<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Holly Erlander was a struggling musician trying to catch a break with her band Siren.\u00a0 The New York City music scene, much like its counterpart in Los Angeles, had a lot of bands trying to get noticed so her story isn\u2019t exactly unique for the late 1970s.\u00a0 Holly had a knack for getting to know people and Siren found a connection with party boy Ace Frehley from Kiss.\u00a0 Frehley even put his art skills to work to produce a stylized \u2018S\u2019 logo for his friends much like he had done when he concocted the lightning bolt \u2018SS\u2019 in the Kiss logo.\u00a0 Siren had also managed to snag Kiss manager Bill Aucoin from Rock Steady Productions to handle their affairs.\u00a0 Right off the bat, Bill\u2019s lawyers discovered there was another band already using the name Siren. \u00a0 Holly suggested Spider instead, kind of a play off David Bowie\u2019s band, The Spiders from Mars.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Spider included future <\/span>David Letterman Show<\/span><\/i> band drummer Anton Fig and two other South African expats who had relocated to the United States to seek fame and fortune.\u00a0 Erlander\u2019s first experience jamming with her future bandmates went so well, they decided all they needed was a bass player to round out their ranks.\u00a0 Working out of an old industrial building\u00a0 (with no elevator) meant navigating\u00a0 five long sets of wooden stairs to reach their living \/ rehearsal quarters.\u00a0 They spent a lot of time humping equipment up and down.\u00a0 Holly\u2019s Hammond B-3 was the biggest burden, at least until they lost their grip on it and watched in horror as it tobogganed down to the first floor.\u00a0 It knocked out the front door before it finally came to a stop.\u00a0 They decided then and there the replacement would NOT be another B-3 behemoth.\u00a0 There was little heat and no air conditioning so depending on the season, they either froze or baked for the sake of their art.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0About the same time that Siren was forced to change their name to Spider, Holly decided it was finally time to change her surname to something more rock \u2018n\u2019 roll.\u00a0 In her 2022 biography, she states, \u201cFor months I put a lot of thought into it and came up empty handed until one night it came to me in a dream, cliche as that sounds.\u00a0 In the dream, my name was Holly Knight.\u00a0 Knight is actually a common surname in Britain, akin to Smith in the US.\u00a0 It was short, memorable, and went well with Holly.\u00a0 It was nobel sounding, too.\u00a0 A knight is a warrior, and that felt strangely relevant to me.\u00a0 When I awoke, I was Holly Knight from that moment on and never again thought of myself as anyone else.\u00a0 I immediately had it legally changed.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0How Holly Knight got to that point is a story in itself.\u00a0 The child of parents who were both \u2018only childs\u2019 in their upbringing meant she had a small family unit.\u00a0 She had her grandparents and brother, but no aunts or uncles.\u00a0 Her father, Herbert, arrived from Germany at the age of eleven and eventually earned a medical degree in anesthesiology from the College of Physicians & Surgeons.\u00a0 Holly\u2019s maternal grandfather was from the Ukraine while her grandmother was a Boston native.\u00a0 Holly\u2019s mother graduated from Hunter College as a hematologist and worked at the same hospital as Herbert – that is how they met.\u00a0 Musically gifted, young Holly would begin taking music lessons from a Julliard master\u2019s student named Gordana.\u00a0 Her lessons with Gordana lasted for seven years.\u00a0 Holly even talked her parents into sending her to Camp Waseosa, a summer camp where Gordana was a music counselor.\u00a0 After her mother determined Holly had the making of a future concert pianist, the pressure she put on her daughter, in Holly\u2019s words, \u201cManaged to turn something I loved with my entire being into a chore.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Holly grew up surrounded by music and in her biograph (<\/span>I Am the Warrior – My Crazy Life Writing the Hits and Rocking the MTV Eighties – <\/span><\/i>Permutted Press) she said, \u201cFor me, the seas parted once I discovered rock music,\u00a0 I think the first time was on some kid\u2019s transistor radio in the school yard, and it really made me sit up and pay attention.\u00a0 I was nine.\u00a0 I ran out and bought a couple of records with some money I\u2019d saved.\u00a0 One was The Beatles\u2019 <\/span>Rubber Soul<\/span><\/i> and another one was the Rolling Stones\u2019 <\/span>December\u2019s Children.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>The fact she had to keep the rock records a secret from her mother is a pretty good indication of trouble ahead.\u00a0 For her eleventh birthday, her grandmother Alice and her father pooled their money and brought her to the Steinway showroom where she picked out a black satin five-foot-seven grand – her new soulmate.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The same year she got her Steinway, her parents divorced.\u00a0 They had always had a volatile and dramatic relationship that seemed to center on her mother\u2019s unhappiness over just about everything.\u00a0 For weeks after getting her birthday piano, her mother threatened Holly with an unwelcome haircut.\u00a0 At 3:00 a.m. on the morning of her birthday, Holly\u2019s mother burst into her room, commanded her to sit on a chair in front of a mirror and proceeded to hack off the majority of her long hair.\u00a0 \u201cThere, that\u2019s better!\u201d her mother pronounced when she was done.\u00a0 When Holly muttered, \u201cHappy now?\u201d under her breath, her mother proceeded to empty all of the dresser drawers and clothing hanging in the closet in a pile on the floor.\u00a0 Though her mother was crying as she did it (as she always did when punishing Holly), she struck her hard on the back and said, \u201cDon\u2019t you ever talk back to me again, do you understand?\u00a0 You\u2019re a disgrace.\u00a0 Now clean this mess up!\u201d\u00a0 A strange way to show a daughter motherly love one would say.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Music was Holly\u2019s refuge from the craziness and maternal abuse, something Knight sees as a connecting thread among creative women back in the 1960s.\u00a0 It would not happen overnight, but Holly resolved to remove herself from the drama:\u00a0 \u201cIt certainly ignited something fierce in me that said, \u2018I will not be like you.\u00a0 I will be the opposite of you, and I will be special.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 The path to New York City and finding like minded souls in her band Spider was circuitous.\u00a0 Along the way, Holly had her share of dalliances with other musicians, including three of Kiss\u2019s founding members (oddly enough, not the drummer, even though she was romantically involved with Spider\u2019s up and coming drummer and sought after session man, Anton Fig).\u00a0 It was the 1970s and it was not uncommon to hear the likes of Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley boast about their conquests.\u00a0 It isn\u2019t all that shocking that Holly Knight gives an honest appraisal of these sexcapades from a woman\u2019s viewpoint.\u00a0 She didn\u2019t write a \u2018tell all\u2019 book designed to sell more copies of her biography, she simply tells her tale of living the rock \u2018n\u2019 roll life style.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Spider was in the process of recording their second album in Los Angeles when Knight took it upon herself to get a hold of noted producer Mike Chapman.\u00a0 Before their first album, Holly had given Chapman a copy of their demo tape at a party in NYC.\u00a0 It took a while for him to get around to listening to it, but when he did, he invited the band to come to L.A. to record after\u00a0 signing on with his new label, Dreamland Records..\u00a0 The red carpet roll out for a new band was rather impressive – limos, champaign, first class digs – but as Holly notes, the record company would be deducting the extravagances from their future earnings.\u00a0 Knight was disappointed that Chapman was too busy to produce their sessions, so she called him up while they were working on the second album.\u00a0 She suggested they try writing a song together in the hope it would induce him to produce at least one track on the album.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Holly arrived at Chapman\u2019s office with a kernel of an idea for a song:\u00a0 \u201cOkay, I have this title, Mike, \u2018<\/span>Be Good to Me<\/span><\/i>\u2019\u201d. \u00a0 Mike replied, \u201cYeah, I like that, but what if it was a little more direct, like \u2018<\/span>You Better Be Good to Me<\/span><\/i>?\u2019\u201d\u00a0 \u201cOh yeah, that\u2019s stronger,\u201d Holly agreed.\u00a0 With his Roland CR-78 drum machine pumping (the same one used on Blondie\u2019s <\/span>Heart of Glass<\/span><\/i>)<\/span>, <\/span><\/i>they jammed on the idea for a while with\u00a0 Mike on guitar and Holly on keyboards.\u00a0 As they traded lines and tried out lyrics, they found they had a natural chemistry working together.\u00a0 Within a couple of hours, they had written the whole song – and it was a good one.\u00a0 Without her broaching the subject, Mike volunteered to come down to the studio and produce the track.\u00a0 The rest of the Spiders liked it and Chapman was able to coax vocalist Amanda to sing with real attitude, even though she was mad at Holly for going out on her own to contact Mike.\u00a0 \u201cBurning a hole into my skull with her eyes,\u201d is how Knight remembered the event.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0With their second album in the can, they returned to New York City to begin marketing their new album.\u00a0 Unfortunately, they got caught up in the latest payola scandal as A&R guys were tagged for buying airplay with various bribes aimed at DJs.\u00a0 The cash, drugs, or some other combination of instant kickbacks were offered to DJs to insure the A&R guy\u2019s bands would get preferential treatment on their playlists.\u00a0 When the house of cards began to fall, Spider\u2019s new album got left in the dust;\u00a0 DJs were afraid to play new bands for fear of being caught in the web of the payola investigations.\u00a0 Established major acts were a safer bet but a slew of lesser known bands, like Spider, were left swinging in the wind.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Knight knew Amanda was upset about the whole Chapman affair but did not realize how much it had affected the band. \u00a0 Holly stumbled into a band meeting that had been called without her being invited.\u00a0 She had intended to take the singer out for drinks to try and find some common ground.\u00a0 Instead, Knight realized Amanda was causing deep under the surface rumblings in the band and decided it was time to quit.\u00a0 Holly promised she would finish the current tour but that was it – she was (again) removing herself from the drama much as she had when she left home to get away from her mother.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Expecting the worst, she called Mike Chapman back in L.A. to break the news.\u00a0 She was floored by his reaction.\u00a0 She expected hostility but Mike simply said, \u201cListen, Holly.\u00a0 I\u2019m not upset at all.\u00a0 I mostly signed the band because of the great songs, your songs.\u00a0 I think the band is terrific and all, but if you\u2019re leaving, that\u2019s going to be a real problem for them.\u00a0 They may not realize it yet, but they will.\u00a0 I\u2019ll tell you what I think you should do.\u00a0 You should pursue a songwriting career full time, at least for now, and see what happens.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to find out that while being a musician in a band has its rewards, being a respected, hit songwriter is much more unique, and therefore revered by the industry.\u00a0 Hit songwriters are considered royalty in the music business if you\u2019re exceptionally good at it, which you are.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The future suddenly became crystal clear for Knight.\u00a0 With a new publishing deal with Dreamland in hand, she moved to L.A., was put on a retainer, and given a chance to work with Chapman full time.\u00a0 As her publisher, he was able to pitch her songs to his artists and arrange for her to collaborate with other songwriters.\u00a0 The move solved another nagging problem – Knight and her boyfriend Jeff had been living a continent apart and the move to L.A. solved that problem as well.\u00a0 Holly told herself, \u201cSongwriter.\u00a0 I\u2019m going to be an independent, full-time songwriter.\u00a0 I love the sound of that.\u201d\u00a0 Beginning her new career as a songwriter just as the entire MTV phenomenon started in 1981 positioned Knight to become a hot commodity in a hurry.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There are so many songs that bear Knight\u2019s imprint, we could hardly do justice to all of them in this limited space.\u00a0 To give you a peak at the process, we will simply start with the song that kicked her world to another level.\u00a0 Working in Chapman\u2019s modest \u2018studio\u2019 (the living room of his spacious home in Beverly Hills) in 1983, she could only hear one side of the conversation.\u00a0 When Mike got off the phone, he said it had been Pat Benatar on the other end of the line.\u00a0 She and her guitar player \/ husband \/ producer were in the process of putting out a live record featuring her hits up to that point.\u00a0 \u201cThey need something new, a hit to help sell the record,\u201d Mike told her.\u00a0 Though Knight had a thing about not taking orders from anybody else, she respected Chapman\u2019s work enough to let him steer her toward every opportunity that came her way.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They pair got right to work.\u00a0 Jamming ideas at high volume through the giant Uri speakers that dominated the room, the set out a beat with the same Roland CR-78 drum machine they had used previously.\u00a0 Again, Holly was on her keyboard and Mike had his small amp and Fender Stratocaster.\u00a0 First she played him a bass line she had been saving for their next writing session.<\/span><\/p>\n Next, she added the chord progressions that went along with the bass line.\u00a0 \u201cI like that a lot,\u201d he said.\u00a0 They played around with the idea for a while (pun intended) until they had an arrangement in need of lyrics.\u00a0 Mike said, \u201cWe need to come up with a really weird title, one that\u2019s going to stand out and grap people\u2019s attention.\u00a0 I have no idea what, but something like this . . . \u2018Love . . .<\/span><\/p>\n Is a battlefield.\u201d\u00a0 Holly described the moment the words came out of his mouth:\u00a0 \u201cI could feel something electric pass through the room, a crack in the ether.\u00a0 \u2018I love it.\u2019\u00a0 I don\u2019t know what it means, but does that really matter?\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This is how Holly described the rest of the afternoon:\u00a0 \u201c(HK) Okay, let\u2019s call this the verse, how about we start with – <\/span>You\u2019re begging me go, then making me stay, why do you hurt me so bad?\u201d <\/span><\/i>\u201c(MC) That\u2019s good!\u201d\u00a0 \u201c(HK) We kept going \u2018til we wrote the first verse, \u2018Let\u2019s try going into the chorus with – <\/span>Believe me – <\/span><\/i>we could repeat that\u2019.\u00a0 Okay, \u2018<\/span>Believe me, believe me, I can\u2019t tell you why, but I\u2019m trapped.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>\u201c(MC) What do you mean you\u2019re trapped?\u201d\u00a0 \u201c(HK) No, I\u2019m not trapped, that\u2019s the lyric.\u201d \u201c(MC) Oh!\u00a0 I\u2019m trapped by your . . . something, something.\u201d\u00a0 \u201c(HK) Love?\u201d\u00a0 \u201c(MC) Yeah!\u00a0 That\u2019s good, <\/span>I\u2019m trapped by your love.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>\u201c(HK) I got it!\u00a0 Listen to this – <\/span>I\u2019m chained to your side.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>\u201c(MC) Nice, I likle that – what do you think about going straight into the chorus and foregoing the pre-chorus?\u201d\u00a0 \u201c(HK) Yeah, that\u2019s good. \u2018<\/span>We are young, heartache to heartache, we stand;\u00a0 love is a battlefield.\u201d\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>\u201c(MC) That\u2019s it right there, that\u2019s the hook!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As they bantered back and forth about where to go next, they decided to do something unconventional (\u2018Unthinkable\u2019 is how she described it):\u00a0 \u201cLet\u2019s start the song with the chorus!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Over the next week or so, they let what they had started simmer while each tried to find the elusive third line of the chorus.\u00a0 They even tried scribbling ideas on sheets of paper that were folded into paper airplanes which they sailed back and forth to each other over his swimming pool.\u00a0 The key lyric they were looking for turned out to be \u2018<\/span>No promises, no demands\u2019 <\/span><\/i>and the final edit of the chorus turned out to read:\u00a0 \u201c<\/span>We are young, heartache to heartache we stand, no promises no demands – love is a battlefield.\u00a0 We are strong, no one can tell us we\u2019re wrong, searching our hearts for so long, both of us knowing love is a battlefield.\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Although Benatar and her husband Neil Geraldo upped the tempo (which neither Chapman or Knight liked – at first), the song became a smash hit – one that went into heavy rotation on MTV and sold a lot of copies of 1983\u2019s <\/span>Live From Earth.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Pat Benatar no longer wishes to sing <\/span>Love is a Battlefield<\/span><\/i> with all the rancor in the world, but one can not deny the song set Holly the Songsmith on a long, very successful voyage of becoming a writer of hit songs! \u00a0 In Part 2, we will examine the next phase of <\/span>Holly the Songsmith\u2019s<\/span><\/i> career.<\/span><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Video:\u00a0 The first biggie of Holly’s Knight’s career as a Songsemith:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Holly Erlander was a struggling musician trying to catch a break with her band Siren.\u00a0 The New York City music scene, much like its counterpart in Los Angeles, had a lot of bands trying to get noticed so her story isn\u2019t exactly unique for the late 1970s.\u00a0 Holly had a knack for getting to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2995","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-new-music","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2995","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2995"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2995\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2998,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2995\/revisions\/2998"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2995"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2995"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2995"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}