Tom Scholz
Tom Scholz
Donald Thomas "Tom" Scholzis an American rock musician, inventor, engineer, and philanthropist, best known as the founder of the band Boston. He is also the inventor of the Rockman portable guitar amplifier. He has been described by Allmusic as "a notoriously 'un-rock n' roll' figure who never enjoyed the limelight of being a performer," preferring to concentrate almost exclusively on his music, and in more recent years, spending much of his time working with charities...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionRock Singer
Date of Birth10 March 1947
CityToledo, OH
CountryUnited States of America
I've sort of decided that I can settle for being just the artist, arranger, writer and part-time engineer. That seems like enough to do.
Trying to get my music performed live by bar bands was a self defeating experience. It really just distracted me from what I should've been doing all along, writing and recording.
Playing live was always definitely a lot more fun. You picture it: working alone in the studio eight or 10 hours a day with nobody else there, being frustrated and driven crazy by all of the things that you have to deal with, vs. thousands of people screaming and singing along with you playing.
Music doesn't have to have lyrics; it doesn't have to be a particular type of music - it has the ability to bring out really strong and hopefully good emotional reactions in people.
I'm very realistic in my outlook on everything in life. When I look ahead in my mind to see what's going to happen next, I see the good and I see the bad.
I can tell you that I can always recognize a Boston song, even if it's in a noisy place. I can hear that it's Boston even before I know what song it is. If a Boston song comes on in a club or somewhere, I notice that it's Boston, and the second thing I notice is what song it is.
Analog sounds so much better. I frankly can't listen to digital audio for more than a few hours without really starting to hate what I'm listening to. Even decent 24-bit digital resolution really irritates me after a while.
Most people live their life around what other people do.
I'm a huge fan of Joe Walsh and a big James Gang fan. A lot of what I know about playing the guitar I learned from listening to him.
All Boston songs are fairly difficult to translate to the stage. None of them are especially easy to play or sing. A lot of them, of course, have very involved arrangements with lots of different sounds and sections that are difficult to play and sing. The prospect of doing any Boston song live is always an endeavor in itself.
If you listen to my tapes, you'd hear 14 different ways to arrange the rhythm guitar behind the harmony vocal, and then 14 different ways with a different vocal. You'd have to really be a music lover to sit through that and find it entertaining. I enjoy it, but I'm easy to please.
I stay very much undercover and behind the scenes - most places I go, people don't know how important I am. But I will admit that my favorite piece of clothing to wear out is an old T-shirt from a Boston tour that does have a Boston logo. But that doesn't change anything.
I was basically a dork that hit the books and liked to build things and did all of the things that you weren't supposed to do to be popular. But somehow I ended up onstage, playing guitar in front of everybody else.
If things aren't going well, music is what I turn to so I can get away from it, to take my mind somewhere else.