When the mockumentary “This Is Spinal Tap” came out in 1984, it blurred the lines between fiction and reality in music. Though the film was fictional, and the band’s members were actors, it spawned a whole world of very real music: albums, videos, even concerts.
Platinum Weird has done just the opposite of the faux metal-heads from the ’80s. Instead of starting with a fake story and creating a real band, they’ve started with the band and created a fake story.
As the myth has it, Platinum Weird was formed in 1974 when Dave Stewart (of Eurythmics fame) teamed with a mysterious singer named Erin Grace. However, after only a few performances, Grace disappeared, leaving behind a half-finished record and an emotionally wrecked Stewart. The band was all but forgotten. Then, 30 years later, songwriter Kara DioGuardi met a neighbour in New York who would become a musical mentor to her. When she met Stewart in 2004, he played an old Platinum Weird song for her; DioGuardi already knew the words, having learned it from the neighbour — the long-lost Erin Grace.
Unfortunately, it’s a big stretch of reality — an elaborate marketing campaign for Stewart and DioGuardi’s debut album as Platinum Weird (a group they formed in 2004 while collaborating on tracks for The Pussycat Dolls).
“Normally, labels or people launching something, they’ll go the traditional route,” explains Stewart by phone from Los Angeles. “‘We’ll take ads here, and we’ll do this, and we’ll make this video and we’ll place them in all the normal channels.’ And I’ve never been like that — I’ve always been a bit eccentric or quirky.”
It’s not exactly like Stewart — or even Spinal Tap, for that matter — was the first to create a fake back-story to enhance their musical efforts. David Jones took on a new persona when he became David Bowie; Bob Dylan said he was Woody Guthrie’s son.
“Creating this mythology is just as valid as those,” says Stewart. “But they were all created in print or word-of-mouth. Now we’re living in a world with all these mediums, whether it’s YouTube and the Internet and TV and radio and everything.”
To that end, Stewart definitely took advantage of modern technology. Several websites began popping up earlier this year (some run by Interscope Records, others by Eurythmics fans) dedicated to the remembrance of “’70s band” Platinum Weird.
Stewart even worked with the label to produce a VH1 “Behind the Music” documentary about the band. It features appearances by the likes of Elton John, Mick Jagger, and Lindsay Lohan, each of whom recounts their varied encounters with Platinum Weird (for example, Lohan says she first heard about the band when she dug up one of their vintage t-shirts).
“85 per cent of that documentary is absolutely true,” says Stewart, though the Lohan bit is in the other 15 per-cent. “Elton John did sign me, and I’ve been through massive drug things, and I did meet an American girl and we started writing songs.”
Now, Stewart is back to writing songs with another American girl in DioGuardi. And though her name might be new to most music listeners, she certainly isn’t new to the business; songs like Celine Dion’s “Right In Front of You,” Kelly Osbourne’s “Shut Up,” and Enrique Iglesias’ “Escape” were written or co-written by the New York native.
But despite all her experience, it doesn’t mean that fronting a band was an easy challenge for DioGuardi; a few things took some time to get used to.
“Seeing myself on camera, more than anything. Watching the way I move,” she reveals. “Now I feel very used to it, but at first it was difficult. It was sort of getting to know myself in a different way. When I look in the mirror now, I look at different things. It’s made me accept who I am, physically as well as emotionally.”
For Stewart, the project has been a combination of both new and old experiences. His most popular band — Eurythmics, with Annie Lennox — was a male-female duo, just like Platinum Weird.
“Annie and I would always write a song very quickly, in half an hour, and record it,” he says of that collaboration. “And the only other person I’ve ever had that with so quickly is Kara. But everything else is different.”
Still, the one girl that eludes Stewart is the original — the mysterious American from the 1970s, who he hasn’t heard from since she jetted away 30 years ago. However, it seems as though Stewart is trying to recapture this girl with Platinum Weird’s mythology; trying give meaning to their brief relationship. After all, she even inspired the band’s name.
“One time she was in my dark, damp sort of squat in London,” he recounts. “And she said, ‘You’ve got to get something to cover that damp patch on the wall.’ And I said, ‘Oh, that’ll be our platinum album.’ And she said, ‘Oh, now that would be so weird.’ And I said, ‘Yeah, platinum weird.’”
Though the mystery girl did, in fact, disappear without a trace from Stewart’s life, her name wasn’t Erin Grace.
As American Idol gears up for a new series this fall, its roster of judges is expanding its horizons.
Mary J. Blige will sit on the American Idol judges’ panel for auditions in Atlanta, Georgia, reports Perez Hilton.
President of ABC Entertainment Stephen McPherson said he would absolutely love to have Paula Abdul as a contestant on Dancing with the Stars, reports Perez Hilton.
Kara DioGuardi, the newest judge on American Idol, married general contractor Mike McCuddy Sunday in Prospect Harbor, Maine, E! Online reports. Approximately 30 guests attended the ceremony, held at the United Methodist Church.
