For Carl Palmer, one supergroup was not enough.
As well as his years as one third of virtuoso prog rock trio Emerson, Lake & Palmer, the legendary drummer also starred in the hugely successful ’80s band Asia along with guitarist Steve Howe (of Yes fame), bassist/vocalist John Wetton (King Crimson, Roxy Music) and keyboard player Geoff Downes (Yes, Buggles).
In a new interview with Rolling Stone, Palmer reflects on his whole career, and reveals how record company head David Geffen was a highly influential figure in the development and success of Asia.
The band’s self-titled debut album was recorded between June and November 1981 at the Town House and Marcus Recording studios in London. The producer was Mike Stone, noted for his work with Queen and Journey.
The key to the album’s success was the hit single Heat Of The Moment, written by Wetton and Downes.
As Palmer tells Rolling Stone, this song was included on the album after David Geffen heard various tracks but felt that they needed one that could gain airplay on mainstream radio in the US.
“It was very difficult to get a prog track played in daylight time or in drive time,” Palmer says. “David Geffen was really the sole driver. He said, ‘Guys, I get the prog thing. That’s why I want you all together because I think you can make this happen, but we will need to break into radio and I won’t be able to do it with Time Again, Sole Survivor, Wildest Dreams. I need something a bit more radio commercial.”
He continues: “John Wetton, who was a great tunesmith and a great writer, said, ‘I’ve got a couple of pieces. We’ll record them and see if you like them, David.’ And we did.”
Despite Palmer’s claim that “Heat Of The Moment went to number one straight away”, the single’s peak on the US chart was No.4.
But this was the breakthrough that Asia needed.
“Only Time Will Tell soon followed,” Palmer says. “That was big. Sole Survivor even was a radio hit.”
The album did reach the top spot on the Billboard 200. It was at No.1 for nine weeks. At its peak, 80,000 copies of the album were being bought every day.
“I think we ended up selling five million copies,” Palmer says. “I didn’t think for one minute it would be as big. And I figured people would frown about the group because we had three prog musicians from quite big prog bands playing bubblegum songs, really. But they were good songs.”
In a 2020 interview with Classic Rock, guitarist Steve Howe talked about his time with Asia.
Howe said of the debut album: “The production was a bit Journey-esque. That was down to Mike Stone, who’d co-produced Escape, which was a huge album for Journey.”
He added: “Heat Of The Moment was the last song we recorded for the Asia album. By then we'd already done stuff like Time Again and Wildest Dreams, which were very progressive. There was also this sweetness in Only Time Will Tell. But as soon as I stacked up the guitar and John started singing, we knew we had something special in Heat Of The Moment.”
Carl Palmer also credits what was then a new medium, MTV, as a key factor in the Asia album’s success.
In Rolling Stone he says of MTV: “You had to be on it. It was perfect. But I didn’t enjoy making those silly videos.
“Some of them were quite good. Don’t Cry with us charging through the desert. It’s embarrassing. But hey, we all make mistakes, don’t we?”
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