From an interview with Larry Fast for the Dutch Progressive Rock Pages:
LORRAINE: Any regrets? Something you did that you wish you hadn’t or some opportunity that you missed?
LARRY: You can’t do everything, so there are always some projects you can’t do. Early in my career I did a lot of sessions because that is what was bringing the money in, so I ended up playing on some just awful disco records. But it was anonymous and they were for labels like All-Platinum Records and other small R&B labels that were moving into something else. For me it was wonderful exposure because it was a wonderful kind of urban environment and I met some great musicians and some really out-there people who I never would have been able to learn from otherwise. Often I would be the only white guy on the session.
Well you know I was this nerdy guy with all the knobs but they loved the sounds and it exposed me to another aspect of the music business and a creative community. If I had only focused on electronic music and European progressive rock I never would have run into any of that. And it taught me so much about rhythm and groove and how those records went together. Some of the records themselves were terrible. But it was a learning experience, so I regret that some of the records got made but I don’t regret the experience. Eventually as things got more successful there was a kind of collision of time. There aren’t enough hours in the day. So I have been very fortunate to work on some pretty big records. I have worked on a bunch of Foreigner records, Hall and Oates records and one of the biggest turn of events was with Jim Steinman, who is a producer- writer.
I started out working on the Meat Loaf records that he had written all the music for and his solo albums and a number of things like The Everley Brothers and film scores. But probably the biggest one was Bonnie Tyler. I worked with him as a player with a little bit of production involvement on Total Eclipse of the Heart. And when her follow-up album was to be done I was asked to be the associate producer on the record. That was a very prestigious position for a very multi-platinum selling artist - far better selling than anything Peter Gabriel had ever done at that time.
As it was, Peter was kind of stagnant at the time and he was trying to write the next album. It was dragging on literally for about 2 years where there was no touring and there was no recording. So in the meantime I was offered this very prestigious position in the studio with an artist, far bigger than Peter was at the time. I would have to have been kind of silly to say, “No I’m going to wait by the phone for Peter Gabriel to call me.” So, I went into that project and had a yearlong commitment. During that time, Peter finally did call and say “I’m ready to start on what became the “So” album. And I simply wasn’t available. I had signed a contract.
So I kind of regret that there was a collision there, because from that point forward Peter changed the band that he had had for ten years and I never toured with him again after that. So there is a little bit of a tinge of regret in all of that but on the other hand working with Bonnie Tyler and Jim Steinman lead to many other things so maybe it was a good thing in some regards because I wouldn’t want to just be the keyboardist in the Peter Gabriel Band for a whole 35 years.
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