house. He has a cassette. He plays me “Boyz Are Gonna Rock”, “No Substitute”, another song and I thought it was really out there. His guitar playing was just bombastic and just like, wow. For me to go at that time to sing somebody else’s songs and all that, I wasn’t keen on that because I write my own songs. But, I loved it so much, it was just so out there. I said, “Okay, let’s do it”. So we did it.
Unfortunately, Vinnie is his own animal. I love the guy, but he’s his worst enemy. He’s always constantly shooting himself in the foot unnecessarily. We went in the studio, did some demos with Andy Johns, you know Glyn John’s brother who did work with the Stones and he worked with Zeppelin, and all that. We went in and did these demos. We finished these demos and right after we finished them, Vinnie got a call to be in with Kiss. So Vinnie calls me up, “Hey, Kiss wants me to join the band”. I said, “Vinnie, do it. You’re living in this tiny little apartment. You got two twins, you got your wife, you need to make some dough, get a better setting for yourself”. So he went on the road. Then a few months later, I don’t know how long it was. He gave me a call, told me he was no longer with them. “Do you want to pick it up where we left?”
So he took those demos, had them remixed a little bit. The whole idea of us together was it was going to be even Steven, 50/50. He went out and got a deal, didn’t mention me in the deal at all, and took the whole deal. He takes a deal and Chrysalis is going, “Well, what about the singer, what about Robert? What’s going on?” Now it’s like, “Oh, I have to call Robert now and tell him I got a deal and that record company wants Robert on the deal” and all that stuff when it should have been like that from the beginning. I said, “No”, I mean, you just don’t do that. Time went by, everybody’s like, “come on, come on, do it”. I’m just saying, “No, no, no”. They said, “Well, what is it going to take?” I just go,” I don’t know what it’s going to take, but it’s going to take a lot”, so I just throw out some bombastic numbers and they said, okay. So I did the album in the studio with him, it was a lot of fun. It was good. Then it came down to management. This guy named George Sewitt was manager for Ace Frehley before he got ahold of Vinnie. At a photo shoot, George comes with a phone book of a management agreement and he goes, “just sign it”.
I’m going, “no, I’m not going to sign it. I’ll take it to my lawyer’s”. “No, no, you don’t have time to do it”. So he was rushing me because Chrysalis found out that he had lied to them, he said that he had me under management. Which he didn’t. He was just going zuku trying to get me to sign these papers. Then I just told him no, flat out no. I said, I’ll salute Vinnie’s flag but I’m not in your camp, so whatever you want to do, you go ahead and do it. So anyway, they got pissed off at him. They got rid of him, Chrysalis did. And then the wheels started turning towards finding a replacement for me and they got Mark (Slaughter).
Mark got thrown in the position of having to lip-sync to my vocal. I remember that video. Everybody’s calling me up, “The video’s gonna be on at six o’clock on MTV, da da da”. So I turn it on and here’s this guy fucking where my voice is coming out his mouth. It was like, it was really the first Milli Vanilli, whatever you call it. So I sued him, I sued Chrysalis, so I won, but after that, it was like I was a “very difficult person to with”. Yeah, because I fought back. You’re difficult. I’m sorry. That doesn’t work for me.
For years, I just kind of like, “Oh, how do you like Mark Slaughter?” I’m going on, “He’s okay”, and so. But I heard an interview with him and he was such a great guy. Great work ethic. articulated well, just like this guy’s a really good guy. I had a friend who knew him and the band. I went with him to go see Mark play and they found out I was there. So I went backstage. They had a trailer or something like that, or a bus. I went on the bus and talk to Mark and I saw Dana Strum for the first time for all that time. He was a bad guy during the whole thing with Vinnie, between me and him. I didn’t care for him at all. He had changed so much. He’s got kids now. He was just a totally different person, and we all just kind of got along, we’re just like good friends now. Mark calls me up now and says, “Hey, I’m going to be in Illinois playing out here, come on down. We should do a record together. We should do a song. Really flip out Vinnie.” I go, “Oh, no, no”. But anyway, I think he’s a great guy.
On playing with George Lynch – When I was supposed to go up north to play for the first time with Journey, they were on the road and weren’t going to be back for a while. George got ahold of me and I played with George. We played and jammed like four, five times with, who was the drummer? Mick Brown, and the original bass player. It was the four of us and we rehearsed in this little tiny cubby hole of a place. George got the place because the guy that owned it had a, had a band and George would play in the guy’s band for time at his studio, the rehearsal studio. But the funny thing is that George had to wear these tight spandex pants and everything, really weird shit he had to wear because this guy was really strange and he had to like humiliate himself and blame this weird outfit and everything just so he could do that. I thought it was just hilarious and so it ended up where I’m going, “Look, you need to learn song structure, George, you can’t just jam and everything, you need song structure”. That’s how I left it with them.
Okay, years and years and years and years go by, maybe six years ago, or five years ago, I went to go see Lita (Ford) play because Bobby Rock, former Vinnie Vincent drummer (plays with Lita). I went to go see, see Bobby and George happened to be there to play. So I go backstage and he’s like, “Oh my God, I can’t believe you’re here”. We just had a great time. He goes, “I was really sad when you left and everything, but you told me what I needed to do and you were absolutely right”. I go, “Terrific”. But I think he’s just a monster of a player. I love him. I love him because he’s so left of center. I’ve heard he’s difficult to get along with and everything like that, but I’ve never had that problem with him. I know he loves me and I love him.
Before Emotional Atlas, I entertained the thought of putting all together all these friends of mine through the years and where I was, we got to play, we got to record, we’re going to do this. So I was going to put all these little mini super bands together. I was going to have me, George Lynch, Tony Franklin Frankie Banali, do three songs with these guys, do another set of songs with my friend Rusty Anderson who plays with Paul McCartney, just all these little tiny super bands. I was going to get Go cams and put them all over the studio and videotape it and everything. I was going to do that, but then it was just, I couldn’t do it because at that time, my wife was struggling with, with cancer. So that kind of got on the back burner. Then after she passed, that’s when I did Emotional Atlas.
On if he would perform live again – I’m actually entertaining the thought of art show and my music. Have a listening party with my art at a gallery and the music playing. Also, I’m doing lyric videos for the entire album, I think you’ve seen two of them, correct? There’s quite a few more to go. So that would be like have a gallery have each song on monitors, large TV screens, in a gallery setting and then on the other side of the gallery would be my paintings and my collages and stuff like that that I do. Kind of like multimedia because I envisioned myself more in a multimedia persona.
I always loved Laurie Anderson. I love her whole concept of how she presents things, and it’s kind of like that kind of mindset. I saw an exhibit one time Brian Eno did one where it was all lights and ambient music and it was very interesting. It was just very cutting edge, very futuristic, very pleasant to the eye and the ear, it was just a, a nice visual sonic experience. That’s what I’d like to do.
On the release date for Emotional Atlas – As we speak I’m going to talk to the manufacturers this week. Obviously, I’m going to do vinyl. I’ll do a 180-gram vinyl, which I think will be really good for this kind of music because it resonates a lot better than that flimsy kind of stuff. And so I just depends on what their timeframe is to manufacture and get everything all put together. I have all the artwork done. Just finished that up. Just all this for the last two weeks, I’ve just been just up to my neck with copywriting and getting all that together, getting all the codes together. It’s quite a process. People don’t understand how all the tedious things that need to be done before an album comes out.
