Yesterday And Today: Missing Persons: An Interview With Warren Cuccurullo

By Keavin
Rocknworld.com, Interview done July 20, 2001
http://www.rocknworld.com/y&t/2001/mp/index.shtml

If you are child of the 80’s, I’m sure you have heard about the reunion of Duran Duran. What you might not have heard is that the Duran Duran reunion sparked the return of yet another 80`s chart topping group, Missing Persons.

Missing Persons were a staple on MTV during the early years of the music network with their unforgettable image and new wave hits like “Words” and “Walking in LA”. Hailed by critics as one of the best of the pioneering band of the new wave sound, they climbed the charts and won over fans from around the world. Sadly, the band broke up in 1986. Lead vocalist, Dale Bozzio went on to a solo career, releasing an album through Prince’s Paisley Park label. Terry Bozzio played on a long list of projects including studio work with Duran Duran and he won a Grammy in 1990 for Jeff Beck’s Guitar Shop. Warren Cuccurullo joined Duran Duran in 1986, co-wrote two of their top 5 singles, “Ordinary World” and “Come Undone”. Now it’s 2001 and Missing Persons have decided to regroup so they can bring their unique image and sound to a new generation.

The plan was to interview Warren and Dale at the House of Blues in Anaheim before their sold out performance that night. Like most things in Rock n Roll, things don’t always go as planned. I managed to track down Warren but Dale was indeed a missing person as I sat down with Warren to discuss the reunion and the future of the band.

Keavin for RNW: So what brought about the Reunion?

Warren: Having spent 15 years in Duran Duran, I had a sit down with my partners, Simon and Nick, and Simon says, “I think this is as far as we can go, we want to get the original five back together." So I said, “What about the original five plus one?” (laughs) He said, “No, I don’t think that is going to work out.” So I said, “Great, let`s work something out where we can all walk away from it happily, this phase of Duran Duran” and we did. My first musical instinct was I should get back together with the guys, Terry and Dale and play that music because we’re all still alive and it’s great music and there’s an interest in 80’s music. We were one of the hottest f*cking bands there were in the early 80’s. So here we are!

RNW: Any chance of you guys touring with Duran Duran?

Warren: Yeah, it could happen. I will make the phone calls. I’m sure we’ll talk about it, and I have already mentioned it. I think [in] America it might be interesting. I’m sure if the Duran Duran tour comes to fruition, I will be right in there saying, “Come on, guys, I’ll come out and play Ordinary World with you guys, if we can do this Missing Persons thing.” That would be a very interesting package; we’re the only band that spawned a dual reunion.

RNW: Yeah, I thought that was interesting.

Warren: There was kind of this incestuous thing happening, how I even got into Duran in the first place, being on the same label, having the same agent, and there was all this…we probably slept with a lot of the same women. (Laughs)

RNW: Did you know them before joining the group?

Warren: No.

RNW: What’s it like playing together again?

Warren: It’s unbelievable, it’s absolutely… like Terry said, it’s surreal, I almost compare it to the closest thing we’ll ever get to playing with Frank [Zappa] again. We never did get to do that, but it is that special. This is something we built ourselves; we were the ultimate DIY band. And here we are once again, and as soon as we plugged in and played, it was just like I had imagined it, and how I explained it to Terry is, we’re just gonna laugh and have a great time playing all the good songs. One of the rules was we ain’t gonna play the crap, let’s play the good ones, you know. The other night, the show we played at the Roxy was my favorite show I ever played in my life.

RNW: Lots of energy, being back together?

Warren: Incredible, the most fun I ever had.

RNW: How has the crowd reaction to the shows been?

Warren: They seemed pretty blown away. We only had two days of rehearsal.

RNW: Really?

Warren: Yeah, and it was just like we have been playing together for a year on tour.

RNW: You just jumped in there with both feet, very cool! This is the last night in a string of southern California dates…

Warren: It’s the last night of a basic announcement. This is just an announcement like [spoken in a mock announcer’s voice] “May we have your attention, please! Yes, all three of us can really get back together on stage and play this music. We kick f*cking ass! See you soon!” (laughs) That’s all this is, an announcement.

RNW: So a national tour is coming up?

Warren: We’re looking into various things right now to see what is the correct step to take. We’re not 19 years old, everybody has got lives and families and things, but playing this music is very special. I think there is an audience there for it. We’re looking into different ways to go and we have songs! That’s another thing that is pretty funny, we’ve got about 11 or 12 songs from 1979-80 that we never recorded, that kick ass. We’re doing two of them in the set tonight. I had some friends from the label come the other night and they said “You wrote those 21 years ago?” I said, “No 22!” (laughs) They couldn’t believe it.

RNW: Any chance of those going out on a new album?

Warren: Yeah, that’s what I mean: we got all of these songs, we wrote our reunion album before we even made our first album! We were that f*cking brilliant! So I have plans of doing that, love to get somebody to pay for it, but if all else fails, I’ll make it myself and deal with it then. But I’m looking to do the right thing. I’ve been in the business for a long time, and I understand most aspects of it. I’ve met some good people, and I’ve met some f*cking nightmares. And I’d like to hook up with some good people who know how to market a project like this and would be willing to get it to radio and spend some money because that’s really where it all is right now.

RNW: That’s the problem with labels, you can’t succeed unless you get the right kind of support behind it.

Warren: There is no use making that record then. You can take the advance but what kind of advance do you get for a band that’s late 40’s?

RNW: You guys didn’t have a problem the first time you landed a deal, you already had a hit.

Warren: [There wasn`t a problem] the first time we got a deal until we realized what we signed was a baby band contract. It was 1980-82, and I found out we had a problem about nine years later when I understood what was going on in the business because every Goddamn lawyer who was signing baby bands at that time were going to lunch with the executives and going “Great…That’s your cut,” but no, as far as the actual landing of the deal, um, we forced it down their throats. We would not take no for an answer. We would not accept the people who said, “You’re not the direction for the 80’s.” That was every label in Los Angeles basically. We would not accept that, we made our own record with a little bit of borrowed money from my father, sent it out to all the tip sheets. That’s what I mean by the ultimate DIY band, and started playing around all the little clubs in LA. And we built it up, we built up a live following where we went from 50 seats to selling out 2500 seats and had record executives coming down and looking at it, going, “People are clapping, people are singing, I guess we can take a chance with this. At least we’ll sell records in Los Angeles, thank you.”

RNW: That leads up to another question I have here. You are a music veteran, so what is the thing you like the least about the industry?

Warren: The business. The music will always be great; the business sucks! You know it’s trend mongering, for example, where it’s like “This is hot, let`s get another thing that sounds just like this because this is working right now.” It’s a business run by…every business needs to run in a profit, it’s all about bottom lines. And it’s a sad thing because the business end of it has very little to do with music. As soon as something catches on, the people who are earless but they are signing the checks, checking the balances to find out who is going to merge with who next week…and all they are worried about is “We gotta get something that sounds just like that, because that’s really working out!”

RNW: It’s a wonder anything new comes out!

Warren:(laughs) Yeah, I know! But thank God there are some talented people, there are talented people who will never make records. That’s just the reality of it, but at least there are some bands who have an identity, that are really good, they’re entertaining and they’re about songs or are really high concept. The high concept people don’t have to be f*cking genius musicians, you know. Who cares? They talk about ideas and are entertaining people. There is too much crap out there, that whole `let’s get our choreographer` …that’s the most boring thing in the world to me. I did speak to one guy, one journalist, a couple years ago, and he goes, “Don’t you think at least those people, those very young people who are watching these prefab bands, don’t you think it is a good thing that at least they are getting turned on to music?” I said, “Good point." Hopefully they will grow…..

RNW: Are you doing any Duran Duran numbers in your set?

Warren: No.

RNW: Strictly Missing Persons?

Warren: Mm hmm. I had a version of “Hungry Like the Wolf” that I did a few years ago that I thought might be good, but I didn’t want to burden Dale with learning another lyric. She’s got enough to remember as it is. Dale has to sing in 9-11-13. Here is a girl who is not a musician, and we’re making her sing in all these odd time signatures. It’s enough to get your head around.

RNW: You guys are a very visual band, who can forget Dale’s outfits?

Warren: You can’t! Unforgettable!

RNW: Do you think image is an important aspect to selling music?

Warren: Yeah, I think it makes it a lot easier for the marketing people to have something behind it [the music]. Anti-image is an image.

RNW: What do you think is the biggest misconception that people might have about Missing Persons?

Warren: The biggest misconception? Jesus? I think the biggest misconception that they have is that Missing Persons has been touring America for the last 8 years. That was not Missing Persons.

RNW: Oh, there was another band out there?

Warren: There was Dale, and the promoters were advertising it as Missing Persons. So other than that, I think we were always taken for what we were. Our history will always follow us around; people know the image. We were culty, kind of novelty because of Dale’s image, and the whole eye candy thing was a bit overbearing. People would always ask about her Hustler modeling and Playboy modeling. Why do you wear plastic fishbowls on your breasts? (laughs) I can’t blame somebody, if they are sitting there and someone is wearing plastic fishbowls on their breasts. It’s a good question.

RNW: Using 20/20 hindsight, if you had it all to do over again, what would you do differently?

Warren: Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

RNW: And the final question…

Warren: Final Question, I wanna phone a friend… (laughs)

RNW: What would you like to say to your fans – old and new?

Warren: Do I win a million? What would I like to say to fans older than me?

RNW: Your fans old and new?

Warren: Oh, old and new. You know, they are so appreciated. The new ones, you gotta be very happy that somehow we got their attention. The old ones that they are still there, they are the ones who have been supporting us all those years. And I know how that feels, to be a fan because I always will be a music fan. That’s why I play music.

RNW: Alright!

Warren: Wanna talk about my dick? (laughs)

RNW: Why, does it have any strange tattoos? (laughs)

On that note, we concluded the interview, and Dale walked into the room, no longer on the missing persons list. She was all smiles as she offered me a piece of her oatmeal cookie. “This is absolutely fabulous!” Warren laughed and said, “you two seem like old time friends!” I didn`t get to interview Dale because I was all out of time and the band had to get ready for their performance. Maybe I`ll have the opportunity to interview her in the future?

The biggest thing I took away from my talk with Warren was just how down to earth he is. He has been in the industry for a long time, played in three successful bands, a lesser person would have let it go to their head, not Warren. Perhaps that is the reason he has been so successful? His feet are planted firmly on the ground.

From there, I went into a packed House of Blues to settle in for the show, and let me tell you as soon as Warren, Dale and Terry hit the stage, there was magic in the air. Three eclectic musicians returning home to where they belong, loving every minute of it, that’s why people get into this crazy business in the first place…to quote a line from Almost Famous, it’s all about the “Buzz”, and let me tell you: with the return of Missing Persons, there is a lot to buzz about!

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