[ electrical hum ] [ ♪♪♪ ] My father was in a band when he was younger. He played trumpet. He told me repeatedly, "no future in music,
stay away from it." After Boston became a huge hit, I started
a company, building devices for musicians. Novel, new devices. And I remember him on the phone with me saying "What are you doing wasting your time on this
engineering stuff? "You should be making a new record." Eventually I had some success with my new
electronic equipment company, then he didn't know what to tell me. I knew I'd get mixed up sooner or later. [ plays guitar ] [ plays guitar ] When I put my own studio together, I wanted
to have a place that I might be able to go and get my ideas down on tape. Once I started, I discovered that I had to
build devices to create certain sounds that I was looking for. [ plays guitar ] My favorite device is the
Hyperspace Pedal, as I call it. There's only two in existence. I built them a long time ago. And as I became more adept at using them,
I was able to create all the out of this world sounds that people are used to hearing on
Boston albums, but haven't heard before, most likely. [ plays guitar ] And let's you sustain a chord indefinitely,
and do that. [ music stops ] And stop it whenever you want to, it's a very
handy little gadget. [ plays guitar ] The benefit of being an engineer
and a musician is that you eliminate all the communication
between the two. Of course, how do you tell an engineer that
you want to be able to do this. [ plays guitar ] I mean, it's not something that you could
really put into words. The devices that I built were just designed
to produce sounds that I liked. I wasn't sure how other people would view
it, or how sold they would be on it. So, I've been amazed when very well known
guitar players call me and send me messages and make comments in interviews
about things that I built. Definitely the biggest thrill was when I got
two warranty cards from Jeff Beck for a Rockman headphone amp. That was definitely the highlight
of my engineering career. Recording in the studio can be stressful,
it can be just shear drudgery sometimes. [ plays guitar ] I have the idea running through my head and
I think I know how a song is gonna go, but I can't listen to it. I can't listen to it until I actually play
a dozen different parts, each with their own sounds, each with their
own character and emotion. And I have to actually physically make it
happen, I have to engineer that, I have to get the equipment
prepared and produce it. When I have all of that done,
then I get to listen to it. And that's the reward. [ plays guitar ] When I'm designing something, I have an idea
in my mind of what it might look like, how it might work, how you
might feel using it. When I was recording the first Boston album,
they thought I was out of my mind for wanting to use my home engineered contraptions on
a professional recording. [ plays guitar ] When I put my foot down and said "this is
the way it has to be done" that wasn't because I was confident, I was
just gonna do what I thought sounded good. And this was the only way I would want to
record music. I always felt insecure about
my playing my music. I was always thinking, "You know, I don't think
my music is good enough, "I don't think it's as good as everything
else on the radio." [ plays guitar ] I'm definitely un-rockstarish. I treat a music world and the whole rock star
thing as sort of a fantasy world I get to step into from time to time,
and I step back out. I like people to relate to me as just another
person that they know, not this "the guy who did
More Than a Feeling." It's nice to be appreciated, not so nice to be appreciated for something
other than who you are. More Than a Feeling?
I do remember that song. [ plays guitar ] That's it. Let's have dinner. [ laughs ] [ electrical hum ]
