There is a Force interview with Jonathan where he basicaly says the band basicaly became a 'kiss-ass corporate rock band' because of the label pushing 'Diane Warren' songs. He said they were already alll successful and didn't need to do that. He wanted to have a 'black crowes' mentatlity for the band. He kinda agreed with what Ricky said below about the 'keeping score'....He had to agree to allowing "When I See You Smile" on the first album in order to get "Ghost In Your Heart" on it. He also seemed to blame John Waite a lot...saying he wanted to be a rock star at any cost...and the label propped him up as the spokesman for the band.
So, when it came time to do Backlash, I think the label wanted "When I See You Smile" pt2, John Waite wanted to do this 'darker sound', and Neal, Jonathan and Ricky wanted their own things...fighting both the label and John Waite...So, I think the 'spirit' of the 'band' mentality died. When that happened, Neal went to Hardline...and the band was broke up well before Backlash was even finished.
There are also 'BE' songs on both Hardline's first album and think both Waite and Cain had one on their solo albums that followed BE's breakup.
Hard to believe that's 20yrs ago - wow.
Jana wrote:Q. Why did Bad English break up?
A. This explanation was given by bass player Ricky Phillips in an interview with Andrew McNeice:
"Too many cooks. Nobody was willing to bend anymore. Everyone forget what the beauty of being in a band was all about, and at some point there has to be some degree of a democracy, or all the parties have to agree that one person is the dictator. It can't be both, and er, when you've got four great writers in one band, somebody's got to give. The first record we all kind of pitched in and did our job. First off I was really involved in the songwriting, then Neal came into the situation, and I pushed him forward. He would come over to my house and I would record his ideas one after another, cause they were so brilliant. But after awhile everyone forgot what the chemistry was, everyone was fighting for their ideas, instead of finding where the most natural flow was.
"And people started keeping score, and that's where the dissatisfaction started cropping up. Quite frankly Jonathan Cain and John Waite tried to take over during the second record, and run it, and that's when Neal Schon and I basically said at one point - Let's finish this record, but this is not really what I'm here for. And slowly but surely I didn't change, it got worse and we really fell apart and split up during the making of that second record. It was at that point he record company kinda lost interest in putting anything behind it. Which is a shame, because there are some really classy pieces of music on that record. You could feel that tension, which in a way is kinda cool, I mean I can really feel the tension in the recording of those songs, and I like that."
To me there are only a couple of songs worth even listening to.
