The Exchanges

Q So do you remember what, what, when the magazine started to get attention? Was it a year, two, three? Like, when, when did it start to become something people would just talk about?

A Well, the first time we got a lot of attention was on the first year anniversary. We printed the cover, the band Two Virgins cover of the album that John Yoko, John Lennon and Yoko Ono did together. One that shot them in backsides and then a picture of them completely naked. So we ran those on our first anniversary issue. And we got an article about ourselves in the San Francisco Chronicle, our first press, which was, the headline was, Nude Beetle, Perils SF. But we had, we sold out the printing, we printed more, and it just kind of got more and more people talking. And then, I think in year two, we did big specialist young groupies. And that got us more attention with the photo portfolio and big report about it. Girls who follow bands around and all the stuff associated with that. And that, I think, led to an article in Time Magazine about us. So we're starting to get a little on the national radar then. You know, sales are kind of picking up in different big cities around us. It kind of spreads by word of mouth. And then, uh, finally we made a deal with more of a national magazine wholesaler rather than the company in San Francisco, uh, and started appearing more and more around the country. The more we appeared, the more people liked it. More subscriptions came in, more revenues came in, so we felt we really had a going business, you know, after the first year. I don't think…

AI assessment note: “the first time we got a lot of attention was on the first year anniversary”

Q Tell me, um, tell me how you met Ralph Gleason, because he, he would, of course, figure very prominently in, in the founding story here, but tell me, who was he, and how'd you meet him?

A Well, Ralph Gleason was, uh, a jazz columnist for the San Francisco Chronicle. In addition to covering jazz, he would write about Some rock and roll things, Dylan, Beatles, Stones, stuff like that, and he was one of the few voices around anywhere in the country, and in San Francisco, that was saying, hey, there's real merit, uh, to these artists, to Dylan, and to the Beatles, and what they're doing is important, it's musically important, and it's culturally important, so as a rock and roll fan, I would read that, his three times a week column, so he was somebody you pay close attention to, and I met him At a rock and roll show in San Francisco, I think, once.

AI assessment note: “Ralph Gleason was, uh, a jazz columnist... and I met him At a rock and roll show”

Q sort of get myself into that, into that New York office in the late 19 seventies. Rolling Stone was basically espousing a kind of counterculture aesthetic, but you were the boss. I mean, you were the man. So how did you balance running a counterculture magazine, but also being a boss and kind of having to be probably a jerk sometimes to people who weren't, you know, productive or whatever?

A Well, I mean, It wasn't too difficult. I mean, really, first off, I never quite believed in a counterculture, or call that an alternate culture, maybe. But definitely, you know, you had certain value systems of trying to do good and trying to be fair to people instead of being kind of ruthless. Money only is the only thing that counts. So it was always a bit of a balancing act, but I think everybody quite understand that they, everybody wanted to get paid, you know. If you had families, you wanted to support them. So I don't think anybody Really deeply questioned the need to have a, uh, profit ethic and a professional ethics. Uh, I mean, there were some outside critics in the early days of people, oh, your principles are this, but you're a hippie capitalist, and it's kind of a contradiction, and how can you stand for both? But, I mean, it's stuff that wasn't nothing I really paid attention to.

AI assessment note: “It wasn't too difficult. I mean, really, first off, I never quite believed in”

Q So did you go, did you go back to Ralph for help?

A Well, we were very, we were big friends there, so I was looking to Ralph for kind of career advice or guidance or something to do with him, uh, since we were so simpatico and in sync about the way we saw the world. And, uh, we tried a couple of different ideas, you know, edit a book, do anthology, you know, You know, something centered around music, and I guess either he or I said, well, why don't we start a publication about it? And, uh, well, it was a high bar to get over, but a low bar, I mean, it was a, gonna be a newspaper on newsprint, uh, so it wasn't gonna be any kind of full-scale magazine launch or anything like that.

AI assessment note: “I was looking to Ralph for kind of career advice or guidance”

Q Did you have that advantage because you were the only magazine like this out there?

A Well, yes. Nobody else was trying to do this. I mean, the primary mainstream press didn't care at all about this particular corner of American culture or give much credence or thought to the idea that there's a kind of a booming new generation about to take over, that the baby boom is going to have Some kind of big impact. I mean, at that time, still, music was looked down upon as teenage nonsense, or ephemeral, to say the least, done by people who look really strange and long hair, you know, not really acceptable people. But, nonetheless, music was the kind of tribal telegraph, the drums that were beating for young people around the world, where they could kind of communicate with each other and see what other people People like them around the world we're doing. And so, this is the way young people communicate. There was nothing else.

AI assessment note: “Well, yes. Nobody else was trying to do this.”

Q So, that was it? I mean, it was, there were no, no growing pains?

A Well, after about three years, we went through a real brush with running out of money, which lasted a couple of months, because we had moved offices in San Francisco from rent-free loft in a printer's place to a big, you know, expensive new, too expansive office, and then all the overhead that entails, and we were spending money without really thinking about it, and all of a sudden we realized, oh my god, you're going to run out of money, and we had switched to a big national distributor, and so all of a sudden our print room was like, 304 100,000. And once we got through that, we started, you know, professionalizing our management. I mean, really, actually bringing in people who are CPAs, or had accounting degrees, or had some reasonable business background to kind of manage things and keep track of the money. And over the years, that just got more and more professionalized. But once we moved, when we moved to New York in 1977, I mean, that really was You know, finally, you know, was really hitting the big time to be in New York.

AI assessment note: “we went through a real brush with running out of money”

Q And at that point, were you, did you start to really get interested in the business side of things? Were you looking at PNLs? Were you looking at the bottom line? Were you doing that too?

A Well, again, I wasn't myself doing it as, I was always, had somebody there as CEO or CFO who's, who had the day-to-day responsibility for all that. And that person would report to me, and I look at it and over, you know, have oversight over it and, uh, try to understand it and try to give direction and some strategic advice. But, I didn't have control of the day-to-day operations on the business side. I controlled the editor. But when you're involved in something like, in that stage or something, that when things are growing all the time and getting better and more and more money is coming in, you don't have to be too tough to manage that. You know, you're the victim of success from outside. You know, it just, it kind of brings you along. The true test of Of how tough a businessman you are, how shrewd is when things are not going so well.

AI assessment note: “I wasn't myself doing it as, I was always, had somebody there as CEO”

Q So when do you, when do you stop being involved with Rolling Stone, ever?

A Well, I don't know, as long as I can make a good contribution to it, which I think I still do editorially. I can still feel when I, Go in and have an idea that I've got good story ideas, I've got good instincts on what a story should be and shouldn't be, and where a lead is in a story like that, and as long as I can make those kind of contributions and come with story ideas, then I'm happy and delighted and want to be there to do that. The minute I see I'm kind of like failing and coming up with ideas, everybody's looking at me going, what is that old man thinking? Uh, then I think I may back off.

AI assessment note: “The minute I see I'm kind of like failing... then I think I may back off.”

Q So how much runway did you have with that 7500 dollars?

A Well, it's hard to know because as that would go out, then we'd start getting some money in from selling it at newsstands, and there would be checks from that and checks from advertisers, and then people might start subscribing, paying five dollars a year or something like that. So, you know, there was enough to keep it going, and then sooner or later we Hired our first employee who received 25 dollars a week, and by the end of the first year, we were a viable business with three or four people being paid, getting it out regularly, selling 30 or 40,000 copies of an issue. People were responding to it. The breadcrumbers were liking it. We were getting letters and correspondence and recognition from various artists. In the first year, we published a long interview with Pete Townsend, interviews with Mick Jagger. So, It was making, it was gathering momentum. People liked what they saw.

AI assessment note: “it's hard to know because as that would go out, then we'd start getting”

Q You know, Jan, we were just talking about, about your management style, and I'm curious about that because, I mean, anyone in your position is going to have haters, right? And, and of course, you know, and of course, loyal, you know, soldiers and people who love you and people who absolutely just despise you, right? I mean, it's normal, right?

A Right. But I have to dispute the fact that I got a lot of bad people, people don't like me or think I'm a jerk. I mean, I, sure, there's criticism, but I think My reputation is more for being fair, and being equitable, and reasonable people. Being a tough and demanding boss, absolutely, but I don't think anybody would say that as unfair, you know, or mean, or cruel. I, what I've learned about managing people is that, uh, you want them to be happy what they're doing. You want smart people, you want loyal people, loyalty counts a lot, but people, if they're unhappy in their job, won't do a good job, and I believe you should treat people justly and fairly. I, I'm not a, Tough in that manner, but I'm not, I don't shrink too much when a decision has to be made, it has to be made. I'm one for second chances. I've always made people second chances.

AI assessment note: “I have to dispute the fact that I got a lot of bad people”

Q And at what point did you say to him, hey, why don't we start a magazine together? What's the story? How did that even, how did that conversation even begin?

A Well, he kind of looked after my career. I, I went after, in the summer of 65, I was in London, uh, living there as, just a kind of wild-eyed kid, and when I came back to the States, I was looking for a job, and I asked him if he knew of anything. He said he did. There was something available, something called Ramparts Magazine in San Francisco. Why didn't I come back? And he got me that job. And Rampart's magazine itself was kind of very, was a left-wing, kind of, ah, investigative journalism magazine. I was in charge of, at that tender age, of the arts and entertainment conference, which, since I was in charge, leaned heavily towards, ah, rock and roll and, ah, hippie culture. So, kind of, much of the stuff that would end up in Rolling Stone.

AI assessment note: “kind of much of the stuff that would end up in Rolling Stone.”