Chris Stewart became a member of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Board of Trustees this past March and has been getting his feet wet in the Hall’s dynamics ever since. He is also a managing partner for Out the Box Records and sometime drummer for Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Dave Mason. FMQB caught up with Stewart for a conversation about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as it gets set to celebrate its 25th anniversary.
Chris Stewart
By Michael Parrish
“As with anything you do in life that you really love, there’s a sense of wanting to give back to it,” explains Chris Stewart when asked why he took on the role as one of two new members of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Board of Trustees. “Whether you’re involved to see if you can help steer it or if you can lend a hand in trying to keep things intact, it’s about a debt of gratitude for what you’ve taken from it.”
Stewart was announced to the Board of Trustees this past March and has been getting his feet wet in the Hall’s dynamics ever since, even though his day job is CEO of Chicago-based proprietary trading firm Gelber Group. Stewart is also a managing partner for Chicago-based record label, Out the Box Records, which counts Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee Dave Mason among the artists on its roster.
Stewart’s connection with Mason runs deeper than an artist-label relationship. After once getting Mason to play a private party in which Stewart joined him on stage to play drums, Mason asked Stewart to play drums with him at a gig in St. Louis for what he described as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.” The rest was history and Stewart plays with Mason whenever he gets a chance to join him on stage. Stewart says working with Mason allowed him, “to meet a tremendous amount of people on the same level as being in Dave’s band, which is different from meeting them as a fan.”
FMQB caught up with Stewart for a conversation about the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame as it gets set to celebrate its 25th anniversary with a huge concert in New York City featuring Bruce Springsteen, U2, Stevie Wonder, Metallica and Aretha Franklin among the performers.
Your day job is as a trader, based in Chicago, but you also run a record label and now have this position with the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. When did you develop the passion you have for music?
I’m really not any different from anybody else in terms that I’ve been listening to music constantly. I can remember going to bed with a little transistor radio under my pillow. I lived in a strict household where when you went to bed, it was lights out and that was that. In the morning I had to make sure I rubbed those grids from the transistor radio off my face before I went down for breakfast or else I’d get totally busted.
The biggest influence on me in terms of music was my father. When I was a young boy he would take me downtown and we would always go to a record store. He would always get records and occasionally he’d get me one. We would go home and sit in the family room. He had his own little Hi-Fi there, and he would make me sit on the couch and listen to the music, regardless of whether it was Jazz, Rock, or whatever kind of music it was. That was my indoctrination into music, which really gave me an appreciation for all types of music.
Since then, music has really been a big part of my life in terms of growth and milestones, whether they were difficult times or celebratory times. Music really gets you through the rough spots and helps you celebrate the great times. Music has always been a thread in my life, and through music I’ve met a tremendous amount of people. I always fooled around with music playing drums, bongos, congas and whatnot and loved music in that respect where I wanted to be part of it. I don’t think some of these musicians realize that what becomes mundane for them in terms of being on the road or having to perform when they really don’t want to is a God given gift that can change people’s lives.
Explain what you do as a Board of Trustee for the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
I’m a steward of the Rock & Hall Fame and Museum. I’m lending my business skills, networking skills, fundraising abilities, passion for music and ability to reach out and get people involved in being compassionate and passionate about the things that we’re doing with and for music.
In a previous conversation we had, you mentioned the importance of having Chicago represented on the board. Can you expand on that thought?
I’m from Chicago and it’s pretty steeped in music history and really progressive music too. You have Chess Records and all the other historic places around Chicago, and the artists that are icons. The Rock Hall is well aware of Chicago’s deep musical roots and is trying to knit a stronger and broader fabric, not only in Chicago but in other music hot spots around the country.
What are you doing to expand the reach of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame beyond the building in Cleveland?
First and foremost, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Museum and Library understands the more we open up this treasure to people and provide them access, the better for our message and for the Rock Hall in general. We’re working with technology to expand our reach and have the annex in New York City which lets everyone experience a little taste of what we have in Cleveland. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame wants to get more people involved in the message, preservation and the ability to experience Rock & Roll for what it is, what it was, and what it can be.
What makes it unique to go to Cleveland and actually visit the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame?
First of all, right now the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is going through changes in terms of updating it with technology and some of the layouts. You can’t go to the R&R Hall of Fame thinking you will kill a couple of hours. The amount of information, objects and stimulation the Hall has is mind-boggling. It’s the single most potent place if you want to know the history of Rock & Roll that I’ve ever seen in my life. It is well worth it.
Even if you’re mildly interested in music, there’s something there for absolutely everybody. The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame is really big into education for young kids and music programs. In terms of the museum and library giving back, the programs are all positive. It’s not necessarily just cool artifacts. It’s interactive and gives people the ability to learn and go through an educational process. It has a lot to offer besides the artifacts, which are always changing, so it’s always current, has something new to offer and is never stagnant. It has everything you could ever want at a one-stop-shop for Rock & Roll.
Our goal is that the museum should evoke a response to get to a place personally with each visitor. It has something special and individual for each person, which I think makes the Rock Hall very unique.
In addition to your day job, you also run a record label. Talk a little bit about an artist like Dave Mason who had radio success at one point in his career and now it’s harder for him to find a place on the radio. Is that frustrating for you?
Radio is extremely difficult. It’s very formatted, very segmented and very disciplined. A lot of the creativity, experimentation and the loyalty have been taken out of radio in terms of artists being able to get their music played. A case in point is it’s very difficult for artists that came up in the ’60s and ’70s to get their new material played. Where do they get that done? Radio is certainly extremely important. It’s very, very colorful. There’s no doubt about it. Everybody understands that. It is just a very difficult game to play from a label’s perspective, and for an older artist trying to introduce new music.
But it is also difficult from a programmer’s perspective, especially the ones that are passionate about music.
I totally agree. You can sit there with a programmer and the guy can say, “I love this album. I know this album’s got tremendous possibilities, but I can’t put it on.” It’s too bad because programmers are just as passionate about music as they’ve ever been, but it seems like their creativity and their ability to make a decision has been taken away from them. It just doesn’t happen because they can’t take those calculated risks anymore. So I feel bad for programmers, because I know how passionate a lot of them are about music, but because it is such a stringent business, it really is tough.
To their defense, the creative programmers are finding ways to work with all their new media technologies to complement what they do on the air.
I agree with that. They’re just as threatened by technology as anybody else. You can get music at so many different places now. It doesn’t have to come from radio. They’re trying to get to where the industry is going, but the industry is in a state of flux. It’s a tough time, but it’s also a great time as well because from a listening perspective there are so many different ways you can get access to music.
Let’s talk about the induction ceremony process. Everybody has a question about how it works and who decides what bands get in. Can you give us some insight on the whole process?
This came up at a recent meeting, because everyone asks us, and we need to know how to respond to the question. (Co-founder)Jann Wenner was there and we asked him the question. It is done by committee and it’s not one single person that does it. Inductees are considered twenty-five years after the release of their first album. And they evaluate if a band has influenced Rock & Roll the way no one else has or if they were prolific in a niche type of music that no one else can do. These are some of the broad based criteria that are looked at.
I’m going to stop you right there, because you say “influenced Rock & Roll like nobody else has,” but I can point to a band that I love in Rush, who James Hetfield just said during Metallica’s induction speech this past year was a band that influenced him and these guys are nowhere near the R&R Hall of Fame.
You can also talk about Deep Purple and all those bands. We could trade Rock & Roll flashcards back and forth. I agree with you. The undertaking of who gets in and who does not for the consortium that makes this decision is extremely difficult to do. As music changes and evolves it will be getting even more difficult to do. I know this doesn’t answer your question, but that’s kind of where it stands. It would be great if I could give you an A, B, C and D answer of this is what it takes, but I’m not quite sure that exists.
I understand that, but it just seems like the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame voting process is done covertly when it could be a little more open.
The committee is extremely passionate about music and has their opinions and their own attitudes, and when it does come down to the voting process, it is much like baseball, in that you have to have a certain percentage to be elected. The vast majority of voters are those already enshrined in the hall, so it truly takes the support on one’s peers to gain admittance.
Then there actually is an existence of those stats of who was voted on and what percentage each band got, but you just don’t make that public?
Yes, there is a method to the madness. There is a criterion that’s followed. And there is a voting process that’s adhered to. So all of those things are in line and are set up and that’s how it’s done. It’s very hard to sit there and argue about artists and about the music and try to fit them into a category, because you can’t put boundaries around music. You can’t say that it’s a black and white set of rules to get in. The thing they’re trying to stay away from is to dilute it and say everybody gets in.
I get that concept and don’t think you should fall back to something like album sales or airplay statistics. It would just be great if the process was a little more open to the public, or even involved the public in some shape or form, and that the voting results were released like they are with all the major sports hall of fame votes so it doesn’t seem like a secret society is running the place. What’s going to be interesting is when you get to the 25 year mark for Pop artists like Britney or Jessica Simpson who didn’t break down any boundaries as musicians yet changed the face of music as far as a media and cultural event.
As a parallel, a perfect example of that would be KISS and what they did with the makeup and the costumes, but would you vote them in because of their musical talents? Probably not. Did they sell a lot of albums? Absolutely. Were they a commercial success? Absolutely. Do you think that they had a mark on Rock & Roll? Probably. Should they be in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame because of that? There are probably other artists we could sit and talk about that had more influence on the core music and the real music as opposed to commercialism.
That’s the best thing about this, there’s always going to be a great debate when it comes to music and who has attained the level of icon status. And quite honestly, no one is really wrong with their thinking.
There will always be conversation of who should be in and who shouldn’t. That’s what really makes music special, because music is something different and personal to each and everyone of us, which speaks volumes to the music and artists, because if we all thought the same way, how boring would that be? You wouldn’t go to the Rock Hall and be totally blown away by how influential a person really was and see how their music fit into a certain time and space. That’s the kind of perspective you get when you go to the museum. It gives you a broader perspective of different artists that might not have been in your wheelhouse. So it’s an education process to go along with your love of music, and it can’t get any better than that.
***eQB Content by Michael Parrish**
