Psychedelic Lunch

Welcome to our “Psychedelic Lunch” series where we find out how deep the rabbit hole really goes and explore music from the 60’s to today. Weekdays At Noon EST. Enjoy the trip!

Their self-titled debut album has been certified for sales of 17 million in America. From 1994-2008, it was ranked as the top-selling debut of all-time before losing that title to Guns N’ Roses’ Appetite For Destruction, which was later overtaken by Hootie and the Blowfish’s Cracked Rear View.

Scholz formed the band. He is from Toledo, Ohio and is an Ottawa Hills High School graduate of the class of 1965. He won a full scholarship to MIT, where he obtained Bachelors and Masters degrees in Mechanical Engineering, graduating with a GPA of 4.8 on a 5.0 scale. He later worked at Polaroid, where he became a senior product design engineer, helping develop their instant film system.

Delp sang all vocals (lead and harmony/backup) on the first three Boston albums. Before Brad joined the group, he was working in a manufacturing plant making heating coils for Mr. Coffee machines while singing in various Boston-area clubs at night. After former band-member Barry Goudreau brought Brad to the attention of Tom Scholz, Brad began singing on Tom’s demo tapes.

Scholz produced the group. He is a perfectionist who took years to produce albums.

Boston’s debut album was quite possibly the greatest by a band that at the time, didn’t exist outside of the studio. The band was formed after the album tracks were finished. Tom Scholz produced the album himself, and he played every instrument for every song on it. The band was then formed so “Boston” could tour.

They went eight years between their second and third albums, Don’t Look Back and Third Stage.

The band racked up huge catalog sales in the ’80s and ’90s through promotions where you would choose a bunch of albums to get for free, then pay for another every month. When choosing those freebies, many folks picked at least one Boston album.

They switched labels to MCA after a lawsuit with Epic was settled out of court. Epic sued Scholz for breach of contract when he would not put out more albums.

Goudreau, Sheehan, and Sib Hashian all sued Scholz, claiming they were under compensated for their contributions to Third Stage. As a result of this lawsuit, a sticker was affixed to Third Stage acknowledging Sib Hashian’s contributions to the album.

Tom Scholz founded the company “Rocktron” and was the principle designer for many of the sound processing units they sold.

Delp sang in a Beatles cover band called BeatleJuice.

Scholz is a skilled 6′-5″ tall basketball player, and still loves to play. Boston had to cancel a tour in 1996 after Scholz injured his hand playing basketball.

They were nominated for a Best New Artist Grammy in 1976. They lost to The Starland Vocal Band, who had one, and only one hit, “Afternoon Delight.”

Scholz injured his back during the recording of Third Stage and had record many of his parts while lying flat on a surfboard.

Their record company advertised their first album as “Better Music Through Science.”

Though Scholz named the band Boston, he is the only member of the original lineup not from Boston.

Delp committed suicide in 2007. After Delp’s death, Scholz told Yahoo News: “It went from a guitar lick that didn’t mean a thing to a real song as soon as he opened his mouth. That was always the case. We had a very, very close working relationship. I swear it was like we were hooked up by a cable. We didn’t even have to talk most of the time.” The Boston Website called him the “Nicest guy in Rock and Roll.”

The band toured in 2008, one year after the death of Brad Delp. Michael Sweet from Stryper was brought in along with Tommy DeCarlo, a Boston fan who was recruited after posting some of his covers of Boston songs on MySpace.