Doug Howard has spent 45 years in rock ‘n’ roll — and still calls his career “controlled lunacy.” Bassist, vocalist, founding member of Touch, co-writer of two Top 40 hits with Todd Rundgren in Utopia, member of The Edgar Winter Group. The man who swallowed a bee onstage at Monsters of Rock in Nottingham in 1980 — and kept playing.

Last fall, Howard survived a near-fatal fall. What followed was an epiphany — and a series of shows called Summer of ’72, launching at The Cutting Room in New York City on May 3rd and May 16th. The setlist: “Turn! Turn! Turn!”, “Ruby Tuesday”, “Hello It’s Me”, “Free Ride” — music from the sixties and early seventies that Howard loves and knows from the inside. We talked to him about why he’s returning to these songs now, about humility as a working musician’s tool, and about a quiet conviction that audiences are capable of more than they realize.

Doug, thanks for doing this. So — fourteen feet onto stone, seven fractures, two brain bleeds, and while your body is deciding whether to stay alive, your mind throws you a cocktail party. An older Asian woman. A priest who needs a shave. Boys in ninja outfits. A girl in neon jelly shoes. All of them weighing in on what you should do next with your career. Your son later explained you were chatting enthusiastically with an empty room. What was the quality of those conversations — did these people have distinct personalities, did they argue with each other? And when your son told you they weren’t real, did that change what they’d said, or did the advice still hold?

What a great question!  A short answer would be “yes,” in that they were indeed all substantive and sequential conversations.  And yes, it was sort of like throwing a cocktail party in a storage closet surrounded by noisy appliances.  By example I remember clearly discussing Quantum Entanglement (I have some pretty arcane interests) with a brilliant and lovely Asian lady.  All of the individuals I spoke with did indeed have distinct and consistent personalities.  They didn’t argue, but they all definitely held individual and steadfast opinions on whatever it was we were discussing, at least as I recall.  

When my son gently explained to me that I was speaking to an empty room, I remember the assembly of characters found that declaration to be pretty comical, as though my son was simply “out of the loop.”  Oddly, at the time I found none of it strange.  It was as though having a collection of oddballs in your hospital room and discussing what your next set-list should look like was a perfectly common occurrence, and anyone who thought otherwise was simply being droll and “pas en forme.”   

Five generations of Howards on stage. Your grandfather Joseph E. Howard wrote “Hello! Ma Baby” in 1899 — Tin Pan Alley, Songwriters Hall of Fame, the Michigan J. Frog song. He ran away from home as a kid, rode a freight train to Kansas City, sang in saloons. He died on stage in 1961, mid-curtain call, singing “Let Me Call You Sweetheart.” Your mother acted, your father sang opera. And somewhere across a hundred-plus years of accumulated stage wisdom, the family philosophy condensed into three sentences: “Know your lines. Make your marks. Thank the man for the check.” That’s a ruthlessly practical inheritance. Did it protect you across forty-five years — or were there stretches where it held you back from something riskier?

Ha!  If anything, it made me a bit of an oddball.  Way back when (when amplifiers were still steam-powered), rock-n-roll wasn’t nearly as organized or apparently as disciplined as it seems to have become now… though thank god it’s still somewhat unpredictable.  

Back then most of us were simply making it all up as we went along. As much as the record labels (or whomever was controlling the money) would try to control us, inevitably someone would come along with something completely heretical, the audiences would embrace it like the second coming and off we would all go, barreling towards who knew whatever, because… well, why not?  When I would rely upon, or occasionally suggest something that I had learned growing up as a stagecraft standard, oftentimes people would look at me like I was from Mars.  So, I learned to keep my mouth shut.  

Though it seems that I wasn’t very good at that either as I consistently annoyed the powers that be to no end with my habit of constantly asking what apparently were highly sensitive questions, such as “Why are you driving that brand-new Porsche while I’ve only got a fiver in my pocket?”  

Those villains aside, my familial instincts forced me to never take “No” for an answer.  The quickest way it seems to get me to do something, is to tell me that I can’t.  That sense of contumacy even seems to have applied itself when it came to my injury.  “Oh, I’m deaf in one ear now?  Well, the other one seems to work.  Next!”  

Touch’s second album was produced by Rundgren. So, before Utopia, you already had studio time together — him shaping your sound, you learning how he thinks. Shortly after, you replaced Kasim Sulton, co-wrote “Feet Don’t Fail Me Now,” scored a hit. He later taught you, in your words, to be brutally honest with yourself — cut the self-pity, write the song, write another, go find an audience. What did he hear in those sessions that made him want you in his band — and was there a specific moment where his standard of honesty changed how you write?

Well… outside of his probable momentary lapse in judgement (sorry, had to go there, door was open), I can only draw from the same logic that seems to have made me a commodity back when I was still a teenager, in that… I was a singing bass player.   That was ostensibly rare, and to my benefit it forgave a lot of sins.  That combination worked time and again over the years, throwing me into a wild variety of situations and generally served to keep me employed.  

What Todd heard I cannot say, though we most definitely made each other laugh and had great fun wreaking havoc.  But I should probably also add that when it came to the making of the music part, I remained disciplined in terms of my voice and my instrument.  And Todd reinforced that same work ethic as it clearly remains his own; “Time to cut the shenanigans and get to work.”  I knew what I was doing (as far as my instrument went, anyway), and took every session or show with a fundamental seriousness.  

As to writing, the guitarist from Touch, Craig Brooks once very aptly pointed out to me that I am quite possibly the world’s laziest songwriter.  And he’s right.  To be honest, I hate writing.  Alone, anyway.  It is an immeasurably aggravating process for me as I am assailed by an army of self-doubt and second guessing.  Except apparently when I’m writing with someone else.  In co-writing for some reason, the process seems more fluid… and fun.  Likely because I have someone else to tell me on the spot if something “sucks” or not, and I can share the same.  However, the songs that I’ve written alone, such as “Trippin’ Over Shadows” on the recent Touch reunion album… that process was merciless.  But all that self-indulgent clap-trap aside, apparently I can still crank one out now and again when the pressure is on. 

The Stun Leer story. You record an album as lead vocalist in 1989, Bob St. John and Anthony Resta producing in Boston. Every US label passes. The tapes go onto a shelf. Years later, without anyone in the band knowing, the album leaks onto Napster and builds a genuine following across the UK, Europe, Japan. MTM Records in Germany tracks you down and signs the project. By that point everyone has scattered. What was that phone call like — the moment someone told you an album you’d buried had grown an audience in countries you’d never toured? And did hearing that reaction change how you felt about the material?

Honestly?  I found it hilarious.  The bassist from Stun Leer, Paul Michaels called me and relayed the wild story of how that album apparently still had a life of its own, and suddenly out of the blue the record labels were calling again.  

Though I wasn’t necessarily shocked, because I knew in my bones that it was a good album.  It was just that at the time it was being initially shopped to the labels, it had simply gotten lost in the transition from the elder fashion of polished, melodic-centered rock to Grunge.  We suddenly were completely off the mark as far as “trends” went. The labels were all running around trying to sign up anyone with a plaid shirt, and Stun Leer most definitely did not fit that bill.  So, while we initially received some attractive overtures from a couple of labels at first, we very quickly fell by the wayside. 

I honestly had no long-term contrition in that.  The music business is of course a crap-shoot, and you simply have to either accept that, or don’t bother playing.  When music is a compulsion, you have no choice but to move onto the next thing.  Success or no.  The only sad bit I suppose was that by the time the Stun Leer “Once” album took off, we were in no position to perform it live.  The few shows that Stun Leer had done during its brief lifespan had been fantastic fun and knocked everyone out.  Ultimately though, it’s great that the album found its place amongst its fans, and I’m more than pleasantly surprised when I see it referenced as being still pivotally regarded and appreciated. 

Let’s get into the show. Your subconscious had forty-five years to draw from — Utopia, Edgar Winter, Radio City in a purple cape — and it skipped all of it, sent you back to sixteen. Max’s Kansas City, Warhol, Ginsberg, Alice Cooper. How did that ICU epiphany travel to an actual setlist and a band and a run of shows — what were the steps between the vision and the first rehearsal?

When I was growing up, particularly in a show-business family, music was a huge part of everything.  At least for me.  For example, I drove my parents mad by singing the Kellogg’s Rice Krispies jingle over breakfast.  Over and over, and over… until my step-father would pointedly ask if I wanted to wear a bowl of it to school.  That home environment combined with the magic of the era itself, a time when music had such a visceral impact on everyone, made for a foundation where it seemed that everything and every situation had a soundtrack. 

So, while I was mulling over “what ‘s next?” with my wonderful collection of visitors in the Intensive Care Unit, for whatever reason they kept insisting that what was going on when I was 16 was pivotal in whatever I put together.  And from there a variety of songs from the era and leading up to it sort of coalesced.  

I’m fortunate to currently have a band that aside from being great players, puts up with my nonsense while giving me a reliably ascetic thumbs up or thumbs down on song selections and keep me on point.  I learned long ago that the audience seems to like the back stories on songs (within reason!), either as related to the original artist, or an occasional story about what sort of shenanigans I’d managed to get myself into over the years.  And in this as well the band keeps me on target in their not allowing me to babble on and on, and to simply, “shut up and play” when appropriate.  

In all sincerity though, I’m oftentimes still astounded that people find my life that fascinating.  To me it was simply the way things were, and seem to remain for that matter.  As a kid, I thought it perfectly normal to have a grandfather who used to pal around with people like Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson and would take over entire floors of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in NYC for three-day parties.  Didn’t every kid?  (Keith Moon had nothing on my grandfather).

“Turn! Turn! Turn!,” “Ruby Tuesday,” “Hello It’s Me,” “Free Ride” — every one of those has fifty years of classic rock radio baked into it. You’ve described a specific method: strip the song to melody and chords, forget the original arrangement, rebuild it in your own voice, then selectively reintroduce signature elements only if they earn their way back in. Which song fought that process the hardest — the one where tearing the arrangement apart felt like vandalism? And which one opened up into something you didn’t expect?

Great question!  I love the “vandalism” analogy.  Particularly as I feel it’s rampant of late. There were plenty of songs that we discarded once the band got back together after my fall, simply because they were wrong for us as performers (insert the sound of laughing trombone here).  We either came up short in making them our own, or the songs simply didn’t translate well through a different arrangement.   

Personally, I’m not interested in trying to sound like Robert Plant (Why?  We already have one of those) or playing like Jimmy Page (I couldn’t come close on a bet).  And aside from Ann Wilson, I’ve never heard any interpretation that took Led Zeppelin’s music “elsewhere.”  She on the other hand not only nails it, she makes it her own by taking it further.  And that’s the point.  Work with what you have and make it your own.  Often times you’ll surprise yourself and ultimately the audience will definitely tell you if you’re onto something… or not.  Imagine Hendrix trying to sound like Bob Dylan when he covered “Like A Rolling Stone.”  The horror…

As well, some songs simply don’t lend themselves well to any alternative interpretation.  If a song has a hard hook that’s laid down by a specific guitar lick, phrase, or style… or the song stands out because the vocalist performed some freak of nature artifice that would otherwise result in a hemorrhagic stroke if attempted by another human… sometimes when you strip all that away, occasionally you’ll find that there is in fact not much meat to the song in the first place.  It’s in that event you’re better off leaving the song to the side.

Ultimately, I suppose the reason that we selected the songs that we have, and across such wide spectrum of styles is to tell the story of how radio was such a huge part of our collective consciousness and the cumulative day to day back then.  We all basically listened to the same playlists on radio, which for the most part was Top 40.  From there it all ended up as a soundtrack to our lives, and importantly a soundtrack that we all shared.  

Going a step further, musicians in some ways during this time were considered almost societal prophets… writing about the war (Vietnam), race, sex, work, politics… and of course the ever-popular topic of teenage angst.  Music it seems had more of an impact socially, politically and philosophically.  So, in my opinion at least, you have to be careful with a lot of these songs if they’re going to have any hope of relevance and carry any long tail into the present. 

Summer of ’72 is a full-band show. You’ve worked with SpoonBread, pulled from Isley Brothers and James Brown alumni. Assembling musicians for this project requires a different brief — late-’60s rock, Rundgren sophistication, and the flexibility to follow you when the storytelling shifts direction mid-set. Who’s in this band, and what did you tell them at the first rehearsal about what this show actually is?

I am sinfully lucky to have the guys that I do in this band.  Drew Nagel (keyboards and vocals), Gregg Hollister (bass and vocals) and Lee Jeffryes (drums) were originally put together to help me with my previous show, “A Nodd 2 Todd” which focused on my work with Todd Rundgren, and scratched the surface of his staggering library of songs.  While I was only in Utopia for a very brief spell (Very!  Another story, another time), I was fortunate enough to have spent a good deal of time with him and thus was able to dive deep into his body of work.  My band fortunately naturally appreciated Todd’s material, his sense of the bizarre and humor in his writing and were more than enthusiastic about performing a show focused on his work.  Making the jump to Summer of ’72 was thereby fairly simple for them.  

Drew is a bit of a savant in that he is one of those gifted musicians who can play any instrument he picks up.  Gregg is that magical combination… a singing bassist with a tremendous vocal range.  Lee is so well schooled that he can pick up anything upon first listen and own it, but even more important he remembers and takes charge of what I might forget.  He has pulled me from the flames more times than I can mention.  I am indeed lucky to have them with me.  

You operate without a script — themes, house-reading, the audience steering you. The tour runs from the Turning Point in Piermont, maybe a hundred fifty seats, to The Cutting Room at five hundred, to Woodstock, Beacon. Each room carries a different temperature. How early into a show do you know what kind of audience you’re dealing with — and has there been a night where you read the room wrong and had to rebuild mid-set?

That makes me think of when I was doing the Masters of The Universe Tour.  We were playing all arenas and there was an intangible vibe that I would get while I was waiting in my ceiling pod to be lowered onto the stage for the opener (another long story for another time).  We used to call it “the beast.”  Is the beast happy tonight?  Is it impatient?  Is it cranky because Mom burnt the French toast, or Dad stepped on a Lego? And I can recall everyone in that show, almost subconsciously, would step things up a bit… tempo, stage moves, presentation, etc., to match the audience’s vibe.  It’s almost as though audiences can project their own rhythm and if you can click into it, it makes everything that much more urgent. 

Other than that, I have been known, rarely but occasionally, to simply stop a song a few bars in and start it over if I feel that it is critically off somehow.  Why torture the house (or more selfishly, why torture myself and the band) with something that is off and showing no hint of finding its way back?  I’ve had audience members who know me well shout “Nope!” on cue and along with me when they see me get that look in my eye and can see it coming.  It doesn’t happen often, but when it does it’s pretty comical. 

When I say that I don’t work with a script, that’s not to say I don’t have guideposts.  In that I mean that I will have themes in my head, relative to the song or the period in time, and I’ll start from there.  The tempo, general delivery and lines are dictated by what I’m getting from the house.  For example, if I look out and see an inordinate amount of priests with white ecumenical collars, then I’ll know that I should probably keep the “f-bombs” to a minimum.  That same thing for red hats and snarky political opinions.  Know your audience.  

Two anchor dates at The Cutting Room, May 3rd and May 16th. You’ve pledged loyalty to the venue — as long as they’ll host you, NYC means The Cutting Room. Rundgren himself has played that stage. It’s a dinner theater format, five hundred capacity, people eating and drinking while you perform. Does that format change the dynamic for a show that relies so heavily on storytelling — and what does that specific room give you that other NYC stages can’t?

That puts me in mind of when I was with Edgar Winter in Venezuela.  We were playing two nights at the Poliedro de Caracas and it was a few days before Christmas.  Venezuelans are very fond of fireworks, particularly for Christmas apparently, as they were lobbing firecrackers, launching bottle rockets and even hurling cherry bombs around the arena… and throwing them up onto the stage.  Edgar stopped the show and asked them to please stop.  They respectfully toned it down, but eventually ultimately didn’t.  So, we simply played through it, dodging the occasional explosive that might whizz by our heads.  

With Edgar, we had previously played all sorts of wacky circumstances.  Cyclone fencing across the front of the stage to catch flying beer bottles (yes, that really existed), non-stop bar fights playing towns with an inordinate overbalance of testosterone fueled audiences.  So, Lulu complaining to the waitress about her Eggs Benedict being cold is no issue. Complain away, Lulu.  Have at it.

I love The Cutting Room for a variety of reasons.  For example, when I got it into my head a few years back that I wanted to concentrate on live shows again, Steve, the owner and Susan his manager were some of my first proponents and encouraged me from day one. The staff, from service to technical are all top shelf and a pleasure to work with.  The room is gorgeous and it’s being located close to the Broadway theater district, that creates an interesting blend of theatrical sensibility and rock and roll edge.  With my weird background, I’m more than comfortable there. 

The tour expands from here — Woodstock in June, Beacon in August, Pine Island, more dates stacking up. You said audiences demand “emotional factualness,” and that authenticity is what separates a cover show from something worth driving to. The Nodd 2 Todd run proved people wanted the stories as much as the music. Summer of ’72 doubles down on that bet. Where does this show go if it works — is there a Summer of ’73, or does the concept have a natural boundary? And what would it take for you to call this run a success?

Well, I suppose I could wax on with something glib about audiences and applause, or not being hit with random fireworks, but to be honest I sort of already consider Summer of ‘72 a success in that I’ve managed to get the thing up and running thus far.  For a guy who was supposed to be dead (they told me I was borderline for a number of days after the fall… apparently, I was a royal mess), the fact that I can turn around and get back up on a stage, make noise and laugh about it, that is in itself sort of prodigious to me.  On a more practical note, that I can keep the band’s and the crew’s paychecks regular is to be perfectly honest, immensely gratifying.  

Ticket sales thus far are happily strong and we are all of course beyond pleased at the audience’s responses thus far (we did a couple of break-in shows late last year which were a blast).  We are looking at a proper traveling run perhaps in the fall that will take us to the mid-west and the south. As to what develops from here, I have a couple of friends who work in theater that are talking to me about growing the show into something larger than a “set-list with war stories.”  Who knows?  That’s show-biz.

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