Tom Scholz
Tom Scholz
Donald Thomas "Tom" Scholzis an American rock musician, inventor, engineer, and philanthropist, best known as the founder of the band Boston. He is also the inventor of the Rockman portable guitar amplifier. He has been described by Allmusic as "a notoriously 'un-rock n' roll' figure who never enjoyed the limelight of being a performer," preferring to concentrate almost exclusively on his music, and in more recent years, spending much of his time working with charities...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth10 March 1947
CityToledo, OH
CountryUnited States of America
The pressure is all self-imposed, and it's to live up to the expectations of people who are going to shell out their hard-earned cash to listen to the music. It's actually more than that, though. I wouldn't want to make a record that didn't live up to my expectations.
When I first started recording, I was told by all of the experts in the business that the kind of music that I was doing was never going to sell. That disco was the coming thing and it was going to take over and what I was interested in was a minor sideline.
I would be involved with music whether I had a career or not. I'm always going to be writing songs and recording them.
Trying to get my music performed live by bar bands was a self defeating experience. It really just distracted me from what I should've been doing all along, writing and recording.
Music doesn't have to have lyrics; it doesn't have to be a particular type of music - it has the ability to bring out really strong and hopefully good emotional reactions in people.
If you listen to my tapes, you'd hear 14 different ways to arrange the rhythm guitar behind the harmony vocal, and then 14 different ways with a different vocal. You'd have to really be a music lover to sit through that and find it entertaining. I enjoy it, but I'm easy to please.
If things aren't going well, music is what I turn to so I can get away from it, to take my mind somewhere else.
Musical accidents are a gold mine. The thing about accidental discoveries is they won't be made unless you put yourself in a position to make that discovery. To do that means hundreds of hours, days and weeks where you do things and don't discover anything.
The music that I wrote and recorded is music that I really enjoy listening to. It's just dumb luck that a lot of other people do, too.
I'm one of those artists that doesn't actually hate my old hits. I love Boston music. I really like 'More than a Feeling.' After playing it to myself in a basement for such a long time, I'm happy to do it out on stage.
The studio work is the nasty, tedious, hard and nerve-wracking part, interrupted by moments of exhilaration. Playing live is the chance to actually have some fun and get on a stage.
Fun is when you're writing a song and you're trying a rough shot at a demo and... it works. That's when it's fun. After that, it's work.
No one was more surprised that that first Boston record took off than the record company itself.
There are an awful lot of people out there that don't want to see Boston go away, and I'm one of them.