• Joey Levine is an american singer/songwriter most well-known for writing and singing leads on the top 40 single "Yummy Yummy Yummy" in 1968 for The Ohio Express. Later in his career, he became a jingle writer and penned such commercial classics as "Sometimes You Feel Like a Nut", "Just for the Taste of It, Diet Coke" and "Heartbeat of America".
  • Joey is my favorite songwriter. His songs have a direct and confrontational quality that inspired the following generations of musicians, including punks like The Ramones, Joan Jett and Talking Heads. In Joey's early songs (which he was writing as a teen-ager and in his early twenties) you can hear a young man trying to find his place in the world and doing so with a humor and aggression that was missing from other Bubblegum Music at the time.
  • I've only read a few interviews with Joey, so I was very excited to get to speak to him and ask him questions that he normally wouldn't get asked. This interview was conducted for an article I'm writing about Bubblegum Music that will be out in Elmore Magazine soon.
  • Louie Pearlman: Thanks for agreeing to chat with me, I'm actually a really big fan so I'm really excited about this.
  • Joey Levine: Oh, thank you. Thank you.
  • LP: Definitely. What I'd love to ask you first, I know you're playing on Sunday, I know you don't play a lot out, so I was wondering what drove you to want to do this now?
  • JL: Ron Dante's been after me to do a bunch of this, I did one show with him a couple years ago, had a good time, it was fine. He's been trying to get me to do it ever since. I think when he suggested that it was going to be in New York and this and that, it was like “OK, let's go for it”.
  • LP: So are you gonna be playing at the show, mostly the bubblegum stuff or new stuff?
  • JL: No, I'm just gonna do a show that fits in with the show. I think it's a bubblegum show, it's the Fruitgum Company and Ronnie, so I think I'm just going to keep to a format which would be songs in the genre.
  • LP: Are you excited about bringing those songs back out? How do you feel about that?
  • JL: Well, I don't know, some of them, I haven't sung in years. So, it's fun, and I've listened to a bunch of stuff I've done which I haven't listened to in a long time and kinda had fun doing that, so, it should be fun.
  • LP: Any surprises going back into your catalog and listening and remembering stuff that you hadn't thought about in a while?
  • JL: Well, if you go on Youtube, it's like, everything's there you basically did, there's a lot of things that I hadn't thought of or listened to or heard in years. I listened to a bunch of stuff, good and bad, I must say, that I did over the years. So it was kind of a nice walk down memory lane. Kind of a nice visit.
  • LP: That's cool. Definitely one of the best resources that I've had for finding some of your old stuff is people that have digitized it on youtube.
  • JL: Yeah.
  • LP: We probably found some of the same stuff. Anything you're nervous about for the show?
  • JL: No, not particularly. I'm used to doing stuff in front of board rooms and stuff like that, I've done a lot over the years. I've done a lot of presentations so I'm not really that nervous. I'm sure I will have nerves and once it gets closer to the time I'll probably vomit or something.
  • LP: If you're vomiting, I hope it's at least after the show, so we can hear your set first!
  • JL: [laughs] Right, right.
  • LP: So, I want to go back to the beginning. I know you started writing when you were about 15, 16. Right?
  • JL: Right.
  • LP: You were under the name Joey Vine back then.
  • JL: I did a record under that name. Yeah.
  • LP: I was wondering, you got involved with the bubblegum stuff after that. What was your process when you were writing those early songs like “Try It” and “Yummy Yummy Yummy”? Is it inherently in your creative process to go for the hook, or is that something that arises while you're writing? If you could guide me through the process of how you were writing those songs back then...
  • JL: Well, I never analyzed what made me write the way I wrote. Part of it was a limit of music and it was like I played the way I played and that often dictates your style. Before then I had been writing songs for a lot of different artists, through music publishers. “Yummy Yummy Yummy”, I hit on after meeting with Kasnetz and Katz who were recording one of my songs with Ohio Express called Try It, they had done a remake of the Standells song, and the Standells song had done pretty well and I'd been getting a lot of cover records and had also been in the studio producing a my demos, and my demos were being used by a lot of artists as records. They would not only buy the song or they would record the song, they would ask for me to use the demos and put them out. So, my style really came from, I always played in bands as a kid, and my style was always like a garage-band rock and roll is what I liked.
  • LP: So, what were some of your earlier influences when you were doing the garage-band stuff? Who were you listening to at the time that you liked?
  • JL: I don't really know. Dirty Water, and The Hollies records, “Long Tall Woman” and “Bang a Gong”, records like that were always the records that caught my ear the most. It was like this clean rock and roll. It was more low-key and not so Who-ish. It was a band, but a band who played enough just to play their records. So I started writing a lot of that simple rock n roll. Catchy things.
  • LP: Yeah, know that's what drew the K&K guys to it the style of it. The simplicity.
  • JL: Yeah, The K&K guys, the record that they did that I liked when I had heard of them and they called me up to get together with me, I liked that record “Little Bit of Soul” and I really liked that record. So they had a discussion with me about this Bubble Gum concept. I don't think they used the term Bubble Gum at the time, but this very young, unsophisticated Rock N Roll. I went home and wrote “Yummy Yummy Yummy”... actually I had written “Yummy Yummy” for a group called Jay and the Techniques, they had done a song called “Apples, Peaches, Pumpkin Pie”, so that's when I wrote “Yummy Yummy”. Then, I went up to Kasnetz and Katz who had recorded “Try It” and I played them the song, they liked the song, they said “Let's go into the studio tonight and cut it” and that was it.
  • LP: So, it was super immediate, and how soon after that was the record out?
  • JL: The record was out, like, a week later.
  • LP: So, once you became someone they would go to for their singles and songs, is that the pace you were working at the entire time, that you would write something immediately, cut it in the studio and then get it out as quickly as possible?
  • JL: I think that any producers or writers that experience success, their dance card gets filled very quickly and they kind of got a schedule of how they proceed during the week. Which is, I write on these days, I do tracks on these days, I do overdubs on these days, I do vocals on these days, and I mix on these days. So your schedule is kind of laid out in front of you. And as we became successful, there were so many different groups and different sounds you do that we were just in the studio day and night for just, weeks, weeks and weeks.
  • LP: So you were just churning it out and it almost sounds like it was a factory, assembly line style thing. You had a schedule to adhere to and you stuck to the schedule. So, was that a conducive way to write, or were you feeling pressured? Were you enjoying it at the time?
  • JL: Yeah, it was enjoyable. It was all very creative. I wrote a lot of songs with Artie Resnik but then there were other people around me who were all up at Kasnetz and Katz. There were other talents I enjoyed writing with, Bo Gentry and Bobbie Bloom, Richie Cordell, there were different things and different strokes. People you hung out with, which even in a social evening would come some way around to music. Or, at the end of the night you'd be sitting at a piano banging out something. It was a very creative atmosphere because that was your job, to create. So you were creating all the time.
  • LP: Yeah, and I'm sure and it sounds too that it was really helpful to have people around that you enjoyed spending time with. So that you actually wanted to be around them doing stuff.
  • JL: Yeah, definitely.
  • LP: So, you're talking about your dance card filling up really quickly. Of course they wanted to recapture the success of “Yummy Yummy”. Then you wrote a bunch of songs in that Ohio Express sound. Did that come easy to you after writing “Yummy Yummy” or was that something, you had to push yourself to maintain that...
  • JL: I think I started to make a turn in that direction, 'cause that was the music that we had created successfully. So all of the sudden, you found yourself in that head-space. You weren't writing out here, you were writing in here. You pulled the guidelines of what you were writing for lyrically and musically to have this successful thing, plus the groups you were working for, that's what you were doing. So you really didn't step out of that box. Sometimes that was comfortable to have those parameters around you and other times it was like “I just don't know what else to say” in this vernacular. And then, when we broke away from K&K I was able to do more stuff that I wanted to do and tried other things. Because after a while I didn't know if the stuff I was writing was any good or any bad.
  • LP: Before we move on from the K&K stuff, I was wondering if you have any favorites, as you've been listening to stuff over again, any songs that stick out in your mind that you have good memories of? Any of those songs?
  • JL: Well, after I decided to do the show, I started to listen to some stuff, so I decided to do the song “Shake” which is a song I did with Shadows of Knight, and I was going to do “Gimme Gimme Good Lovin”, which was a song by Crazy Elephant, a song by a guy named Bob Spencer and I had started to like those. Then there were other songs I was listening to. There was a song I put out called “Come on My Baby”...
  • LP: That's actually my favorite song of yours!
  • JL: Yeah. I started to like that one. Stuff like that.
  • LP: That's great. So some of the stuff that you were writing that had romantic themes, like “Angela” or “I Enjoy Being A Boy”, I'm wondering if they were influenced by stuff going on in your life, or if the writing pace was so hectic that you couldn't really process it. How autobiographical do you feel that stuff was at the time, or even now?
  • JL: Well, I don't know. I think at the time, a lot of writers don't think they're writing autobiographically, that they're just writing with whatever comes into their head and sometimes they feel like it has nothing to do with what they're going through. But I think, in a way, everything has a bit to do with what you're going though. And I was just going though the experimentation of growing up and also, a lot of it was sexually oriented, and a some of it was still sweet. You know, girl friends, and little girl friends and discovering a lot of new things. So a lot of it was experimenting with what I was experimenting with.
  • LP: That's really cool. So after the Bubble Gum era, I know you moved more into jingle songwriting. How similar is your process for writing shorter work, and how similar is it to writing longer, structured songs?
  • JL: Well, I fell into it pretty naturally. It was pretty simple for me to do it. It was all catchy and hooks and very simple, little melodies. Writing thirty second pieces of music was certainly easy and music at the same time. First of all, state your business in that short a period of time was very difficult but sometimes it was very good. After a while, people used to say “If Joey writes something you know it's only going to be thirty or sixty seconds long”. It's like you have an internal clock, you know?
  • LP: It's sort of like you have to get your message along even quicker, although those earlier songs were short as they were.
  • JL: Right.
  • LP: What have you been up to lately? Have you still been writing jingles? Or have you moved away from that? What has been going on the last few years?
  • JL: Well, the advertising business was so good to me economically, I think it allowed me to... I was talking to someone the other day and they said “Can you imagine if you hadn't found advertising how many more hits you would have written?” And it's like yeah, that's true, but in all a creator's life span, there is a period that they are accepted and that they're music is viable. And [that goes] for anyone that you can name, and some people longer than others. It's basically a period and depending on the artist, it's generally a period of a year to five years is the general run of someone who's having success. So even if I would have had some more success, it's like, how long would you have drawn that out and what would you have gotten into and done differently in the record business? So, the advertising business allowed me to do it a lot longer.
  • LP: Yeah, it's just more economically sustainable.
  • JL: Yeah, definitely. You were making a lot more money. I went home to my father's house once early on. And I had just written a commercial for Dodge and I remember I went over to my parent’s house to watch the World Series with them and the World Series was broadcast by Dodge. And it just kept playing and playing and playing. And then he took me in the other room and he says “I wanna show you something”. And we went in the other room and bed was just filled with envelopes and checks. He says “I think you found your calling.” He says, “Forget about the record business, you haven't made anything. You've paid off a car. You're struggling to get this hit record. People seem to like it, but look at the money that comes in for this stuff!” And he was right it was like, knockin' my brains out. People are telling you they don't get paid as soon as I sue them.
  • LP: And in the meantime you're working for companies that you know your going to get your money and you understand the context of what you need to do to get it.
  • JL: It may have cut down, it's true, I feel like if I had kept writing I would have had more chart success and created more songs that we maybe we would be talking about, but I don't really regret the fact that I stopped doing it. After a while it was like, the people that I was doing it with were becoming angry and hostile. It seemed like the environment around me had changed. We went from a happy group of people to being upset about this or that, it seemed like it turned into a business. And once writing songs turns into a business, it's like, you're not writing hit songs.
  • LP: Yeah, it sounds sort of like the process of doing it and the pressures of doing it overstayed their welcome in your life.
  • JL: That's right.
  • LP: So now, you've been running this company, Crushing Music for a while. Do you feel like you've been able to surround yourself with people you enjoy working with and create an environment that you are happy with on a longstanding basis?
  • JL: There's people I work with, and then there's people that I've also come to realize how good they are creating tracks and stuff. So I've met a lot of people. And writing for commercials also is like, you're not just trying to write one kind of song that you're following up like you are hits. You're writing Classical music, you're writing Spanish music, you're writing all these different types of music. So, it's enjoyable to spread yourself. Even-though it's thirty seconds, it's different than what I've done before.
  • LP: It's definitely sounds really fulfilling and really fun.
  • JL: Yeah.
  • LP: Well, that takes us up to present day. So, if there's anything else that you want to tell me, anything you think that would be fun for people to read about, now is the time.
  • JL: Well, you know, I still enjoy making music. I have a very nice studio out here, and I work with musicians all the time. I get to flex my creative muscles in writing and I also get to use my expertise in producing and doing things to get people to move in the right direction. As a mentor if you will. I think the biggest problem that we all have as we age some is that you don't get a chance as much to do what you do and you do well. Simply, a lot of time, sometimes you are kidding yourself and you don't have it anymore and other times it's like, you know, you're just the age you are. It's time to move over for someone else to take place. So, it gets a little difficult to not be thought of sometimes because it's like, you've reached a certain time in your life where you should move aside. I don't think that in a creative situation, with creative people, they ever feel quite prepared to move aside.
  • LP: And it's not that there's one success in your life, that you'll never capture that again. It's that successes rear their heads in different permutations as your life goes on.
  • JL: Absolutely.
  • LP: Yeah, I find that as an artist with my own work.
  • JL: Well, we all do it. When I was young and I came along and there were other guys who had been there for a while, I myself thought, “Hey, it's time to move over. You know, pass the torch.” And I find as you get older a lot of your things that you figure will naturally change, they don't really change. You still have the same attitude towards them, you still have the same fire in your belly and you know, you have that desire to create and to succeed.
  • LP: Yeah, you just have to find the right medium to do it. Right?
  • JL: Well, you've got to find the right medium and you've got to find the people that are open enough to listen to you. I mean, I still don't make records the way I use to now, because I it's like don't pretend to be able to cut those electronic songs. But in adverting especially, and in writing for a lot of projects that I do it's like your writing chops are still your writing chops. You either are a good writer or you're not. I'm sure it's very difficult for Burt Bacharat to sit back and say “People think that I don't write hit songs anymore”.
  • LP: No, that's super interesting. I'm looking forward to hearing you play on Sunday! Thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me!
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