10 Questions with ... 'Heavy Lenny' Bronstein

1. What made you want to get into the music business and who were some of your early mentors?

I bought my first record - a 78 of "How Much Was That Doggie In The Window"- when I was four years old. I spent all my allowance money on pens and 45s. I started listening to the "WMCA good guys" in NYC and kept track of every song and weekly playlist in the history of its existence. I started calling the station and got friendly with the switchboard operator and then each individual jock. I used to sit on the hotline with Dandy Dan Daniel on countdown Tuesdays, feeding him obscure playlist stats to share with the audience. I got friendly with Gary Stevens when he came over from WKNR in Detroit (which I could pick up at night on my transistor) in 1964. Was close to Jack Spector and Dean Anthony and a few more over the years, then Frankie Crocker and Murray The K.

In the late '60s, I compiled the all-time station 570 songs (actually 1,000) overnight, instead of them hiring temps to research over a decade of stats. I also devised a very successful Fall ratings promotion - Much More Music Month, where listeners had to predict exactly how many songs would be played in the 30 days of November. Around that time, I entered Brooklyn College and co-founded WBCR, since it was the only city university without a school station. I already knew most of the promo community from my hanging out at WMCA, so we got instant service, often on a par with the NYC biggies of WABC, WMCA, WNEW-FM, WOR-FM and WCBS-FM. I had quite a few first and exclusives ahead of the powerhouses, including "Layla." I am very proud of the fact that between myself and Gary Cohen at Yeshiva University's station, we convinced EVERY MAJOR LABEL to start a college radio promotion department, something the useless IBS could not do for decades. At that point, Lance Freed (son of Alan Freed) came calling from A&M, who was starting a college department.

2. What was your first radio promotion job?

Sept. 20th, 1970 was my first day as A&M's NY/NJ/CT college rep. They wanted me to cover about a dozen key stations ... a week later I was calling and servicing 108 stations in the three states. In Oct. 1970, in the politically charged climate, colleges instituted the Princeton Plan, which gave students two weeks off to participate in the upcoming elections. Most people went skiing or partied, I had a friend drive me in a rusted Rambler to almost every college station in NY State all the way to Buffalo and back for those two weeks. Not one station had ever seen a promotion person before. In April 1971, A&M replaced their local promo person with me, even though I had not worked a smaller market first. I knew all the NYC radio people already, all the club people, since I was out every night at the clubs and the Fillmore (where Bill Graham used to say, Mike Jahn of the NY Times gets the first pair of tickets and that pain-in-the-ass kid from Brooklyn College gets the second pair"). I stayed there until Aug. 6th, 1974 when they moved me to San Francisco ... eight months later to West Coast regional and eight months later to National Album Director. The people who mentored me were obviously Lance Freed, Harold Childs and Mel Fuhrman (head of the NY office), but the person who changed my life and gave me all the rope in the world and new experiences and habits was the late Jerry Love. I learned from him to do what I believed in and get yelled at later ... fortunately, my gut rarely got me yelled at.

Lenny with Pam Edwards (KMET), Doug Fieger (The Knack), Jeff Neben (Charisma) and Gregg Steele.

3. Can you give us a quick career rundown of the labels and positions you held before you started your indie promotion biz?

I stayed at A&M nine-and-a-half years to the day, which were probably the best years of my life. I was interviewed by one or two people when I left A&M in the midst of some political upheaval, but moving back to NYC was not an option with my elderly parents living near me and for less money. A couple weeks later, Marshall Blonstein, whom I worked with at Ode (Lou Adler's label at A&M), was President of Island Records and asked me if I'd like to do indie promotion out of the Island office at WB/Burbank. The Jags and then U2 were my first projects in 1980 (and for the next 10 years).

4. You must have a few memorable experiences from those label years. Care to share some of the best with us?

Too many, but in the summer of 1972 I was in the Abbey Road studios with Lieber & Stoller, who were producing Stealers Wheel and they were working on "Stuck In The Middle With You." We released it and I went to work Rick Sklar at WABC when it was at 22*. He had just been promoted and was shuttling between NYC and WLS in Chicago. His Jamaican assistant Sonja (who was an adventure) said he was too busy to see promo people, but I crossed the hall and knocked on his door. He said he was too busy, I stepped in and said, "Please, I just need two minutes." He insisted he couldn't and I insisted it was very important to me, saying he just got back to town and was three weeks behind in his paperwork. I said "You're three weeks behind on my Stealers Wheel record!" Well, he chased me through the ABC hallways as execs were popping out of their offices to see what the commotion was. I managed to slip into an elevator as two dozen promo reps were waiting for their turns in reception. He promptly threw them all out, bewildered at what just occurred. That Tuesday Stealers Wheel was added to WABC!

Lenny hanging out with The Tubes in Cleveland in late 70's with Gary Lippe (A&M/Cleveland), John Gorman (WMMS/Cleveland), Dave Loncao (A&M) and Curt Gary (WEBN/Cincinnati)

5. How long ago did you launch Heavy Lenny Promotions and tell us about your business model for this company?

April 1970 in the basement of WB, Island offices, then later in Mercury/Polygram and later in RCA offices in Los Angeles, as well as home. The business model was always one-on-one communication. My career was shaped by A&M's dedication to the artist and his/her art. Your loyalty and focus is to the success of each artist as a promotion person. I always believed in building from the bottom up, having watched many others shoot for the big start and then fade. It's about a career, not a moment in time.

6. After working for labels in your early years, what are the advantages and also the challenges of running your own company?

Simplistically, being able to reject records I felt were not up to snuff has always been an advantage, though a detriment to my bottom line. Not being stuck in meetings and office politics is a plus, but not having a team to work with means fighting harder on a personal level to convince. Unlike many other indies, I also opted to distance myself from exclusive representation for stations and having to continually arrange promotions and incentives. My reputation and decision to eschew the "deals" allowed me to talk to many stations who had those exclusive reps, because I posed no threat to them getting paid per station -- even if they never heard of the artist.

7. Give us a rundown of some of the artists and bands you're currently working with and how they are doing at Rock radio?

Truthfully, I just finished a campaign by a band CIMINO, which picked up a few dozen stations but not the big numbers to break it open. Many of those stations are still playing it, testifying to great results. Politics and no budget should not determine success because the audience decides what works, not chart numbers. It was a mass-appeal anthemic song that we used to run to play instead of bands with attitude and little musicality.

Guitarist Gary Moore visits KLOS/Los Angeles- L to R: Rosemary Jimenez (KLOS), Rita Wilde (KLOS), Gary Moore, Felicia Swerling (Charisma) and Lenny.

8. What are the most important tools/resources you use to stay on top of the Rock format's growth and constant daily changes?

I've always been a communicator by phone and e-mail and spend five to seven hours on Sundays, reviewing monitored play of about 400 stations in multiple formats to have a sense of that given week. I am always fascinated at what gets "reported" as an add vs. what the monitors report as actually spun.

9. Let's talk about the Rock format as a whole. What's your take on the state of Rock radio today?

I'm a bit controversial here, as many will attest. Rock will always be in the forefront, but I have postulated since the early '90s that we have stopped producing "rock stars" to worship and emulate. I constantly challenged programmers to name the guitarist or lead singer in many of the bands they added...few could. I strongly feel we are buying into brands and not songs. If you asked me for one sentence to describe rock success: IF YOU CAN'T SING IT, IT AIN'T A HIT! There are not more than a handful of songs annually that hold up to that tenet. Very few of these bands have a legacy and library of songs the audience can sing along to. About three years ago, Alternative abandoned much of the Active Rock music it shared and decided to steal the best of Triple A and their ratings collectively shot up two points on average, while Rock dropped. As a promotion person, it is my job to establish a song then spread it. If the one Rock station has no competitor to force onto a "hit" for them (or on a chart), it is difficult to cement it in the audience's heart and mind. It needs the volume of spins plus reinforcement from another source to have legs. Again, bloodcurdling screaming and shrieking and distorted feedback and deafening drums do NOT make a "song" you sing along to in the car.

Joan Jett Crashes Lenny's Wedding with Arlene

10. Finally, congratulations on your recent induction into the Rock Radio Hall of Fame under Industry Leader All-Stars. It must be very gratifying to you after all of these years of doing Rock Radio promotion.

I am very proud of the many artists I have been able to help establish and sustain. As I used to tell my daughter, every Gold and Platinum record on my walls meant a lot to me. Memories are wonderful, but acknowledgment is monumental on any level. Simple thanks, a bottle of champagne, a personal note or call, Gold record or plaque elicit a grateful smile of pride. An award others recognize lasts forever. The amount of congrats on FB alone was overwhelming.

I know you're a big fan of the NBA's Los Angeles Lakers. How long have you followed them and when do you think they'll be competing for a playoff run again?

I must admit that even though I was a Knick fan being a New Yorker, I had a strange affinity for the Lakers. I ran my HS basketball team for three years and filled busloads of students for even away games. Our coach at Flatbush Yeshivah was also coach at powerhouse Erasmus HS. When Lew Alcindor played for Power Memorial HS in Brooklyn, there were riots because so many people wanted to see him play. They had to schedule their games at "secret gyms" and they chose Flatbush Yeshivah for their matchup with Erasmus. That's where I got to meet Lew (Kareem) and become a devoted fan. When he left Milwaukee and became a Laker - they were my only team and when I moved to LA in 1976, I got season tickets at the Forum until they moved to Staples. The last few years have been rough, but they have some great young talent and Luke Walton has the right temperament to guide and develop them. The key, however, is the free agent market this summer and the flexibility with the salary cap they orchestrated. If they did not have the early injuries and shakeup in the first half, they've played well enough to have eked in to 8th place ... but unlikely now to catch up enough.