By “Tampa” Earl Burton
Last month here at Rock at Night we started something that turned out to be EXTREMELY popular. The presentation of rock music documentaries is often overlooked, but they often take deeper dives into a particular subject or the career of a selected legendary musician or band. Last month, our choice for Rock Doc of the Month was the Paramount+ presentation of How Music Got Free, and August brings up the subject of independent musicians that are brought on to perform with artists or bands with one of my personal favorites, the exquisite Hired Gun (available on streaming through several services including Peacock, plex, and Prime Video, or on DVD).
One of the most tragic stories in the annals of rock history is that of Jimmie Nicol. Who, you might ask? Nicol was a drummer in England in the early Sixties who was tapped by the manager of The Beatles, Brian Epstein, to take over the drum kit when Ringo Starr was stricken with tonsilitis. In June 1964, Nicol became a Beatle for eight days as the band toured Australia (you must remember that, at that time, nobody knew what musicians looked like, so Nicol could have just as well have BEEN Starr, for all the Aussies knew). When Starr recovered from the tonsilitis surgery, he rejoined The Beatles, and Nicol was summarily sent back to the pubs of Britain, with a £500 check and a gold watch engraved “From The Beatles and Brian Epstein to Jimmy — with appreciation and gratitude.” Nicol would never reach those heights again and instead suffered tremendously from having that time in the chair with John, George, and Paul.
“Good people don’t stay undiscovered for very long,” rocker Rob Zombie states, and these are the types of players that Hired Gun (directed by Fran Strine in 2016) looks to honor. A “hired gun” is someone who can step into the shoes of a performer and, because of their own excellence on their chosen instrument, make it sound seamless, almost like there’s no difference between the recorded materials and the live efforts. The Wrecking Crew, the legendary musicians who were responsible for much of the studio performances in Sixties rock, were a studio version of this, as were The Eagles, who got their start as the touring band for Linda Ronstadt.
Hired Gun, over ninety-eight minutes, showers the attention on these musicians, who often were paid by the week and never received any of the royalties or accolades that were handed out to what was considered the “band” (Jason Newsted of Metallica notes that, following his hiring after the untimely death of bassist Cliff Burton in 1984, he was paid $500 per week and wasn’t a full-fledged member of the band until 1986). The rock doc is subtitled “Out of the Shadows, Into the Spotlight,” and that is exactly what Strine did in the interviews and remembrances of the artists who appeared in the film. “A “hired gun” is an assassin,” a voiceover states at the start of the doc, “the BEST musician who gets hired to go on tour, to deliver that music for the artist.”
That is exactly what you get in Hired Gun. Such virtuosos as Eric Singer (KISS), Newsted, Nita Strauss (Alice Cooper), John 5 (Rob Zombie, Motley Crue), Steve Lukather (Toto, Michael Jackson), Rudy Sarzo (Ozzy Osbourne), Derek St. Holmes (Ted Nugent), Kenny Aronoff (John Mellencamp, Bob Seger), and Jason Hook (Five Finger Death Punch) all tell their tales of how being a “hired gun” is at once an admission of their excellence, but also the tenuous status of their position. “There’s always somebody standing by to take your place if things aren’t going well,” Strauss states, and it is a theme that echoes throughout the rock doc. “My job security…was my awesomeness!” Phil X (Bon Jovi) added.
One focal point of Hired Gun deals with the history of those who played behind Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Billy Joel. The New York singer wanted to put together a studio and touring band and he only had to turn around to his drummer and bassist to find that group. Joel had already hired Doug Stegmeyer as his studio bassist, and Stegmeyer brought along his bandmate, drummer Liberty DeVito, who he knew from their days together in a band called Topper. Those two men would eventually enlist their guitarist from Topper, Russell Javors, and multi-instrumentalist Richie Cannata, and they along with Joel began a memorable journey.
Throughout the Seventies, from the Turnstiles album through 1986’s The Bridge, those men joined Joel in cranking out, in the studios and on the road, the bulk of the Joel catalog. When it came time for the next album, 1989’s Storm Front, that strong bond between performer and band was shattered. Without much fanfare (Joel did not even bother to call and tell them, instead allowing them to hear through news releases), Stegmeyer and Javors were cast out of the act entirely. DeVito would continue with Joel through 1993’s River of Dreams, but the wounds went deep; Stegmeyer would eventually commit suicide in 1995. DeVito summed it up succinctly in reflecting on his departure with Joel, saying “You’re never fired…you’re just not asked to do the next thing,” after DeVito was not invited to Joel’s third wedding ceremony…or any other works.
Stories like this, contained in Hired Gun and presented by these masters of their craft, are the real drawing card of the rock doc. What some of these artists went through to reach the pinnacle of their careers, only to sometimes be ejected in unceremonious manners, and the drive to reclimb that mountain is stunning. The tenacity of these performers, and their attention to becoming the best at their particular field, shows through in the interviews as the stories skew from the adage “the thrill of victory, and the agony of defeat.” (Sarzo’s recollections of the death of guitarist Randy Rhoads, his mate in the Blizzard of Ozz, in a tragic accident is particularly striking.)
The music is an added attraction for Hired Gun. St. Holmes fronts an all-star lineup on a rendition of the Nugent classic “Just What the Doctor Ordered,” while music from Alice Cooper and Five Finger Death Punch (among others) are sprinkled throughout the film. The closing jam, following Cooper’s statement that “you should put a band together of all sidemen…it’d be great!” is also worth sticking around for.
In the end, Hired Gun demonstrates that rock and roll is not all money and glamour. Sarzo states, “Getting to the top is hard…staying there is virtually impossible,” and there is a great amount of wisdom in those words. There is a great deal of demanding work that goes into the music that you hear on the radio and over your streaming channels (or, for the old timers, on your CDs), and sometimes those performers AREN’T who you think are performing. Bringing attention to the unsung heroes of the music world, the backing musician, the “side man,” the “hired gun,” or whatever you want to call them, is the purpose of Hired Gun – and it does it with an outstanding flourish and a bright spotlight, something that those in the shadows don’t usually get.
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