DISCOVERIES MAGAZINE FEBRUARY 2000
(this is just a small part of the interview)
Terry Knight said:"It's been 28 years since this divorce," Knight said. "If I have any message for Grand Funk, it would be, 'Get over it!' They haven't talked about anything new in their careers in 28 years. They keep rambling on about the bad, old Terry Knight days."
"Well, the bad, old Terry Knight days records, are the only [Grand Funk] records selling. I get 50 per cent of what they get." Knight said. "They hate that. The 1974 federal Settlement Agreement gave me more than they were giving me before! "
"The group had just three months to wait (back in '72], until their contract with me expired. If they had waited just three months, there would never have been a lawsuit. They could've just walked. How stupid can you get?"
"I never made more than that group,"Knight said. "That's the most ludicrous, insane statement anybody could ever make. And the courts proved it. You know, most managers today make upwards of 25 per cent. My commission was only 15 per cent, after all expenses. Not off the top."
"Now, let's talk about the split for the record, shall we? When they call me from New England, broke, no money to buy Wheaties, I wire them money and bring them back home," Knight said. 'And I get them drums from Ludwig, because they didn't have any, I get them guitars from Steve Marriott [of Humble Pie], 'cause they didn't have any, okay? They [had] hocked theirs. They didn't have shit. And now," Knight said, "I make a record, and I get the money, only because Terry Knight was known. You have to keep in mind that Terry Knight was a recording artist and wellknown personality before Grand Funk learned to go poo--poo."
"It was my money bringing 'em back from Cape Cod, my money getting them instruments, my money paying for the trips to the Atlanta Pop Festival and the Texas Pop Festival, my dollars that paid streets and flying to New York mid Califomia, twice to every record company in the business." "It was my influence on Mauri Lathower at Capitol Records which got 'em accepted," Knight continued 'And it was my popularity and reputation that got them air play - and they have the audacity to take offense?""They didn't record for Capitol Records," Knight again pointed out. "They never signed with Capitol Records. They signed to me, to Good Knight Productions. Do you know of any record company that makes less than the artist? I mean, certainly Capitol made more than The Beatles." "The fact is that I was also their mentor, their manager, their publisher, as well as being their producer, and in effect the record Company. You know, you pay a producer normally, like they paid Todd Rundgren, and Frank Zappa.
They forget what a great little deal they had with me they got .Terry Knight as part of the bargain, who produced all those multi-platinum albums for them, the ones that are still selling," Knight said. Terry Knight looked out the window onto the sunny patio area outside the door of his comfortable home. Certain things, certain thoughts, about the past can rile him, and did. But he prefers to think about his life now, and is happy in his role as a single parent Terry mused, "Everybody has an ego".
That's a psychiatric fact. But not everybody has a superego. That's a rare gift.
"I think the people that I know recognized it, like I did, at an early age. To have recognized it back then makes me more grateful than you'll know. Because it's what gave me the incentive to be able to believe the absurdity that there wasn't a day when I wasn't in control.But that doesn't mean that I was in control," Knight explained, "I just believed I was in control. You can be humble, you can be shy, you can be anything you want to be," Knight said "You'll just have to believe that you are in complete control. As long as you believe you control it, you can't get a bad answer"
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