The song was a big hit, reaching No.
5 on the Billboard chartbut that was just the start of the story.
It really started when I was four or five years old.
Credit: Epic Records
My parents turned me loose with a monophonic hi-fi system and their classical record collection.
There was no stereo.
In fact, there was no stereo for about another 15 years.
Epic Records
So, I heard all this classical music.
I listened to classical albums and I mean actual albums, the ones that came in analbum.
I didn’t actually pick up the guitar until I was about 21.
Courtesy of BobSummersPhotography.com
It was my junior year at MIT.
I was playing music in really bad bands but having a good time.
I got the bug and wanted to do it a little more seriously.
Then I went to work for Polaroid in Cambridge, Mass.
It was a very long process of learning a lot of technical things and a lot of musical skills.
All Boston records have all been recorded in my basement studio.
Now, we have changed basements three times since that initial one, but they’re all basement recordings!
My initial studio was horribly under-equipped.
Other than the drums, I played all the instruments on the demos.
I spent six years learning how to create the music all by myself.
It was the only way that music ever could have seen the light of day.
I tried doing it using other musicians.
I could never get what I was looking for.
I had to get other people completely away from me.
I spent six years submitting dozens of recordings to dozens of record companies and I got nothing but rejections.
By this point I was 29 and I decided it was time to get responsible.
We weren’t rolling in cash.
The song was not written about an actual event.
It was written about a fantasy event.
There actually was a real Marianne.
She was my older first cousin, who I had a crush on when I was 10.
It’s a piece of music that really takesmeto someplace else when I listen to it.
I shut my eyes and I play it at the end of a long day in the studio.
“More than a Feeling” did that for me.
They chose a very nice guy named John Boylan.
And I said, “Well, that’s not gonna happen.
I was just about to say, “That’s awesome!”
I said, “Now you’re talking!”
“Boston” was the working title of the project.
I was amazed at what I was hearing and that was what got me interested in rock’n’roll.
So, the name fit.
The band that was signed was simply Brad Delp and myself.
It was a “faceless” bandand I personally think it should have remained faceless.
I didn’t want them thinking about personalities.
I wanted them thinking about something totally unrelated.
Once I finished mixing the album, and delivered it, I went back to work at Polaroid.
That’s what I washopingfor.
“, “Hey, ‘More Than a Feeling’ is playing in the model shop!”
I would go running out.
I would always just hear the fade-out.
But once that started happening, I thought, Wow, well, I may have got lucky here.
We were offered an opening stint on an arena tour with Black Sabbath, of all bands.
I decided, Well, I had to dothat, because I thought I wouldn’t get another chance.
That’s when I left Polaroid.
We started on the headline tour and one of our stops was Madison Square Garden.
It was our first time playing New York City.
A lot of people were upset at that.
Maybethenit would be right!”
SingerDelp died by his own hand in 2007but Scholz continues to record and tour under the Boston banner.
Fans expecting to hear “More Than a Feeling” will not be disappointed.
I’m not one of those artists that refuses to play their top 40 hits.
I was very surprised forty years ago that so many people liked it.
The fact that it is still popular?
I don’t know what to say.
Except: “Thank you!”
