Jefferson Starship: The Miracle Rockers
On the night of Nixon’s resignation, coproducer Larry Cox was gently helping Grace hone the vocal on “Hyperdrive,” a song she’d written with Pete Sears for their next album, Dragon Fly. She and Paul had met Sears during the Manhole sessions at Wally Heider’s and, impressed with both his keyboard and bass playing, had invited him back from England to join Starship. Standing in the aquarium light of the studio, she painstakingly cut the lead, her long silk caftan swishing around her as she stalked the microphone, eyes closed, intent on every phrase.
Finished with “Hyperdrive,” Grace added a backup track to “Caroline,” a song Balin and Kantner had written for the album and for which Marty had come out of his self-imposed hibernation to sing lead. She carefully found space for her patented skirls. “Ah, that’s it,” Cox sighed after a few punch-ins. Listening to the playback, Grace popped open a Heineken’s and cracked, “Sure sounds like the Airplane.”
“That’s the idea,” Balin said dryly.
Marty Balin was the soul of the Airplane, the web spinner who drew all the parts together. His personality has a mystical bent that’s reflected in a house filled with books on esoteric disciplines and histories of ancient cultures. It gives him a detachment that only occasionally breaks down.
“Yeah, it fell apart,” he said recently about the Airplane. “Everybody was on drugs and coke. We couldn’t rehearse, everything was a yelling match. Whoever could yell the loudest got their way. I just got bored with that and said, ‘Here, have fun, goodbye. I’ll watch you die for a while.'”
“The biggest thing that hit Marty and knocked him down,” Kantner said, “was Jack and Jorma’s treatment of his songs. They’d say, ‘You write such shitty songs. Your lyrics suck, man.’ Really cold, right out front. They did that after Surrealistic Pillow was a hit. It might have been humorous, tongue-in-cheek, but I could never tell and after that Marty just closed in.”
“Jack and Jorma hurt my feelings but it was no big deal,” Balin said when asked about Paul’s evaluation. “I was down on everybody. They were all stoned all the time and you couldn’t talk to them. Each guy wanted to do their own trip. There was no cohesiveness and that’s my job, I always figured, keeping things together. At the time, Grootna was rehearsing in the basement of the Airplane House and I’d go down and help them because they were talking to each other. That was my refuge.”
Balin eventually produced Grootna’s album for Clive Davis at Columbia but his prickly personality soon intervened. “We didn’t exactly hit it off,” he understated about a meeting he had with Davis. “They were treating Grootna nice to get to me, and when I found out, I told him what a fucking asshole he was.”
Balin was further alienated from the Airplane when, six months after he had stopped working with them, they signed a new and very lucrative contract with RCA that established Grunt Records. They did not include him and Marty blamed them all for his “loss of a record company.”
He occupied himself writing a screenplay and slowly edged back into music with a band called Bodacious. He signed a short-term deal with RCA and whipped out an album in 13 days. A cult item, the record is a tasty example of Mill Valley R&B with good tunes (Starship performs two in their current set) and Balin in good, if somewhat alcoholic voice.
Kantner made the first move toward a reconciliation with Balin in late 1973, writing him a letter which, according to Kantner, said, “I’m really sorry it got shitty four years ago. I really like singing with you. I’ve got some nice changes if you’d like to write a song together.”
The recalcitrant Balin responded to Kantner’s emotional openness. “When I was in the Airplane, nobody ever complimented me, ever, never,” he insisted. “Now, Paul comes up and says, ‘Hey man, I like singing with you. It’s great being with you again,'” and that really makes me feel good. It hits me real deep. It’s the first time anybody’s done it for ten years and for that, I’ll work my ass off for the guy.”
The interaction between Balin and Kantner was the key to the Airplane’s early successes. Kantner is a driving organizing force; Marty a creative, visionary one. “We could have gone on being the premier American rock act for years,” Kantner said. “We were all competent enough to play and sing in tune but not live in tune anymore. Without Marty there was no centrifugal force pulling all the parts together. Without that force it just went … whew.”
Why did it take so long to try something new?
“I was waiting to see if everything would spin together again … in grand hope,” he chuckled wistfully.
To support Dragon Fly, the group went on the road. RCA, goosed and oiled by Manager Bill Thompson and seeing a chance to recoup the money they had advanced Grunt in huge sums, worked as hard as the band and they gave each other a gold album. “Caroline” garnered the most interest because it “sounds like the Airplane” and when they ended the tour at Winterland in November 1974, Balin showed up to sing it as an encore.
Walking onstage, his eyes glazed with nervousness, his mouth formed a tight smile that could have passed for bravely borne seasickness. When he took the mike, the band unconsciously formed a semicircle behind him, both to support the veteran fledgling and to ensure they played the long song with no gaffes. Grace stood next to Paul, staring at the back of Balin’s head when she wasn’t intent on her harmonies, a grin spread ear to ear. It worked, and when it was over Balin beat a hasty retreat.
