At the end of 1981. Simon and I agreed to give Alvin control of his own money again. "It was a relatively simple procedure to oversee Alvin's finances while he resided in New York," Simon explains. "But it was far more complicated from three thousand miles away. To his credit, Alvin never once complained about the financial restrictions we had imposed on him. And when he alerted us that he was seeking employment in Los Angeles, it seemed a prudent time to remove those restrictions."
Alvin says, "Simon called me every week - to see how things were going, and to help me with my budgeting. My debts were getting paid off, and I was on stable ground again. But I had all this time on my hands. Before I left New York, I had two part-time jobs that kept me busy, on top of the live Chipmunk stuff. Once I was back in LA, I wasn't doing a thing other than recording, and meeting with RCA once in a while. Ross and Janice had no problem with me staying in their spare room in the basement - I guess I'd learned how to be a good roommate while living with you. But I was getting bored and restless just hanging around there all day. I needed to bite the bullet, and go get a job."
I'll admit I was surprised when Alvin first told me what job he got. "I had started going to the library once or twice a week. It's cheap entertainment, you know? One day, I saw a note up on their bulletin board. They were looking for somebody to do storytime for the kids once a week. And I thought, heck, I used to read children's jokes on TV - this wouldn't be much different."
The library staff was more than a little reluctant to hire Alvin. "They had me read a few books out loud to them. They wanted to make sure I could be understood by everybody. I used my best Mrs. Klingensmith voice, and they all agreed I sounded good. And then they had to clear it with some board members or something. I mean, come on - I was a kid's show host on TV, and nobody had a problem with me talking to thousands of kids back then. And now I can't read a book to twenty of them? I almost gave up because it seemed like it was one thing after another. But I stuck it out, and they finally decided to give me a try.
"They did ask me if I could change my name to something more 'fun'. And, of course, they suggested Chippy the Chipmunk. If they had picked any other name I probably would have gone along with it. But no, I wasn't doing Chippy again. Not after Billings." Alvin grins. "So I told them, 'Look, what's wrong with Roger? Can't I just be Roger?' They eventually decided they were fine with that."
Alvin remembers the first book he read at story time. "It was Alexander's Birthday Surprise. Some book about a kid who wanted a bike for his birthday, but he got a homemade blanket instead. There were about two dozen kids there for storytime, and almost ten library folks watching to make sure nothing went wrong. I don't know what they thought might happen - maybe I'd go rabid and starting biting the kids?" He shrugs. "Anyway, I started out by walking around with the book under my arm, chatting with the kids. 'The book I'm going to read today is about a boy who gets a present for his birthday. Do any of you have a birthday soon? What would be a big surprise for your birthday?' And after a bit, the kids started yelling out answers. I had to tell them to keep it down." Alvin grins. "But those are the problems you want to have at story time. I finally started reading the book, and I'd stop after every few pages to sort of encourage them to stay involved. When Alexander saw that he didn't get a bike, one of the kids sort of said 'awww'. And I looked at her and said, 'I know! If I wanted a bike and got a blanket, I'd be pretty sad, too!' The kids tried to guess what would happen. If it got too loud, I'd just hold up my paw and say 'well, let's calm down a bit, and I'll read some more, OK?' And they'd get quieter and let me go on.
"Story-time ran five minutes over or something, but who cares - the kids loved it. I told everybody that I'd be back next week with another book, and the kids sounded excited for it. This little girl, maybe three years old, she sort of ran up to me and gave me a hug. Completely out of nowhere. 'I love you, Roger Chipmunk!' Then sort of ran away." Alvin grins. "Kids get it. They think rodents are cool. It's adults that get it all screwed up."
So why was Alvin such a hit at story time? "I asked Simon about it, and he said something that kind of made sense to me. He said that when human adults do something like story time, they try to sound like parents, and that puts them in a superior position. So there's this vague sort of feeling that they're talking down to the kids. And the kids pick up on that, even if they don't really notice it, and they kind of resent it. But someone like me is removed from that. A chipmunk can approach a child on something more like their own level. They saw me more like a friend than yet another authority figure. So I think that's why they enjoyed it more." Alvin shrugs again. "Whatever the reason, the library staff loved it. Within a few months, I was doing story time at three separate libraries."
While he was becoming a fixture on the library circuit, Alvin talked to Ross about the next move for the Chipmunks. "I think the guys at RCA were hoping for a bit more from us. They were happy with the cartoon special ratings, but Chipmunk Punk had sold more copies than either of the first two RCA albums, and we had done that one without RCA's promotional push. So I thought the smart move would be to do what we did on that album - just focus on covers of recent pop-rock hits."
Ross was on board with the idea but wondered about his role. "RCA wanted 'David Seville' to be involved in the Chipmunks stuff again, but how? It didn't make sense to have 'David Seville' sing along with us to 'Jessie's Girl'. That didn't fit the persona at all. So Ross came up with this great sort of framing device for the album. David would be coaching us on singing some old hoary standard, then he'd head out, and we'd break out the rock. It was actually a bit of a pleasant dig at Ross's father, who was into those really old songs. Singing 'Down By the Old Mill Stream' for the album was almost like being back with the old David Seville."
Ross asked RCA if we could submit a list of songs that we would like to record for the album. RCA agreed to consider them, with the reminder that they would still be choosing the final playlist. So Alvin called me up, and we put together a list of twenty or so recent pop-rock hits that we'd like to perform. ("By this point, Simon wasn't paying any attention to pop music, and probably couldn't have named ten pop songs from the last year," points out Alvin.) Ross turned the list in to RCA, and a week or two later, they had a revised list back to him.
"Their list was...weird," says Alvin, somewhat diplomatically. "They only agreed to two of our picks - 'Jessie's Girl' and 'Heartbreaker' by Pat Benatar. They had added a second Pat Benatar song to the list, 'Hit Me With Your Best Shot'. I hadn't even considered that one, because it has lines like 'before I put another notch in my lipstick case'. It was clearly a song for a girl to sing. A good song, but not really ideal for us to sing. A lot of their picks were like that - confusing."
Some of their choices weren't bad. "Queen of Hearts" had been made a hit by Juice Newton, but I owned the Dave Edmunds version, and it sounded like a good sideways move from the Urban Chipmunk material. We couldn't hope to duplicate Electric Light Orchestra as a three-piece, but we felt we could probably nail the "Hold on Tight" harmonies. The ABBA song seemed like it was a bit out-of-date, even though it was only four years old. A few of their picks seemed rather new-wavish and keyboard-heavy - "Whip It" and "Bette Davis Eyes" - but they were big enough hits that we understood why they picked them. But two of their song selections really didn't make any sense at all.
"There was something of a sixties revival commencing in popular culture," recalls Simon, "so I comprehended RCA desiring a sixties cover. 'Leader of the Pack', however, concerns a rebellious male teenager who perishes in a motorcycle accident, sung from the vantage point of his grieving girlfriend. Not precisely an ideal selection for three male chipmunks to record. One could not easily tone down the death scene, or to change the point of view to a male perspective." We must have banged our heads together for a week, trying to figure out how to make that one work. Finally, Alvin had an idea - camp it up. We recorded it like that, and it almost works that way. Maybe RCA was on to something there.
But we put our collective foot down with the other song they wanted us to do - Olivia Newton-John's "Physical". Alvin says, "It was an enormous hit, sure. But did anybody at RCA listen to the lyrics? 'There's nothing left to talk about unless it's horizontally'?" Ross and Alvin voiced their concerns to RCA, and they admitted they were mainly thinking of the 'aerobic-style' feel of the song. "They liked the idea of having a song by The Chipmunks that promoted exercising. And that song does, just not in the way they were thinking. So Ross and I suggested that we write an original 'stay healthy' song. They were open to that idea, so we got to work on writing one.
"I had this half-written song in my head I called 'I Really Wanna Know You'. Typical first-draft love song. Ross and his wife Janice helped me revamp it into a song about being overweight. 'I Really Wanna Know You' became 'I Really Wanna Lose You'. And since you were the one who had problems with his weight all his life, I thought, hey, Theodore can sing this one. I laid down a demo - just me on vocals and guitar - and sent it to you, thinking you'd love to sing lead on it."
Actually, Alvin's demo made me angry. It had taken me years to sort of come to grips with my weight. Working with my hands all those years had put me in better shape than I'd ever been before, but I still was kind of chubby. And here I was, finally getting offered a lead vocal for the first time after nearly a quarter-century of recording...on a song that was all about how fat I was.
"You sort of exploded on me," admits Alvin. "You said, 'what if the first song you ever got to sing lead on was about getting kicked out by your landlady? Or about your stupid Christmas pageant?' And that sort of opened my eyes. I hadn't really thought about that. The original lyrics to the song were sort of mean - I remember there was a line in there about you not being able to see your feet. So I asked if we could try rewriting them, and we got back to work on it." The rewrite was much better. It wasn't as mocking, and the lyrics actually sort of addressed the frustrations I sometimes felt whenever I was trying to lose weight. So I agreed to take lead on that song.
Simon and I flew out to Los Angeles the first week in January to record the album. We went straight to the studio to meet up with Alvin, and when we got there, they were working on "Bette Davis Eyes". (It was one of the songs they didn't need me or Simon for, since it's all synth-based and has no backing vocals.) We watched through the glass as Alvin laid down his vocal, and my jaw almost hit the floor. "His voice had improved by a sizable margin just since the last album," agrees Simon. "His pitch and phrasing were far better than I had ever heard. While I still questioned the wisdom of selecting that particular song for a Chipmunks recording, Alvin certainly performed his vocals with aplomb."
After he finished up, Ross took us all to his place, and we started some rather intensive rehearsals. We had sort of learned our parts individually, but we needed to rehearse our harmonies. And having heard Alvin do so well in the studio earlier in the day just pushed me to try to nail my parts, as well.
The song I remember rehearsing the most was the ELO cover, "Hold on Tight". We actually had to learn the song twice - once in three-part harmony to sing the lyrics, and then another run-through where we add the "wa wa ooo"s. On top of that, the song includes a verse in French, and although Simon was pretty familiar with the language, neither Alvin nor I spoke a word of it. Rather than try to teach us the proper French pronunciation, Simon just rewrote the lyrics phonetically for us to sing, giving it whatever French accent we could muster.
A cushioned wha'? Add-on rev
A cushioned wha'? Add-on rev
Comped of waddled bottle party
Come to sun to hearsay pieces
A cushioned whaaaaaaa'? Add-on rev
The weird thing is - it worked. It actually sounded like we knew what we were singing. In fact, the folks at RCA looked damn impressed after we finished that one.
The three of us only played our instruments on three of the tracks - the Rick Springfield song and the two Pat Benatar covers. The rest of the time, they used session musicians, and RCA was cool enough to list them all on the back of the record jacket. This was a nice change from Liberty, who apparently liked to push the illusion that we three were playing everything, even though they rarely let us play anything at all.
The last song we recorded was the original that Alvin and the Badgasarians had written for me - "Losing You (I Really Want to Lose You)". We opened the song with me saying "Mirror mirror on the wall, who's the thinnest of them all?" Then I sighed and said, "Well, not me - that's for sure'" and we kicked into the song. We managed to get that one done in just a few takes, and I'll admit to enjoying myself a lot during that recording. It was me singing lead, on an original song of ours, and I thought we sounded incredible. I probably sang that whole song with a big stupid grin on my face. Of course, RCA had to go and overdub the second part of my intro with this booming "Not you, Theodore!" But I refuse to let that mess things up. I'm still really proud of that song. One woman later told me that she used that song to help motivateher own weight loss attempts. And I consider that to be one of the best Chipmunks-related compliments I ever got.
There was another bit of label foolishness on the record. They of course wanted to make sure the album was "child-friendly", so they combed through the lyrics to make sure nothing was too "adult". They didn't have a problem with "you're the right kind of sinner to release my inner fantasy" from "Heartbreaker". But they decided there was a line in "Whip It" that needed changing. Which is why we sing "step on a crack/scratch your mother's back" instead of "break your mother's back". "It was ridiculous," says Alvin. "The phrase is from a schoolyard rhyme. You know, those things that kids say?" But we didn't argue the point. Although I kind of liked the Devo song, I didn't really think that it was a good fit for us - satirical new wave wasn't exactly our strong suit. We just sort of "whatevered" that recording.
But all in all, we were all pretty proud of our work on the album. "There are little issues," Alvin admits. "We messed up a word in 'Heartbreaker' which nobody caught. A few songs sound a little stiff. And the cover art was a bit much. Here I was trying to overcome my ego problems, and they go and carve my likeness on Mount Rushmore. But overall, I think we did great." Is it his favorite Chipmunks album? Alvin mulls it over a bit before answering. "For the 80s Chipmunks? I'd say Chipmunk Punk has the better songs, but Chipmunk Rock has the better performances." I'd agree with that.
Unfortunately, the album didn't do so great. It fell a bit short of the Top 100 album chart. They put out "Bette Davis Eyes" and "Heartbreaker" as a single, but it didn't go anywhere. The novelty factor of having rodents singing pop-rock songs appeared to have worn off.
However, the recording indirectly led to Alvin's s next job in Los Angeles. "One of the musicians had a brother named Carl who worked for the LAPD. Carl was asked to create a presentation on traffic safety to take around to a few elementary schools. He was looking for a mascot - Safety Squirrel, I think he was calling it back then - so his brother put us in touch.
"I met Carl for lunch, and he told me his ideas for the presentation. And frankly, they kind of stunk. It was nothing but him reading off a bunch of safety pointers, with me dressed up in a superhero costume yelling out catchphrases once in a while. I couldn't imagine any kid, of any age, finding that interesting. So I sort of suggested that maybe we could try something different. I could play the role of a young kid, and Carl could stop me from jaywalking, and then he'd sort of teach me all of the things he was supposed to. And after each major point, I would say 'OK, let's see if I got this', and I'd pull out my guitar and do a little song about it.
"Carl said, well, who's going to write these songs? And I said I could probably do it. To show him what I meant, right there in the restaurant, I sang this little number - 'Where do you cross? At the corner, at the corner'. And he loved it. Up until that point, he looked like he would rather be doing anything else, but he suddenly looked interested. i met at his place a few days later, where we wrote our first script, and I worked on a few more songs. We rehearsed a few times, and did our first safety assembly about a month later."
Alvin grins. "I ended up writing six or seven little songs to do for the first assembly. And over the years, I must have written about twenty songs total, as we changed the focus around a bit. But the one song that always went over best with the kids? The one I came up with off the top of my head at the restaurant - 'At The Corner'. From the very first time. During the second chorus, I'd sing, 'Where do you cross?' and look out at the kids, and they always sang back 'at the corner, at the corner'. I had finally written a hit, even it was mainly heard by six-year-olds.
"The assemblies were a hit from the word 'go'. They went so well that Carl and I formed a company to put them on - The Safety Corps. At first, it was just us two. But after a few years, we were getting more requests than we could possibly do ourselves. I talked to Stephen and Jonathan - the two gophers who filled in for you two on Chipmunks records. I asked if they might want to play my role at some of these things, and they jumped at the chance. They both had decent singing voices, so I just had to prerecord the backing guitar music for them to use. And we found a couple of guys to take the cop role with them."
Alvin pauses, then smiles crookedly. "Honestly, I probably have you to thank for Safety Corps, too. With HalFlat, you showed me it could be done. You could start from zero and build your own company. It wasn't something I had ever planned on doing, but actually, it's an nice little legacy for Alvin Chipmunk to leave."