#BOSTON DEBUT ALBUM WALLPAPER PROFESSIONAL#

Fatefully rechristened - and with a new sci-fi-inspired logo to match - they put the finishing touches on their self-titled debut in the spring of 1976.īoston arrived in stores on Aug. But in this case they wanted the same thing, so I had to replay the same parts exactly the same way with the same equipment - and in the same basement, for God’s sake!'Īside from running interference between Scholz and the label, Boylan - who ultimately took a co-producer credit on the album - made another crucial contribution by suggesting that the band, which had been calling itself Mother's Milk, change its name to Boston. What you hear on most Boston albums, the licks I play, that's the first time it ever happened. It was a little bit annoying, because I was basically reproducing the same exact parts that I had played on the demo, and I don’t usually do that. 'So I took a leave of absence from my Polaroid job - I was gone for several months - and I would wake up every day and go downstairs and start playing. 'I worked alone, and that was it I had been doing it for years and years, and I had adapted to it,' Scholz told Guitar World. would have sounded like a dream come true, but Scholz flatly rejected the idea instead, he and Boylan hatched a plan to send Goudreau, Sheehan, Delp and Hashian to Los Angeles while Scholz stayed home, fastidiously gussying up the demos to give Epic something that sounded like a more polished version. For a lot of budding rock stars, the prospect of cutting an album in L.A. The label assigned producer John Boylan to the project, and lined up session time in Los Angeles.

#BOSTON DEBUT ALBUM WALLPAPER PROFESSIONAL#

Masdea had left the lineup, leaving Scholz to improvise when it came to rounding up personnel for a live showcase when the dust settled, drummer Sib Hashian and bassist Fran Sheehan were in the fold.Īnother hurdle arrived in the form of Epic's insistence that they wanted an album that sounded like Scholz's demos - but one recorded in a professional studio instead of his basement. The band ultimately signed to Epic, even though they weren't technically much of a band at that point. 'I have one framed and hanging on the wall in my office.' 'I understand Lenny has been very quick to mention in public that he was a big part of getting signed to Epic Records, so I always keep the letter that he signed, saying that they had no interest,' he said years later. Ironically, one of those channels happened to be Epic Records - where, as Scholz became fond of telling people after the band made its breakthrough, exec Lennie Petze had already aggressively passed on the demos. Scholz persisted, however, bringing Delp and Masdea back to the basement studio for another round of recording on six new songs - and it was those final demos that finally brought some backing in the form of promoters Paul Ahern and Charlie McKenzie, who assumed management of the band and started shopping the tapes through industry channels still out of Scholz's reach. The years took their toll on the band members, who'd more or less hung it up as a performing unit by 1974.

Goudreau introduced Scholz to singer Brad Delp, completing the collective that circled around his creative orbit throughout the early '70s - occasionally in the studio, and occasionally onstage, where they performed local gigs for years while sending out demos in a seemingly fruitless effort to get signed. To help get his songs onto tape, Scholz enlisted the aid of drummer Jim Masdea and guitarist Barry Goudreau, with whom he'd played in a college band during his tenure at MIT.

Boston debut album wallpaper