By Don Smith Jr. • 10/21/09

A Conversation with Rocker Stan Bush

By Don E. Smith Jr.

By the end of October, Michael Bay’s second Transformers movie, “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen,” will be in stores everywhere on DVD or Blue Ray.

And for the second time, Stan Bush, the California based rocker long associated with the “Transformers” universe, will be forgotten in either of the two Bay movies, but Bush’s fans (“Stan Fans”), have not.

In fact, the snub hasn’t kept Bush down, he remains positive, he even says that the whole concept of his two most popular songs, “The Touch” and “Dare,” have been part of a personal message that he uses to encourage music fans, listeners and average people, “Transformer” fans and non-fans alike, to remain positive.

While he happily admits, he is thrilled to not be attending an Oprah book club event, talking about his feelings and telling people to believe in themselves, he says he would rather use a guitar, write a song and sing out telling people that “you’re at your best when the going gets rough, you’ve been to the test, but it’s never enough.”

And Bush was kind enough to talk with CosmicBookNews.com about his career, the origins of his two songs - “The Touch” and “Dare” and while these “robots in disguise” have been a big chunk of his career, his work has popped up in the most unlikely of places.

Cosmic Book News: First of all, thanks for talking with us. For me personally, this is my third time interviewing you and as always, it is loads of fun.

STAN BUSH: Thank you.

Cosmic Book News: All right, let’s face it. You are known for the song “The Touch” from the 1986 movie, “The Transformers: the Movie.”

STAN BUSH: Yes, I am.

Cosmic Book News: Can you give a little background on how you came up with the song?

STAN BUSH: Sure. The song was originally inspired from a scene from the movie “Iron Eagle” when Louis Gossett Jr. said to a pilot, “Hey kid, you got the touch.”

I took the idea and wrote it with my partner Lenny Maculuso.

Originally, it was going to be used for the movie “Cobra,” which came out in 1986 and starred Sylvester Stallone, but it was not used.

But since the record company, Scotti Bros., owned the original rights to it, they used it for “The Transformers: the Movie.”

Cosmic Book News: I heard you once say that you had heard of “Transformers” at this point in your career, but you were not familiar with them.

STAN BUSH: Right, I had heard about the Transformers through my nephew who had the toys and I tried to transform one of them.

It took me a half hour to transform that toy. [LAUGHS]

But my nephew did it quick. It was like “ch-ch-ch-ch” and he was done. [LAUGHS].

Cosmic Book News: Now, I have heard people refer to “The Touch” as the “little song that could.”

Have you been surprised at how it keeps popping up?

STAN BUSH: Yeah! I have been amazed at how well it has done.

Cosmic Book News: Besides the two times it has popped up in “The Transformers: the Movie,” it also popped up in the two part episode “The Return of Optimus Prime” which aired in 1987.

STAN BUSH: Yeah, it was really cool that they brought it back when Prime returned. I thought it was fitting and it was a nice little book end, considering that Prime died in the movie and he returned with that song.

Cosmic Book News: When they started playing around with the cartoon series after the “Headmasters” mini-series around that same time, you did a video for it.

STAN BUSH: Yeah it was cool. They had me in front of this blue screen and I was playing my guitar. It was neat.

And to see it played back, I am disappearing, laser beams are coming out of the guitar arm, I thought it looked cool.

Cosmic Book News: How did fans like it?

STAN BUSH: Well, I keep seeing that version pop up on You Tube, and it is still pretty neat.

Cosmic Book News: Now, of course, people remember the 1997 “Boogie Nights.”

STAN BUSH: [LAUGHS] We all remember what that movie was known for and Mark Wahlberg admitted he was a prosthetic.

Cosmic Book News: [LAUGHS] Well were you offended when they used your song?

STAN BUSH: I have to admit, I was not thrilled that it was used to show how far Mark Wahlberg’s/Dirk Diggler’s career had fallen.

[LAUGHS] I was thrilled to get the royalty check for it. Talk about “revenge of the fallen.”

Let me add, I was thrilled to see how it was used on NBC’s “Chuck” last season.

Cosmic Book News: Right!

Back in October 2008, the NBC show, “Chuck,” used “The Touch” in an episode entitled “Chuck versus Tom Sawyer.”

For those that missed it, Chuck’s middle-aged Buy More co-worker, Jeff, is forced to save the world by playing a 1980s arcade game. And as a tribute to the “Me decade” Bush’s song was used to show a montage of Jeff getting ready to break an old video game record.

STAN BUSH: That was fun and I was thrilled when the ‘Chuck’ people asked for it.

Cosmic Book News: Now they used a different version of “The Touch” right?

STAN BUSH: When Michael Bay was putting together the live action 2007 “Transformers” movie, I submitted a new song entitled “Til All Are One.” But it was rejected.

I had to admit I was disappointed, but I took advantage of the resurgence of “Transformer” interest and I re-released “The Touch” and what was Michael Bay’s loss was another show’s gain.

And what was that soundtrack’s loss, was also my own gain. I ended up putting that and “Til All Are One” on my 2007 “In This Life” album.

Cosmic Book News: And you re-did “The Touch” for “Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen.”

STAN BUSH: Yeah. I did something darker and went for an updated style, but they decided not to use it for the second Michael Bay film.

But that happens.

I will admit, again, I was disappointed, but as the message of the song is, you can’t give up. You keep pushing forward.

Cosmic Book News: Speaking of which, why writer a song on that sort of subject matter?

I mean “Dare,” while a very, very different song in style, has the exact same message.

STAN BUSH: Yeah.

There is a lot of negativity out there and people need to be told it is okay to believe in yourself and that is why the lyrics in some of my songs are about winning and “Going for it!”

Today, that might seem a little corny and cheesy, but it is still great to be able to write songs with positive messages.

One time, I got a fan letter from a kid in the Mid-West about 15 years ago and he was talking about he was considering suicide but he said those two songs, you mentioned, changed his life.

And I live for that.

Cosmic Book News: Well, if I may take a moment and get slightly patriotic here, you also recorded another video of the song.

STAN BUSH: That I did! That was a lot of fun. I decided to do a military tribute because, and again not to get corny about this, sure we can see movies about giant robots saving the day, but the United States military are out there day in and day out trying to protect us and stop the enemy.

I mean, how could I not do this for them?

And that is the great thing about “The Touch,” that it can fit just about anywhere and I think it really fit in very well here.

Cosmic Book News: So is that it for “The Touch”?

STAN BUSH: I don’t think so. [LAUGHS]

Every time I think, “Okay, it’s run its course” something always surprised me.

For instance, “The Touch” was released as a free downloadable track for Guitar Hero World Tour.

And I found out that at in September, we were voted number 10 in the “Top Ten Science Fiction Movie Soundtrack” of all time, by Total Sci-Fi Online.

I mean when you see who else is on the list, John Williams, Jerry Horner, Richard and Johann Strauss, heck even Queen, I was keeping some very good company there. [LAUGHS].

Cosmic Book News: Yep! Queen had a wonderful soundtrack for “Flash Gordon.” Who doesn’t hum “Flash! Ahhh!” when the movie pops up?

STAN BUSH: No kidding!

Cosmic Book News: And if I can use this as a segue, you have done other soundtracks besides “Transformers.”

STAN BUSH: Yeah.

A bunch of my songs from previous albums have appeared all over the place. Such as “Heart vs. Head” appeared in the movie “The Wraith,” with Charlie Sheen. And I also sang the title tracks for two Jean-Claude Van Damme films, “Kickboxer” and “Bloodsport.”

And in 1997, my song “Til I Was Loved By You” actually won me an Emmy Award for Best Original Song when it was used on the soap opera, “Guiding Light.”

And my other song, “Capture the Dream” was featured in the 1996 Olympic Games, and aired on NBC in a special tribute to the Gold Medalists of the U.S. Swim Team.

I was thrilled when “Capture the Dream” was also used for the World Cup Soccer Championship.

Cosmic Book News: That’s pretty impressive.

STAN BUSH: Thanks, but I had to get back to my Japanese-animated-inspired roots, and I did a song for the “Sailor Moon” soundtrack called “She’s Got the Power.”

Cosmic Book News: Now, if we can shift a back a bit, I know you are working on a new album, right?

STAN BUSH: Yeah I am and it is coming along great.

Cosmic Book News: But let me ask about 2007's “In This Life,” that seemed like it has done well for you.

STAN BUSH: Oh it has.

The song “Til All Are One (Transformers Theme),” which was rejected by Bay, was the theme song for the official Transformers convention, Botcon, for that year, and I was the featured performer that year.

Cosmic Book News: Now steering away a bit from the “Transformers,” the song, “In This Life” kept in your tradition of “Keeping Your Dreams Alive.”

STAN BUSH: Oh yeah! I have to say producer and guitarist, Holger Fath, helped create a masterpiece with that song.

I mean like you said, it continues that “keeping your dreams alive” theme. I mean I wanted this to be an almost spiritual message about searching for truth.

Other songs on that album like “Take It All the Way” is also about “Going for it!”

Cosmic Book News: The song “Southern Rain” was a nice change from the rock anthem styles of songs you do.

That was also on the same album too.

STAN BUSH: Oh yeah.

“Southern Rain” was purposely meant to be a heartfelt “unplugged” acoustic song about my early years growing up in Florida. And what is also great about that song is that it features a guest appearance by guitarist Rocket Richotte.

And Rocket has worked with some of the greats like David Lee Roth, Rick Springfield and Steppenwolf.

Cosmic Book News: Can you talk about some of the other musicians that have been on the album?

STAN BUSH: Oh yea, I had drummer Matt Laug who has worked with Alice Cooper, Richard Marx and Eddie Money. The bass guitarist Lance Morrison, worked with Alanis Morissette, Don Henley, New Radicals and Rod Stewart.

And again, I have to mention Holger Fath's guitar work. Not only was he an amazing producer, but an amazing arranger and keyboard programmer, and he combined them all to help make a brilliant rock album.

Holger was on three Grammy winning albums as guitarist and arranger, and worked with top European bands, and has co-written three top 40 hit songs.

And besides them we had a great keyboardist, Dirk Nagel along with Michael Blum of Titan Studios who helped mix the album. And he has worked with some of the tops like The Who, Pink Floyd and Madonna to name a few.

Cosmic Book News: Now, obviously, you did a lot of writing on “In This Life.”

STAN BUSH: I did. But Holger helped along with Curt Cuomo.

And Curt has worked with some amazing performers like Kiss, Eddie Money and Edgar Winter.

Cosmic Book News: Well, you have done pretty well for yourself as a vocalist. Can you talk about some of the people you worked with?

STAN BUSH: Yeah, I have worked with Alice Cooper and Jefferson Starship, and I have worked with some top producers like Ron Nevison, Georgio Moroder, Andy Johns, Mick Jones, Desmond Child, Peter Frampton, Paul Stanley and Richie Zito.

Cosmic Book News: Impressive.

STAN BUSH: Thanks.

This has been an amazing business. In fact let me add, not only have I sang, but I have worked with songwriters like Jonathan Cain, who has worked with Journey, Jim Vallance who worked with Bryan Adams and Aerosmith, and I have written with Paul Stanley of Kiss.

Cosmic Book News: Paul Stanley. Cool.

Did you get to wear the make up?

STAN BUSH: [LAUGHS] No! I leave that to the professionals.

I refuse to cover my face, but speaking of covering...two bands covered my songs.

Cosmic Book News: Oh groan! [LAUGHS].

STAN BUSH: Hey! If you can segue why can’t I?

Cosmic Book News: Fine! [LAUGHS]

Segue away.

STAN BUSH: [LAUGHS] Thanks.

I had two groups cover my songs. The group House of Lords covered “Love Don't Lie” and Quiet Riot covered “Slave to Love.”

Cosmic Book News: The “Cum On Feel the Noize” Quiet Riot?

STAN BUSH: Yeah, them. And they did a nice job.

Cosmic Book News: I heard someone once ask you this, and I have to ask it again myself, “Is it fair that we live in a world where Nickelback gets radio play and you do not?”

STAN BUSH: [LAUGHS] I will say the same thing back.

I am fairly well known in Europe and Japan and the European record label that owned the rights to “The Touch” released it three different times as a single and it did rather well.

And I have opened for Lou Graham, and Survivor, and later I even headlined some tours. So I am happy.

Cosmic Book News: Stan, it has been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much for your time.

STAN BUSH: Thank you! I have enjoyed this too.

I have to say, the fans have been the most loyal and the best fans any entertainer can I ask for and I thank God for them every day.

So let me use CosmicBookNews.com here just to say, “Thank you, Stan Fans and Trans Fans! I love you all and thank you all!”

For more information about Stan Bush, visit www.stanbush.com.

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