From the Tiger Beat Archives, August 1966
You’ve heard the wild stories in the tall tales the Raiders tell and I can assure you, they’re all true! But I’ve worked with the boys as their manager for four years and there are some things they don’t talk about. So it’s my turn! Here goes…
PAUL
MORNINGS: Paul gets up growling and grumbling, but when he comes out of the shower he’s usually smiling and happy.
PERSONALITY: Paul isn’t much of a talker. I think because he’s married the kids look to him with respect and figure “he’s the married man.” They make a point to say, “Hey, we think it’s really groovy you’ve got a little girl and boy.”
PRESENTS: If I had to buy Paul a present, I think he would like something to do with the career, something for the trophy room. I have a present I’m giving all the boys, I’m having plaques made from the color photos and magazine center spreads, covers and that sort of thing. I’m having them laminated and done in color for their trophy rooms and such. Paul especially likes these things. I think in his old age he wants to tell everyone he was once a teen idol.
BEST TRAIT: I think Paul’s best trait is a hidden one. He tries to be a tough, mean ogre and guide his boys with an iron hand, but he’s really got a heart of gold.
CLOTHES: Paul is the sweater boy. I’ve known him since 1962. A year ago was the first time I saw him in a suit and tie. It’s not that he mind suits, but he loves sweaters, boots, and casual clothes.
MUSIC: Paul likes good old hard rock piano. He still loves the Jerry Lee Lewis age. He loves to just roll up the old sleeves and pound the piano to pieces.
MISC.: Paul loves the airport scene. He loves walking behind the Raiders like he’s not with them and see the reactions and see people get whiplash is turning around so fast.
MARK
MORNINGS: Mark and Paul are the most professional about getting up and getting to planes on time. He missed a plane once in Portland. We all got on and flew off for Southern Oregon to tape “Action.” So he had to rent his own plane and fly down an hour later.
He missed the schedule, so it wasn’t actually his fault. The planes leave at eight on Sundays and 8:30 every other day and they don’t bother to change the signs. So he wandered off and visited with some girls. They went down to the coffee shop and he treated them to Coke and they were gabbing… And he missed the plane.
PERSONALITY: Mark gets the most attention from the fans. He’ll talk about anything. Mark is a friendly, neighborhood good guy to get along with. He has a great sense of humor and really gets along well with the kids.
PRESENTS: Mark likes electronic things. If I bought him a new kind of microphone he’d love it. It sounds a little strange, being the glamour boy he’d want glamour things, but he’s always looking out to keep the band equipped properly for the right sound.
BEST TRAIT: Mark’s best trait is being lovable and friendly with everybody.
CLOTHES: Mark likes kooky clothes. He’s got his vest, his puffy sleeved shirts and his wild shoes and narrow pants in all shades of his favorite colors. It doesn’t bother him to wear a suit, he just gets more of a kick out of kooky clothes. Sometimes Smitty will go “Oh, you’re kidding!” when Mark puts one of the wild outfits on. They all have a laugh.
MUSIC: is very conscious of the trends and he changes his taste with them. But he likes just about anything that’s good.
MISC.: Mark is been looking for a place to live, and I think he’s just about decided to move in with Terry Melcher and myself. We just got home in Beverly Hills. It’s on the side of a mountain, it’s on about 2 acres of land and is sort of like a big ranch.
PHIL
MORNINGS: Not reliable! Phil refuses to answer a phone; bells mean nothing to him and he gets insulted that you’re waking him up, so he doesn’t get up. He’s the one that’s always closest to being late. He always says “I’ve never missed a plane yet.” If it wasn’t for everyone else, he would have. You have to drag him out of bed.
PERSONALITY: Phil is the philosopher of the group he loves to be philosophical, not because of his name, but because he’s “Joe college, the educated one”-and rather than be zany, all of a sudden he’ll say “Well… you know… from every blossom you don’t get a peach…” And come up with these little lines and the guys have to jump on him, because they want to maintain their ideocracy.
PRESENTS: Because Phil is one of the more elegant dressers in the Raiders, I’d buy him some kind of a sweater or a new sport coat. He spends a lot of his money on those things, but if you got him something he hadn’t seen he’d love it.
BEST TRAIT: Phil is just a good, down to earth boy who’s come into the top of the business very quickly. Maybe his best trait is not a trait overall, but just coping with the new situation. Within a month of becoming a Raider he was in front of TV cameras every day. But he didn’t act that way. He’d never think “Hey, look at me, I’m too much.” He’s just a friendly, all-American, lovable, glamorous in his own way Raider.
CLOTHES: Phil is the elegant one. He goes for high style. He’s a combination of the college guy in the pop entertainer in the way he dresses. He doesn’t dress like a businessman, but maybe he’ll get the narrow pants, groovy sport coat and a turtleneck.
MUSIC: Phil loves classical music. His sister sings with the Johnny Mathis group and his uncle is Roger Wagner of the Roger Wagner corral. His music background has been in the classics. We went to the Columbia Record Factory and Phil proceeded to raid the shelves and it was classical heaven at home for a while.
SMITTY
MORNINGS: Getting up in the morning, Smitty is reliable. When you call him and say “Get up!” he moans and groans a little but you can be sure he’ll make it.
PERSONALITY: Smitty’s sort of a soldier of fortune. He’s been everywhere and done everything. He’s the traveler type with the knapsack over his shoulder hitchhiking across the country. He wants to see the world and do a little skin diving and logging, beach bombing and things like that.
He’s very quiet, sort of a little mad scientist. He likes weird things. He was always an inventor as a kid, always putting things together. Now he’s just a “mental” inventor. He gets ideas and gets all excited about them. They may never get done, but he gets excited about them just the same. He may be a bit of a daydreamer.
PRESENTS: Smitty, I don’t know. I think if you bought him a voodoo doll, he’d love that–something weird!
BEST TRAIT: You can talk to Smitty and reason things out. He sits down in the back and plays drums and if something comes up you can talk to him after a show and explain the situation and he’ll say “Yeah, that’s right.” He’s very easy to get along with.
CLOTHES: He’s a pretty sharp dresser. He buys nice slacks and good-looking sweaters. He loves to tease Mark about his kooky clothes. They will go into big laugh sessions about why each looks better dressed than the other.
MUSIC: In this category, Smitty is a follower. You might say it’s one of his bad traits. (Pardon me, Smitty). When Drake was with us, he’d always like what Drake liked. I think he’s always enjoyed the folk rock type of music.
THE GROUP
HAIRDRYERS: They have them. That’s their one idiosyncrasy–they’ve all got cleverly disguised hairdryers. They look like Ray guns.
They’re like little old ladies, but they have to. They hate the sissy image, that sort of thing, but with all of their hair and they wash it every day, they don’t have any choice.
RESTAURANTS: In restaurants they’ll try anything. They like different foods, but when you’re in a hurry you learn you can get a hamburger in five minutes, but it takes 20 to get chicken. They don’t have any favorites–except milk. They each get a couple of quarts of milk and the table is littered with glasses.
In restaurants they have more fun than food. There always terrorizing everybody politely. By the time they leave everybody is wondering whether they were hungry or not.
IMAGE: Everyone wants to be cool, but being “cool” isn’t so much a premise of the Raiders. Boys tend to hate teen idols because they take away their girlfriends’ attention. But the Raiders have their own lives, Paul is married and the kids realize this.
So they aren’t trying to be cool to impress the girls. They wear idiot outfits and the guys think “Hey, these guys are all right.” They’re down-to-earth folks and the girls like them anyway. The Raiders are their kind of people.
MOVIE: We’re in the midst of working on a movie idea now. There is a great deal of interest from people who want to produce a motion picture with the Raiders. The feeling among them is the Raiders, besides being a hit recording act, could be this generation’s Bowery Boys.
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