Right from the first day I was impressed with Bryan. It was obvious he had enormous talent coupled with extraordinary drive.  In fact, he was confident and tenacious to the point of being abrasive, not exactly undesirable traits for an aspiring rock star.

Still, I didn't quite know what to do with his voice. He was 18, and his vocal chords were still changing. He was using the high end of his vocal range 90-percent of the time, and there was little, if any evidence of the gravelly vocal style that would emerge in the next year or two.   There were other high-pitched singers I enjoyed, like Roger Hodgson (Supertramp) and Jon Anderson (Yes) ... so I naturally assumed that was the direction we'd have to take with Bryan.  

Fortunately, by the time we recorded his first album Bryan had pretty much abandoned that vocal style. He'd always been a fan of singers like Rod Stewart, Paul Rodgers and Steve Marriott ... but more than anything I believe it was Don Henley's vocal performances on "The Long Run" album (The Eagle's, 1979) that inspired Bryan to find his true voice.

In 1979, at age 19, Bryan signed a recording contract with A&M Records Canada, after being turned down by every other label in the country. In fact, A&M had initially turned him down as well ... it was music publisher Brian Chater who first recognized Bryan's potential.

Chater was president of A&M Canada's publishing wing, Almo-Irving Music. In 1978, a year before Bryan's recording contract, Chater signed us to a writer-publisher deal, and he also underwrote the cost of recording and releasing Bryan's first single, "Let Me Take You Dancing".

Despite emigrating to Canada in 1966 (he's originally from England) Brian Chater still has an accent as thick as chowder.   He's an affable fellow, impossible to dislike.  I have fond memories of nights out in Toronto with Adams and Chater, seeing who could consume the most Heineken and still remain standing. 

For 40 years Brian Chater has been a major player and a positive force in the Canadian and international music communities, most recently as president of the Canadian Independent Record Producers Association (1987-2006).  Our paths still cross from time to time, and it's always a pleasure to see him.

"Stay", for example, was one of the songs Bryan and I wrote in January or February 1978, shortly after we first met. The song was basically a chorus of mine married to a verse of Bryan's ... a pretty melody, even if the lyrics are a bit vacant. I don't have a copy of Bryan's recorded version, but I remember it being quite good -- at least as good as anything else on the album. It even had a string quartet, arranged by Eric Robertson and recorded in Toronto at no small expense. For some reason however, Bryan decided to leave the song off the album.  It was eventually recorded by the Canadian group "Prism", and also by Quebec artist Peter Pringle, who sang a French translation of the song titled "Tu N'as Pas Changé".

Another song that didn't make it was "Hold Me Once", written by Bryan and our friend Eric Kagna (Eric was Bryan's lawyer for a while in 1978-79). We did a huge production on that one as well, with stacks of violins and cellos from the Vancouver Symphony, arranged and conducted by Bob Buckley (another expensive session). I thought the song was a definite contender for the album -- but even though we were desperately short of material Bryan decided to nix that one too!  ("Hold Me Once" was recorded and released by Florence Warner a few years later, in 1981.)

We flew back to Vancouver on November 30 and spent a day at Pinewood Studios taping (among other things) Fred Turner's backing vocals on "Don't Ya Say It". On December 4th we flew to Los Angeles for additional recording and mixing at Sunset Sound with engineer Bobby Shaper and assistant Gene Meros.

After a month in chilly Toronto, Los Angeles seemed tropical by comparison. Adams and I checked into "Le Parc" hotel in West Hollywood and rented matching Volkswagen Beetle convertibles for our 2-week stay. I remember racing down Fountain Avenue late one night after a long day in the studio. The evening air was warm and I recall thinking "Wow, life is good". And it was.

Bryan was still signed to A&M Canada at the time, so A&M USA didn't have a direct interest in the album. Regardless, A&R man David Kerschenbaum dropped by Sunset Sound one day to have a listen (David was a respected music industry figure, having produced, among others, a number of successful albums for Cat Stevens). David didn't have much to say after hearing the tracks we'd recorded.  Nor did he look particularly impressed. He did, however, comment on how short the album was: only four songs per side. He strongly recommended we record additional material.

	Me on drums. Manta Studios, Nov. '79 (photo by Bryan)

We quickly taped a version of "Wastin' Time" (a song Bryan had contributed to BTO's "Rock 'N Roll Nights" album, which I'd produced the year before). Bryan played guitars, I played drums, and David Hungate (Toto) played bass. The rejected songs "Stay" and "Hold Me Once" would have made a significant difference at this point in time, but for reasons that still baffle me, Bryan chose not to include them.

Despite his apparent lack of enthusiasm Kerschenbaum must have sensed Bryan's potential, because David is the one responsible for hooking Bryan up with producer Bob Clearmountain for album #2 ("You Want It You Got It). Bryan continues to work with Clearmountain to this day, and I believe the introduction to Bob may be the single most significant occurrence in Bryan's career.

Even if the finished product failed to capture the public's attention, Adams and I had a lot of fun recording his first album. In fact, we could hardly believe our good fortune:  a "real" recording budget ... travel and meal expenses ... we were like kids in a candy store!  We worked hard -- the hours were long -- but it wasn't without it's diversions.  

Among other things, Bryan would frequently entertain Hayward and I with his spot-on "Derek and Clive" impersonations, and we'd all be rolling on the floor, laughing 'til we cried.

One night (November 16, 1979) we took a break from recording and went to see a new young band from England perform for a few hundred fans at Toronto's Danforth Music Hall. It was "The Police", and they were amazing!

Three or four evenings a week we ate at Le Chaumière, a small French restaurant near our hotel. It wasn't particularly posh or expensive, but it was better than what we could afford at the time, were it not for A&M picking up the tab!

For the most part we were given complete creative freedom during the recording, except for one particular episode ...

A&M Canada decided to inject some "social science" into the production process. They hired a consulting firm, who assembled a "random group of young males and females" to preview the album-in-progress and respond to a questionnaire. The results were analyzed and the consultants reported back to us. They recommended adding a keyboard to this song, a guitar to that song, a harmony here, a tambourine there. It was insulting and completely unnecessary ... and probably quite expensive (eventually billed back to the artist, of course). We viewed the entire exercise as a load of crap and we ignored the recommendations.

Initially the album artwork was also somewhat disappointing, in particular the credits, which were extremely difficult to read (miniature black print set against a purple background). Bryan made A&M change it ... although the final version is still somewhat blurred.

In addition, the first vinyl pressings didn't sound as good as they might have. Bryan was so upset that he phoned A&R man Michael Godin at home at two o'clock in the morning. That got fixed too!

Bryan was obsessed with "quality control", even at that early stage of his career. I don't think the record company knew what to make of this cocky new-comer telling all these music industry veterans how the album should look and sound. The truth is, despite his lack of experience, Bryan had an innate sense of things, and he was usually right!