Some of the biggest hits in music history came from surprisingly humble beginnings. Just ask Tom Scholz, founding member of Boston.
Before Boston became one of the bestselling classic rock bands in history, known for such massive hits as “More Than a Feeling” and “Don’t Look Back,” Scholz was already a success — but not musically. The multi-instrumentalist and songwriter, who graduated with a master’s degree in engineering from MIT, was working for Polaroid and doing just fine, but his career wasn’t the one he dreamed about.
So, as Scholz explained in a 2008 interview with Classic Rock Revisited, instead of using his salary to build a nest egg, he built a recording studio in his basement.
“In 1974, I basically blew all of my money,” he recalled.
“I had been working for five years at that point and I took all of the money and spent it on recording equipment that was good enough to record the demos that landed the Epic Records deal,” he continued. “I had been bumming around playing in local bands that didn’t have a future. I even started a couple of bands but they didn’t play the music that became the music I wrote with Boston. I knew that I was going nowhere unless I started doing what I knew I could do and started doing it myself. I knew that all I would ever do was play once and a while in a club and have no one really listen to the music. I quit playing with bands at that point and I set up in my basement and I went to work.”
The songs that came out of those basement recording sessions turned out to be some of Boston’s biggest hits, including “Rock n Roll Band,” “Hitch a Ride,” “Don’t Be Afraid,” and the rocking “Peace of Mind,” which expressed Scholz’s frustrations with “climbing the corporate ladder,” as he put it:
Now if you’re feelin’ kinda low ’bout the dues you’ve been paying
Things is coming much too slow
And you wanna run, but somehow you just keep on stayin’
Can’t decide on which way to go, yeah-yeah-yeah
I understand about indecision
But I don’t care if I get behind
People livin’ in competition
All I want is to have my peace of mind
‘Peace of Mind’ is still considered one of Boston’s best songs
Writing for Classic Rock, music critic Paul Elliot called “Peace of Mind” Boston’s second-best song after “More Than a Feeling,” writing, “Like so much of Boston’s music, ‘Peace of Mind’ has an uplifting quality: in its freewheeling riff, its rich melody and dazzling vocal harmonies. And in the lyrics there is that sense of positivity that Scholz would carry through the band’s entire career.” TheGreenwood Encyclopedia of Rock History, meanwhile, described the tune as being “built around soaring guitars, tight vocal harmonies, and huge hooks” — all qualities that made “Peace of Mind” one of the most enduring classic rock radio hits of all time.
Years later, Scholz reflected on the “huge gamble” he made when he spent all his money on a basement recording studio.
“I was married at the time and that money was supposed to be for a down payment on a house and I spent it all,” he said.
Clearly, Scholz’s gamble paid off…and he never had to climb the corporate ladder again.
Related: Bon Jovi’s Most-Streamed Song Is a ‘Working-Class Anthem’ That Originated in a ‘Dingy Basement’
