Coming full circle
Who says you can't go home? The pop/rock group Redhead Betty Takeout (RHBT) started out in Irish pubs in Ardmore in the '90s playing before 10 people, recently went to the West Coast to record with an A-list producer and have returned to Lancaster Avenue to play MilkBoy Coffee on Sept. 5.Along the way, they've worked one-on-one with five-time Grammy winner Mike Post (the Hill Street Blues theme) and on various tunes with musicians on loan from Christina Aguilera, Jennifer Lopez, Rhianna, Michael Jackson, Herbie Hancock and Steve Winwood, to mention a few.
Band spokesperson and lead vocalist Neil McGettigan says it pays to ask. "I know Tina Fey, who, like me, is originally from Upper Darby and who put me in touch with a Saturday Night Live music producer who knew someone in California who knew a friend of Mike Post," recalls McGettigan.
Post graciously offered to take the boys in the band out of their day jobs for a month-long intensive songwriting and recording boot camp at the famous Studio 9 in Burbank. "Mike took care of everything - our food and lodging. All we had to do was sit down and write music," says McGettigan, 42, who now calls Ardmore home.
Upon returning home, the band employed the services of local music impresario, guitarist and producer Brian Bricklin and even bagged a testimonial from former Main Liner Eric Bazilian of the Hooters. ("Powerful, complex and distinctive," Bazilian said of RHBT's music. "There's a little bit of Men at Work, a tad of Bare Naked Ladies. I enjoy listening.")
McGettigan explains the West Coast/East Coast connection: "We came back with four recorded songs and a lot of written material. Mike Post imparted all the knowledge he could on us. Brian Bricklin pushed us through to making a great CD. He was there every single note, even bringing in his brother, Scott, to play keyboards."
The result is their eponymously named CD Readhead Betty Takeout.
With Bricklin's help, RHBT continue their guitar-based style of songwriting. "We rehearse our songs really scaled down - just guitars," McGettigan says. "Although we all contribute lyrically, and musically, the guitarists (Drew Rolli, Tim O'Donnell) are the main songwriters."
O'Donnell says most of his and Rolli's ideas begin as guitar riffs. "The guitar is the instrument that Drew and I started out with as kids. A cool progression of chords leads to a melody," says O'Donnell, 38, married and the father of three.
"Playing around late at night with a series of snipets - you never know where it's going to go. That's how 90 percent of the song 'Kiss Me (I Don't Care)' came to be. Sometimes it's just an 'a-ha' moment."
RHBT has learned that 90 percent of success is showing up, as Woody Allen has pointed out. The other 10 percent is hard work.
"Mike Post told us, 'Guys, it's just hard work. Show up, do the work and you get tidbits of a song. Some days are more productive than others,'" O'Donnell recalls of his Burbank experience.
"Collaborating with so many talented people who are 'living it' gives you more choices musically."
Among the other name musicians called in to play with RHBT were keyboardist Qura Rankin, L.A.-based singer-songwriter Uri Hoffman and John Zonars of Saturday Night Live fame.
The surreal experience turned the former party cover band into a focused and intellectual songwriting team. Songs like "Tomorrow Tonight" and "More Than I Can Pay" combine interpretive lyrics, life experiences and hard fought collaborations into finely tuned melodies that provoke thought and get the toes tapping, too.
"We're about making great songs, memorable songs - songs that can change or alter a person's mood," says McGettigan.
Other songs on the CD like "Never Walk Away" reflect the band's appreciation for their recent good fortune.
Although the band doesn't formally have a drummer, they have temporarily employed two of the best in the business. The West Coast's John "JR" Richardson, who proved his chops on Michael Jackson's Off the Wall album, plays on four tracks of the new CD, including fan favorite "2 A.M." featuring bassist Alex Long.
On their East Coast performances, including the college circuit, festivals and their MilkBoy show, the quartet will be joined by Erik Johnson, formerly of Huffamoose. Johnson is featured on seven tracks of the new CD.
Besides the Studio 9 experience, other highlights of RHBT's career include their World Café Live CD release party, air time on rock radio station 104.5 FM and a local TV appearance on NBC-10's 10! show.
While never doubting their course to success, the band members do have some heady day jobs to fall back on just in case. Long is a university professor, McGettigan a business manager at a contracting agency, Rolli an IT specialist at a local leading teaching hospital and O'Donnell is a bio-tech professional at a New Jersey company working on a cancer cure.
Most of the band members are married with children but still manage to balance passion and practicality. "First things first," says O'Donnell. "We'd like to say we did it the right way."
McGettigan would like to follow a little more closely in Mike Post's footprints. "I'd like to take it further with more radio exposure and maybe even TV and movie theme songs."
So far, for RHBT, life has been one long music sound track.
Joe McAllister - Main Line Times (Sep 4, 2008)