Four out of five critics agreed - Robin Black was full of hot gas. He was the prince of poseurs, but so funny about it that no one seemed to mind. Or take him seriously.
Oh, how we'd all laugh when he'd open interviews with lines like, "I'm naked and sitting on top of my dominatrix girlfriend," and declare with a straight, albeit heavily made-up face, "I'm the greatest!"
Yes, very amusing, O' Court Jester of Canadian Rock. What about music? Put it nicely: It did not live up to his ego. Still, we laughed at his glammy antics, then moved on to meatier fare like Motley Crue.
Did Robin Black listen to his critics? He did not. The Calgary Sun's Mike Bell skewered him good, sparking a vicious voice-mail feud.
We all love a good feud. But Black continued to make outrageous boasts and revel in his over-the-top glam-rock-superstar persona as if he were a minor character in This Is Spinal Tap, and then turn around to perform a frankly pale approximation of "glam rock," all sizzle, no steak. Robin Black's entire shtick came off like sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll, in that order of priority.
IF THE MUSIC ISN'T THERE ...
It took an uber-producer like Bob Ezrin to make Black see the light, to make him realize that if the music isn't there, "this whole thing I'm doing is pointless," the singer recalls.
He plays tomorrow at the Victory Lounge, supporting his new, Ezrin-produced record, Instant Classic, which at last comes close to living up to Black's self-generated hype. It would have to be a cure for cancer and world peace in one to actually match it, but hey, we'll take it.
Bob Ezrin made Alice Cooper what he is - so you can bet Black listened.
"He really, truly saw me in the way that he saw Alice Cooper in the '70s," Black says in a recent phone interview. "Bob knew that we were a great band with all kinds of possibilities, but we were lacking in so many areas to be a really world-class band. I wasn't aware until he told me.
He said my voice is a character voice, an interesting little voice. I had to become a big rock 'n' roll singer. He said, 'Your drummer has to be powerful and perfect. Your lead guitar player has to be able to take over a show at any time. And your singer has to be able to hold everybody's attention, not just with his ass, but with his voice.'
"I was a little lacking in the vocal department. I was a fun singer to watch, but I had to become a powerful singer. He sent me to school. I learned that just because I want our band to be one of the best bands in the world, it doesn't mean it is."
Ezrin set him to various impossible tasks, a veritable Amazing Race of rock 'n' roll, at one point dismissing four months of demo work with, "Yeah, I hate these songs. Write me 10 more and get them to me by Monday."
This was on a Friday, Black recalls. Any excuses and the guy who produced Pink Floyd's The Wall would've known not to waste his time. Black also lost his bass player and drummer along the way, but managed to stall Ezrin until replacements could be found.
The producer made Black take singing lessons, laboured on every aspect of his performance, his songwriting, his band, groomed the songs to a point that maybe wasn't world class, but at least not an embarrassment to a claim they were.
Some mentors might advise young people to have reasonable ambitions, but there's a lot to be said for having ridiculous goals, for setting oneself up for spectacular failure. In the early days in Toronto, Black boasted he had the best rock band on the planet when he didn't actually have a band at all.
He points to "a defect in my brain that seems to have turned out reasonably well for me, or my parents just so over-encouraging that I ended up the way that I am. But I really believed those things. I wasn't just saying I'd work with the biggest producers in the world, touring Japan and slowly building an army of hundreds of thousands of fans, I meant it!"
There's been a subtle shift in the band identity, too. Robin Black and the Intergalactic Rock Stars is no more. "Robin Black" now refers to the entire band - featuring former Age of Electric's John Kerns on bass.
GIANT ROCK-STAR EGO
"There's so much Robin Black in Robin Black, sometimes I'm not able to get across how important it is that this is a band," Robin Black refers to himself in the third person, a trait of giant rock-star ego.
"It's very much a band. The five of us share everything. We all own every song. We all work equally. I'm not the boss. Far from it in some cases. And I had something to offer these people.
"Before I was like, 'Hey wanna play in my crazy rock band? I think I'm the best rocker in the world.' Yeah, that's great Robin, you're a real fun guy, but I don't know ... But now I can say, 'Hey, you wanna make a record with Bob Ezrin? And, by the way, before we do that, we're going to tour England.' I'm going someplace and people wanna go with you."
Did Ezrin's reality check humble the man who calls himself Robin F---ing Black? Has he toned down the pro-wrestling boasts? Will he stop claiming to be the greatest? Hell, no.
Says Black, "It became of the utmost importance to us to really write a great record, to put our money where our mouth was - but that didn't make our mouth any less busy."
