Inside The Wrecking Crew (Interview)

WreckingCrewLogoOne of the highlights of the New Zealand International Film Festival, at least in recent years, has been the music documentaries on offer. This year is no exception. One of the most highly-anticipated is The Wrecking Crew, the story of the LA session musicians who anonymously played on just about every hit record recorded in LA during the 1960s including those by The Beach Boys, Frank Sinatra, Glen Campbell, Paul Revere & The Raiders, The Byrds and Sonny & Cher, to name just a few. The Wrecking Crew was directed by Denny Tedesco, who’s father, Tommy Tedesco was a session guitarist and a major player among The Wrecking Crew along with drummer Hal Blaine, bassist Carol Kaye and keyboard player Leon Russell. The film has been in production for 20 years and has finally gained wide distribution after Tedesco was able to raise enough money to pay for the music rights…an earlier cut was shown at selected festivals in 2008. The 13th Floor’s Marty Duda spoke to Denny Tedesco at length about the making of The Wrecking Crew, a film the grew from being about a group of musicians, into something much more personal. In part one of the interview, Denny explains why it took 20 years to make the documentary and how a brittle 1950s super 8 porn film became important source material.

Click here to listen to part one of the interview with film director Denny Tedesco:

Read a transcription of the interview here:

MD: So you started making this film back in the mid-90s

DT: Yeah 96’

MD: It’s taken this long to get it….. did you realise at the time that it was going to be a long involved process or did you think, oh a couple of years and I’ll…?

DT: No. I think two things that were beneficial to me were being naïve…

MD: Yeah,

DT: I think that’s always a benefit if you, if someone would have told me it would have taken 10 years I would have said no way, I don’t think I could do that, but I had to go with it and I always wanted to tell that story about my father. It really was about the Wrecking Crew, it wasn’t even about my father. So when he was diagnosed, we quickly jumped into it. I was working as a grip on IMAX films and brought my friends together and we started

Denny & Tommy Tedesco
Denny & Tommy Tedesco

shooting the film, we were shooting 16 and putting it at the round table and that was it. Dad passed away about a year later.

MD: Right.

DT: Though he never got to see a piece of footage at all and then we kept on shooting. I had a 14 minute piece that I cut in 2008 and no one would touch us and the reasoning was, they said two things, you’re never going to get labels and publishers to agree and the second reason was the amount of money it’s going to cost to actually pay for all this music and everything else in the film, it’s going to be way too much for any music documentary that’s ever been done.

MD: Yup.

DT: And it’s like okay, well what do I do? I got to keep going and I kept going and I didn’t work every day…months and months go by, you don’t touch it and you start feeling ‘oh god did I just, is this about the project in my life, I quit?’ and I go back and start doing it again and finally in 2006, 10 years later, my wife was concerned we just made the most expensive home movie and had nothing to show for it.

MD: Yeah.

DT: It’s frustrating, so we finally cut it in 2008. We borrowed more money, hired an editor and we cut it. We made a movie that played at the festivals, it did very well at festivals. It was a different movie..

MD: You still had to raise the money for the music rights, right?

DT: Right and that was, I thought well if we show that we do have a movie…that’s the thing, I figured, hey we have this beautiful property on the beach overlooking everything and we got the plans for this house, we got the appliances, we got everything. But until you build it, you don’t know if you really can sell it.

MD: Right.

DT: And that’s what my theory was on this film and then we built it but no one wanted it because theres still that back end for the music. And as people said, it’s going to cost you that much, we’re never make our money on it. Well that much was even if I’d said, let’s just say it was a million dollars with music and everything else that was involved at that point for licensing, it was still too much. And I’m not talking about my money that I put into it, forget that, but that was in 2010 we crossed that line, well what do we do. We just did the festivals we had 25, I mean 50 festivals, we had dozen awards around the world, and audience awards always, and it was like well what do we do? Do we walk away? Oh great job, pat on the back.

MD: Right.

DT: Or do we keep going and try to get our money back? The only way to get our money back was to raise the money to pay the thing off and that’s what we did with donations over the last 5 years.

MD: Right.

DT: We just sort of, whatever it is, just kept going.

MD: One of the topics I wanted to touch on. I mean it seems like it’s the kind of film that you could have made twice as long, three times as longer easily because there’s so many aspects to the whole subject matter and one of them obviously close to you would be how the life of the session musician affected the families of the people around them, you touched upon it in the film.

DT: Yeah.

MD: And I was just wondering, like your mother comes off like the perfect partner to have in that kind of business but I imagine it wasn’t that way for all of them and you get a glimpse of that with Hal Braine especially.

DT: I love it. That’s one of my favourite laugh lines with an audience…again, if you get to see this with an audience, it’s funny as shit because when he sat, I asked him how did it affect your personal life and he says , ‘well you know I had six marriages’, and my father says, ‘it’s not because you’re a drummer it’s because of your personality’.

MD: Right.

DT: It kills the audience. You’re right and I think and excuse me if I’m repeating myself cause now I’m confused what…

MD: Sure, it’s alright.

DT: When my father and mom, was really interesting…when my father and mom were born in Niagara Falls, New York. Where are you from originally?

MD: I was from Rochester. So right down the street.

DT: Oh my god. So Rochester, New York or Minnesota?

MD: Yeah, Rochester, New York.

DT: So you know exactly where they’re coming from.

MD: Oh yeah.

DT: Okay. So you understand. So imagine 1953, Niagara Falls right, working at Hooker or one of those other chemical companies dad is. Mom’s at I think Nabisco probably. So they get married and they go to that dance and he gets that job and the next day he leaves for cross-country. He goes to Hollywood and gets fired in Dallas and I said to my mom recently, I said how long…two things…how long was it before he came home and you guys moved, was it a year? She goes no it was three weeks. Dad came home, we literally sold our furniture which we still owed on. We packed a car and we drove cross-country, not knowing what we were going to do in Hollywood. He just thought there was work there from his guitar playing. I said well did dad work a lot as a musician? She said no, she goes, this was what struck me the most, she goes dad was barely working, he’d do a party once in a while or a wedding but there was no music work in Niagara Falls, New York in 1953.

MD: Yeah.

DT: Especially guitar. Probably doing accordion you might have a chance.

MD: Some polkas or something.

DT: Yeah. So she says no and she goes, here’s the thing, she goes, that weekend he got a job in Pennsylvania with his Jazz trio and didn’t want to go to the dance at Niagara University and she says I said to him you have to go because I spent 35 dollars on this dress, you can’t do this to me and you know, you can see where he’s from, Niagara Falls, New York, the Italian from New York he’s begrudgingly going to this dance he doesn’t want to go to.

MD: Yeah.

DT: and he goes. But being at the right place at the right time, he had that opportunity. He was never going to be a musician the way he became.

MD: Right.

DT: Who knows if he would have continued to play guitar.

MD: Amazing.

DT: You know what I mean. He was the guy from Pine Avenue, I don’t know if you remember Niagara Falls at all but that’s where he grew up.

MD: Yeah.

DT: In Niagara Falls.

MD: So I was kind of reading into, especially in interview with Carol Kaye and she was kind of talking about family, her children and all that, just kind of looking at her, she seemed kind of halting when she talked about it and it seemed a little, there was something behind what she was saying. Is that the case with a lot of those?

DT: No, it’s mostly her. I mean it was part of her interview that, which is in other part of other interviews she has done. In my interview, when she talked about that one point where she goes I had tears in my eyes when I came up on the radio.

MD: Yeah.

DT: When I was in a drugstore. At that point she had moved to Denver and because she had been abused by her husband, she had been beaten a few times by this one guy. I think her father was abusive as well to her mother. So I think her mother raised her pretty much and then she was raising her kids.

MD: Right.

DT: I mean the saddest part about that whole thing, I don’t know how much in-depth you want to get into the Carol Kaye story, she was very pro me doing this and she always had a problem with the name ‘The Wrecking Crew’

MD: Yes I knew that.

DT: Yeah, alright so you know the back story of most of this. But she’s right, no one remembered the name ‘The Wrecking Crew’.

MD: Yup.

Hal Blaine
Hal Blaine

DT: It wasn’t till recently that I talked to the publisher that did Hal’s book. He said well Hall was telling us a story about how the older guys said they were going to wreck the business and we said that’s a good name for the book ‘The Wrecking Crew’ Boom, bingo, done, 1990.

MD: Yeah.

DT: Book comes out, everybody’s going ‘what I don’t remember calling us ‘The Wrecking Crew’ my dad never remembered it but my dad was also smart enough to go yeah, great, it’s a hook.

MD: Yeah.

DT: Whatever. She took it too literally and she goes, we didn’t wreck the business. No it’s not that. So Unfortunately she was very, she’s amazing in this film, she’s a star in this film and then unfortunately she and Hal weren’t getting along and then they had a falling out at a screening and then she went south on the film and me and everybody else.

MD: Yeah. Well I’ve interviewed her myself before a long time ago and I can tell that she could be difficult at times.

DT: How long ago was it?

MD: It was about 10 years ago. I interviewed Hal as well, I went to both of their houses and talked to them.

DT; Oh, now was this in New Hall or in Palm Desert?

MD: I think, the Desert it was, yeah.

DT: Well because at that point, if this is 10 years ago at that point which is really interesting they’d already had a, 10 years ago…

Carol Kaye
Carol Kaye

MD: It was about 2004 I believe.

DT: Oh okay. At that point they were really going at it because before that they were in New Hall they were only 2 doors down from each other.

MD: Oh yeah. This was after that, yeah.

DT: Yeah, right. So now they’re going, they were totally going at it in press and stuff, interviews or whatever talking bad about each other. So at the point I’m just a kid with divorced parents.

MD: Right.

DT: Basically, I’m just trying to keep it cool cause I don’t even have a film yet done, I don’t even have a cut.

MD: Yeah.

DT: So then when he moved to Palm Desert and she moved to Palm Springs, I thought oh my god what are they doing?

MD: Yeah.

DT: And that continued their animosity towards, they never stopped but when we had a chance to show the, then I went to show her the film and she said I just wish you wouldn’t call it ‘The Wrecking Crew’ I said I know Carol but it is what it is.

MD: Yeah.

DT: That’s how people relate to it.

MD: Yup.

DT: It’s not a big deal. And that’s why, I don’t know if you noticed in the film at the beginning I specifically…

MD: Yup.

DT: If you go back and you watch it again, I specifically said I brought four of the greatest session musicians together – boom.

MD: Yup.

DT: It takes her out of that name. I put was it 10, 15, 20 it doesn’t matter and then I had the Goldstar guys kind of disagreeing with each other… I don’t remember it, no I don’t…

MD: Yeah, yeah.

DT: So I’m glad you’ve had that experience as well.

Wrecking Crew BookMD: Anyway. I was curious what you thought of ‘The Wrecking Crew’ book, the Kent Hartman book…

DT: It was helpful for me. There’s another a book, I should send you I’ll try to send to you, it’s another Ken Sharp did it’s called Sound Explosion and the reason I like that one is because it’s interviews from all the guys and all the engineers and it’s interviews from them in their own words. So I think Kent really, Ken Hartman really put, helps with the book, put us on the map. We helped each other, as Kent Hartman says he didn’t have to deal with the licensing that Denny Had to.

MD: Yeah. It seems even though you had to wait so long to get this film out, it kind of found it’s proper time, cause’ you have the book, the Love & Mercy film which has just come out which is got to help.

DT: It’s bizarre, there’s so many bizarre coincidences. The other thing is I said to people, if the film was the same film, exactly the same film 10 years ago or 5 years ago, it would not have the legs.

MD: Yeah.

sound-explosion-cover-2DT: Because of all the things going on but also because word of mouth, with internet, Facebook page. When we started Facebook was very, well when we started Facebook wasn’t around but when we started the Facebook page we’re up to 65,000 fan base, or close, I don’t know what we were but we were in the 60s, That helped this film, that helped this get donations. But the best thing is we would’ve never have had Leon Russell, we would never have had that footage of the guys in the studio with Brian Wilson, we never would have had the studio stuff with The Mamas & Papas cause that all came last year.

MD: The footage of The Mamas & Papas is fantastic.

DT: It was amazing. I couldn’t believe, those are the things like they’re out there but you don’t know they’re out there. You’ve been told over the years that theres nothing really out there, theres nothing out there. When I went to Hal, I said is there any footage super 8, or 16mm and he goes well there was that one time, now Hal had all of those pictures but he said there was that one time we did, there was a party and I took a 8mm camera and I shot all of the guys and directed them to do silly things and I took it home and I splice it between a porno. I said oh okay great, send it to me. He sends me this 8mm, literally a porno.

MD: Right.

DT: But I can’t play it because I can’t, I don’t have a projector. It’s so brittle.

MD: Right.

DT: Now I’m stuck, what do I do, I can’t take it to the mom and pop around the corner to transfer your home movies cause there’s a big sign, NO PORNOGRAPHY. Great. I don’t know, it is real porn, what is it? And sure enough I took it to a late night lab where we do the transfers and it was hard-core, it was like 1950s hard-core.

MD: Right.

DT: Black and white, grainy. Oh my God if he had been able to shoot it correctly or what did he throw on the ground that was probably special?

Click here for more information about The Wrecking Crew screening at the NZIFF.

Watch the trailer for The Wrecking Crew here:

 

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