Legendary Music Producer Tom Werman Talks About His Journey

Tom Werman is a musical legend and he has had a success in putting people on the map in the music world. This goes without saying as he had some of the best names get the limelight they deserved. It involves Ted Nugent’s “Cat Scratch Fever,” Molly Hatchet’s “Flirtin’ with Disaster,” Mötley Crüe’s “Shout at the Devil,” Twisted Sister’s “Stay Hungry,” Poison’s “Open Up and Say… Ahh!” to name a few.

While these may be his accomplishments as he got the opportunity to produce these albums, there are just a couple that he missed too during his time. It includes Rush, who is loved by the fans. In his autobiography “Turn It Up!: My Time Making Hit Records In The Glory Days Of Rock Music” he talks about these missed opportunities.

During a interview with Booked on Rock Podcast, he talked in depth about these two situations. According to Ultimate Guitar, Tom talked about what went down as he tried to get Rush along. He said, “”I heard a demo – it was sent to me. I said, ‘I want to see this.’ So, I flew to Toronto and their manager Ray Danniels picked me up, took me to dinner. We drove out to Mississauga – a little suburb of Toronto – and we saw them, I think, in a high school gym or a high school theater. And I thought they were wonderful. I thought it was a really great signing – because it was art. It wasn’t, ‘Come on baby, let’s rock all night.”

He continued on this situation and discussed what happened. Tom said, “Then they asked for $75,000 advance for a two-album deal – which is chump change now. Anyway, the guidelines of the business affairs department at CBS which was a corporation and had stockholders and was responsible to them, the guidelines did not allow for that much money for two albums. So, they said no, and Cliff Bernstein signed them down at Mercury a few months later – and that was that.”

Tom also talked about Meat Loaf and why he decided to opt out from signing. He said, “I knew Meat because he and Steinman had come in to audition. And he auditioned for me live in my office with Jim Steinman playing the piano. And he blew the walls down. But I didn’t think that we would know how to market him – because he was like a ‘metallic opera.’ So, I said, ‘Look, I’m not going to sign you.’ But I introduced them to my boss [Steve Popovich]… and when he left CBS, he started Cleveland International Records and signed Meat Loaf.”

While Tom Werman has had an excellent experience and a career, it’s worth noting that he couldn’t sign two huge names. The legend has had a successful career and he can be happy that he led the journey of many musical careers. We can understand that not signing these two may be on his unsuccessful list, but one can only be happy for what he has done and still continues to be an inspiration for everyone.

Do you have any thoughts on this story? Sound off in the comments.