“Man, these guys work fast”: How Boston fooled their record company with their debut
Classic rockers Boston were foundational in the transition between the emerging sounds of hard rock in the early 1970s and the slick, radio-friendly format that would take over the genre’s sound.
Boston had killer ballads like ‘More Than a Feeling’ and ‘Amanda’, but also unrelenting prog-rock epics like ‘Foreplay/Long Time’ and hard-hitting self-aggrandising rock tracks like ‘Rock ‘N Roll Band’. All the while, the band’s gigantic power-chord heavy guitar sound was copied by nearly every band that followed in their wake, leading the charge of what most listeners considered the sound of rock music in the 1970s.
Much of that sound came from Tom Scholz’s meticulous attention to detail in the studio. Rather than relying purely on traditional recording techniques, he experimented endlessly with equipment and layering, shaping a polished guitar tone that felt both massive and precise.
Like most rock bands, Boston wasn’t exactly a democracy. In fact, when they first formed, Boston was hardly even a band. MIT-educated mechanical engineer Tom Scholz was playing in groups as a side hustle while working a day job at the photography company Polaroid. Scholz was modifying his amplifiers and building his own effects pedals, bringing a scientific approach to arena-ready rock songs. Scholz had the vision to bring his signature sound to the masses, but what he didn’t have was a band to do it with.
In many ways, Boston began less as a conventional rock group and more as Scholz’s personal recording project. His technical background meant he approached songwriting and production like a problem to be solved, carefully assembling every element until the sound matched what he imagined in his head.
After numerous demos were rejected, Scholz finally got Epic Records to sign his band Mother’s Milk. The record contract stipulated that the group record their debut album in Los Angeles, something that Scholz was unhappy with. Having recorded nearly all of the band’s demos in his basement by himself through overdubs (only the drums and Brad Delp’s vocals weren’t recorded by Scholz), Scholz decided he wanted to adopt the same technique to record the album proper.
In order to achieve this, Scholz paired up with Epic-approved producer John Boylan and concocted an elaborate ruse: Boylan would meet with Epic representatives to assure them that the album was going well and being recorded in Los Angeles. In reality, Scholz was recording the album largely on his own in his basement studio in Boston.
“We didn’t actually tell them that we were transferring the tapes. What they didn’t know wouldn’t hurt them. We told them we were working on the album with Boylan, that was all true – Tom still had stuff to do back home,” Delp later said about the band’s subterfuge. “We gave them a complete tape, and they thought, ‘Man, these guys work fast.'”
Scholz used most of the same equipment that was used to record the band’s demos. Drummer Sib Hashian recorded all of the album’s drum parts (except for the song ‘Rock ‘N Roll Band’, which was recorded with original drummer Jim Masdea) while Delp handled all the vocals. Bassist Fran Sheehan and guitarist Barry Goudreau were occasionally brought in, but almost all of the guitar and bass parts, along with all the keyboard parts, were recorded by Scholz. Boylan helped record acoustic guitars and vocals, but by and large, Scholz used his home studio and his own knowledge of recording to make Boston.
Apart from recording the vocals, the only time that Scholz went to Los Angeles was to mix the record. Epic Records remained none the wiser when it came to Scholz’s deception, and once they received the final mix of the album, they had no idea that most of the music was recorded in a basement. Scholz didn’t even quit his job at Polaroid once the album was complete. “I was at Polaroid when I first heard ‘More Than A Feeling’ on the radio,” Scholz claimed. “I was listening to somebody else’s radio. The first week the album came out, it did better than I expected.”
Boston would go on to sell more than 20million copies around the world, including going 17-times platinum in the United States alone. Along with the debut albums from Whitney Houston, Lauryn Hill, Linkin Park, and Guns ‘N Roses, Boston created one of the biggest-selling first albums in the history of popular music. Unlike those other albums, Boston is almost certainly the biggest-selling home recording of all time.
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