‘Gentle Giant’ of music industry recalls a career that launched the biggest names in entertainment

Music exec Derek Shulman's new book takes a look back on his life in the industry from being Gentle Giant's frontman to signing Bon Jovi and others.

Derek Shulman recalls his first job at Polygram Records in the early 1980s, when a demo tape landed on his desk.

It featured a catchy song called “Runaway.” Intrigued, the executive asked the 18-year-old singer what his career goal was.

“And he said to me, ‘I’ll tell you who I want to be. I want to be bigger than Elvis,’” Shulman tells CTV News from his home in New York, while promoting his new autobiography called “Giant Steps: My Improbable Journey From Stage Lights to Executive Heights.”

The singer wasn’t far off.

Shulman offered the contract to the young man, who changed his name from John Bongiovi to Jon Bon Jovi. Within a couple of years, the rocker released the “Slippery When Wet” album, which would go on to dominate the charts around the world.

“And at that point he was almost as big, if not as big, as Elvis,” Shulman said.

Within a few years, Shulman would become one of the 1980s’ biggest talent scouts, discover hard-rock revivalists Cinderella, and follow it up with another platinum-selling band called Kingdom Come.

He even got together with Montreal’s Ivan Doerschuek to relaunch the career of his band Men Without Hats with the album “Pop Goes The World.”

And that was just the beginning.

From washed up to stadium sell outs

In the late ’80s, he took the Australian band AC/DC under his wing, a band that by then was washed up and about to be dropped by their record label.

Shulman convinced the band to give it another shot and paired them with Canadian producer Bruce Fairbairn at his Vancouver studio, leading to the release of “Razor’s Edge.” It sent the band back to the top of the charts and into sold-out stadiums, which they continue to fill right up to this day.

Shulman became such a hot name among music business executives that few people recalled that he used to be in a famous band himself.

As the singer and multi-instrumentalist of experimental UK rock band Gentle Giant, Shulman earned a cult following among fans of progressive rock music with classic albums such as “Octopus,” “The Power” and “The Glory and Free Hand.”

Those records sold well in Canada, and especially in Quebec, where prog-rock reigned supreme during the ’70s.

“I mean, we played places like Chicoutimi and Rimouski and Sherbrooke and Trois-Rivieres and even further out,” said Shulman. ”We loved playing these places because it was new to them and new to us. It was fantastic.”

When Gentle Giant disbanded in 1980, not long after performing several sold-out concerts at Theatre St-Denis in Montreal, Shulman was looking for stability outside the life of a touring musician and took a day job in promotions at Polygram Records in New York.

He wanted to sign artists, but Shulman also knew better than anyone else the vulnerability of young aspiring artists.

In the ’70s, Gentle Giant and Black Sabbath both shared the same management company and generated a lot of income.

The short-change rite of passage

Back then, Shulman recalls in his book, getting short-changed by the music business was considered a rite of passage. He and his bandmates would realize they were no exception.

During a tour of the U.S., Shulman says a member of the band’s entourage inquired about how they’d spend the $150,000 advance they’d received from their record company.

It was the first time he heard that his management company had pocketed the huge advance.

“You know, in those days that was a lot of money in 1972 or ’71, and I had no idea about this,” he said.

Shurman and his bandmates quickly demanded explanations, with the members of Black Sabbath attending the meeting because it involved their own contract.

“At that meeting, Ozzy was drinking and picked up a bottle of Jack Daniels and threw it right at the manager and missed him by like a quarter of an inch, before it smashed against the wall. And we all walked out, and the lawsuits began.”

Gentle Giant were able to squeeze a settlement and find new management.

Black Sabbath, he says, weren’t as lucky and lost most of their revenues from the first half of the 1970s.

Shulman says this experience brought him a sense of ethics that was relatively new in the music business when he became an executive signing up-and-coming artists.

“I wanted to make sure they got a fair deal. Really. I helped their attorneys to get them fair deals and not, you know, be ripped off by the record company.”

He also demanded discipline and engagement from artists, and the kind of cooperation that would be mutually beneficial in developing a successful career.

Not everyone listened.

Shulman recalls trying to promote British mod sensations The Jam, but soon hit a dead end.

“Their attitude was very English,” he said. ”The music was very English. And to try and sell that in North America was very, very difficult. And at the same time, [singer Paul Weller] was managed at the time by his father and they thought a tour of America was a crazy idea.”

Weller’s lack of compromise forced the record company to focus on other artists.

Having been in a band himself allowed Shulman to relate to artists who might have been suspicious of the so-called “suits” from record companies, too focused on profits rather than the art itself.

“Whenever a band says, ‘You don’t know what it’s like to sleep in a van,’ I can say, ‘Yes, I do.’ I have been and done everything as a musician. And I could literally also pick up a guitar and play some songs and play a few notes and chords that perhaps were missing in a song or two.”

‘90s discoveries

Although he came of age artistically in the swinging ’60s, Shulman’s sharp ears followed him well into the 1990s.

Among his discoveries was next-generation metal band Pantera (“within three songs I was a fan”), followed by the likes of fellow metal legends Slipknot (“they were unique;they had authenticity”) and even Canada’s own Nickelback.

Shulman’s progressive-rock years opened his eyes to revivalists Dream Theater, whom he discovered in the mid-1990s.

They played a style of music most people considered way out of the mainstream.

The executive felt otherwise.

“We put their music on radio, and Dream Theater was on the map, and it was a smash hit.”

Shulman says he’s semi-retired, but still dabbles in the business, always scouting for new artists. The idea of an autobiography came at the insistence of the many people he encountered over the past six decades.

”I was able to make a good living being an executive. But being a musician and having music in my life has been most important,” said Shulman.