Robert Slap - The Tidal Waves Interview
"Music is made to generate emotional response; life is a tapestry of ever-changing moods, colors, textures, and emotion. It reflects life and touches our souls' strings, pulling feelings out with passion into the open. It is the only medium through which I can truly express my innermost feelings."
Award winning composer, arranger, engineer and producer, Robert Slap is a native of Detroit, Michigan. His music spans a wide spectrum of styles that include R&B, Rock, Soul/Funk, Jazz, New Age, Latin, World, and Film music. His career kicked off in 1966 with the release of the garage band rocker, "Farmer John" recorded with the Tidal Waves. Signing with Hanna Barbera Records, Slap toured with many of the 60's great acts, including the Dave Clark Five, the Animals, Butterfield Blues Band, Herman's Hermits, Dobie Grey, MC5, Bob Seger, Mitch Ryder and later with Alice Cooper, Van Halen and many more. He continued his work as a session and touring guitarist with the Magic Tones, David Ruffin and the Drifters. He relocated to Los Angeles in the '70's to pursue his passion, working with a young Detroit songwriter, John Angelos, and reforming the Detroit based group "Mighty Quick". He also worked with Dennis "Machine Gun" Thompson (MC5) with the group "Secrets", releasing a few records, but finding no audience.
In 1982 the hand of fate crossed his path and Robert joined Valley of the Sun Publishing in Malibu, CA. working as music director and producer for the "New Age" label until 1993. It was during these years Slap expanded his vision of music and tonalities, and mastering the craft of recording and producing records. He has over 40 album credits with various artists during that period. In the 90's he produced a series of recordings for Great American Audio including a line of aerobic exercise music and the popular "Music for Relaxation" series. He also had music featured on the Leeza Gibbons show and several other cable network series. Slap’s music has been featured on radio, broadcast TV shows, movie soundtrack/trailers, videos and documentaries. Currently, Robert writes and licenses his music through GMP Music Library, Bongo Boy Records and the NUMERO GROUP, wich is currently releasing a retrospective of his recording catalog from 1983 -1996. In 2022, Intercontinental Music Awards honored Robert with "Best Production" for his recording of "Why can't we live together?". He is a current voting member of NARAS and continues to search for new artists and music to explore with.
(Bio from Slap’s website)
Are you originally from Roseville, MI? What was your childhood like? When did you first begin to fall in love with music? Was music relevant around your household growing up? Do you have any siblings?
I was born in Hamtramck, MI, which is in the middle of Detroit, a Polish blue collar town, lived with grandparents until my folks bought a house just outside Detroit in Roseville, MI. I have a younger brother who still lives in that house. My Grandparents on both sides were immigrants from Poland. My parents had a nice hi-fi back then and had all kinda records from Harry Belefonte, Al Hirt, the Gaylords and some Polka music… My grandpa Zig played the harmonica and was quite good on the chromatic, so I heard a lot of music.
What would you and your friends do for fun growing up? Who were some of our earliest influences in your more formative years? When and where did you see your very first concert and when did you realize you wanted to spend your life making music?
I always liked sports so I played a lot of baseball, my dad played basketball in HS, so we always had a backboard and rim setup on the garage, but I wasn't really tall, or fast enough to play on a team. I was in the Boy Scouts and enjoyed the camping trips and survival training that really became valuable later in life. I first started taking trumpet lessons around age 10 and continued through High School playing in the concert bands and drum & bugle corp, so I learned to read and write music when I was young and it is my second language, so many musicians don't know how important this is later on in their careers. My first concerts I went to were the Motown Revues at the Fox theatre in Detroit and I got to see all the great artists perform on one show! Also remember seeing Louis Armstrong perform about the same time. My musical ambition began from watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan in '64. I bought my first guitar/amp combo from Sears, a Silvertone made by Danelectro, I found playing the guitar more enjoyable that the trumpet and I taught myself the basics from all the music books available at that time. After that it was listening and learning by ear from records I bought. I listened to radio late every night searching for new music styles that were exploding into the airwaves. there was so much variety compared to today.
How did you initially meet your band mates? In ‘66 you guys released your US hit “Farmer John”. How did the deal with SVR Records come about and what was that experience like to have a US hit!
I had a school mate, Jon Wearing who I practiced with, his older brother Tom had a trio (2 guitars, drums, all singers) that was the original Tidal Waves, who were the most popular band on the eastside and they were excellent musicians, 3 years ahead of me. I used to listen to them practice in the basement at their house on "Rock" street (truth) just a few doors down from the Levise family whose eldest son became Mitch Ryder. Since I had already a good background in music, I picked guitar up pretty quickly, about a year later in early '65, I was invited to join the Tidal Waves on bass (which was a lot easier than guitar). I learned all the songs of the day including Ventures, Beach Boys, Beatles etc. Starting off, we mostly played at teen clubs, battle of the bands, and private parties. Jon eventually was added to the group on vocals and percussion. A cousin of the Wearing family, Jack Chekaway owned a record label SVR and we auditioned for him and he wanted to manage us. So we did and continued to work on new material in hopes of making a record, so by January 1966 we were ready to get serious and decided on 2 tunes to record, "She left me all alone" an original by guitarist Vic Witkowski and our best crowd pleaser "Farmer John" written by Don & Dewey. The original lineup included myself on bass/vocals, Jon Wearing on percussion/vocals, Vic Witkowski on guitar/vocals, Mark Karpinski on guitar/vocals and Tom Wearing on drums/vocals. We recorded both tunes at one of the best studios in Detroit, United Sound on a Scully 4 track, basically all playing live in a big room adding the vocals on a separate track. It cost us about $200. SVR pressed about 5,000 copies and we spent the next several months doing the promo gigs to get our record noticed by the DJ's to get the airplay. We shared the stages with local groups like Bob Seger & the Last Heard, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels, the Capitols, The Rationals and more.
By May, we were getting noticed and our records had sold out in the local stores, so we were offered a deal from HannaBarbera Records for national distribution. With this in place we started charting and made the top 10 in the region, it was so exciting hearing your record playing on the car radios! We then started opening for many national groups in concert and TV, The Dave Clark Five, The Animals, Herman's Hermits, Butterfield Blues Band, Dobie Grey and many more. That is what I remember from the good times. Vic and Mark were getting ready to leave for college and Tom was going to get drafted, things changed. The label and management withheld most of the money we made in anticipation for the next batch of recordings and that really upset us and our parents who had to sign for everything since we were all under 18. Vic left the group and was replaced by Bill Long, another schoolmate of mine. I was still in high school and my folks would not commit to letting me go on any national tour amd miss school. Mark left to go to college and Dennis Mills came on board to sub for me on out of town gigs, and wrote the second single "I don't need love" which I did not play on. He eventually became the full time bass player as I was losing interest in the "teenybop" music we had been playing and was deeply influenced to go back to guitar after hearing the Beatles "Revolver" and Cream "Fresh Cream" albums. Then 1967 came and it was a whole new ball game with "SGT Pepper" and "Are you Experienced?". I briefly rejoined the Tidal Waves after Dennis Mills departed to support the release of the 3rd single "Action speaks louder than words", but by then HannaBarbera had decided to leave the record business and sold our contract to Liberty records who eventually went out of business, so with no promotion, these next 2 releases failed to chart and the band dissolved, leaving us all wondering where did the money go?
You mentioned in our correspondence that you’ve been in the business for over 60 years. I’m sure you’ve seen and heard it all! What have you been up to in more recent years?
According to Jack Chekaway, we had sold 900,00 copies of "Farmer John" but we saw very little of the money. That was my first experience in the music business, but I was determined to carry on focusing on writing original music, singing and playing guitar, I had formed a new group "Freewood" which was active from 1968-1970, but could not generate enough interest to sign with a label, so I moved to downtown Detroit and immersed myself in R&B, soul and funk music which I loved. I picked up some guitar work backing groups like "The Magic Tones", "The Drifters" and David Ruffin of the Temptations. I began working with a young singer/songwriter John Angelos, who was having some success selling his songs in LA to Joe Cocker and Jesse "Ed" Davis, so upon his suggestion, I followed Motown Records to LA and began the second phase of my career. We reformed his group "Mighty Quick" in '73 and played across the southwest but was not able to get a record company interested enough. I was able to find a lot of work doing sessions at all the great studios in LA so I carried on and became a very good guitarist and songwriter while making alot of connections in the industry. That was followed by returning to Detroit in 1979 to join a new group "Secrets" made up from members of the MC5. We recorded several tunes and did the whole Detroit club scene, but I wanted to move the group back to LA, where we could have more visibility to record labels. As it turned out, I was the only one with that kind of ambition, so in 1982 I moved back to Malibu, CA. and began the 3rd phase of my career.
I joined "Valley of the Sun" publishing/record label and became the music director, producer/engineer and A&R person through 1993. My focus turned from pop music to more instrumental and film style music. During that period I produced many recordings of my own and produced several other artists with music that became known as the "New Age" genre. My involvement with VOS led to many other production opportunities for other companies like Great American Audio which released a series of "Music for relaxation", "Sounds of nature" and “Walk to beat" aerobic music tapes. I also started doing soundtracks for video documentaries, NPR radio shows, even children's videos. I studied at UCLA and completed the "Film Scoring Certification" program in 1992. My music was being picked up on several network and cable TV shows but that elusive major film opportunity never came my way. I left VOS in 1993 and continued working in music production, taking a producer/engineer position at the GMP music library which still carry many of my titles for film and video licensing.
I was done with live performing as the group environment was changing and streaming music over the internet became the new method of distribution, which killed the royalty revenues for many composers and bands. I finally settled down on a 13 acre ranch in NW Indiana where I have my studio and continue to write record and produce music. I signed a contract in 2020 with the NUMERO GROUP in Chicago which bought the publishing rights for all my recording from 1983-1996 and has been re-releasing the entire catalog to a whole new generation of listeners. My most recent accomplishment in 2022 was receiving the "Best Music Production" from "Intercontinental Music Awards" for my rendition of "Why can't we live together?" featuring several musicians from Detroit. I am a voting member of NARAS and have submitted several recordings for Grammy consideration. Currently I am releasing a few singles every year and continue to explore all avenues music creation and genres. This is a long story with a lot left out, but I think this gives you an idea of what the life of a recording/artist composer can be if you are dedicated and have ambition and talent. I don't like to talk about myself much and would rather have the music do that for me.
